Chương 1: The Awakening

When Jack first opened his eyes, he did not see a familiar white ceiling or the glow of his phone screen. He saw only darkness. His first breath did not bring relief. It felt as though he had inhaled a handful of crushed glass. Cough! A violent cough tore from his throat. He arched his back, gasping, as the spasm shook his entire frame. He instinctively reached up, pressing a hand to his mouth. When the coughing fit finally subsided, leaving him panting and shivering, he pulled his hand away.

Even in the dim, gray light filtering through the window, he could see the smudge on his palm. It was blood. Jack stared at his hand. It was not his hand. His real hands were calloused from years of typing and the occasional weekend yard work. They were broad and steady. This hand was shockingly thin. The skin was so pale it looked translucent, stretching tightly over narrow knuckles and thin, brittle-looking fingers. There was no meat on his arms, no strength in his wrists.

He tried to sit up, but his muscles screamed in protest. He felt like a wooden puppet whose joints had rusted solid.

"What…" Jack muttered, his voice a dry, gravelly whisper that barely carried in the quiet room. As he spoke, a sudden rush of foreign memories flooded his brain. They did not come with a painful explosion, but rather like ink dissolving in water, bleeding into his consciousness until he could no longer separate his own thoughts from those of another. He was John Frost-Grip. Or simply "Jack" to the few people who still remained in this godforsaken place.

He was the last living noble of the Frost-Grip family, a minor and thoroughly forgotten lineage tasked with guarding a barren, frozen valley in the far north of the empire. His father had died two years ago. His mother, a year before that. The family had once been wealthy from the local coal mines, but the mines had collapsed, the wealth had vanished, and the cold had moved in to claim what was left.

The current Jack—the modern young man who had gone to sleep in a warm, heated apartment after a long shift at work—had somehow slipped into this dying noble's body during the coldest night of the year. A howling gust of wind slammed against the window, making the wooden frame groan. Jack looked toward the source of the noise. The bedchamber was massive, but completely ruined. The wallpaper was peeling away in long strips, revealing the stone beneath.

In the far corner, an oak wardrobe sat with one door hanging off its hinges. The window itself was a disaster; several panes of glass were completely shattered, stuffed with yellowed rags and old, woolen socks in a desperate attempt to keep the storm outside. It was a losing battle. Jack could see his own breath. The edges of the blanket were stiff and frozen from the moisture that had accumulated during the night. If he stayed in this bed, he would die. It was that simple.

Before he could attempt the monumental task of swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, the heavy oak door of the bedchamber creaked open. A young woman stepped into the room. She was small, perhaps nineteen years old, with her pale brown hair tied back in a messy, bun. Her face was flushed bright red from the cold, and her nose was perpetually running. She was wearing three mismatched, overlapping wool shawls, none of which quite fit her, and a pair of leather boots that looked three sizes too large.

In her hands, she carried a chipped, gray clay bowl.

"My Lord!" she gasped, nearly dropping the bowl as she saw Jack sitting up. She rushed forward, her oversized boots clacking loudly against the cold stone floor.

"You're awake! Oh, praise the gods, I thought… I thought you wouldn't make it through the night." This was Karen. She was the castle's sole remaining maid, cook, and self-appointed guardian. She had been with the family since she was a child, and her loyalty was as fierce as it was highly strung. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Karen," Jack said, his throat clicking as he swallowed.

"Don't speak, please don't speak," she pleaded, setting the bowl down on a small, rickety three-legged stool beside the bed. She immediately reached out, pressing the back of her chapped hand against his forehead.

"You're freezing. You're colder than the water in the well, Lord Jack. You must eat this. It's not much, but it's warm." Jack looked down at the bowl. It was turnip broth. But calling it broth was generous. It was mostly lukewarm water with a few translucent, gray slices of turnip floating in it. There was no meat, no fat, and not even a pinch of salt to give it flavor. It looked like dirt water. Yet, as the steam rose from the bowl, Jack's stomach gave a loud growl.

"Eat," Karen urged, her eyes wide with anxiety. She picked up a wooden spoon and held it out to him, her own hand shaking slightly from the cold.

"Please, My Lord. If you don't keep your strength up, the fever will return." Jack took the spoon. His fingers were so numb he could barely grip the wood. He managed to guide a spoonful of the liquid to his mouth. It tasted exactly like what it was—boiled dirt and turnip skin. But it was warm. As the liquid slid down his throat, a small, pleasant heat bloomed in his chest, easing the sharp, glass-like pain in his lungs for a brief moment.

He ate slowly, forcing his stiff hands to cooperate, until the bowl was empty. Karen let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, taking the empty bowl from him.

"The fire is out," Jack noted, pointing to the massive stone hearth across the room. It contained nothing but gray ashes. Karen's face fell. The relief vanished from her eyes, replaced by a deep exhaustion. She wrapped her shawls tighter around her shoulders, shivering.

"There… there is no more dry wood, My Lord," she whispered, her voice cracking. She looked down at the stone floor, unable to meet his eyes.

"We used the last of the dry oak logs yesterday to keep your room warm. The wood we have left in the courtyard is green and soaked through with frozen sleet. It won't light. It only smokes and chokes the room."

"How much do we have?" Jack asked.

"Two, maybe three days of the wet wood if we split it thin," Karen said, her shoulders trembling.

"And… and that is not the worst of it." Jack leaned back against the headboard, bracing himself.

"Tell me."

"The villagers," Karen sobbed, wiping her nose with the edge of her sleeve.

"They are packing their handcarts, Lord Jack. Old Miller and his family have already loaded their blankets and their wooden stools. They say they are going to try and cross the southern pass before the snow blocks it entirely. They say they would rather risk the wolves in the wilderness than stay here and freeze to death in their beds." Jack's brow furrowed.

"If they leave now, they won't survive the journey. The mountain pass is already treacherous."

"They know," Karen said quietly.

"But they are desperate. They say there is no hope here. The coal mine is dead, the lord is sick, and the fire is out." She stood there, looking so small and cold, waiting for her young master to give her some sign of hope, some command that would make everything right. But the old John Frost-Grip had nothing to give. He had only his sickness and his despair.

"Leave me for a moment, Karen," Jack said softly.

"Let me think." Karen looked as if she wanted to argue, to stay and fuss over his blankets, but the quiet authority in his voice stopped her. She bowed her head, picked up the empty clay bowl, and shuffled out of the room, closing the heavy oak door behind her. Once she was gone, the silence returned, heavier than before. Jack closed his eyes. He did not have a magical blue screen. He did not have a floating voice in his head telling him he had been granted cheat codes or legendary weapons.

But he felt something else. Deep within his chest, right where his lungs felt ruined and scarred, there was a tiny, cold ember. It did not feel like a physical organ, but rather like a small, swirling pocket of energy. It was completely still, like a frozen pond, but it was there. It was his Grey Core. In this world, those who could touch the ambient energy of the earth were called mages. Their power was centered in their 'cores,' which progressed through various elemental and physical stages.

The Frost-Grip family had always possessed the Grey Core—a rare, often misunderstood core that specialized in the manipulation of death mana.

'Necromancy.' To the high empire in the south, necromancy was a forbidden, disgusting art. But to the Frost-Grips, it had been a tool of survival. Jack focused his mind on that tiny, frozen spark. As he did, he felt a strange, cold sensation ripple through his veins. It was not the biting, painful cold of the winter wind outside. It was a clean, numbing cold. As the energy stirred, he suddenly understood the true nature of his sickness. The old John hadn't been dying of consumption.

He had been suffering from mana-burn. The Grey Core in his chest was like a passive sponge, it naturally attracted the ambient death mana of the environment. In this freezing, desolate northern valley, where the winter killed everything it touched, death mana was incredibly dense. The young noble had raised a core, but he had never learned how to vent the excess energy. The cold, stagnant mana had pooled in his lungs, freezing his tissues from the inside out and causing him to cough up blood.

If the castle froze completely, the ambient cold would trigger a chain reaction. His core would freeze solid, shattering his chest and killing him instantly. He needed heat to balance the core. He needed fuel. And he needed it now. Jack slowly slid his legs out of the bed. His feet touched the bare, freezing stone floor, and a violent shiver ran up his spine. He had forty-eight hours before his people abandoned him, and even less time before his own body gave out. He had no army, no wealth, and no fire.

But he had a core, and beneath this castle lay the bones of his ancestors. It was time to see what a dead noble could do.