Chapter 37

“?” After Lilith finished, the Ice Spirit tilted her head like a sparrow on a snowy twig; above that blue fur, a huge question mark popped like frost-light.

“Nothing. Don’t mind it.” Lilith shook her head, like brushing snow off her hood; embarrassment pricked, then she let the cold slip past.

“Oh.” The Ice Spirit nodded, a tiny icicle tap; she didn’t chase the strange words that had leapt like startled fish.

“You’re an Ice Spirit? How should we address you?” Little White Dragon asked, her voice a breeze over white dunes; the thought rose like mist.

“I’m obviously an Ice Spirit.” The lady’s smile curved like a crescent on black ice. “But names first—shouldn’t you offer yours before you ask?”

“I’m Lilith. That one’s air; you can ignore her.” Little White Dragon tossed the joke like a snowball, light and quick.

Nidhogg said nothing; she simply nodded, a dark ridge under winter sky, playing along without a ripple.

“Uh.” Words froze at the Ice Spirit’s lips; she hesitated a heartbeat, let the matter slide like sleet off stone.

“Fine. I don’t have a name among humans.” She spoke with calm winter stillness. “My kin call me the Ancestor of Ice Spirits; call me that if you wish.”

“You’re not one of those Ice Spirits from the Eternal Permafrost of Ursus.” Lilith raised a brow, like a raven lifting a wing; this wasn’t a simple prankster.

“Of course not.” The Ancestor exhaled, a cold plume. “Ordinary Ice Spirits wouldn’t trek into the Demon Realm’s great desert; drought is death to them, a sunlit noose.”

“Then you are?” Lilith’s question hung like a lantern in fog, cautious and cool.

“I came to fulfill an old friend’s wish,” said the Ancestor, voice soft as moonlight on frost. “She asked me, when one of her descendants reached this city, to step in with a few pointers.”

“Your friend isn’t the Nameless One, right?” A bad hunch crawled like shadowed wind across Lilith’s back; this abstract mess felt like his art.

“Absolutely not. Who’d be friends with that lame guy?” The Ancestor’s look was a dagger on ice; the insult skated sharp and clear. Hearing even Ice Spirits speak of the Grim Reaper’s legend, Little White Dragon relaxed like thaw at dawn.

“If not that Grim Reaper, then who?” Little White Dragon leaned forward, eyes bright as frost-stars, curiosity puffing like white breath.

“Icarus, that old rascal—who else could boss me around?” The Ancestor lifted her chin like a glacier peak, pride glittering like hoarfrost.

“Icarus?” Little White Dragon blinked; in Lilith’s memory, the god of the Star Canvas—once the center of her faith—was likely her body’s grandmother’s patron. That god felt stern as night granite, while this Ancestor skipped like snowlight, more like the Nameless One’s circle.

“Yeah. She threatened and coaxed,” the Ancestor grumbled, voice a crunch of snow. “If I wouldn’t come help you, she’d keep the Star Canvas from ever shining over the far north.”

“We Ice Spirits live by those stars, like moss by glacier light; no way I’d let her do that, so I hurried here like wind over ice.”

Cold sweat beaded on Little White Dragon’s neck, like meltwater under a pale sun; this did sound exactly like something Icarus would pull.

“What did she ask you to do?” Respect settled first, old devotion rising like incense; after so many years as a Saint, Little White Dragon’s faith in Icarus was carved like runes in bone.

“Simple on paper,” the Ancestor said, words crisp as cracked ice. “Help you gather the Reaper Fragments. Give you a chance to talk to the Nameless One again. But before you fuse them, you need to deal with someone; I’m here to help with that.”

“Deal with who?” Little White Dragon’s big eyes blinked like lake ice, a giant question mark bobbing above a small head.

“It ties to that Golden Dragon.” The Ancestor’s gaze slid like moonlight over dunes. “He’s the little brother to a divine construct. To fuse the Reaper Fragments, you must handle that construct first.”

“Take it out? What do you mean?” Little White Dragon tilted her head, white hair drifting like cattail fluff; she remembered Lamter’s massive Echo Blossom—could you really solve something like that?

“There are only a few ways to handle a divine construct,” the Ancestor said, voice ringing like silver on frost. “Use a true god’s power. Use another divine construct’s power. Or use weapons that can wound gods.”

“You’re a Divine Fragment,” she pointed at Lilith, fingertip cold as starlight. “Your body holds ample power; even if you can’t unleash it all, it’s god-given authority. By rank alone, you can press a construct.”

“And you—your blade. Or is it scissors? Doesn’t matter.” Her smile flashed like a shard. “It’s sharp enough to trim a god’s body, let alone a construct. It’s a key tool in our fight.”

Lilith glanced at the mark on the back of Little White Dragon’s hand; the sword-sigil glowed like a sleeping comet. Inside it, the Primordial Ark lay in slumber, ready for her to wield.

“As for me,” the Ancestor tapped her chest, a note like snow on glass. “I’m a divine construct. Icarus called me to lend you a hand.”

“Set your expectations,” she added, tone cool as shaded ice. “I’m here to help, not to burn myself out. I’ll show up, interfere, tug the threads, make her take losses. We’re both constructs—if I try to kill her, I must accept being killed too. We had a grudge, but not a blood feud; you’ll have to land the heavy blow.”

“It’s fine. I’m grateful you’re willing to show up at all.” Little White Dragon’s thanks rose warm as lantern light in snow. Without ties between them, the Ancestor came on Icarus’s face alone; even her warnings were a gift, and real help was a star in a cold sky.

“Since we’re going to deal with this divine construct, we should know who they are, right?” Silent until now, Nidhogg finally spoke, her black-dragon voice a low river under ice, cutting straight to the name left unsaid.

Who was the construct they had to face?

“That one’s a hassle,” the Ancestor sighed, breath misting like white smoke. “Do you know why the Reaper Fragment in Bosaklie has no will?”

“Why?” Little White Dragon asked, confusion swirling like snow devils; why was the Demon Realm’s fragment so different—was it really just tech tricks?

“Because its power was devoured.” The Ancestor’s words fell heavy as hail. “The divine construct crouching over the Demon Realm swallowed the Reaper Fragment’s authority and made it part of itself.”

“And you’ve all seen that construct,” she continued, voice thin as wind through dunes.

“It hides at the heart of the sandstorm, wrapped in scarlet dust of death like a funeral shroud.”

“It is the calamity itself.”