- January 25, 2026
The Ice Father
The Ice Father is a sequel to a previous short story called The Ice Mother, also available to read for free.
An army of angels at our front, and one of devils at our backs.
And both of them have come for us, Eleanor and me.
She is no princess of mere ice and snow, but a Queen of fire and blood, a blizzard cracked by a thunderstorm.
And she’s here to protect me. Eleanor and me, against them all, high in a burning sky.
With a sword of ice, she cuts angels at their wings so they may fall away, sent to an afterlife neither above nor below.
With my swords of steel, daemons and devils learn that even evil can die once it loses its head. My wings, not as clean or bright as the angels nor as dirty and dark as a daemon’s, prove better than either of theirs. From them, I release a barrage of liquid ice that covers and crushes bone to dust.
I hear the clash of metal and feel the sprinkle of ice fall upon me.
I see Eleanor surrounded but not overcome. From a freezing Queen, the illusion I had casted on her fades, and as fire burns from her she looks like me. The angels never saw it coming.
The flames flow from her black hair, and her dark skin cracks from the magma, while air blows back the angel horde.
When angels and daemons would come between us, I cut them from my way. I shall have nothing between me and my daughter any longer. No angelic messenger or hellish torturer, no false gods. With a wave of my hand and mass exertion of power, I turn all that would stand in my way to literal dust.
I am at Eleanor’s back, and we find ourselves still surrounded, by two hordes both considered endless.
As the wings of fire flowing from her back turn to that of crystal air, she changes to the pale face she was born with. Even as fate seems to hold nothing more than our doom, she smiles at me, enjoying the moment we spend together.
Most children are happy to play games with their father, mine prefers to play at war.
The smile fades as the hordes descend upon us, and the sky is filled with the dust and blood that follows the death of the holy and ungodly. Blades may scratch at my feathers, talons may scratch at her armor, but they don’t land a blow.
I don’t realize fast enough that they don’t need to. They need only to tire us, prepare us to be finished off by someone greater than any of them.
I remember this as I have seen it many times. I remember the facts I always seem to know, and the scenes I have seen repeated several times before. It haunts me worse each and every time.
I cleave monsters in two, both with my sword, and with the power I can use through my hands. I use my control over magic and matter, the power I haven’t yet taught to Eleanor.
She does well with the elements she can muster, her first of ice and favorite of fire do well to turn white feathers to crystals, and crystalize leather wings before their great fall. With a swing of her hand, she creates an inferno that would scorch a mountain. I prefer to drown my enemies in a flood, to steal the breath from their lips as has been done to me.
And like last time, this is what I do. I drown the devils, and when I close my hand into a fist, some freeze and some are boiled alive. It’s best to freeze the closest so they fall and crush the rest.
I’m in the rush of battle now, paying little attention to the wounds that bleed my wings dry, same as Eleanor. She has inherited my ability to lose myself in battle, and as we are facing so many unworthy foes, it is our undoing.
When up against fodder, it’s easy to forget how tired you are, how the muscles ache and carry less and less weight behind every swing. You don’t sense yourself slowing down, and the world around you grows blurrier by the moment.
That happens for me, the world blurs into two things. Eleanor, my beloved daughter, and everything that’s not Eleanor, until there something that I should consider a threat, and don’t.
When the angel’s part for their leader, a warrior with armor a sparkling silver and long, flowing golden hair, the burn feels real, the pain feels real. I feel everything that’s been done to me, by the angels and daemons who want to kill us upon this burning and infinite sky, and the monsters of man who made me what I am.
When light shines brighter than a sun but doesn’t blind me, I know that the Archangel has descended. Then the fire from below grows hotter than anything I’ve felt before, and I know the Demon King has risen to meet his match.
Armor of molten magma drives a part through the daemons, and my daughter and I are met by worthy foes. The Demon King holds his book as his weapon, and forms the elements that Eleanor has barely mastered. From the Archangel’s sword, her lightning spreads the light across the sky.
I should have seen it coming, but my body doesn’t do what I want it to do. Instead, I thrust forth to crush the Demon King with power I do not have, and Eleanor rises, as if to the occasion.
I descend on the Demon King, our blows matching in strength. If only I had been careful, if only I had conserved my power, I would crush him where he flies, but I did not and neither did Eleanor.
In moments I have my hands around the Demon King’s throat, fighting to squeeze it shut with lackluster strength, and I hear ice shatter.
I look up to see the elements at Eleanor’s disposal fall and fail. I see the ice break to the Archangel’s steel, the fire merely graze her wings, and the wind fail to push against lightning’s beat. I see fear grow in Eleanor’s eyes as the Archangel strikes her hand, and again across her chest.
I released the Demon King without thinking, to save her, and that was one of many mistakes.
I feel the Demon King at my back, arms around my throat, holding me back, making me watch.
I watch as Eleanor tries to fight back, as she slashes, punches, and kicks to no avail. Her strikes bounce off the Archangel, and when the Archangel strikes, Eleanor keeps trying to push back.
Eleanor gives her all into one strike, one sword that contains everything that she’s managed to learn herself. She uses the fire in her heart, the ice that is her skin, the wind that is her soul, and the earth that is her body, all in one sword, and she raises it over her head. When she brings it down…
… the Archangel doesn’t even flinch.
The Archangel catches the sword, and holds her enemies’ strength in her hand. Eleanor realizes then the difference between her, and the beings around her. She has power, but the Archangel… she is power.
And with that power, she plunges her sword through Eleanor’s chest.
I hear my own voice screaming out, and yet I don’t. I only see, I don’t hear myself, I don’t smell the the smoke and ash, and I don’t feel the winds blow in this sky with no ground to stand on.
I only seen Eleanor’s snow white hair turn black, and her skin darkens. The magic that hides her from the world dies with the heart in her chest. It trickles out her mouth with the drop of blood that falls from her chin.
The Archangel lets my princess fall from her blade, and I remember that this… this is my fault. Someway, somehow, if it weren’t for me, if Eleanor didn’t know me, she wouldn’t be here. She would be safe, and she would not be dying in this burning sky.
Like in a dream, I somehow know that Eleanor’s death is my fault, and I have no one to blame but myself.
And like any failure of a man… of a father, I don’t accept that responsibility. In a rage, I am bound no longer. I show the Demon King and the Archangel, that I too… am power.
I let it flow, and in a blinding light, I take life… took life as what is green takes what comes from the sun. This is where it changes.
Sometimes I get to catch her, hold her as she lay dying in my arms before it all ends.
Sometimes I fight on, ripping out the Archangel’s throat with my hands.
Sometimes I give up, and the Demon King ends it all, turning off the lights on me, forever.
This time, I assure that we all go…. this blinding light.
*****
“Wake up, brother.”
“Aaahhhh……”
It’s always like this… when I have this vision. The vision that keeps me from my daughter, that reminds me that for her to be my blood in any capacity… means her doom.
The cave I call home is as cold as ever, and as hard, but not as hard as my old cage. It’s cold and it’s damp from the waterfall before the entrance, but that is what I am used to. I was taught, or really forced… to accept cold steel as a floor, so cold rock is all I can sleep on.
“I’ll see you outside.”
I look up right as he passes through the waterfall. Who is here… who…
The black hood, yes, I know who it is. I shouldn’t keep him waiting, I asked for his help, yes…
I’m awake… in a cold sweat again. “Ugh.”
I rest my face in my hand, aggravated that there is little I can do to change what matters, but I can fix the sweat. With a snap of my fingers the stench, the smell, and the gross feeling is replaced by the cold and fresh wind that I make from nothing.
I look towards the only things I keep in my cave, my weapons, and my armor. I’m going to need those.
I stand-
Scuff.
These damn wings. I reach over my shoulder, as I feel drawn to do. I see where they have been sewn and transfused into my flesh. A manmade monster I am. Fantasy may be my doom, but science was my hellish making.
*****
In my tunic bound by leather, with twin swords on one side of my hips, and my cape wrapped over my chest and down my back.
Isabell’s last gift to me, one not living anyway. Her way to know that I’m protected, and looking regal at the same time. She thought that I was angelic and that I should look it. Her dark angel, but I am no angel. A mutant is a better way to put it, one who she thought looked very good in black.
“Haa.”
Breathing grows heavier each day.
I’ve kept him waiting long enough. I put on my hood.
I walk towards the running water that hides the cave I call home, and with a wave of my hand the water parts for me. That’s why she… why everyone calls me what they do.
“Irony,” my brother greets me by name, being a winged creature who likes to control water.
My visitor, my brother… in a way… He sits on the peak of the boulder in the middle of the lake. The lake is surrounded by nothing by forest, there isn’t anything but me, him, and the sound of a waterfall. With the full moon behind him, all I can see is the back of his head.
He has my face. I don’t mean to say he resembles me, I mean that our faces are the same. He wears his own black robes, bound by leather to look like a detailed tunic, and gauntlets that hide silver.
He looks up at the moon with his own hood over his head, but where I aim to hide the gray color of my eyes, he wants to draw attention to his.
“Hasan,” I call to him, using the name he was given, as I was Irony.
He turns to me, with a twisted red pattern that makes up his eyes, with white as their background, and white being their pupils. They can make a man see many things, imaginations of his own mind, or of my brother’s.
“Are your visions always so violent?” he asks me.
“They grow worse, each time.”
“In what way?”
I take a deep breath trying to remember. It’s not that it’s difficult to think about, but painful instead. These visions foretell a daughter’s death, caused by the love of her father. They grant me the gift of knowing what my baby girl will look like as a grown woman, before granting me the curse of knowing that I will bring about her death.
“The story always plays out the same, even though I know what is going to happen. The Demon King Asmodeus and the Archangel Uriel have us surrounded with their armies, and Uriel… ends up killing my Eleanor…” My fist closes as my heart has tried to. “How… how I die is what changes… knowing the future never changes what matters most, knowing that she needs to be saved never seems to change anything!”
“I see,” he says, “and that’s why you have called me… to save your daughter.” I don’t need to look up to see the smirk that’s growing across his lips. That’s the difference between real siblings and me with my brother. Brothers don’t smirk at each other, but that’s all me and him can do.
I lift my head to ask him, “Will you help me?”
For a moment his expression betrays nothing, but as he rises to his feet, the sound of his chuckle carries over the water of the lake.
When he stands, he’s still smirking. He doesn’t need to say anything. I know he has agreed to help me, and I know that because of this, I owe him. He’s the last person anyone wants to owe, and yet every one of our kind seems to.
He begins to float off the rock, defying gravity on a whim, and beckons me to follow. I extend my wings as I let the waterwall flow again behind my back.
In moments, I am flying above the lake like a hawk. With his hands in his pocket, he flies like something supernatural, and more divine.
The air catches beneath my wings, and I higher than the trees, but as soon as I think I am flying higher, he soars past me to be higher. The ends of his robes flap in the wind, and he flies with only his hands at his sides.
This is my place now, at his side but behind him. For Eleanor, I will stay behind him as long as he desires, I will follow behind him anywhere, as I once did before.
We soar over Isabell’s country, over the snowy peaks of the mountains, with only the moonlight to guide us… but we’ve never needed light to see, I realize that now.
No, the darkness is something my kind is quite familiar with, it’s where we are safe, and protected.
In the light, is where Eleanor dies.