Chapter 1: Whispers of Ice amid Sand
Mia’s breath frosted the parchment as she bent over her notes, ink freezing in the well before she could set nib to page. Her alcove—wedged like an icy thorn on the desert’s edge—had once belonged to a summer scribe. Now, crystal webs clung to every corner, spun not by spiders but by stray threads of her uncertain magic.
From the window, she watched the dunes stretch toward distant pyramids, their golden slopes now intermittently veiled in long, sinuous wisps of mist—cotton-cold and shimmering in rays that should have burned it away before breakfast. Mia gnawed the tip of her quill, lost in dread.
“You’re freezing my plants again.”
Mia startled. Her mentor, Elder Lysandra, stood at the threshold, robe patched with frost and sand alike, hands on hips—her smile gentle, her gaze piercing.
“Sorry! It—just happens, sometimes,” Mia sputtered, heat creeping up her cheeks. Even at rest, she could feel the fragile flutter of cold itching at her fingertips. “I was practicing runes—just the basics—”
Lysandra shook her head, flicking a snowflake from her sleeve. “The basics will do you little good today. Come.”
Mia followed, boots crunching over the permafrost patch she’d left on the floor. Lysandra led her out into the dazzling sun—the air so dry and searing that Mia instantly longed for the shade her own anxiety provided.
“You’ve heard,” Lysandra said without preamble, “about the villages near the pyramids.”
Mia nodded, recalling the market whispers: whole caravans vanished, frostbitten camels found at dawn, hallucinations of things—cold things—lurking just beneath the desert’s golden skin.
“Only a frost mage might withstand such power,” Lysandra continued. “And we have so precious few left who dare the old tombs. I will not force you, Mia, but—”
She hesitated, studying Mia. Mia’s heart started to pound; the memory rose unbidden—her own power gone wild years ago, a mirror shattering, a friend’s arm grazed by shards of living ice.
“—you must trust yourself,” Lysandra finished softly. “We heal by facing what we fear.”
Left alone with Lysandra’s encouragement and the weight of failing before she’d even begun, Mia packed a satchel: a battered blue journal, spare mittens, her wand (more an icicle-shaped twig), and a small charm against sunstroke—her magic’s true nemesis.
Her trek began at dawn, sand already blistering the path, but after hours of trudging, she neared the first pyramid. Its limestone face shimmered with a glaze of impossible frost. And perched on a toppled pillar, wings folded like stormclouds, sat a gargoyle.
He was chiseled from midnight stone, eyes sharp and glinting, tail flicking irritably. “You with the icicle wand,” he barked, cocking his head, “lost, or just courting heatstroke?”
Mia hesitated. “I’m looking for the source of—the cold.”
“Brilliant.” The gargoyle—a compact, muscular figure taller than Mia by a head—lept down in an agile, if dramatic, swoop. Grains of sand pinged off his stony scales.
“My name’s Griffin.” He did not offer a paw or claw, but a curt nod. “They told me freezing winds would drive out whatever curses the pyramids caught. Frankly, I suspect idiocy, but I’m never one to turn down a mystery.”
He stalked to the pyramid’s shadow. Up close, Mia saw hieroglyphs frosting over, every line sharp with hoarfrost.
“And you are?” Griffin prompted, feigning impatience.
“Mia,” she managed, glancing at her trembling mittens. “I—study frost magic. Still practicing, really.”
Griffin’s gaze softened a hair. “We’re all practicing something. Especially the mistakes.”
Together, they approached the main entrance: a stone arch wreathed in spectral fog. As they drew near, the cold bit so sharp that Mia’s breath crystallized midair. Along the lintel, runes traced rippling patterns—familiar, but twisted now with icy angles.
“Let’s see…” Griffin muttered, tracing the frost-runes with a claw. “Looks like a… code.”
He pressed a symbol that glowed electric-blue—suddenly, the sand behind them whipped into a flurry, stinging as shards. Within it, shapes formed: a shrouded figure with burning blue eyes—the Mummy, if legends were true—raising a hand over kingdoms caught forever under snow.
“The legend’s true then,” Griffin said, voice low. “They say he cursed these tombs to keep secrets colder than time itself. And if you get the password wrong, your soul’s trapped in a blizzard until the next fool tries.”
Mia stepped back, heart racing. A challenge appeared along the arch in frost: ‘To enter, know the secret of cold: what never burns yet ends the fire?’
She wanted to run. She wanted her mentor. She wanted her powers to simply behave, for once. Griffin, however, just shrugged.
“I suppose ‘ice’ is too obvious?” he asked. “Or perhaps ‘fear?’ What ends fire… but never burns?”
Mia remembered nights as a child, staring at a candle flickering lower and lower, frozen windowpanes outside. And always, the moment the flame gave out—a hush, a lingering cold that followed. Not from outside. Not from magic. But from the simple, inevitable passage of—
“Time,” Mia whispered, her voice trembling but certain. “Only time can freeze fire forever.”
She reached out, laying one palm (clammy with nerves) onto the central rune. The frost shuddered, then blazed with a pale blue radiance. Stone groaned; the seal melted. The massive door rumbled inward, belching mist so chill it seemed to swallow the desert heat. And somewhere in the shadowed corridor beyond, a silvery laugh echoed—taunting, distant, not entirely unfriendly.
“Well then, Mia-the-Frost-Mage,” Griffin grinned, his wings flexing, “lead the way. Just don’t freeze my tail off.”
Mia drew a breath, pulse wild and unsure, but a new certainty taking root. Past the threshold, beyond the riddle’s door, lay secrets cold enough to shape destiny—or to break it. She stepped inside, Griffin at her side, the first echoes of prophecy and peril curling in the frost beneath their feet.