They stopped in front of the glacier. Jasper lowered his body still and watchful while the elder leaned on his staff feeling the prickling sensation of magic ebbing from the ice. It was light, like the first whisper of spring in the dead of winter, but it was unmistakable. The magic surrounding Ulyssia began breaking, peeling away in layers that shimmered like the aurora under the early light.
The elder’s fingers tightened around his staff, and he murmured a quiet prayer under his breath. "One hundred years", he whispered to Jasper. "A century of waiting, guarding, hoping."
As the final layer of magic sizzled away the glacier gave a long deep groan. Cracks splintered across the ice and spreaded outward in jagged, glowing veins. Jasper’s ears perked and his entire body tensed up, ready. The ice shattered in an explosion of cold mist, spraying frost and shards everywhere. In its wake, a figure crumpled to her knees, gasping for air. A woman with a muscular, curving frame, her skin a rich, deep brown against the pale snow. She was bare but covered in layers of fine frost, which melted and trailed from her skin.
Ulyssia’s breaths entered in frantic gasps. Her eyes, wide and as green as the distant forests, darted around wildly, taking in the strange, foreign landscape that had once been familiar. She coughed, clutching her chest, her body spasming with each breath as she tried to pull herself together. And then slowly her gaze landed on Jasper.