The Assassin and the Ice Portal - Part II

Storytime

“The one who stands at the threshold and executes the ending”

For part I: The Assassin and the Ice Portal — IloveInspiration.nl by Haus of Healing

I did not sleep.

Not really.

My body lay still beneath the blankets.

I remained awake and listened.

Watched… and waited…

I sat up slowly.

The sheets were dry now.

No trace of the water.

No sign of what had happened.

I got up, took a shower, and zoned out in front of my window. My skin still carried the cold. It felt as if a frost had settled in my bones.

I meditated for a while. The warmth gradually came back in my body.

After a while, I needed to get up. Get dressed. Just start my day.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. The room tilted for a moment, then steadied. It felt weird. I had to balance myself until the dizziness stopped.

I dressed slowly, and combed my hair. Something had happened to my body.
I just didn’t know what. It always felt like a dream going through the portal, yet my body remembered everything. The ache. The cold. Being deep underwater… coming up through a frozen lake.

I walked into the kitchen to make some tea.

That’s when I saw it.

The kitchen wall was frosted, like winter had crept inside the house. Within seconds it became a full-blown ice wall. I sensed a subtle distortion, like heat rising from asphalt… except this was cold… coming from the wall.

In shock I stepped back. The air shifted. A crack echoed through the room. My breath caught.

“No…” I whispered. I hadn’t called it. I hadn’t spoken the words. But the portal was forming anyway.

A thin line of white light, traced itself across the air. It pulsed once… then spread, fracturing outward like ice crawling over glass.

Thick clouds of freezing breath surged out of the pulsing white line of light. The temperature dropped instantly. My hands trembled. This wasn’t the blade. This wasn’t me either.

The line widened into a doorway. Then it flickered uncontrollably.
And through it… I saw movement.

My hand found a kitchen knife.

The movement consisted of memory flashes. The coastline, palm trees, the castle ruins, the dead old man. Just flashes of them in milliseconds, combined with something darker… Something watching back.

A hand reached through first.

Not fully human. Not entirely strange either. Just… altered. As if it had been stretched across many worlds and forgot which shape it belonged to.

It gripped the edge of the portal.

Pulled.

And then…

He stepped through.

The man in the black suit. Untouched.

As if nothing had happened. As if I hadn’t eliminated his boss.

“You opened it,” he said calmly, adjusting his sleeve while looking at it.

“I didn’t,” I answered.

His eyes lifted to my forehead. “You did.”

A pause.

Then, softer.

“You just don’t know how yet.”

My pulse slowed. I wondered how he got here in my world, and what he knew.

I hadn’t done anything.
And yet, the portal had opened.

I have never opened the portal without the blade. Except the last time when I escaped. I had used my finger to trace a portal underwater. I never expected it to work. It just did.

Now the blade is lost underwater.

I looked at him to read answers, but he was blocking my attempt.

Meanwhile I felt a sense of being watched.

“Hey, let me know something. Why that old man?”

He looked at my forehead and said: “Assignment”.

“If the boss is dead,” I said, “why are you here?”

He almost gave a smile.

“Dead?” he repeated.

“You think that was enough?”

My hand tightened around the knife. Then he stepped closer.

The air between us dropped another degree.

“You think men like him die from a blade?” he whispered.

My stomach tightened.

I straightened myself, even though my body felt off balance. The silence that followed was heavy. The man in black exhaled softly, almost amused.

He looked at my hair, then looked at the ice wall and asked in a whisper: “What name do you go by?”

“Ilka Thecae” I answered.

He practically rolled his eyes. “Thecae”, “The Ace”, he is quite the joker, he said with a stern face.

The warlord took me in 18 years ago. He gave me this name. I did not know who I was. My head was injured badly from an accident. No further details.

Suddenly, he whispered: “The one who stands at the threshold and executes the ending”.

“What do you mean”? I asked.

“You are Hecate and Kali” in one person.

To him, you’re his Ace, apart from the last fuckup. That was not the assignment. Plus, trying to send him to hell will not get you a raise.

Although, the name he gave you, matches quite well…
I see you differently.

For the first time he looked straight at me.

The portal flickered violently.

Something moved behind the ice wall…. Closer. Pressing against it.

The surface of the portal warped, like something on the other side was testing its edges… learning its shape.

I didn’t move. Kept myself as calm as I could.

The man in black faced the portal unbothered.

“You feel it now,” he said quietly.

It wasn’t a question.

My eyes stayed on the distortion. The way it responded.

“I didn’t open this,” I said.

But the words felt thinner now. Less certain.

He took a small step back, giving the portal more space. Or giving me more space.

“You didn’t mean to,” he said, while staring around the kitchen.

A pause.

Then…

“But you did.”

“…What did I actually do?”

The man in black tilted his head slightly.

“You started something.”

Another step closer.

“Now you have to finish it.”

He extended his hand toward me. “Come back,” he said. “He is waiting for you.”

I looked at his hand. Then at the portal. Then I placed my hand on my chest where the cold still lived.

“I’ll think about it,” I said quietly.

His eyes sharpened. Suddenly, behind him, something broke through the ice…

My breath stopped…

To be continued…

Till the next storytime,

Love, Gloria