Cold doesn’t kill quickly here. It lingers. Seeps. Watches. The snow in this cursed land isn’t silent. It creaks underfoot like brittle bone, and every gust of wind carries the breath of something forgotten. I stepped through the Bell Door with the Fief Key still warm from Andreas’ hand. It didn’t take long before it wasn’t warm anymore.
The Kinrangr ruled these frozen ruins—warriors of old, now twisted by the curse that grips Mournstead’s northern edge. Their hounds hunt without pause, their axes swing with the memory of oaths long since broken.
At the first outpost, Folard waited. Towering, armored, flanked by beasts with eyes like dying stars. He struck like the avalanche itself—slow, inevitable. But I moved like water around him, thinning his pack before striking at the cracks in his frostbitten armor. When he fell, the ground trembled. But not in mourning.
The wind carried me further, through shattered villages and ruined churches where prayers had long since frozen in the throats of the dead. There, I found her—Griefbound Rowena—a figure caught in the echo of sorrow. She conjured frost and hatred with the same breath, her wails more dangerous than her blades. In Umbral, her form twisted, shadows feeding on pain. I answered her grief with steel. I did not listen. I ended her.
But the land was not done testing me. Beyond the broken bridges and half-sunken homes, I found the thing that should not be—a shrine made of wings and rot. The Hollow Crow. A creature of duality: above, a frozen beast casting spears of ice and curses that blackened the air; beneath, Lucy, her shadow twin, hidden in Umbral, summoning hounds and phantoms to fight in her name.
I fought two enemies with one breath. My lamp burned through lies, my flail broke through flesh. When Lucy fell, the Crow faltered. I delivered the final strike not with rage, but with clarity.
Now the frost retreats behind me. Its teeth still in my armor, its breath still in my lungs—but I walk on. The Fief tested my endurance, my patience, my silence. And I answered with will.
#LotF2023 #FiefOfTheChillCurse #LordsOfTheFallen #Partisan #Heilay
Accompany the partisan Heilay on her journey: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQRPy70pDgKXsdb4gtFobn-vOZqhx2QGS
