The flower inside my chest pulsed again. The green light spread outward, brushing against every raw nerve already torn apart by the tempering. It felt like something was expanding inside of me, pushing at the walls of my ribs as if wanting more room, as if wanting to break free. The frost answered it, rising like a frozen tide that wrapped around my spine and climbed my throat with a painful slowness.

[Progress: 51%]

I gasped, but no breath came. The cold-fire dug deeper, threading itself through the hollow spaces of my bones. I don't know if I can hold on... My fingers curled, nails scraping against invisible restraints. I wanted to fall, just collapse and let the darkness take me, but the tempering held me upright like a puppet strung by green flames.

The chamber trembled softly, as if reacting to the amount of frost gathering inside me. It felt like the whole cave was waiting for one single moment. A moment where I either became a powerful being, or died here and left nothing behind.

A fresh surge of frost ripped through my veins and the pain ripped a silent scream through my throat.

[Progress: 52%]

Every drop of blood inside me felt like it froze and shattered, only to be refilled with more frost. I felt heavy for some reason, heavier than my body should have allowed. My arms shook and my vision blurred. My vision came back for a short moment, and I saw the walls breathing again, the green veins pulsing as if they were watching, waiting for the next crack inside me.

Time did not feel real anymore. The pain became the clock. Every heartbeat was a second, every second was an eternity.

[Progress: 55%]

Beelzebub floated ahead of me, still trapped in the swirling green fire. His little body trembled, eyes wide and watery. His fur stuck out in every direction like he had touched an electrical outlet, and I swore if hamsters could faint, he was two seconds away from passing out. Yet he was alive. That's my boy... Be brave, I whispered inside my mind, hoping he could hear me. We are not dying today.

[Progress: 58%]

A violent pulse shot through my chest, as if the flower inside me decided it had waited long enough. It bloomed fully this time, petals of sharp frost pressing outward until I felt the echo of it in my shoulders, my back, even down into my legs.

The halo behind me flared. It spun faster, shedding sparks of light that bounced off the walls in waves. Each spark carried a faint sound, like crackling frost or distant bells chiming underwater.

The fire reacted to it.

Cold tore through me with a sudden brutality that I had not felt even in the first moments. My entire body snapped upright. My fingers clawed at nothing. My mouth opened but no sound escaped. It felt like every bone was cracking open so the frost could seep into the marrow.

I thought the first half was impossible, but the fifty percent mark felt like it had only been the warm-up.

[Progress: 60%]

At this point, the green flames went wild.

It began to burn with such intensity that I looked like a torch. As ridiculous as that sounds, that was exactly how it felt, as if I had suddenly become the brightest, most unfortunate source of light in this frozen world.

My skin hardened again. A thin layer of translucent frost formed over my arms, shimmering faintly under the green glow. The veins beneath my skin glowed with the same color, like lines of light etched directly into me.

Pain pulsed behind my eyes, sharp and unrelenting. I saw the world tilt sideways for a moment, then snap back as if the chamber itself slapped me to stay awake.

Something inside me whispered: endure.

Lyssandra? The voice was similar, yet the tone did not fit her usual mix of cruelty and playful mockery.

[Progress: 65%]

The flower pulsed again, the light brighter than before. It felt like it was feeding on the flames around me. Absorbing them and growing like a thirsty sponge. My halo responded, I could feel it spin harder, the air around me crackling like lightning frozen mid-birth.

But what frightened me the most was how soon after, the flames drifted toward my heart.

They wrapped around it like a cage, squeezing until I felt it slow, then speed up, then stop, then restart. I panicked. For the first time since the tempering started, true fear shot through me. Was it going to kill me? Was this how vampires died here? A frozen heart shattered by green fire?

[Progress: 70%]

My chest slammed forward with a violent jolt.

The flower beat once with the force of an explosion. Frost shot down my arms, my legs, even to the tips of my wings. The membranes of the wings sparked like frost fireworks. For a moment they stiffened, nearly frozen solid, but then the frost sank into them fully and a rush of strength flooded them. They felt powerful: Heavy and majestic.

But the pain never stopped. It only changed shape.

By the seventy-five percent mark, it no longer felt like I was being torn apart. It felt like I was being reforged. Each moment pressed something new into my body. A new piece of strength. A new strand of power. A new shard of frost waiting to answer my command.

[Progress: 80%]

A sudden wave of frost shot from my ribs to my skull.

I staggered forward, but the flames kept me locked in place.

Memories flickered through my mind. Random and strange. A forest of green-tinged ice. A woman with wings like mine, but they stretched wider than mountains. A flower floating in her palm, the same one beating inside my chest. A throne carved from frost. A crown of ice shards rested on a figure I could not see clearly.

Who was that Woman? Was it a memory? A vision? Or hallucination brought on by pain? I could not tell... It looked real and fake at the same time.

[Progress: 85%]

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