Three Rules to Live

They say if you climb high enough, you eventually reach the clouds.

They are wrong. You reach the fog.

It is a thick, heavy thing that swallows the sun and eats the sound of your own footsteps. It protects the peak. It protects me.

My name is Elara Frost.

That is the first mistake I have ever made. Rule number one: Never speak your real name. The moment you give the world your name, you give them a thread to pull. They pull the thread, they find the person, and then the world ruins them.

But I just told you, didn't I? I said it out loud. I gave you the thread.

Maybe I am just tired of the silence. Maybe I am tired of sitting by the fire in a stone house that no one can see, with a waterfall roaring outside my window.

I live up here where the air is thin. I have three rules. I have had them for as long as I can remember. They are the only reason I am still alive.

I just broke the first one.

And if my past taught me anything, it's that the moment one rule breaks, the others are already cracking.

I look at the heavy oak door across the room. The iron latch is locked. The wood is thick. But the wind is changing. There is a sound outside. Not the waterfall. Not the wind.

Footsteps.

Someone is climbing the mountain.