“There’s nothing I can do for her,” Winter pointed out. “Right? We’re just waiting until she wakes up?”
Moon looked down at her claws, leaving the “if she wakes up” unsaid.
“None of you can come with us to the Ice Kingdom anyway,” Winter said. “You should go back to Jade Mountain.”
“No way,” Qibli said, and Moon glanced up at him in surprise. “We have to find the lost city of night. Remember the thunder and ice? Earth shaking, ground being scorched, all of that? I don’t know about you, but I’m in favor of that prophecy not coming true. Now that we’ve found Hailstorm, I say it’s time to get on top of the whole saving-the-world thing.”
“That’s what I was going to do!” Moon cried. “I’ve been having these awful nightmares every night — I mean, worse than ever. I’ve got to figure out the prophecy … but I wasn’t sure if anyone would want to come with me.”
“Um, me,” Qibli said, waving a wing at himself as though that was as obvious as the sun. “Sign me up.”
Moon turned hopeful eyes toward Winter. “Maybe after you take Hailstorm home?” she asked. “Then you could come back and we could all look for the lost city of night together.”
He wanted to say yes. He wasn’t even sure which reason was strongest. Was it because he believed the world needed saving? Because he wanted to protect Jade Mountain?
Or because he couldn’t stand the idea of Moon and Qibli searching Pyrrhia, alone, together?
“I … I can’t,” he said.
Ah, that was why: because he hadn’t wanted to watch her face do this, this crumbling into disappointment.
But there were fifty thousand reasons why he couldn’t say yes — reasons like Moon’s safety if Winter’s parents found out about her; reasons like needing to prove his loyalty to the IceWings and struggle back into the rankings. Reasons like his own sanity.
“I can’t,” he said again. All at once he was aware of Hailstorm standing behind him, listening. Hailstorm’s blue eyes, watching Winter’s next move. “Listen, get this into your head. I’m an IceWing.” He hated that it came out sounding almost like a question. He wasn’t like Hailstorm; he knew who he was.
“I’m an IceWing,” he said again, firmly. “That means I belong in the Ice Kingdom with my own tribe. I should never have gone to Jade Mountain. This prophecy, if it’s even real, has nothing to do with me, and I should have nothing to do with you.”
“But,” Moon said, “I thought —” She reached toward him, her dark eyes puzzled and hurt.
“What, that we were friends?” Winter spat, shoving her talons away. “We can’t be friends.” We can’t be anything. We can never, never be what I dream of us being. “You’re my sworn enemy, NightWing. I never asked for you to follow me around.”
“Hey,” Qibli said. He sounded genuinely angry. “Don’t talk to her like that. She helped you find your brother and she risked her life to do it. What is wrong with you?”
“It’s all right,” Moon said, brushing Qibli’s wing with her own. Her eyes flickered to Hailstorm, close behind Winter. “He’s striking first, that’s all. Winter, I believe that you’re one of the best, bravest, truest dragons in Pyrrhia. I’ll never be your enemy, no matter what you say. But go ahead and leave, if that’s what you want.”
It’s not what I want. His chest felt as if it might burst, spilling shattered ice everywhere. It’s how things have to be.
“We’ll wait for you,” Qibli said. “Right here, in case you change your mind and realize that stopping a big world-destroying prophecy is what you were hatched to do.”
“Don’t bother,” Winter said, hoping his cold snarl was still as intimidating as he’d once been able to make it.
“One week,” Moon said, glancing at Qibli for confirmation. “We can wait one week, and then we’re leaving.”
“Then you’re idiots! I don’t care!” Winter nearly shouted. Why did it have to be so impossible? How could they still even want to be his friends when he was pushing them away so hard? “Three moons! Leave me alone!”
He turned to Hailstorm. “Let’s go.”
As he spread his wings and leaped into the sky, Qibli called, “Don’t be a stranger.”
And he thought he heard Moon say, “We’ll miss you.”
Hailstorm soared into the lead, his wings glittering silver-and-white with reflections of rose from the setting sun ahead of them. He grinned over his shoulder at his little brother — the first happy expression Winter had seen from him all day.
Winter forced himself to look forward. He would not look back at the garden, at the black and pale yellow dragons watching him go.
He would not admit to himself that he would miss them, too.
He would ice over the hole in his chest, the way he’d cleared out the Pyrite memories.
Ahead were his parents and Queen Glacier, and he would need to be perfect again before he faced them.
The Ice Kingdom was waiting for him.
Winter and Hailstorm reached the southern border of the Ice Kingdom the next day at twilight. A few stars and one claw-shaped moon were already glimmering in the violet sky. Winter could see the Great Ice Cliff that marked the border, stretching from one horizon to the other in a sheer unbroken line.
Hailstorm squinted at it as they approached. “Is that a wall?” he asked. “What’s the point of that? A wall can’t keep out dragons.”
“You don’t remember the Great Ice Cliff?” Winter replied, startled. “It’s probably our oldest animus gift.”
Hailstorm shrugged. “Seems like a waste of magic,” he said. “We’re going to fly right over it.”
“Right, because we’re IceWings,” Winter said. “But if we were from any other tribe, the Great Ice Cliff would shoot icicle spears at us and most likely kill us. It’s secret defensive magic — the other tribes don’t know about it. Usually no one else ventures this far north anyway. But if they did, they’d get a chilly, pointy surprise.”
Hailstorm balked in midair. “What if it doesn’t let me past?” he cried.
“It will,” Winter said, a little irritated. “You’re an IceWing, Hailstorm. The wall will recognize that … and so will everyone else.”
His brother did not look convinced. But some of his old bravado seemed to be coming back; even if he was scared, he was clearly determined not to show it.
Of course the wall did not react as they flew over it. Winter remembered the last time it had gone off, a year and a half ago when one of Blaze’s SandWings had apparently decided to wrap herself in a few blankets and explore the mysterious Ice Kingdom. They’d found her what must have been days later, on the north side of the wall. She was half buried in a snowdrift with a spear through her heart, her sky-colored blankets frozen to her scales, so at first they thought she was a SeaWing.
Other than that, the wall had been quiet for Winter’s entire life. The other tribes didn’t know about it, but they did know about the subzero temperatures and freezing wind in the Ice Kingdom. Even during the War of SandWing Succession, no one had dared send troops into their territory. It would have been a complete massacre if they had.
Which made Winter think about the animus who had built and enchanted the wall thousands of years ago. The gift of defense, it was called. Was it worth it at the time? Were there more attacks on the kingdom back then? Were there dragons from other tribes who had figured out how to survive in the arctic cold, long enough to stage an invasion, at least?
Or perhaps the animus was looking forward, not back. Perhaps he anticipated a day when some other tribe’s animus might craft heat-generating armor that could carry soldiers into the farthest reaches of the north.
(But even if someone did that — why conquer a land you couldn’t possibly live in?)
In any case, if Winter were an animus dragon, building a wall like that would not have been his major contribution to IceWing society.
The Ice Kingdom didn’t need defensive magic; what it needed now was something to help t
hem conquer other tribes. If they still had animus dragons, they could have won the War of SandWing Succession in no time at all, and then all the territory Blaze had promised Queen Glacier would now be theirs. More important, no IceWing soldiers would have had to die … and Hailstorm would never have ended up as Scarlet’s prisoner.
It all goes back to Foeslayer. If she had never stolen Prince Arctic, imagine how powerful we could be now. We’d have another two thousand years of animus gifts. We could have been the rulers of all Pyrrhia! We’d definitely have something that helped us in battle — exploding snowballs that kill every dragon they touch, or maps that tell us exactly where all our enemies are, or diamonds that hypnotize every other queen into surrendering to us.
When he thought of the IceWing lives lost in the war, and for nothing in the end, he wished he could climb back through time, find an animus IceWing — maybe the one who wasted her gift on defense — and force her to make something that would wipe out all the NightWings at once.
Uneasiness whispered through his bones at that thought … a thought he’d had a hundred times before. But now he could picture the NightWings in their ramshackle rainforest village, trying to rebuild after the horrors of the volcano. He could remember the shivering dragonet in the wingery and the protective parents he’d seen, including Moon’s mother.
It was actually completely terrifying to think that any dragon with magic could easily wipe out an entire tribe with just one enchanted object.
It was even more terrifying to realize that your own tribe no longer had that magic — but your worst enemies did. Why hadn’t the NightWings used animus power to destroy the IceWings long ago? Did they have so little control over their animus dragons — or so little vision of what their stolen magic could do?
He worried around these questions as he and Hailstorm flew over the snowy landscape, dotted with sheer cliffs and pure blue lakes, and the sky grew darker and darker. A couple of white owls swept past below them, pale flickers, like moths in the moonlight, screeching to each other. A herd of shaggy caribou surrounded one of the lakes, stamping nervously as the dragons passed overhead. Winter thought about grabbing one to eat, but they’d already stopped earlier that day to hunt and now, with home so close, he just wanted to get there and face the queen already.
It was close to midnight when they saw the lights of Queen Glacier’s palace ahead of them, shimmering blue-green-silver, like captured starlight. The dark ocean acted as a mirror, sending the same lights dancing in blurred mimicry around the base of the palace. A galaxy of smaller lights spiraled out in five curved arms from the palace, illuminating the dwellings of lower aristocrats, the training schools that were open all night, and the shimmering ice sculpture gardens.
Winter heard Hailstorm catch his breath beside him.
“It’s beautiful,” he murmured. “I’d forgotten …”
“Wait until you see it up close,” Winter said, his chest swelling with pride. The Ice Kingdom was beautiful, without question.
He wished he could show it to Moon.
But she would never get past the Great Ice Cliff alive — and his parents would send her to the bottom of a frozen lake if she did.
They swooped down to land at the grand entrance of the palace, a set of crystal-studded gates about halfway up the central keep. The gates were carved in the shape of giant dragon wings, matching the small ice sculptures of dragons and wings and talons that topped all the columns and finials.
Although it was possible to fly over the palace walls straight into the interior courtyards, it was considered gauche and therefore career suicide. According to protocol, visitors waited at the gates to be admitted.
Queen Glacier’s astonishing palace was also animus-touched — the gift of splendor, designed, built, and enchanted centuries ago by a pair of animus twins, with magic that ensured its walls of ice would never melt, never crack, and never be harmed by outside attack. It soared miles into the air, with towers and balconies and spires that pierced the clouds. There were so many rooms on so many levels that Winter, who had lived there his entire life, had never seen them all.
A low-ranked guard stood outside the gates, wearing the chain of five concentric silver circles that marked him as Fifth Circle in the adult rankings. His posture and form were perfect, although his eyelids were drooping dangerously. He snapped to attention as they landed, stamping his spear twice.
“Nephews of Queen Glacier,” Winter announced, although he was sure the guard must recognize them. He hesitated. IceWing etiquette demanded that the higher-ranked dragon should be introduced first — but Hailstorm wasn’t even listed in the rankings anymore. His name had been scratched out along with all the other murdered IceWing prisoners. But surely the correct introduction was still “Hailstorm and Winter,” wasn’t it?
The guard saved him the trouble. “Hailstorm?” He blinked and rubbed his eyes violently. “Aren’t you Hailstorm?”
“I guess,” Hailstorm answered, in the least convincing tone of voice possible.
The guard couldn’t hide how rattled he was, although he did his best. “My apologies, sir,” he said, bowing. “We believed you were dead. It is a wondrous day indeed that you are returned to us.”
“We should report straight to the queen,” Winter said. “She’ll want to be woken for this, if she’s not still awake.”
Thousands of years ago, IceWings must have been restricted to daylight hours. (Or, as some speculated, perhaps their night vision had once been stronger — but nobody said that too loud, lest it sound like criticism of the animus gifts or the royal family.) But ever since the gift of light, they could stay up all night long if they wanted to, and many of them did, seizing every hour they could for working and training.
“Queen Glacier is on a diplomatic mission,” the guard said, flinching in a strange, embarrassed way. “Her brother Narwhal is overseeing palace matters in her absence. Right now he is at work on the rankings in the courtyard.”
Our father, Winter thought. Beside him, Hailstorm’s wings twitched.
“Thank you,” Winter said to the guard with a small nod. The older IceWing looked slightly outraged, but he stepped aside and let them pass without further comment.
It wasn’t until they were through the gates that Winter realized he might have handled that interaction entirely wrong. He’d approached it with his last known rank in mind — he’d been in the Second Circle the day he left for Jade Mountain Academy. But perhaps his position had slipped in his time away … especially if Queen Glacier knew what had happened with Icicle. If he’d fallen into a circle below that of the guard, Winter should have been much more deferential. But surely it couldn’t have dived so low in just a few weeks … could it? Into the Sixth Circle? Winter had only ever gone that low after Hailstorm’s capture.
Hailstorm was silent as they flew through the vast entrance hall, spiraling down toward the three arched openings that led to the central courtyard. Winter glanced sideways at him, wondering if the familiar surroundings were helping clarify his memories.
All around them, pale blue stars seemed to be drifting slowly through the otherwise bare, translucent walls of the palace. It wasn’t until you got close to the walls that you could see the small glass snowflakes encased in the ice, glowing silvery blue as they fell, mimicking the weather outside.
This was the gift of elegance, which Winter appreciated for its beauty but thought was a waste of magic. The phosphorescent snowflakes must have been created in a time when IceWings were comfortable and didn’t need anything more urgent — a time when they thought they would always have animus dragons.
Or perhaps it was enchanted by an animus who was artistic but not very practical. IceWing history included a few animus dragons who chose their gifts against the wishes of their queens.
The gift of subsistence was one — a trio of holes in the ice located on the outskirts of the kingdom, where the poorest, weakest IceWings could reach into the dark ocean beneath and always pull out a sea
l. No ice dragon who cared about the rankings (in other words, no aristocrat) would ever accept food that came so easily to their claws, however. It was a gift that only benefited the lowest of the kingdom, which made it seem narrow-minded and useless to all the IceWings Winter knew.
But perhaps it would seem like a kinder, wiser gift in the eyes of other tribes — RainWings, for instance, who took care of one another so easily and had apparently no hierarchy at all. Winter thought uncomfortably of all the dragons in Possibility, like the wounded MudWing, who could use a source of food like that.
Stop thinking about other tribes. Father will smell doubt on you.
Winter had once dreamed that he was an animus dragon, and in his dream, he gave his tribe the gift of observation: a scavenger den in the Ice Kingdom constructed so the scavengers could survive without freezing. A perfect setup for Winter to study them.
That was probably another example of a gift that a queen wouldn’t approve of.
A couple of dragons in the hall did a double take as the brothers flew by, but Hailstorm didn’t seem to notice. He swept unerringly through the center archway into the snow-covered courtyard, a vast space dominated by the two most important animus gifts in IceWing history: the gifts of light and order.
As a young dragonet, Winter had loved to climb the tree of light. His small, serrated claws would dig into the ice of the trunk and propel him up into the branches, where he could curl up and pretend he was sitting on one of the moons. Sometimes he would imagine he was the animus who’d created the tree — a dragon named Frostbite, according to his history tutor, who had spent more time and care on her gift than perhaps any other animus the tribe had ever seen.
She hadn’t enchanted the ice to sculpt itself, like the designers of the palace or the Great Ice Cliff. She’d spent years painstakingly carving the tree with her own claws, each branch and twig and frost-kissed leaf.
For the first time, Winter wondered if Frostbite had left the Ice Kingdom for a while to study real trees. He’d spent enough time in actual forests now to realize that she had gotten the details exactly right.