Chapter 3: A Touch of Frost

Bander filled the doorway like a living shadow, his presence sucking the warmth from the air. Jack's breath misted as he backed against the far wall, the Interface screen flickering warnings he didn't need—every instinct screamed that this thing could tear him apart without breaking stride.

"Twelve percent," Jack whispered, reading his survival odds. "That's optimistic."

Summer shifted into a combat stance, her blade casting wild shadows across the walls. "Jack, when I give the word, you run. Don't look back, don't try to help—just run."

"I'm not leaving you—"

"You're not equipped for this fight." Her voice carried absolute authority. "This is Bander of the Host, and he's killed more Fae than you've painted pictures."

Bander laughed, a sound like grinding millstones. "Still playing protector, Summer? How wonderfully predictable." He drew a weapon from his back—not quite a sword, not quite an axe, but something that seemed to drink light from the air around it. "The boy's blood will open doors that have been locked for centuries. You cannot stop destiny."

"Watch me."

Summer launched herself forward, her blade meeting Bander's weapon in an explosion of sparks and shadow. The impact shattered what remained of Jack's windows and sent his easel spinning across the room. But where Summer's sword had carved through the Fog Hound like paper, Bander's strange weapon caught and held her blade, grinding against the light with a sound that made Jack's teeth ache.

"Still using that toy," Bander sneered, pushing forward with inhuman strength. Summer gave ground, her feet sliding across paint-slicked floorboards. "Did you really think mortal steel wrapped in summer glamour could match cold-forged iron?"

Iron. The word hit Jack like a physical blow as Summer stumbled backward, her perfect composure finally cracking. Her sword flickered, its brilliant radiance dimming against Bander's dark blade.

"That's... impossible," she gasped. "The Accords forbid—"

"The Host recognizes no Accords." Bander's next strike drove her to her knees, his iron weapon pressing against her throat. "We never agreed to your pretty treaties, your careful balance between Courts. We remember what it means to hunt."

Jack watched in horror as Summer's strength failed. Her sword guttered like a candle in wind, and Bander's grin revealed teeth like broken glass. The Interface helpfully informed him that his mana had regenerated to 23 points—nowhere near enough for another manifestation like the ice wall.

"Now then," Bander said, not taking his attention from Summer but speaking to Jack. "Come quietly, little prince, and I'll make her death quick."

"Prince?" Jack's voice cracked. "What are you talking about?"

"Your heritage bleeds through every brushstroke, boy. The Winter Court has been without a ruler for three hundred years, but the bloodline endures." Bander's burning eyes fixed on him. "In you."

Summer made one last desperate attempt to break free, but Bander's iron blade pressed deeper, drawing a line of silver blood across her throat. Her sword vanished entirely, leaving her defenseless.

Jack felt something cold and desperate rising in his chest. Not fear—he'd moved past fear into some territory beyond terror. This was rage, pure and crystalline as winter air. This monster was going to kill Summer, was going to drag him away for some insane destiny involving Courts and bloodlines and—

His name.

Jack Frost. He'd always thought it was just cruel irony, his mother's last joke before she'd disappeared. Born in December, pale as snow, always cold. But what if it wasn't irony at all?

The Interface pulsed:

[EMOTIONAL RESONANCE DETECTED]

[BLOODLINE AWAKENING POSSIBLE]

[WARNING: UNCONTROLLED MANIFESTATION IMMINENT]

Jack ignored the warning. His eyes fell on a can of spray paint that had rolled under his worktable—blue paint, Arctic Blue, the color of deep winter ice. Without conscious thought, he dove for it, his fingers closing around the metal cylinder just as Bander raised his weapon for the killing blow.

"Frost," Jack whispered, thinking not of his name but of what it meant. The bite of winter air. The absolute silence of snow-covered forests. The killing cold that turned rivers to glass and stopped hearts mid-beat.

He pressed the nozzle.

What came out wasn't paint.

Arctic wind howled through his apartment, carrying ice crystals that cut like razors. The spray paint can became a conduit for something vast and ancient, a power that had slept in his blood for twenty-two years and now woke with a vengeance. Frost spread across every surface—the walls, the ceiling, the scattered canvases—but it wasn't the gentle frost of morning windows.

This was the ice of the deep places, the cold that killed mammoths and buried civilizations. It raced across the floor in crystalline waves, and where it touched Bander's iron weapon, the metal screamed. Steam rose from the blade as supernatural cold met forbidden iron, and for the first time since entering Jack's apartment, Bander looked surprised.

"Impossible," the creature snarled, but his voice carried uncertainty now. "You're untrained, unawakened—"

"I'm pissed off," Jack said, and pressed the nozzle again.

This time the cold came with intent. Ice erupted from the floor around Bander's feet, climbing his legs like living crystal. The Host warrior tried to break free, but the ice was stronger than steel, colder than death. It raced up his torso, across his arms, sealing his iron weapon against his chest.

In seconds, Bander stood frozen solid, encased in a tomb of ice so deep it was almost black. Only his burning eyes remained mobile, fixed on Jack with what might have been respect.

The Interface blazed with notifications:

[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: FROST WEAVE (INTERMEDIATE)]

[BLOODLINE ABILITY AWAKENED: WINTER'S TOUCH]

[LEVEL UP! JACK FROST IS NOW LEVEL 2]

[WARNING: MASSIVE MAGICAL SIGNATURE DETECTED]

[ATTENTION: ALL FACTIONS WITHIN 50 MILES NOW AWARE OF YOUR LOCATION]

Jack dropped the empty spray can, his hand numb with cold that had nothing to do with the ice covering his apartment. The power flowing through him felt familiar, like remembering a song from childhood. Ancient. Patient. Deadly.

Summer staggered to her feet, silver blood still trickling from the cut on her throat. She stared at the frozen Bander, then at Jack, her green eyes wide with something between awe and terror.

"Winter Court magic," she whispered. "Not just the bloodline—active power. How is that possible?"

"I have no idea," Jack said honestly. The cold was fading from his veins, leaving him shaky and exhausted. "Is he dead?"

Before Summer could answer, cracks appeared in the ice around Bander's chest. The frozen warrior's lips curved in a smile that was all teeth and malice.

"Impressive, little prince," Bander's voice emerged from the ice, distorted but clear. "But ice melts, and iron endures."

The cracks spread. Steam began to rise from the frozen tomb as Bander's body temperature climbed beyond human limits. His iron armor was heating itself, melting the ice from within.

"He's breaking free," Summer said, her sword reforming in her hand. "Your manifestation won't hold him much longer."

"Then we run," Jack said, but even as the words left his mouth, he knew it was too late. Bander's iron weapon was glowing cherry-red now, and the ice around it hissed as it turned to steam. The Host warrior would be free in seconds, and he'd be angry.

The Interface offered one last piece of information:

[TUTORIAL COMPLETE]

[REAL WORLD DIFFICULTY ACTIVATED]

[SURVIVE OR DIE, JACK FROST]

Jack grabbed Summer's hand—her skin was fever-warm against his ice-cold fingers—and together they ran for the door. Behind them, Bander's laughter echoed through the apartment as the last of the ice shattered.

But as they reached the hallway, Jack heard something else. Footsteps on the stairs below, moving fast and purposeful. Not running away from the magical chaos in his apartment—running toward it.

"More Host?" he gasped.

Summer paused, listening. Then her face transformed with something like relief. "No," she said. "Help."

The footsteps reached the landing just as Bander exploded from Jack's apartment in a shower of ice and splintered wood. But instead of finding two fleeing figures, the Host warrior found himself facing something unexpected.

A portly man in a three-piece suit stepped into view, completely unruffled by the supernatural chaos around him. Behind him came an elderly figure with wild white hair and eyes like winter storms. Neither looked particularly impressive, but when the older man smiled, Jack felt power radiating from him like heat from a forge.

"Mr. Bander," the elderly man said pleasantly. "I don't recall inviting the Host to our fair city."

Bander raised his still-glowing weapon, but the portly man was already moving. A walking stick appeared in his hands—not a weapon, just polished wood with a silver head—and when he struck Bander's iron blade, the sound rang like a bell.

The Host warrior staggered, his weapon suddenly heavy in his hands. The elderly man stepped forward, and where his fingers touched Bander's armor, the iron began to corrode, flakes of rust falling like snow.

"Time to go," the old man said softly.

Bander snarled something in a language Jack didn't recognize, then dissolved into a swarm of dark moths that poured through the broken window. Within seconds, he was gone, leaving only the lingering smell of rust and winter.

The elderly man turned to Jack, his ancient eyes bright with interest. "Mr. Frost," he said, as if they were meeting at a garden party instead of in the wreckage of a supernatural battle. "Welcome to the war."

Jack stared at his unlikely rescuers, then at Summer, then at the frozen ruins of his apartment. His old life hadn't just ended—it had been obliterated so completely he could barely remember what it felt like to worry about rent and gallery rejections.

The Interface flickered one final message:

[PHASE ONE COMPLETE]

[PREPARING PHASE TWO...]

Somehow, Jack was pretty sure Phase Two was going to be even worse.