In the deep sleep, the white desert vanished. Puck stood upon a world of green. He saw life springing from the dirt in shades he had no name for. Far off, mountains touched the sky, crowned in frost but cloaked in thick, living wood. A wind came, not with teeth of ice, but with the heat of a living breath. Water gathered on his skin beneath his heavy fur—the first sweat he had ever known. It did not chill him; it made him whole.

“This way,” said the voice, riding upon the warm wind.

Fear did not take him. He felt only the pull of the path. He followed the breath of the wind. The soft blades of the earth and the warm dust beneath his feet were strange, making him feel bare and unarmored in this new place. He came to the edge of a vast, dark forest. He laid his hand upon a mighty trunk. The bark was rough, a living skin unlike the dead stone of the wastes.

Deep within the shadows of the timber, a great light burned.

“Go.”

Puck walked into the dark wood. The trees grew thick, and the shadows swallowed the sun. Eyes opened in the blackness—eyes of unknown shapes and sizes, the beasts of the old world watching him from the deep brush. Still, he ran toward the glow.

Then, the light cleft in two, and the shadows fled. The forest opened to a quiet, glassy water. Beside the lake stood two pillars of light in the shape of giants. From the water, from the dust, and from the air, beasts of every kind drew near—creatures of a world before the ice.

The figures of light spoke. Their words were not sounds the ear could hold, but a fire poured directly into the mind. It burned his head as the heavy knowledge was forced upon him.

“Witness.”

Puck wakes up back into the frozen wasteland and the first time he is truly cold to the bone but he feels a warmth travel up his body. A gust of warm air hits him from the side as he remembers the dread before he fell asleep. 

The green world shattered. Puck opened his eyes to the biting frost, and the burning orange gaze of the Tyrant was upon him.

He scrambled backward, kicking up the white dust to put distance between them, but he was only a speck before a mountain. He opened his jaws and let out a cry of battle, but the howling wind took his voice and swallowed it whole.

The Tyrant rose. She towered over the earth. She lifted her great, scarred head to the gray heavens, as if listening to a sound he could not hear. Then, she looked down upon the small one. She bowed her head once. She turned and marched into the white storm. The fire within her woke, and her body became a beacon of red light against the dark of the blizzard.

She halted and looked back. She waited.

Puck's blood ran cold, but the memory of the golden giants remained. Witness. The word struck his mind like a falling star, yet it brought no pain. A great calm washed over his racing heart. His choice was made. He would witness.

He walked to the beast of fire. The Tyrant lowered her heavy tail to the frozen earth, a bridge of scale and stone. Puck climbed. 

The heat of her body was a roaring furnace. It was not the gentle breath of the green vision, but a fierce and heavy fire. Yet, the flame did not scorch his flesh. He drew the hot air into his lungs to steady his beating heart. He wove his way through the jagged blades of obsidian that rose from her spine. The black stone was cold as the winter night to his touch, but deep within, rivers of fire swam in the dark rock. He made his sanctuary high upon her broad shoulders.

High above, the iron clouds tore open. A single ray of the ancient sun broke through the gray. Puck threw his small hand forward, pointing to the light. The Tyrant stepped with heavy feet, marching toward the sun.

But the warmth was brief. The gray clouds swallowed the light once more, sealing the sky shut. The world grew darker, and the bitter wind sharpened its teeth as they walked into the deep waste.

Far off, hidden within the white fury, a shadow watched them go. Two eyes of piercing blue shone through the frost. The blizzard did not merely blow around the shadow; the storm poured from it. The blue eyes watched the fire and the fur travel into the waste, and then they vanished into the raging snow.