Chapter 13 — The Mrs. in the North
The air beneath the Prime Gate carried a strange weight…thin and holy…a chapel that had forgotten what prayers were for. The deeper we descended, the colder it grew, yet the light ahead warmed with every step, pulsing against the frost…a heart refusing to die.
Chuck followed in silence.
The bear pressed against his ribs from inside his coat, its soft pulse steadying him, almost guiding him. Nick led the way, slower now, his boots dragging through frost that glittered like powdered glass. I trailed behind, quill in hand, muttering to myself about posthumous editorial rights and how no one ever lets historians die in peace.
Dax’s voice drifted from behind us. “You sure about this, Old Man?”
Chuck nodded once, eyes locked on the glow ahead. “Gwen left something here. I can feel it.”
We reached the bottom. It was a small circular chamber carved into the ice, so quiet it felt like the world above had forgotten us. Burned-out candles ringed the floor, their wax frozen into ghostly puddles. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon and charred parchment.
At the center stood a shrine: a stone altar carved with Gwen’s rune, whole and uncracked, its grooves filled with a faint golden light. And draped neatly across it was her scarf.
Not frozen. Not frayed.
Perfect.
Chuck froze in the doorway. I felt the tremor run through him.
Nick’s hand shot out to block his path. “Don’t do this to her again.”
“I have to,” Chuck said, voice softer than a breath on glass.
Nick’s eyes glinted under the pale light. “You’ll turn her memory into a weapon if you keep prying it open.”
“She tied something into the Pact,” Chuck said. “A failsafe. Höbin found her rune at the foundation—this has to be connected.”
Nick shook his head. “And if she didn’t want it found?”
Chuck’s reply came low, certain. “Then she shouldn’t have trusted me to.”
He stepped forward. The scarf shimmered faintly as he approached. It wasn’t fabric anymore, not really—threads of light twined between each fiber, forming half-seen words that twisted when you looked at them too long.
I leaned closer, the lenses of my spectacles fogging. “That’s not a memory charm. It’s a message spell woven into textile. Self-sustaining, voice-bound.”
Nick frowned. “Meaning?”
“It’ll speak to whoever she still believes in,” I said.
Chuck’s hand hovered over the scarf. “Then it’s for me.”
Nick sighed. “Or for whoever deserves it.”
Chuck ignored him and touched the fabric.
The scarf rippled like water under sunlight. The chamber filled with the scent of pine, smoke, and gingerbread—Gwen’s scent—and under it came her voice, soft but clear, carried by magic older than apology.
“If you’re hearing this, Chuck… you’re still trying to fix what was never broken.”
Chuck’s breath hitched. “Gwen—”
“You bound giving to guilt,” the voice continued. “You tried to make grace a rule. You couldn’t understand that love doesn’t obey equations. So I left you something you can’t control.”
The light deepened, casting long gold streaks up the walls.
“When the Pact collapses, find the heart beneath the ice. Forgiveness isn’t in the magic, Chuck. It’s in the man willing to let it go.”
Then the glow dimmed, leaving silence thick enough to touch.
Nick’s shoulders slumped. “She predicted all of this.”
I nodded. “She always did.”
Chuck stepped forward, kneeling before the altar. His fingers brushed the scarf. “She left a failsafe—tied to the bear. To her rune. Everything leads back to her.”
The air changed. The cold softened, replaced by something alive and humming. Gwen’s rune flared, lines of gold racing outward from the altar, crawling along the floor, up the ice walls, and into the ceiling.
Dax staggered back, shielding his eyes. “What’s happening now?”
“The failsafe’s activating,” I said, quill trembling over the page. “She built her forgiveness into the system itself.”
Nick’s voice trembled. “She forgave us before we ever knew we’d need it.”
The light brightened until every surface glowed like sunrise caught in crystal. Chuck rose slowly, scarf in hand. “Then maybe it’s time we see what she was protecting.”
The scarf lifted from his grip, weightless, drifting toward his chest. Threads of gold unspooled from its edges, winding into the duct-taped bear under his coat. The magic laced itself through every seam until the bear’s eyes shone like tiny lanterns.
I felt the vibration under my feet first—a deep, rolling hum that resonated in my bones. The Gate above us groaned, echoing the heartbeat of the bear.
Dax grabbed the wall for balance. “Tell me that’s a good sound.”
“It’s a waking sound,” I said.
Nick looked up, face bathed in gold. “She’s turning the Pact inside out. Forgiveness feeding belief instead of the other way around.”
Chuck clutched the bear against his chest, eyes wet but steady. “Then let it wake.”
The rune flared once more, so bright it swallowed the color from the world. The hum rose into a chorus—bells, wind, and something older than language.
And somewhere far above, the Prime Gate answered back. The whole world shifted, like ice remembering it was once water.
I wrote what my shaking hands could manage:
Entry: Gwen’s grace, live from beyond the veil. The system forgives itself. The heart beneath the ice begins to beat.
