The Frozen Covenant
A lone wayfarer treads where ice-winds sigh,
His shadow carved by peaks that claw the sky—
A realm where mortal breaths grow thin and die.
The mountain’s breath, a serpent’s frosted hymn,
Coils round his bones, his vision clawed and dim.
No hearth’s embrace, no voice to break the chill,
Just snowflakes weaving shrouds with ghostly skill.
Three nights he climbed, through storms that screamed his name,
Each step a dirge, each gasp a flickering flame.
Yet purpose steeled his soul—a vow once sworn
To plant his banner where all hope is torn.
“Beyond this pass,” he whispered to the gale,
“Awaits the light no shadow may assail.”
But mountains mock the boasts of transient things,
And frost has choked the song ambition sings.
Upon the fourth morn’s bruised and bleeding light,
A figure loomed—a specter cloaked in white.
No mortal guise, yet neither wraith nor shade,
But flesh and frost in fragile truce displayed.
Her eyes—two glaciers holding captive fire—
Pierced through his veil of pride, his vain attire.
“Turn back,” she breathed, her voice a river’s groan,
“Or gift thy bones to thrones of ancient stone.”
“What phantom dares,” he cried, “to bar my way?
What cowardice in frost-clad words doth sway?
I seek no counsel from the wind’s deceit—
My path is writ where stars and sorrow meet!”
She smiled, as cliffs that watch the meek descend:
“Thy heart’s proud compass points but to thine end.
Yet stay, and hear the tale these slopes have kept,
Of one who climbed, who wept, and never slept…”
Her words unspooled a legend carved in ice—
A knight who sought a kingdom’s whispered price,
Who swore to scale the summit’s sacred height
And claim a jewel that banished endless night.
“He pledged his blade to guards of olden rite,
But when the gemstone bled its stolen light,
He fled, and left his brother’s blood to freeze—
A crimson rose that blooms where no one sees.”
The traveler scoffed, though dread coiled in his veins:
“Shall parables now bind ambition’s chains?
I am no oath-breaker, no craven knave—
My will outshines the lies that cowards crave!”
Her laughter rang, a chime of shattered glass:
“All mortals kneel where time and truth amass.
Walk then, proud soul—but mark this cursed trail,
Where trust, once spurned, becomes the serpent’s scale…”
Through razor winds that scored his weathered face,
He pressed, her warning drowned in pride’s embrace.
Yet as the sun bled gold on snow’s cold sheet,
A voice arose—a cry both frail and sweet.
A youth appeared, half-frozen, near demise,
His hands raw gems, his gaze a wolf’s disguise.
“I’ve lost the path,” he wept, “to halls below—
O aid me, brother, ere the ice-winds blow!”
The traveler paused, his soul a warring storm—
To stop meant death, to help meant vows reform.
Yet memory’s hand, unkind, recalled the tale
Of knights and kin betrayed in winter’s gale.
“Take hold,” he growled, and gripped the stranger’s wrist,
Though every instinct screamed to loose the tryst.
They climbed as twins born of the tempest’s womb,
While shadows danced to time’s impending doom.
Three days they scaled the serpent’s frozen spine,
The youth’s weak frame sustained by strength not thine.
At night, they shared the tales that fires burn—
Of homelands lost, of loves they’d yearned to earn.
“Why climb?” the youth asked, as the stars grew bold.
“To prove,” he mused, “that hearts need not grow cold.”
The youth but stared where distant avalanches roared,
His silence heavier than the mount’s grim hoard.
On Fate’s fourth dawn, the summit’s crest revealed—
A crystal vault where light and darkness healed.
There, pulsing slow, the fabled jewel glowed,
Its rays a balm to souls the frost had owed.
“At last!” the traveler cried, “my triumph’s due!”
Yet as he reached, the youth’s blade swift withdrew—
A silver viper striking at the vein,
His blood bloomed crimson on the snow’s domain.
“Forgive,” the youth hissed, “but the gem demands
A sacrifice no brotherhood withstands.
Thy trust was sweet—yet sweeter still the prize
That grants dominion over mortal skies.”
The traveler fell, his breath a ragged hymn,
While triumph’s light in traitorous eyes grew dim.
“Why?” gasped the fallen, clutching life’s last thread.
The youth knelt close: “The mountain’s law… thou’st read.”
Then, with the gem clutched tight to breast, he fled,
Leaving the truth in crimson letters spread.
The summit’s winds bore whispers of the slain—
The knight, the youth—all bound in winter’s chain.
For none who tread where heaven’s wrath is stored
Escape the curse of trust’s unsheathed sword.
The mountain keeps its covenants of old:
Each heart betrayed turns ice, and joins the cold.
Now wanderers claim, when blizzards choke the pass,
Two phantoms tread where jagged shadows mass.
One weeps, his hands still red with friendship’s debt,
One stares, his eyes twin voids of cold regret.
And high above, the jewel no hand may hold
Still mocks the dead with promises of gold—
A beacon lit by every broken vow,
Where trust, once slain, makes ghosts of all who bow.
