In the Realm Where Silence Hung Like Ice Upon the Tongue
The second world was cold.
Not the kind of cold that prickled the skin or turned breath to frost — no, this was the silence-between-heartbeats kind of cold, the hush of ancient things buried too deep for memory, the kind of cold that made time itself seem reluctant to move.
They stepped through the rift and into a place called Glaecirith — a realm suspended in twilight, where the sun had long since stopped rising and the moon hung unmoving in a starless sky. Snow did not fall here; it hung motionless in the air, frozen in descent, like tears arrested in the moment of grief. Wind did not howl; it whispered in reverse, carrying backwards echoes of cries never spoken.
Here, the land had forgotten fire.
