Once, long ago, a great festival of peace was held between the Winter Court and the Council of Thunder. High atop the misty peaks of Thunderdrum Mountain, a fair was erected. Rides, games, food of all kinds, and a great big top tent where skilled performers from the Winterwood and the Maelstrom performed with great skill. It was a celebration of a hundred cultures, a time of joy. All nestled just below the eye of the everstorm. A storm which had been going on since time immemorial. 

Races of all kinds attended the festivities. Delegations of Kaimdarin, Qualdarin, and Sildarin met as long-lost brothers would. The Wintarai, the most respected of all Ice beings, were joined by their Krampus allies in meeting with the Marid royalty and the Camazoti Emperor. There were feasts, dances, and even talks of unions between kingdoms to establish lasting peace now that the great sky wars had come to a merciful end. 

 One particular guest of honor was the Herald of the Winter Court, none other than Jack Frost himself. He, along with several other nobles of the Wintarai, or Frost Sprites, and their spouses were in attendance. They shared their skills and magic freely.  In a show of joy and skill, Jack created a sculpture of a Frost Sprite youth from never melt-ice. It was a beautiful piece, meant to be a gift to the Council of Storms. But this was not meant to be. 

Not long after the sculpture was completed, the everstorm awoke. The purest of lightning crashed down into the celebration. It tore at the wind and the fairgrounds. Burning the big top and causing a pause in the celebrations. Thankfully, none were harmed in the awakening of the storm. 

 Though it caused much damage, it also did something quite unexpected. The lightning, charged with the purest Storm energies, struck the sculpture. The fragile ice erupted with pale purple light. A frigid mist engulfed the square. When the mist cleared, a youngling lay in a heap, surrounded by thin shards of ice. Long black curls just barely concealed pale purple eyes. He lay upon the ground weak and trembling. 

At first, Jack was frozen with shock, but sensing a familial bond he rushed forward to conceal the boy’s shivering form with his cloak. It was a miracle, an absolute marvel. A Frost Sprite born of Jack Frost’s magic and the power of the everstorm. Onlookers from all races stared at the boy in wonder. Jack’s partner, Peter, took the boy into his arms, and together they retreated to their home. Jack and his family nursed the boy to health, taking him in as one of their own. Joltian is what they called him, Joltian Frost. 

In time, Joltian displayed many powers that proved his lineage; riding the winter winds, skin cold as snow, and spreading frost from his fingertips. He would be trained by the greatest masters of magic in the Winter Court when he came of age. But, not all was well.

 Soon, it was discovered that the Spite’s element was not of Ice, but Storm. His power manifested violently, wracking his body with pain and unleashing volatile arcs of energy. It erupted from his body with terrible force, crippling him. Joltian’s body had always been frail, but this new power drove him to the edge. His very form began to crack like the surface of a lake in the early thaw.

A terrible sickness settled over the boy, one that had not been seen in a hundred thousand years. Joltian could not eat, nor could he sleep. He was plagued by terrible pain and a volatile fever. The storm raging in his body yearned for release. Crackling energy escaped from the cracks in his skin whenever they could. 

 Jack called on every favor he had and every doctor or healer he knew of. Experts from the Winter Court, the Labyrinth, and even the Mortal Realm were summoned to Joltian’s side. The finest physicians in the realms could not stabilize Joltian’s fracturing body. The finest healers could do nothing while the youth’s magic raged. The finest experts in magic could not figure out a way to settle the raging storm. Now even the most skilled elementals could not take the storm from him.

Even a gifted Soul Monger of the Promethean race was brought in. According to their ancestral knowledge, lightning was what had given Joltian life, and to alter it could mean the boy's death. The great nobles from the many Faekind Courts tried to save him. The queens of the Seelie, Unseelie, and Winter Courts tried in vain. The three great healers from the North tried their hands but were met with failure. Not even Peter Cotton’s magic could pull Joltian from the throes of agony. The sickness, the fever, the pain of his body cracking. Eventually, Joltian simply could not continue on. His body was worn out, and his mind was delirious with fever. Joltian passed in the night. 

Jack was nearly overcome with sorrow. In his grief, the full force of winter was unleashed in a far corner of the Glasswood. For three months Jack served as the eye of a terrible blizzard. Mercifully, none were killed in his rampage, but still, a scar was left deep in the earth. Shattered glasswood trees still mark the spot, and in the center of the carnage still stands a spire of dark ice.

That desolate land in the Glasswood is now called Jack’s Requiem. 

Joltian’s remains were sealed within a crystal coffin and laid to rest in the place of his birth, beneath the everstorm on the peak of Thunderdrum Mountain. It was set in the very stones of the Thunderdrum. A tombstone was erected above, carved from never-melt ice. There, in the language of the sprites, are the following. 

“Here lieth the remains of one Joltian Frost. Son of the Herald and of the everstorm. May he rest, eternal.”

Lightning never strikes near his resting place, only light rain kisses the crystal casing as if also mourning the boy’s loss. Even now, it is said he has never met the kiss of rot and merely lies preserved under the lightning flashes. His staff, a part of his very being as it is with all Frost Sprites, is displayed in the halls of remembrance, in the Winter Court. 

Joltian’s birth and death rocked the realms and their people. It sparked both wonder and aching grief in all who came to know him. He is honored now beyond death as a lost Saint of Winter.

May he rest, eternal.