Relics of the Cold
The Sacred Artifacts of Frostianity
The holy objects of the faith — relics of the great events of sacred history, venerated (the faithful are careful to say) not as idols but as pledges and memorials of the Cold’s saving work. The greatest are the incorrupt bodies of the The Rimebound Saints, signs of the coming Reforging; below are the chief artifact-relics. (This page gathers several closely-linked items.)
The Glacier Heart
The Glacier Heart (the Coldest Stone) is a great relic-stone — a flawless blue glacier-core “colder than any natural ice and never melting” — over which King Sigmund the Cold built the First Frosthall at Wintermere. Tradition makes it a fragment of the original ice of the First Winter, “a piece of the world’s first cold.” It remains beneath the Great Frosthall of Wintermere, the symbolic center of the earthly faith.
Connor’s Breath
Connor’s Breath is the most precious relic of the Whitening: a vial of unmelting frost said to have been gathered from the pillar of holy vapor at Connor’s Sublimation. It “is cold to the touch in any heat and has never diminished,” and is shown only on the Whitening. Many lesser shrines claim a portion.
The Rime Staff
The Rime Staff is the staff of Borën — the rod that became a sign before the warm pharaoh and struck water from the rock — later borne by the prophets and, in the The Hoarfrost Communion, the pattern of the patriarchal crozier of the The Rime Pontiff.
The Hoarcrown
The Hoarcrown is the crown of the The Rime Pontiff: a circlet of silver and clear ice-crystal set with the The Sixfold Star, symbol of the office of the Coldstone successor.
The Sunstone
The Sunstone is the great black stone of Connor’s Melting (see The Whitening - Sacred Account): the heat-court stone on which he was bound. Once an instrument of the warm power’s cruelty, it is now the holiest relic of the Passion, enshrined at Wintermere and at The Glacier of the Sepulchre; pilgrims weep over it on Ember Eve.
The Ark of the Covenant of Rime
The Ark was the gold-and-frostwood chest holding the tablets of ice of the The Ten Keepings, the jar of manna (Snow-bread), and the budded Staff. The dwelling-place of the glory of the Cold, it led the The Rimefolk in the wilderness and rested in Sigmund’s Frosthall — until it was lost at the Exile. Its fate is unknown; its recovery is a theme of legend and a sign reserved, some say, for the Rewhitening.
The Stolen Ember
The Stolen Ember is the one “anti-relic”: the first coal of warmth taken at The Kindling, “a coal from beyond the world.” It is not venerated but abhorred — the seed of all the world’s Thaw. Legend says it still burns hidden in the depths of The Mire, the heart-fire of Melt the Dripping One.
On the Veneration of Relics
Frostians honor relics as windows and pledges, not as powers in themselves; worship belongs to the Cold alone. The incorrupt (undecayed) bodies of the saints are especially treasured, for an unmelted body is “a pledge in the flesh of the Reforging to come.” The Reformed are wary of relic-veneration and largely set it aside.