Hailstorm glanced back at Winter once or twice with a frown, as if he’d expected Winter to choose a different path. But Winter did not want to wander this labyrinth alone, with no way to know if Hailstorm had completed the task yet or not. Better to stick together and know for sure.
They wandered for hours, perhaps in circles, perhaps in spirals ever downward. Winter was beginning to wonder if the frozen dragon even existed at all when they came out of a narrow tunnel and found the river chasm before them.
This had to be it — a wide slash in the ice ahead of them, with sheer walls that plunged down into a darkness that echoed with the rushing sound of a river.
Winter lifted his moon globe higher, scanning the cave, and felt a terrible chill run through his veins.
The cave was filled with frozen dragons. Nearly a hundred of them glittered in the moon globe’s light — some on this side of the chasm, but most of them on the other side. The one closest to him looked like an ordinary IceWing with an almost cheerful expression on his face, stepping toward Winter as though he were about to saunter out the door.
But others were frozen in positions of terror, their talons covering their faces or their wings flung out as though they were trying to leap away. And he could see a few that had clearly been fighting when they were frozen, wearing expressions of fury.
There were no other ways in or out, apart from the chasm and the tunnel behind him. Eerie blue bubbles morphed and twisted within the shining ice walls, moving as though the cave itself was breathing.
Which statue was the frozen dragon? Which one were they supposed to touch with the spear?
Hailstorm was staring around at the ice sculptures as though he were one of them. Winter took a step into the cave and noticed a sparkling pile of crushed ice near the entrance. He nudged his moon globe toward it, wondering why the pile was so big — and then he saw a dragon’s talon buried in the ice with a few of its claws snapped off.
Maybe this one had been midflight when he was frozen, and he smashed to pieces when he fell to the ground. Or maybe whoever froze him decided to finish the job by bashing his frozen corpse to smithereens.
Winter shuddered, his tail spikes rattling along the floor.
Suddenly Hailstorm leaped forward. Winter whirled and saw him racing toward a dragon on the far side of the chasm — a dragon larger than any of the others with her claws outstretched and her wings flared.
Hailstorm sailed across the gap, landed, pivoted, and struck the statue with his spear. It all happened in a moment, like a burst of lightning. By the time Winter landed beside him, Hailstorm was in battle position, brandishing the spear against whatever happened next.
A crackling sound came from the dragon.
And then, slowly, bits of ice began to break off, splintering into falling shards and shattering against the floor.
The frozen dragon comes to life, Winter realized. It made sense. Then we fight her, and she kills one of us, and the other wins. He looked around at the frozen statues and winced. Or she freezes one of us. These must be all the dragons who’ve lost the Trial.
And I could be one of them soon.
He looked back at the large frozen dragon and realized that she was not actually made of ice. She was encased inside the ice, and as her prison came apart, he saw her scales, and they were dark as a moonless night.
This was a NightWing.
She pulled in her wings and then flung out her claws, shaking the last of the ice off. Only two spots still glittered against her scales — a pair of shackles around her back ankles, although they didn’t seem to be connected to anything.
With a hiss, she turned in a circle, then whipped around to drop the full force of her glare on the princes.
“Oh, good,” she rasped in a hoarse voice. “More IceWing dragonets with spears.”
“I’m here to kill you,” Hailstorm announced, without a tremor of insecurity in his voice.
“Aren’t you all,” she said drily. “Shall we introduce ourselves first?”
Hailstorm and Winter exchanged glances. Was that normal? Conversation with a creatively imprisoned NightWing?
“I’m Prince Winter,” said Winter after an awkward pause. “And this is my brother, Hailstorm.”
“Brothers, oh my, how devastating,” said the NightWing. “Welcome to my prison. I am Foeslayer.”
Winter started back, his head reeling.
Foeslayer?
The same Foeslayer who stole the IceWing animus prince, Arctic?
The mother of Darkstalker?
“You’ve heard of me,” she observed with a hint of amusement.
“That’s — you’re — you don’t mean —” Winter couldn’t seem to put words together.
“Yes,” the NightWing said. “Your ancient and terrible enemy. Everyone is always surprised. I want to know what the point is of abducting and freezing your archnemesis and then never telling anyone about it? Don’t you want to shout it from the clouds? So everyone will know how dangerous and powerful you are?”
“You can’t be alive after all this time, though,” Winter finally managed to get out.
She folded in her wings. A curl of smoke rose from her snout. After a moment she said, “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know how long it’s been. I’ll never see them again anyway.” Her tail flicked toward the icy cave walls. “It’s part of your queen’s gift, IceWing. I have been frozen in time, so I only age in the moments when I’m unfrozen like this. The plan, evidently, is to keep me here a very, very long time.”
Thousands of years, Winter thought, aghast. She’s been down here for two thousand years already.
“The gift of vengeance,” he said. But Queen Diamond had already given the tribe her gift, long before her son was stolen. Which meant she must have used her animus magic again to create this prison. Had it driven her mad? He couldn’t remember anything in the history books about what happened to her after Prince Arctic was gone.
“Indeed,” said Foeslayer. “You could say my mother-in-law and I have a … complicated relationship.”
He heard the scratch of claws on ice behind him, and then suddenly there was a blur of blue-white motion. Hailstorm launched himself at Foeslayer, swinging the spear around to stab her through the heart.
The NightWing dodged aside and seized the spear, jerking it out of his talons. Hailstorm caught his balance, whirled, and attacked again. His claws slashed at her throat and she slammed the blunt end of the spear against his side, knocking him into the wall.
With a roar he was up again, this time seizing her tail and clambering up it onto her back. He sank his fierce claws into the flesh between her shoulder blades and heaved up as though he was trying to yank out her spine.
Foeslayer shrieked and threw herself into a roll, tucking her wings and landing heavily on Hailstorm. He lost his grip on her amid an explosion of sharp cracks, which sounded to Winter like bones snapping.
The NightWing leaped free again and came straight at Hailstorm while his underbelly was exposed. Her back talons pinned down his tail, and she raised the spear to impale him through the heart.
Winter threw himself at her without a second thought, tackling her to the ground. They rolled and twisted and slid across the icy floor, kicking at each other with their claws.
“You idiot!” she yelled at him. His head bashed into the cave wall and tears of pain sprang into his eyes. “Do IceWings get dumber every year? Don’t you want to win?”
He flung her off so hard she spun across the ice and nearly slid over the edge into the chasm.
“That’s not what I want!” Winter shouted. “I don’t want to win if it means Hailstorm has to die!” He whirled to face his brother, who was on his feet and panting, his sides splattered with red and blue blood. “What are we fighting for? A number on a wall? Your life is more important to me than the rankings, Hailstorm.”
Hailstorm growled. “I would have said the same thing, brother,” he said. “But I sacrificed myself for you once
already, and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. You can’t imagine how it feels to know what I’ve done — to have these memories in my head.” He clawed at his temples. “I want my life back. I want my self back. And I won’t get it if I reach my hatching day in last place. I have to be first again.”
The old, familiar guilt was surging back through Winter. My fault, my fault, my fault.
“I didn’t think it would be you I’d have to destroy in order to get back to first,” Hailstorm admitted. “But it had to be someone. I won’t be a traitor to my tribe anymore. When I’m number one, I can prove it.”
Winter looked back at Foeslayer, who had slowly risen to her feet and was listening with a curious expression.
“Is there any other way?” he asked her. “A way we can both live?”
“I’m not the right dragon to ask,” she said. “Frankly I’d rather see you all dead.”
“I’ll take last place,” Winter said to Hailstorm. “What if we told the queen that? Would she let us switch?”
Hailstorm snorted. “Where’s the honor in that for me?” he asked. “No, they won’t agree to it. If we both come out of the caves, they’ll just kill one of us — and probably leave the other in last place.” He picked up the spear Foeslayer had dropped and twisted it between his talons.
The NightWing breathed a jet of flame that melted the wings of the statue closest to her. “This is very moving, but would one of you please kill me already?” She paced toward them, her dark eyes reflecting the light of their moon globes. “I’m tired, I haven’t eaten in hundreds of years, and these days it’s more painful to be awake than to go through the process of dying again.”
“Dying?” Winter asked.
“Yes,” she said, stopping in front of them and spreading her wings. “You stab me, I die painfully, and then I go back to being frozen until someone wakes me up again. It’s a cunning enchantment. The first forty times, Queen Diamond killed me herself.” Foeslayer let out a bitter chuckle. “I suspect the original point of the spell was that she wasn’t satisfied with killing me just once. But then the forty-first time, there were two dragonets here … so she must have decided I could be used for this other purpose, whatever you two are here for.”
“So you just get murdered over and over again?” Winter asked.
“That’s my punishment.” Foeslayer shrugged eloquently. “Here’s some advice for you — never make an animus angry.”
Winter turned to Hailstorm, puzzled. “Then how did all these other dragons get frozen? Maybe that’s part of the spell, too. One kills Foeslayer, and then the other one freezes?” It seemed more complicated than the usual animus spell.
Hailstorm’s eyes were fixed on the spear. “You do it,” he said gruffly. “You kill her.”
“No,” Winter said. “Hailstorm, you’re right. You’ve already sacrificed yourself for me. I’ve been waiting for two years to make it up to you.”
“Winter —” Hailstorm said.
“I’m not going to be responsible for your death a second time,” Winter insisted. “It’s my turn. And let’s face it, this is what Mother and Father would want.”
Hailstorm winced, but didn’t argue.
“Just be a great IceWing,” Winter said. “Help keep the tribes at peace. That’s what I would want.”
“This is peculiar,” Foeslayer spoke up. “But not as peculiar as you might think. I’ve seen a surprising amount of this ‘I’ll die for you!’ ‘No, I’ll die for you!’ ‘No, let me be the brave sacrifice!’ nonsense from IceWings over the years.”
“Do it,” Winter said to Hailstorm. “I’m ready.”
“Me too,” said Foeslayer. “As fast and clean as you can, please.”
Hailstorm took the spear, leveled it at Foeslayer’s heart, and drove it swiftly through her chest. She gritted her teeth, her face twisted in pain — and then the ice came crawling up from the shackles on her ankles, freezing her from her tail forward to her wings, neck, and head. Hailstorm pulled the spear free before the ice got there, and Winter saw the wound heal over just before Foeslayer was completely frozen.
He closed his eyes, expecting the world to go dark.
But it didn’t.
Nothing happened at all.
After a moment, he opened his eyes again and saw Hailstorm standing by the edge of the chasm.
“Why didn’t it work?” Winter asked. “I’m not frozen.” He looked around at the other statues. Something whispered in his mind — an explanation, although it still didn’t quite fit together.
“Right,” Hailstorm said. He turned to look at his brother. “That’s because it’s not part of the original enchantment. The spell on the NightWing isn’t what froze these dragons.” He lifted the spear. “That’s what these do. That’s what … that’s what I’m supposed to do to you.”
Winter was silent. Everything was starting to make a kind of awful sense.
“Mother and Father told me earlier today.” Hailstorm’s wings drooped to the floor. “They told me that no matter who killed Foeslayer, I was the one chosen to win. That I was to take this spear and stab you the same way I stabbed her, freezing you like all these other dragons. Then I was guaranteed first place.”
Do they do this every time? Winter wondered. Choose one dragonet to win? Tell only that dragonet the secret of the spears and how to freeze the other?
He shouldn’t have felt surprised, or betrayed. Of course his parents would choose Hailstorm. This was really quite normal, given the patterns of their lives so far.
But it still … it still hurt, deep inside him where he’d thought his family couldn’t hurt him anymore.
Moon, Qibli, and Kinkajou wouldn’t do something like this to me, he thought.
“All right,” he said out loud. “Then I guess that’s what you have to do.” He set down his own spear and braced himself.
“You know I can’t,” Hailstorm snapped. “You’re the one who rescued me. You’re my brother. I’m not going to murder you now, so you’re just going to have to do it to me.” He tossed his spear to Winter, who jumped aside and let it clatter to the ground.
They stared at each other for a long moment as the rush of the river below filled the cavern. All the frozen dragons seemed to be waiting, like a captive audience enjoying the suspense.
“If we can’t kill each other,” Winter said, “maybe we leave it like this. You go out and claim victory, and I wait to sneak out later. We both live.”
Hailstorm shook his head. “As soon as you got home, they’d throw me back into last place, and probably you as well.”
“I won’t go home,” Winter said. He felt a lump forming in his throat, like frostbreath icing over his windpipe. “I’ll stay away from the Ice Kingdom.”
It didn’t sound possible. His whole life was about being an IceWing, being Queen Glacier’s nephew, proving something to Tundra and Narwhal. He believed in the perfection and superiority of the Ice Kingdom. How could he ever be happy anywhere else?
But now he’d been to so many other places — he’d seen the world beyond the Ice Kingdom, and it wasn’t so terrible really.
Because happiness is not where I am … it’s who I’m with.
And he knew exactly who he wanted to be with.
Hailstorm’s claws curled in and out as he thought. He reached out and picked up one of the diamond-tipped spears, and Winter felt a quick bolt of fear that his brother had decided to kill him anyway.
But Hailstorm just bowed and took a step backward.
“Thank you, brother,” he said. “I hope — I hope one day I’ll see you again.”
Winter nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
Hailstorm turned and flew across the chasm. In the entrance to the tunnel he paused, glancing back at Winter … and then he fled, his footsteps echoing behind him.
A long time passed. Winter tried to keep track of the hours in his head, calculating when it would be dawn.
Finally he stood up, stretched, and pick
ed up the other diamond-tipped spear.
Taking a deep breath, he reached out and tapped Foeslayer with it.
The ice around the NightWing cracked and splintered just as it had before, and Foeslayer slowly opened her eyes. Surprise flashed across her face when she saw Winter there.
“This is a first,” she said. “I’ve never been brought back by the same dragonets before. Did you want a chance to kill me, too? Seems a little over the top, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Listen,” Winter said, “I don’t know if you even realize how much you stole from us when you took away our animus magic.”
The gifts of light … of order … and, running like a hidden current through every dragonet’s understanding of himself, the gift of faith in their tribe that came from the indisputable wisdom of how IceWings handled their magic.
“Imagine what our kingdom would be like if we still had animus dragons,” Winter went on. “What else would we have invented?”
“I suspect you wouldn’t have stayed in your little kingdom much longer,” Foeslayer answered him. “Have you considered that your perfect tribe might have used the magic for evil as well as good?”
Was that true? Would we have done something terrible with it? What kind of gift might Queen Glacier have asked for during the War of SandWing Succession?
He shook out his wings. “When you stole Prince Arctic, you stole all our future gifts, everything that we might have become, and I can see why some dragons would think that’s unforgivable.” His scales felt heavier and heavier as he went on. “But … this. This imprisonment, for centuries, keeping you alive only to die over and over again. I feel like … I feel like perhaps you’ve been punished enough.”
Foeslayer turned away from him and rested her talons on one of the frozen dragonets, hiding her face. After a moment she said, in a muffled, fractured voice, “I didn’t steal him.”