Noah spun, coming face to face with two small figures standing amidst the snow. Was the god’s altar not abandoned after all, even though it was all the way out here? Wherever here even was, because so far as Noah could tell, it was a random point in the wilderness.

“Do you serve the god of these lands?” he asked urgently.

The two in front of him looked like children, not yet in their teen years, but their eerily uniform coloring—skin the color of porcelain, nearly indistinguishable from the startling white of their hair—made it immediately evident that they were yokai.

Their faces were so similar that they were unmistakably twins, a young girl and boy who looked no older than ten or eleven years old. But that meant nothing in the Spirit Realm where appearances were more often deceiving than not. As with Izanami’s case, a youthful appearance here didn’t necessarily equate to a young age.

It took him a second to collect himself. Belatedly, he realized that—at least around him—the swirling snow had ceased.

“Pathetic,” the male twin muttered. “Imagine, being weak enough to freeze to death?”

His sister nodded vehemently. “Imagine, calling the lord of the land an ‘asshole’?”

The lord of the land? So they did serve the deity. Even though neither of them had acknowledged that he’d spoken a word.

Both yokai possessed snow-white hair with a light, airy quality that provided easy camouflage amidst the snowscape Noah had been deposited in. That and their thick white fur robes, upon which no snow had gathered, told Noah everything he needed to know. These two were snow spirits—a class of yokai known to be notorious pranksters, characterized by an impish and fickle nature, likely born from the lost spirits of children who had frozen to their deaths long, long ago.

“Damn it. Of course they’re snow spirits,” he muttered underneath his breath, scowling darkly at the near-identical duo. They were as likely to help as harm him.

“Oh?” the girl remarked, turning to her male mirror image with one of her round, apostrophe-shaped eyebrows cocked.

“Oh?” the boy echoed.

Both children crowded in closer, leaning down to meet his level.

“The human knows us?” they said as one.

Neither of them waited for him to respond.

“What a strange sacrifice!” the girl exclaimed, leaning in to inspect Noah’s face. “Brother, he smells like one of us.”

The boy squatted down, hands on his own cheeks as he joined his sister in inspecting the shaman. “He’s pretty. Is that why His Grace said to bring him? We usually get to play with them for much longer!”

“Hey—” Noah tried and failed to interject.

From the looks of them, neither of them was in a particularly helpful mood—not that he had expected much from them—but they weren’t even pretending to listen.

“Hey!” Noah repeated, but his voice was drowned out by their bickering.

“No, stu-pid, everyone knows humans don’t interest His Grace!” the girl declared imperiously. “He let us have all the ones who came before! He even let us eat them when we were done playing.”

“Oh oh, do you think this one had fun with our game? His face is pretty, but he looks grumpy!”

“I told you we should do it my way this time!”

“No way! They turn blue so quickly your way!”

The children were speaking too quickly for Noah to follow, their rapid back-and-forth making it all the more difficult to even tell which of them was speaking. In typical yokai fashion, they demonstrated zero awareness or concern for the fact that Noah had none of their ability to withstand the brutal cold. They were crouched down on either side of him, examining him with utter fascination while continuing to talk to one another as if he weren’t within direct earshot—which only served to fan the flames of his agitation.

“Then, is it because he smells like us?” the boy asked, cocking his head curiously. “Oh, sister, he’s still shivering! Hee-hee, see how his fingers are turning blue?”

“—and besides, we yokai are far prettier,” the other continued, speaking over her brother.

“Do you think His Grace will mind if he loses some fingers and toes?”

“Oh, I don’t remember how humans work.” The girl paused, her milky gray eyes widening. “I don’t want Sir Ezra to scold us—"

“Oi! Snowkids. Sir Ezra’s going to know it’s your fault when there’s permanent damage,” Noah snapped, interrupting the twins before they could start another round. The name Sir Ezra finally seemed to catch their attention, but the bite he’d intended for his words to have was undermined by the vicious chattering of his teeth. “So you’d better do something and bring me wherever you’re meant to bring me, now.”

The snow yokai and their ambient power had managed to whisk away the snow immediately surrounding him, and removed any lingering moisture from his clothing, but the temperature was still well below freezing. And every gust of wind cut directly through the cheap robes the clan had provided.

“Oh.” The boy’s face fell.

“Do you have any idea who I am?” Noah asked, equal parts irritated and flabbergasted. Never, not even once, had he been treated this way in the Spirit Realm.

“Um…” The girl blinked owlishly at him. “His Grace’s bride?”

“Well, yes, but—” Noah stopped.

Neither of the young-looking yokai showed any signs of recognition, despite the distinct color of his eyes and hair. It was clear that they had never seen a member of the Astraeus Clan before.

“Never mind.” Noah shook his head. “You lead, I’ll follow. If you play even the smallest trick on me in this snow, there’s no telling what will happen. The frostbite might even make my hands fall off,” he lied. “Feet too.”

“R-really?” the girl stammered, her haughty attitude replaced by sudden urgency. “Do those grow back?”

“They don’t,” Noah said grimly, not feeling the slightest pang of guilt at their horror-stricken faces. “No time to waste. Take me to your lord, promptly.”

Noah was so frozen stiff by the time they reached their destination that how they’d gotten there—and where they were exactly—was a blur.

Noah only knew that they were in some manner of castle or fortress tucked away within the mountains. The twins, Miyuki and Yukihiro, both relentlessly energetic, had managed to bicker amongst themselves the whole way only to fall silent and become model children the moment they stepped foot within the castle.

Much to the twins’ relief—and his own—Noah managed to arrive with all his fingers and toes intact. He’d have praised them for it if they hadn’t been the ones responsible for his cold torture in the first place.

The entry hall was a spartan affair, devoid of any furniture, tapestries, or lavish decor that Noah was accustomed to seeing in the Spirit Realm. The walls were a uniform stone gray, each brick rugged and worn as if they had been hand carved from the mountain long ago. There was still a distinct chill in the air, even after the stone doors had swung shut behind them, but compared to the mountain beyond those doors it was downright comfortable.

Two staircases broke up the room, adjoined at the center by a platform with separate steps to the upper landing. Centered on the landing was an open archway beyond which Noah could make out the beginnings of a hallway that appeared to lead to the interior of the castle.

While there were doors on the bottom level where he, Miyuki, and Yukihiro stood, each was latched and bolted. There were no guards or servants that Noah could immediately discern. Noah frowned. Strange. All deities had their own preferences for what kind of estate they made the seat of their territory, but this was Noah’s first time seeing an entry hall that was so lifeless. Compared to the hustle and bustle Noah was familiar with, this place was empty enough to appear abandoned.

The entry hall was quiet enough that Noah could make out the distinct sound of footsteps approaching from the upper hallway.

“Human, human, bow your head!” the snow spirits whispered, bowing their own heads meekly as a tall, imposing man approached from the upper landing.

At a glance, Noah knew that this must be Sir Ezra—the one that they’d been so terrified of disappointing. The older yokai’s face was lined with age and his slick black hair was peppered with gray, but his dark eyes were unmistakably sharp. He didn’t look wholly human in the same way the children did. Verdant green scales dotted his skin, jutting out from its surface like jeweled adornments. His eyes were distinctly serpentine.

The way he held himself had Noah straightening his own posture, increasingly aware that he cut a much sorrier figure in his haggard, snow-crusted robes.

“Ah, Lord Astraeus. I am honored to welcome you into Ashbluff,” the man said. “I apologize for our poor show of hospitality. If I had known it was you, I would have taken more appropriate measures to make sure you were properly received.”

The name Ashbluff did nothing to illuminate or clarify the identity of the mountain deity, every bit as foreign as everything else Noah had encountered thus far, but Ezra seemed unsurprised to see him. “You know who I am?”