Frostnova slowly stirred from her sleep, rolling around in the blankets for a moment before pulling herself out and standing up.

Quietly, she adjusted the wand hanging from her waist, before picking up some scattered branches and arranging then into a rough cone over some snow-free ground.

Picking up some tinder, she soon got a fire started, placing it onto the firewood and rushing away to let it grow. But as she waited, nothing happened – the fire quietly extinguished by the cold winter and her own Arts.

She let out a quiet groan of disappointment, fishing out another bunch of tinder.

"Good morning, Sister. Need some help?" One of her Yetis walked over.

"…Sure. It's difficult, with my Arts." She quietly placed the tinder and fire-starting tools on the ground and stepped away to let him do his work.

The events of yesterday almost felt like a dream – the presence in her mind, the strange psychic Arts that had enveloped her – everything. But she still felt Andrey there.

"Hello?" She called out.

"Hello?" The voice echoed through the empty blackness, bouncing off the ice spires and quietly flooding the space. Andrey looked up from his Codex, quietly standing up and walking over to Frostnova's side. The now-familiar explosion of color rushed to him, and he returned to the physical world.

"Good morning, Frostnova. Sorry, I didn't realize you had woken." Studying her vision, he saw that they were still in the camp they had set up last night, with one of the Yetis currently starting a fire nearby.

"It's fine. I can handle myself. Sleep well?"

"Sleep? What sleep?"

Frostnova almost sputtered in disbelief. "What, you don't sleep?"

"Apparently, I don't need it."

"What did you do, then?"

"Read. I have some of my knowledge back, but unfortunately, it's in a book."

"Huh." She turned towards the Yeti lighting the fire. "Any tips for Petrova there?"

As she spoke, Petrova managed to coax a spark out of the fire-starter, blowing upon the spark as it landed on the tinder. Quickly, he picked up the tinder – only for it to start burning in his hands as he walked over.

Dropping it shock, he stared at the remnants of his third attempt to start a fire.

"Damn…"

"Erm… How many times does it usually take you?" Andrey asked.

"Three. That was his third."

After another fruitless attempt at starting a fire, Petrova sighed in defeat.

"Use more this time." Placing some extra tinder on the ground in front of the wood, Frostnova stepped away and let him continue.

"Yes!" The fire finally started burning the wood this time, releasing some warmth. Satisfied, Petrova sat down near the fire, watching it slowly grow. "Thank you, Sister."

"No need to save that much tinder." Frostnova noted, before using some spare poles to hang a pot above the fire. "Should I cook for you?"

"…You sure the soup won't be frozen?"

"Yes." After picking up some more ingredients from the carts, Frostnova set to work cooking another soup.

"Same recipe as yesterday?" Andrey asked.

"Sure." As he gave instructions, Petrova watched in wonder. Since when did their Sister learn to cook?

After placing the food in and letting it cook, Frostnova sat down next to the fire. It was fortunate that they weren't running low on supplies at the moment – Frostnova suspected even Andrey would be helpless given a bunch of grasses and tree bark. Their last raid had been a resounding success – minimal losses, and two full carts of supplies.

"Minimal… no, we still lost one." Frostnova found herself almost unable to remember who they had lost. "Alan? No, that was before. Taki? Was it him?"

"You lost somebody?" Ah, Andrey could hear her. She had forgotten that.

"Last raid. I can't remember who they are."

"How many people have you lost in total?"

"At least a hundred."

"I… Wow."

"What choice do we have? It's this, or starving in the mines."

Andrey was silent after that. Soon, the soup was ready, and Frostnova poured some out for herself and Petrova into a set of large metal bowls that she took out from her tent.

The soup cooled rapidly under the influence of her Arts and the cold winter, and Frostnova finished it equally as rapidly, before looking towards the distance again. Just endless trees, dark green pines as far as the eye could see. Worryingly, her Arts couldn't penetrate very far here.

"Thanks for the meal, Sister!" With a smile and a wave, Petrova left her to her thoughts.

But she didn't get to stay still for long. A Yeti soon rushed over, frantically running and skidding to a stop in front of her. "There are hunters inspecting our trails!"

"Where?" Snapping around, Frostnova drew her wand. "Take me there."

"Got it!" Running towards where they had come from the day before, the Yeti attempted to take her hand before flinching back. "Ah, right…"

Keeping her pace behind him, Frostnova judged the landscape around her. Simple flat terrain, but with branches that could trip her if she wasn't careful. Fairly standard terrain, and she was confident she could beat a group of hunters if it came to blows, but it never paid to be careful.

As they neared, the Yeti slowed down, footsteps quietly sinking into the snow and no longer making any noise. Frostnova followed suit, before they eventually stopped at the edge of a clearing, hiding behind a log.

In the middle, a group of men wearing simple leather and bearskin were crouched around an uneven patch of the ground, crossbows slung on their backs.

"See this?" One of the hunters, an old man, tapped the snow. "It's much more packed than the surrounding snow."

"Somebody covering their tracks?" Another one of the hunters interjected.

"Feels like wheels." The old man replied. "But the Infected Patrol never covers their tracks with this much care. This is more like the Army."

"We haven't heard anything about the Army coming through, though."

"Probably some group of bandits, or Infected. Some of the mines were raided recently." The old man sighed. "Don't bother mentioning it to the Patrol. They aren't wasting their time chasing them." A collective groan came from the group at the mention of the Infected Patrol.

"So what now?"

"We turn back. We're not risking a confrontation. You go first. I need to study these tracks further." The younger hunters left, leaving the old man alone in the clearing.

Quietly, he turned, looking straight towards where Frostnova and the Yeti were hiding.

"Now, come out." Unslinging his already-loaded crossbow, he pointed it in the direction of Frostnova and the Yeti. The Yeti started to stand up, but Frostnova raised a hand and stopped him.

"I may not be able to kill you, Caster, but I can kill your friend over there." As he spoke, his crossbow turned slightly, now aiming squarely at the Yeti.

"Fine." Frostnova walked out of the clearing, Arts coalescing around her to form a near-impenetrable shield of ice. "What do you want?"

"Infected." The word was said without a hint of the anger Frostnova had grown accustomed to. "I wish to make a deal."

"Continue." Her Arts remained active, quietly aimed towards the hunter's head.

"I will provide food, in exchange for our safety."

"You have nothing to fear from us. We do not intend to raid your village."

"Our safety from the Infected Patrol. They are much more dangerous than raiders." Now that was new. Frostnova had never had any uninfected ask for help from the Yetis, much less about the Infected Patrol.

Pausing for a moment to consider the deal, Frostnova eased her Arts slightly. "What do you propose?"

"I will lure the dozen-strong Patrol towards this clearing. As a veteran of the Army, I have enough sway over them to force them over. You launch an ambush and kill them. After, you can take half of the supplies they have looted from us."

"As a veteran, why not directly report it to the Army?"

"That would be a mere hindrace to the Patrol."

"Why do you trust us?" Frostnova looked him in the eyes. The deal was tempting – and almost too good to be true.

"You have powerful Arts, yet you have not killed us yet." It didn't seem like a trap, and his tired voice betrayed no lies.

"Then, I agree."

"The Patrol will arrive at noon tomorrow. If they do not arrive by the end of the day, you can come and kill us."

"I have no intent to do so." But he was already gone, fading form leaving no trace, even in the deep snow.

"It's this, or starving in the mines." The words still echoed through his mind as Andrey sat next to the unmoving form of Frostnova in her mind, absentmindedly flipping through his Codex.

She was right. No amount of genius tactics, technology or Arts would save them. He had little knowledge of the world beyond the basics, but he still knew that all the Yetis would die eventually, from combat or Oripathy.

He wasn't even sure when he had acquired all this knowledge; it had quietly filtered into his mind in the background, unlike the knowledge in his Codex, which arrived packaged into vibrant memories.

But he was sure it was true, even though he hoped it wasn't.

What could he do? He wasn't a genius, and though he may have been, his past self evidently had also failed to defeat this ages-old problem.

He doubted the Yetis were capable of even denting a small fraction of the Empire's power, much less taking down the Empire. The Infected, though numerous, were still vastly outnumbered.

"How does she do it?" Turning towards the motionless body still floating within the clearing, Andrey sighed.

He supposed she didn't have a choice. She had been set on this path long before she could change anything; in fact, it was a miracle she was still alive today.

As she said, it was to keep fighting or die.

There was a slim chance he could survive if she died, but he wasn't willing to tempt fate – and either way, he had grown attached to her already. He was stuck with her now, whether he liked it or not.

And just like her, all he could do was live life day by day – and hope for a miracle.

AN: Thanks for reading! Progress for this story is now being updated on my profile. Also, chapter titles have now been added.