The days Jimin took traveling to Stieffera felt like years.

When he left Hiemura, he didn't even consider taking the safer route along the Frozen Trail to Medeia. Instead, he crossed the River of Ash and rode directly north to Stieffera. It was a gamble risking overexerting his horse Telayna, but those words the thief—demon had said still echoed in his head.

The Demon Days are approaching.

It was impossible, but he needed to know the truth. And if anyone knew, it was Elkii, the last Oracle.

Ages had passed since Jimin had last seen her, but she had helped save thousands during the Crimson Death and the Great Southern Wars. So as far as Jimin knew, she was his only hope.

He was closing in on the Alta Mountains as the air turned brisk and light. Flurries of snow whirled with the wind, decorating the evergreen trees with a sparkling, white sheen. Clouds veiled the sun as Jimin whipped the reins of his horse, flinching as pain twinged in his elbow.

The mountain pass was ahead, diverging into two roads: a longer, safer route and a shorter one that adventurous children had paved. Everything was a blur of colors, but Jimin's eyes still caught the gloomy entrance of the short route as he passed it.

It wasn't safe for Telayna, who was slowing down from fatigue. He did take small breaks along the way and gave her enough water from his waterskin, but this was a strenuous journey. He didn't need to add more strain to it.

Telayna trotted up the trail, Jimin encouraging her until they reached the end of the mountain pass. Jimin's breath billowed in the air as he pulled Telayna to a stop, and squinting his eyes, he saw the first gate of Stieffera peeking over the tall pines.

"Come on, girl," he said, whipping the reins. "We're almost there."

When they arrived at the first gate, Jimin dismounted Telayna and led her to the entrance, but she pranced and struggled against his hold.

"Calm now," he said, petting her muzzle. "It is okay, Telayna."

But she refused to enter Stieffera no matter how much Jimin tried, so he tied her reins to the nearest tree, grabbed his waterskin, and continued by himself. It was oddly quiet as he stepped through the gates. Usually, guards stood at their posts in the towers on the mountainsides, but today, they were empty.

He was nearing the second gate when his stomach twisted and churned. By now, he should have heard the laughter of children and the chatter of people, but it was silent. Not even a single bird chirped, and above the town, there wasn't a single cloud of smoke, which was weird since—since it was nearing autumn. . .

Breath hitching, Jimin sprinted through the second gate and was about to race to the third when he was balked by the horrendous sight before him.

Stieffera was covered in ash. The log cabins were charred, dead bodies were strewn everywhere, and the great fire at the center of the town was extinguished, Stieffera's heart degenerated to impotent wood. Cinders rained from the skies like black snow, tainting Jimin's silver hair and shrouding his vision with a thick haze.

As he desperately searched for survivors, he noticed all the bodies were scorched and covered in soot as if scalded to death by fire. He glanced at two bodies hugging each other, the bigger one protecting the smaller, when he noticed something glinting in the rubble. Dusting the ash away, he picked up a shattered stone—an elemental stone.

Sacrilege. No one ever smashed an elemental stone or even tried to remove it from the body in the first place. This couldn't have been the work of humans or elementals, and this wasn't a raid by some bandit group. It was a massacre, and whoever did this knew damn well what they were doing if they could pinpoint the exact location of an elemental stone.

Jimin glanced at the two bodies again and saw a hole in one of them. Tears stung his eyes as he placed the shards next to the bodies and sent Lexitem a plea that everyone here received a safe passage to the After.

Elkii's body was nowhere to be found, but he didn't know if that should raise his spirits. Jimin was trying to guess the motive behind decimating Stieffera, but he could think of only one reason: Elkii. Even then, the culprits didn't need to go this far, to destroy every elemental stone and kill every person.

The demons would do it, a voice whispered in his head, and as much as he didn't want to believe it, it was right. The demons would do this, but that meant the Demon Days. . .

"Oh, Gods," Jimin mumbled, lacing his fingers through his hair. His chest ached, his head throbbed, and tears blurred his vision. Overwhelmed, he refused to accept the horrible truth: Stieffera was no more. And the demons were coming—no, they were here.

Clutching his heart, he continued his search for Elkii and, before long, found himself standing before the third gate of Stieffera. More destruction lay ahead, so he braced himself as he squeezed through the tiny opening of the twisted gate.

The scene was different here. Whereas the part of Stieffera before exuded a sense of slaughter, here, Jimin could tell there was a fight. More dead laid amid the ruins, their elemental stones destroyed, as well, but their bodies were stained with dried blood.

The ground was crimson, and dried blood melted the snow like lava as Jimin circled the vicinity. There was no sign of Elkii until he arrived at her cabin, which was burned only halfway. Her body rested in the rubble, in a pile of charred wood, and next to her were emerald shards—a time elemental stone.

Jimin kneeled beside Elkii, his eyes running over her dark, brown skin stained with blood. The tears welled up in his eyes fell. His sobs filled the air, lonely among the speechless dead, as he curled in on himself, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand.

Along with Mother Erna and Sylvia, Elkii had always been there for him after Tobias's death. She had told him that no matter what his parents thought, Tobias's death wasn't his fault. But now she was gone. Forever. And that made Jimin's blood freeze.

Ice crawled through his veins and slithered to his heart when he felt something rest on his hand. Raising his head, he saw Elkii grabbing him. He was about to recoil in fear when she suddenly yanked him towards her.

He was face to face with the Oracle, staring at her closed eyelids that snapped open. The whites of her eyes were completely black, and when she spoke, it sounded as if multiple people were talking at once.

"The seal is broken, and a new dawn rises. Beware, Prince of Ice, for the fall of Kartas is ahead as Daetunos roams free. Run from the black flame. Run, for he is your doom." Elkii released Jimin, and her head lolled to the side, her eyes returning to their original shade of yellow but lifeless, glassed over.

"I am sorry," Jimin whispered in a choked sob as he closed her eyes. "I am so, so sorry."

He sat there, collecting himself when his eyes landed on Elkii's shattered elemental stone. At length, he gathered the pieces and dropped them in his pocket. If he were to inform his father, he would need evidence.

Wobbling to his feet, he drifted towards the third gate of Stieffera, where he paused at the sight of a person standing idly by. A shiver traced his spine as the person sauntered towards him. There was something about the atmosphere that was. . . wrong. Jimin couldn't tell what it was, but as the person neared, everything in his body shouted: run. The ice spiked in his blood as he drew back every step the person took, and when they spoke, Jimin understood why he felt such dread.

"I was watching you, Prince of Ice," a voice rasped, and it wasn't human. Jimin could sense it; that thing was a demon. "I've heard many tales about you from the Oracle during her final moments. It is such a shame that I had to end her, but I did what had to be done."

The wind whistled in Jimin's ears as he popped the cork of his waterskin open, and the air whirled around the demon as it tilted its head back.

"I can smell you," it said. "You're different from the others. A fine scent lingers on your form, so perhaps—"

Dark clouds enveloped the demon, and the next thing Jimin knew, there was a hand around his throat, shoving him against a ruined cabin.

"—I should have a taste."

Before its teeth sank into Jimin's skin, he flicked his wrist, and a pillar of water slammed into the demon, sending it flying back. The snow around Jimin melted and gathered into a ball of water floating above him as the demon jumped to its feet, wiping a streak of black blood from the corner of its mouth.

It chuckled. "Amusing. I hope you are a better match than those weaklings."

Jimin flared as he pulled his left arm back, opened his palm, and thrust his hand forward as if he was throwing a ball. The water followed his moments, shifting into spikes directed at the demon, who suddenly vanished. Jimin couldn't process what had happened until something rammed into his stomach. His back hit a solid stone, and his water bubble popped, raining on him as he coughed up blood.

Clicking its tongue, the demon ran two fingers through Jimin's splattered blood, its eyes flashing red as it licked it. "Just as I thought. I will enjoy this greatly."

Breath heavy, Jimin leaned against a wooden pillar for support and willed the water towards him, but a wall of black fire evaporated it. The demon cut through the flames, smiling as hellfire licked up its arm, as Jimin unconsciously retreated. Jet black chains shackled his wrists and ankles, forcing him to his knees. The demon loomed over him as he struggled to free himself.

"You're lucky I decided not to scorch your skin." Fingers traced Jimin's cheek. "But I will compensate with a little scratch."

The hellfire shaped into a knife that the demon used to slash Jimin's cheek with. It hurt. It hurt so bad, and the demon lapping at his wound with a long strip of its tongue didn't help.

Jimin tried to flinch away, but the demon held him in place. So he twitched his finger, and a spike of water raced towards the demon's face, piercing its eye. It howled and stumbled, tugging the spike of water out along with its eyeball.

"Damn you!" Black blood poured down its face as its eye bounded and rolled away. The demon smacked Jimin across the jaw and kicked him in the stomach, making him wheeze. "I'll just have to deal with that troublesome element of yours first." The chains began to heat up as the demon pressed its fingers into Jimin's chest. "I promise to make it hurt like hell."

The fingers plunged into Jimin, searing his heart and tearing a wail from him. He could feel the layers of his skin peel away as blood clawed up his throat. The demon was laughing. "Don't die so soon. Suffer! Suffer more you wretched freak."

But Jimin was dying. The pain started to grow distant as if it wasn't his, and the strength in his muscles dissolved. The doors of death were opening before his eyes, and beyond them, Tobias was reaching for him, spreading his arms. However, instead of pulling Jimin through the threshold, he placed his hand over Jimin's heart and shoved him. Hard.

Jimin gasped. An incessant force pounded against his chest as ice shot through his veins. It spread all over his body until all he felt was a frigid winter, and this time, he allowed himself to drown in it.

The world that was dimming blazed with blinding light, and the hellfire dwindled. The grin twisted on the demon's lips faded as the chains confining Jimin's limbs cracked, and in the flash of an eye, a thick ice pillar impaled the demon.

A second of silence passed, blood dribbling down the demon's mouth before it puffed into a cloud of smoke and materialized a few feet away, gasping as it clutched its wound. The chains disintegrated as Jimin stalked towards the demon, as it directed column after column of hellfire towards him.

Steam hissed as Jimin fended the attacks off with an ice barrier that melted on impact. A ball of solid ice molded beside him, and when he clenched his fists, it broke into shards that zipped into the demon's flesh. Dark blood splattered everywhere as a screech rolled over the mountains.

More ice fragments skidded towards the demon as it attempted to flee, and a huge spike of ice stabbed it, then another and another until its body was restrained. Snow swirled around them like a maelstrom until the outside world was blocked from sight. Ice gathering in Jimin's right palm sculpted itself into a sword that he raised, preparing to land the final blow.

Helplessness glossed over the demon's eyes as it opened its mouth, but before it uttered a single word, Jimin decapitated it in one clean blow. Blood sprayed Jimin's face as the head tumbled down the array of spikes. The ice, snowstorm, and sword disappeared into thin air, and knees buckling, Jimin plummeted to the ground.

The ice in his blood receded, and his heart was hammering against his ribcage. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He glimpsed the demon's head. He had never killed a living creature before. Until now.

Stieffera fell silent once more as pure snow began to fall and pile on the ground. The frosty wind wafted the scent of the mountains and wilderness, sending flurries spiraling through the air. In the sky, a bird glided by, flapping its wings as one feather swiveled downwards. It landed near the demon's body, blood drenching the elegant feather.

It was time to leave, and glancing at the demon's head, Jimin knew what he had to do. He forced himself to his quavering feet and limped towards the demon's head, grabbing a fistful of its hair to carry it to Telayna. He half-expected to see her dead, but thankfully, she was alive and kicking.

Wrapping the head in cloth, he tied it to the saddle before freeing Telayna's reins and mounting her. A raven circled the sky as Jimin veered Telayna towards the mountain pass, where he turned towards the short route at the forked roads.

They raced against time towards Hiemura, the sun sinking beneath the mountains as dusk settled over Kartas. Overhead, the raven cawed and croaked—the cries of the fallen.