The Arctic Circle.
The ice-blue sky hung high above like an enormous canvas. Faint sunlight scattered golden fragments across the snow-white earth, doing its best to offer this land of extreme cold the scant warmth it could. The surrounding waters had not frozen over completely, but they were littered with drifting ice.
The Arctic Circle was already one of the most deserted places on Earth, and at this time of year, even fewer ships passed through. There was not a soul within hundreds of nautical miles of the white ice fields, and temperatures nearing minus twenty degrees Celsius were enough to drive away most living creatures. As for people like Jay and Kara, who dared stroll across the ice wearing only skintight suits and red capes, only one word could describe them: monsters.
But there was nothing bad about that. Far from bustling, noisy streets, amid this freezing world of ice and snow, the ice-blue sky and the sea scattered with floes stretched together into a single horizon. It felt as though they were the only two people in this flawless white world. Could there have been a more romantic setting?
Well, they had not actually come here on a date. After Jay followed Kara for quite a while, their destination—a massive palace of ice and snow—suddenly came into view. It was a castle rising amid the ice and snow, concealed by surrounding glaciers and colored so similarly to the frozen landscape that it was easy to overlook. Its outer walls seemed to be made of some kind of crystal, giving off a faint crystalline gleam beneath the Arctic sun.
A circular composite-alloy door twice their height stood before them. A black "S" symbol was emblazoned in its center, the emblem of the building's owner. Jay took a deep breath