When magic breaks

I always thought if I were ever pinned to a wall, it would be by some charming rebel with calloused hands and a crooked smile—not a lunatic made of ice who thought sarcasm was a personality.

But hey. Life's been generous with surprises lately.

BANG BANG BANG.

The door groaned under the weight of authority, and a voice thundered from the other side:

"Open up! This is the Ruling Guard! I'm giving you three seconds before I break this down!"

And then—because the universe hates me—I heard my own voice echo through the room.

"Please, not yet! I'm... I'm naked!"

Pause. Silence.

Frost stood there with the fakest innocent look I've ever seen, like a cat sitting next to broken glass.

"You did not just—" I started.

The guard outside went quiet. A soft muttered curse, then retreating footsteps.

Frost dropped the act. "See? Works every time."

I glared at him. "Really? 'I'm naked'? That's the best you could come up with?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You do remember that you technically murdered me a few moments ago, right?"

"And yet here you are," I muttered. "Alive. Cocky. And still annoying."

He smiled. "Ah, the miracle of ice-based narcissism."

But then—snap.

Not a loud one. Not dramatic. Just a dull, sharp sound, like someone stepping on a twig in a graveyard.

Frost didn't hesitate. He dove sideways—

BOOM.

The door shattered like cardboard. Smoke, heat, and a very angry man stepped into my very sad excuse for a house.

The guard's voice cut through the fog like a blade:

"You should've waited till I left. But on the plus side... I'm about to capture a fugitive."

Frost dusted himself off like this was all just mildly inconvenient. "Ducks, bounty hunters, fugitives, and now a Rulings Guard... you're quite the magnet, aren't you, Arya?"

I shrugged. "Sorry for being irresistible."

Then he faced the guard, eyes flashing cold.

"There's a reason I'm a high-bounty fugitive," he said. "And today, I'm gonna show you."

The water pinning me to the wall hissed and cracked. Most of it melted away, leaving just enough to keep my arms and legs cuffed like I was an exhibit. How thoughtful.

The room heated fast. My skin prickled. The air tasted like burnt metal and sweat.

"Shàngó mage," Frost muttered.

Fantastic. A fire mage.

Metal house? Check.

Limited water supply? Check.

Me—trapped, watching this unfold like Destiny watching bad reality TV? Also check.

To make matters worse, Frost looked pale. The bags under his eyes weren't just from a rough night—they were the kind of shadows you earn from starvation, blood loss, and a severe lack of naps.

I wanted to scream: Get out! Run! This isn't your fight!

But I didn't. Because I knew exactly what he'd say.

Instead, Frost did something insane.

He sat down.

On the floor.

Crossed his legs.

Looked up at the guard like he was a bored teacher.

"Honestly," he said, "considering I'm supposed to be at a disadvantage... I think you'll still need to cut off two of my limbs if you really want a chance at capturing me. Because the way things are looking—you might die."

There it was.

That thing Destiny calls "justified pride."

And then—SNAP.

Frost smiled.

The temperature dropped, just a little. Enough to make the room hold its breath.

And the fight began.

Destiny's still watching. Still judging. And I'm still stuck to a wall.

You ever watch someone about to die and they act like they're at a party?

Frost grinned like this was a warm-up act. There was a snap—loud, crisp, theatrical. I expected a tragic one-liner and a fireball to the chest. Instead, two cups of water I didn't even remember twitching earlier suddenly exploded upward.

He twisted in the air like a dancer—no, like a clown pretending to be a dancer. One kick sent a stream of water flinging toward the guard's shoulder. Not sharp. Not strong. Just enough to say, hey, I'm here.

"Guess what," Frost chirped, bouncing from stool to shelf like the floor was made of lava. (Which, funny enough, it kind of was.) "Weird time to mention this, but I'm allergic to arrest."

Snap. Another one. Every time his fingers cracked, something moved. A shield, a splash, a smirk.

"You're going to need more than water tricks," the guard spat.

"I'm working with a budget, my guy! Recession!"

Oh great. My savior has jokes.

He ducked under a fireball with ridiculous grace, then flipped onto the edge of a cabinet. "Also, this floor? Lava. Figuratively and literally."

A fresh snap and a block of ice reared up like a wall between them. The fireball smashed into it. Steam hissed out. The house creaked—loudly. That's when I remembered. The walls were metal. The roof? Also metal. The floor? You guessed it. Hot. Metal. Hellhouse.

"Yo, Arya!" he shouted mid-fight. "Watch closely. This is what happens when your imaginary boyfriend actually knows kung fu."

"I'd rather watch myself suffocate."

But I wasn't looking away.

The guard snapped twice. A rope of fire twisted from each palm. Frost flipped, landed with one foot on the edge of the cabinet like he weighed nothing. Fire slammed into the ice. The water screamed. The shield melted.

"Whoa!" Frost shouted, his coat fluttering behind him as he launched himself off the cabinet. He hit the wall, flipped, kicked off it—and landed in front of the guard with a brutal elbow to the jaw. Then a spin. A kick. Fast. Loud. Disrespectful.

The guard shoved him away with a wall of heat. Frost flew backwards.

Snap.

Right before he hit the wall, a thin pad of ice bloomed behind him, catching him like a frozen mattress.

"Whoosh," he muttered, rolling off. "Still got it."

Insufferable. I hated how good he looked doing all this.

The guard surged forward, fists blazing white-hot. Frost ducked under the punch, snapped, and let a snake of water shoot toward the man's legs. Then bam—a knee to the gut. The guard reeled back, gasping.

"You okay there?" Frost called, almost sweet. "Need a water break? Oh wait—your boyfriend's the fire guy. Y'all must be toxic."

Snap. Water spiraled into the ceiling, freezing into falling needles. Frost kicked them mid-air—sharp and fast like a madman playing the drums with ice shards. One clipped the guy's cheek. Blood bloomed.

That's when I realized something: Frost wasn't just winning. He was teaching.

"Lesson number one!" he yelled, sliding on a puddle like a skating thief. "Fire's flashy. But predictable. Y'all just punch and hope for steam."

"Lesson number two!" (Was this a lecture now?) "Never heat the floor when you're the one standing on it!"

Because yeah, the genius fire guy had slammed both palms into the floor, turning the entire metal structure into an oven.

And guess what? Frost wasn't on the floor anymore.

He was balancing on the window frame, arms spread, grinning like he was in a circus.

Then—snap. Water roped around the guard's ankle and yanked. Hard.

The guard fell.

Frost didn't waste it. He launched forward, full speed, and drove his knee into the man's chest with a crack that made even me wince.

Then he backflipped away again.

"You're showboating," I muttered, steam fogging my view. "He's showboating."

He blew me a kiss. "That's how icons are made, sweetpea."

The house was falling apart. Literally. Steam, flame, warped steel. It was like the building itself couldn't handle the drama.

Frost stood by the door now. "You've seen my warm-up," he said, eyes glowing with smug. "Wanna see the show?"

The guard, in one final act of rage, launched a fireball the size of my ego.

Snap.

Frost kicked the table into it.

Boom.

Metal. Ice. Fire. All of it erupted.

I remember flying. I remember steam. And I remember his last spell wrapping me in a watery shield just before we crashed into the dirt outside.

When I opened my eyes, two figures stood in the wreckage.

One was burning.

The other was grinning.

And I—I was thinking the stupidest thing a girl pinned to a wall could possibly think.

Okay… maybe I wanna learn how to do that.

Previously, on "This Idiot Has No Plan," Frost survived a metal oven, humiliated a ruling guard, and made me reconsider all my life choices. Still stuck to a wall, by the way.

The dust hadn't even settled. The fire hadn't even died. And Frost?

Frost was laughing.

Not the cool villain laugh. No. This was worse. This was that "I just remembered the punchline to a joke I told myself three weeks ago" laugh.

The guard stumbled out of the broken house, coughing smoke. His armor was cracked. Face burned. Pride leaking from every bruise. And Frost?

Frost stood with both hands in the air like a magician who just sawed someone in half and forgot to put them back together.

"I'm out of Aye," he said cheerfully.

What.

The guard paused, hand half-raised for another fire spell.

"I'm serious," Frost added. "Tried to squeeze a drop out just now. Nada. Zilch. Tap dry."

Another pause.

"You admitted that?" I muttered, still pinned to the ruined wall. "Who does that?"

Frost turned to me with that same ridiculous grin. "Lesson three, Arya. Always control the narrative. Keeps things fun."

Then he ran at the guard. No spells. No ice. No safety net.

Just fists.

The first punch hit the guard in the ribs with a crack like thunder. The guy blinked, staggered, and before he could react, Frost was already behind him.

Elbow to the spine. Knee to the leg. Open-palm strike to the throat.

Fast. Surgical. Savage.

"Your stance is too wide," Frost muttered mid-strike. "Predictable footwork. You trained in the barracks, didn't you? Rulings style—more bark than bite."

The guard managed to swing a flaming fist.

Frost ducked.

Then headbutted him in the jaw.

"What kind of lunatic—" I began.

"—uses his face as a weapon?" Frost finished, spitting out blood and laughing harder. "This lunatic."

The guard threw a firebolt. Wild. Desperate.

Frost dodged without looking. Just a little lean to the left like he was ducking under laundry.

"Honestly, I expected more from a ruling guard. You're like a chicken in a lion's jacket."

Snap.

Nothing happened.

He grinned. "Kidding. Told you, no Aye."

He grabbed the guy's arm mid-swing, twisted it behind his back, and kicked out his knee.

The guard screamed.

Frost didn't even blink.

"See, Arya," he called, dragging the man forward by the collar and slamming him into a metal beam, "when you can't use magic, that's when you know if you're actually dangerous."

The guard caught him with a lucky punch to the ribs.

Frost reeled back—then laughed again. "Okay. One point for you."

He jumped, flipped over the man's head, landed behind him, and slammed both fists into the back of his neck. The guy dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

"Lesson four," Frost said, panting, circling like a shark. "Don't rely on your fire. Rely on your fists. I did both. You did neither."

The guy tried to crawl away. Frost didn't let him.

He kicked the guard in the stomach, then used the flat of his foot to roll him onto his back.

"This has been fun," he said, wiping blood off his chin with the back of his hand. "But I'm hungry. And you're boring."

Then he turned to me.

"Hey Arya. I know you're busy being traumatized, but do pay attention. I don't do reruns."

"Are you teaching me while beating a man to death?"

"Yes."

From the scattered wreckage of his ice clone, he snapped off one long, jagged shard.

One more snap.

Just for drama.

Ice whistled to life.

A blade. An icicle. No spell. Just instinct, precision, and a little leftover frostbite from hell.

Frost leaned down.

The guard's eyes widened.

"Final lesson," Frost whispered. "Never trust a fugitive…"

He drove the icicle clean through the man's heart.

"Especially when they say they lack Aye."

Silence.

Even Destiny, wherever he was, shut up for a moment.

Then Frost stood, chest rising, blood dripping from his fingers, steam curling around him like a curtain call.

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

And for once, I had nothing snarky to say.

Because somewhere between him murdering a ruling guard and teaching me how to fight while doing it…

I started to admire the bastard.

The silence after the storm was the worst part. That eerie quiet that creeps in after someone dies. Or maybe it was just the silence of having nowhere left to sit.

Frost finally let the last bit of ice melt from my wrists. My body hit the ground like dead weight—because, surprise, I'd been pinned to a wall for ten minutes while he danced around a Rulings guard like it was a performance review.

I groaned as I sat up. The floor was still warm. Great.

My entire home was now a crumpled tin can with the heat signature of a dragon's armpit.

"Three weeks," I muttered, rubbing my wrists. "Three weeks to build that house. Gone in five minutes. Thanks."

Frost crouched beside me, still grinning like the fight had been a pleasant morning jog.

He plucked a bent fork from the rubble, twirled it like a dagger, and said, "You're welcome."

I glared at him.

"Really?" I snapped. "You melted half my floor, fried my walls, and used me as wall décor."

He shrugged. "I warned you not to kill me."

"You warned me while naked."

"Best ideas come when you're free of clothes and expectations."

I stared at him for a beat. "You're unwell."

"Accurate," he said, dusting off the shoulders of his shirt—still singed from the fight. "But charming. Admit it."

I pushed myself to my feet, which was an experience. Every muscle in my legs complained. Loudly.

Frost offered a hand. I ignored it.

"You know," he said, as I staggered past him, "for someone who kidnapped me, you're walking like I was the one tied up."

"Keep talking, clown."

He followed me outside where the wind did its best impression of comfort. A soft, dry breeze over scorched dirt and twisted metal. My house—if you could still call it that—was one long exhale away from becoming a museum exhibit titled "The Last Mistake."

Frost took it all in, hands on his hips like a very proud arsonist.

"Nice layout," he said. "Great ventilation."

I turned to him. "Do you know how long it took me to make that place?"

"Three weeks?"

"I didn't have an iron mage tutor or a crew or even tools. Just hands and stubbornness."

"You're not even a proper iron mage," he said, eyebrow raised.

"Exactly."

"Then you've got no business building houses. Stick to kidnapping."

I looked at him. "Stick to dying. You're better at it."

He smiled at that. Genuinely. The kind of smile that wasn't sarcastic or theatrical. Just amused. Pleased. And I hated how contagious it was.

The mood shifted slightly as we both turned back to the ruin. Reality settled in.

"So…" I started, arms crossed. "Shelter?"

"Gone," he said helpfully.

"Water?"

"Used."

"Food?"

He made a face. "Unless you count adrenaline and spite, I'm out."

"So," I said again, squinting at the horizon. "We relocate."

There was a pause. A slight twitch in his expression. Just a flicker.

"We?" he asked.

I looked at him. Fully this time. No joke. No jab.

"You said you're the guy who fights the Rulings," I said. "Seems like I've got a vacancy."

He smirked. "You sure? I don't come with a dental plan."

"No, but you come with a death wish and apparently a talent for property damage. That'll do for now."

He turned, walking a few paces forward like he was thinking. Then stopped.

"Alright," he said. "But just to be clear… I'm not carrying you if your legs give out again."

"You'd melt the floor."

He laughed. Loudly. Then pointed at the collapsed doorway. "Grab whatever junk you can carry. We'll need supplies. And if you've got snacks—"

"Do I look like someone who hoards snacks?"

He eyed me.

"…Yes."

I sighed. "Fine. But if you eat my last spice bar, I swear I'll rebuild the house just to throw it at you."

He tilted his head. "You're fun."

"No. I'm tired. And homeless."

"Same thing."

Somewhere in a room where time was more suggestion than law, a god was laughing.

Destiny lounged on a throne forged from unfinished stories and crumbling timelines. The viewing room pulsed around him—stars flickering like a heartbeat, dream-screens flashing scenes of chaos: Arya shackled to a wall of ice. Frost bleeding, grinning, brutal. A scorched metal house torn to steaming shreds. The drama of it all delighted him.

"Now that," Destiny said, his golden fingers snapping with glee, "was fun."

His voice echoed through the space like thunder soaked in wine. He clapped once, then twice more, savoring the aftertaste of violence and betrayal. "Ice versus fire. Wit versus wrath. I haven't enjoyed a duel like that since the Fall of Nine Suns."

But then came the murmurs. Subtle. Insolent.

They weren't voices from the room—no, the room was his alone. These were the whispers from beyond, from that strange, unseen audience who always had opinions.

"You call that your favorite story?" one scoffed.

"A girl who can't build a house without crying and a boy who makes jokes during combat?" said another.

"The great god Destiny, reduced to shipping teenagers," sneered a third.

Destiny's smile twitched. Just a little. His fingers curled around the edge of his throne, pressing tight until the cosmos dimmed.

"Small," he muttered. "They think this story is small."

He stood slowly, a storm leaking from his limbs. The room darkened, the viewing screens pulsing like dying stars.

"Fine."

He snapped.

And just like that, the world changed.

---

The shift was violent. Gone were steam and laughter, gone was Arya's broken house and Frost's icy grin.

Instead: silence.

Cold, wet, suffocating silence.

Deep within the Rulings' underground compound, below the barracks and training yards, beneath even the enchanted vaults, there were cells. Not ordinary ones—these were carved into the earth itself. Layered with magic, soaked in blood history. Each step down was colder, heavier, more drenched in dread.

A pair of commanders descended the winding corridor. Their boots struck the stone in sharp rhythm, flanked by a full squad of Rulings guards—elite men and women, the kind who'd faced monsters and won. And yet… every face was tense.

"He's just a child," the younger commander whispered. "Seventeen, maybe."

The other didn't stop walking. "And yet he killed fifty guards. None of them landed a hit."

They arrived at a door. Not iron, not stone. Wood.

Old wood. Ancient and wrong.

The grain shimmered with embedded runes. It wasn't nailed or hinged, just… there. A slab of living death sealed with scripts of gods long dead.

The guards hesitated.

"Open it," the lead commander ordered.

One guard stepped forward and whispered three incantations. The runes shifted, and the wood sighed, pulling inward like it was breathing.

And inside was the boy.

He sat cross-legged in a cage made entirely of the same cursed wood, surrounded by glyphs that shimmered faintly blue. His posture was relaxed. Barefoot. No cuffs. No chains. Just a teenager in tattered shorts, his fingers dancing with sparks of electricity like it was a game.

He looked up as the door creaked open, blinking slowly like he'd just woken from a nap.

"Well," he said, voice calm and oddly musical. "Visitors."

Both commanders stiffened. The boy didn't rise. Didn't show fear. He merely smiled, and lightning lazily curled around his fingers, leaping knuckle to knuckle like playful cats.

One of the guards muttered, "The suppressors—he shouldn't be able to do that."

"They're working," the commander replied under his breath. "If they weren't, we'd all be ash."

The boy tilted his head and studied the group like a bored teacher watching students try to explain arithmetic. His eyes were amber. Not the pretty kind. The kind lightning leaves behind in cracked skies.

"We have a proposition," said the lead commander, stepping forward.

That made the boy perk up slightly. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "I'm listening."

"You want freedom, yes?"

"That's a funny word," he murmured.

"Kill someone for us," the commander said. "One man. That's all."

The boy arched a brow. "You're not very subtle."

"We're not trying to be."

A pause.

"His name is Frost," the commander continued. "Water mage. Fugitive. Just killed one of ours."

That got a reaction. The boy's grin widened, and for a heartbeat, the sparks vanished.

The stillness was terrifying.

"I know that name," the boy said, almost to himself.

"You kill him," the commander said carefully, "and we forget the fifty guards you electrocuted. We forget the officer you left in a coma. We forget what you did in the market."

The boy stood.

The room didn't get louder—but it felt like it did. Pressure surged. Power hummed beneath the surface like a beast rolling in its sleep.

He stepped toward the edge of the cage and laid one hand on the wood. The runes sizzled beneath his palm, and yet he didn't flinch.

He looked the commander dead in the eyes.

And smiled.

"Tell me," he said.

"Does he scream?"