Ari bites his lip. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t come with me, I’ll just go by myself. At least we could work together, right?”
At that moment, Mama’s voice calls from the window of the hut. “Brynja! It’s late!”
I sigh. “Come on, Ari. Don’t you remember the training we used to do together? It’ll be just like old times.”
“Yeah, and we got in trouble for breaking the rules then, too,” he says. But he smiles a little, and I know I’ve convinced him.
“Meet me at the Point in a few hours, after my family’s asleep,” I say, and after a moment of hesitation, Ari nods.
He heads back up the path to the village, and I trudge inside. Mama doesn’t even pretend not to have been standing at the window spying on us the whole time. “What did that boy want?”
“Seeker Ari,” I say, putting emphasis on the title, “just needed to talk to me about something we’re going to do in the Realm tomorrow.”
“At this time of night? Surely it could wait for the morning,” Mama says, drawing the curtain over the window.
“It was important,” I grumble. Just when I thought Mama was starting to take my job seriously.
She doesn’t think of me as a real Seeker, and neither does anyone else.
I’m just going to have to show them I know what I’m doing. I’ll cure the plague myself, and then everyone will know that I didn’t get this job by chance. I earned this position, and I’m going to prove it.
EIGHT
There you are,” Ari says as I walk up to Dragon’s Point a few hours later. “What took you so long?”
“What does it look like?” I gesture toward the ridiculous outfit I have assembled in preparation for tracking icefoxes. My own coat is a simple wool one that’s fine for winters in the village but will never hold up under the arctic temperatures of the Realm’s glaciers and ice forests. So I had to improvise. Over my coat, I’ve thrown a heavy wool blanket across my shoulders and fastened it with pins from the clothesline. And over that, I’ve added one of Papa’s thickest coats. We traded away his heaviest winter gear when he had to retire as a Seeker, unfortunately, but this coat is still thicker than mine, with a nice double layer of lining on the inside that Mama stitched in for his birthday. It’s way too long on me, though, so I had to roll the ends up and tuck them into a pair of Papa’s pants, which I am wearing over my own, and then tuck the ends of the pants into my snow boots and fasten one of Papa’s belts over the whole thing to keep it all in place.
Ari takes one look at my outfit and laughs.
“Go ahead and tease me,” I grumble. “I haven’t had time to trade for new winter gear yet.”
Ari whistles three clear notes to signal Lilja, and we wait for her to appear.
“So what do you know about icefoxes?” Ari asks as we wait. We haven’t encountered one in the Realm yet, so this will be new for both of us.
“A few things,” I say. I’ve seen drawings of icefoxes in Papa’s journals. While they look a lot like the ordinary red foxes that lurk in the woods around the village, icefoxes have solid white fur that magically grows ice crystals. The crystals don’t bother the foxes, who are impervious to cold anyway, and serve as a defense mechanism, since they can shape them into icy spikes that will wound predators and even shoot ice daggers at potential threats.
More importantly, the crystals have a lot of other properties that are useful for humans. They’re as hard as diamonds and can be used to make tools like blades and saws, but they can also be easily melted down for use in potions and tonics that the village herbalist claims have all sorts of useful properties. And most important of all, icefox crystals are often set in stone to form jewelry that many people believe can ward off dark magic. Not many villagers actually wear icefox crystals like that, but apparently icefox jewelry is a big trend on the mainland, and their traders will give away a small fortune in other goods for the finest of icefox crystals, even if they’re small. Papa once gave Mama a necklace made of the crystals as a wedding present, and it’s her most prized possession.
The good news is that icefox crystals are fairly easy to collect: the foxes are generally friendly and will socialize with humans as long as they’re not made to feel threatened, and they shed the crystals easily.
The bad news is that icefoxes live in the remotest parts of the Realm and aren’t easy to find. They’re clever and skilled at hiding themselves, so it takes a talented Seeker to track them down.
I try to run through everything Papa’s ever told me about them as Lilja arrives. She tilts her head to the side when she sees me, probably trying to figure out why I look so funny. We climb onto her back and soar over the mountains and into the Realm. Ari and I use our gifts to steer her north, toward the glacier fields. Luckily, they’re easy to spot even in the dark: a wide expanse of glittering white ice, gleaming under the light of the moon.
The Realm is so beautiful, and from all the way up here I can truly get a sense of its expanse, of its wide and varying landscapes. There’s the dark, jagged line of the volcanoes surrounded by lava fields, home to dragons and firecats and phoenixes; there are the thick forests to both the west and east of the lava fields, where the most magical plants like starflowers and creatures like unicorns live and flourish; there are the coastal cliffs dotted with gyrpuff nests and sleeping saellons; the cool glacial lakes hiding vatnaveras in their depths; and all of it surrounded by the thundering sea, where the sea wolves hunt and the sarvalurs fill the waves with their song.
There’s so much to see, so much to do, so much to explore. I want to travel every inch of it.
But first things first: it’s time to find some icefoxes.
The glaciers loom before us, and the air turns frigid, causing Lilja to swoop lower and reduce her speed. She’s reluctant to fly here, and I can’t blame her. Dragons are creatures of fire, and sensitive to cold. Plus, there are boundary spells set by the Seekers to keep them out of this territory. Though I doubt we’ve reached the boundary yet, there may be some Seeker magic in the air discouraging Lilja from traveling in this direction.
“We need to land her soon,” Ari says loudly, echoing my thoughts. “We’re about to hit a border.”
I nod and give Lilja a nudge with my gift, encouraging her to descend. We guide her into a landing at the edge of a forest, about a mile or so from the glacier fields. It’ll be a long walk for us, but I’m not sure how much farther she can go, and she’ll be warmer here anyway.
The wind whips my face as Lilja descends, and I’m realizing too late that my makeshift outfit isn’t going to be warm enough. As Lilja thuds into a landing, jostling us, our breath creates fog in the air. I reach into the pocket of Papa’s coat and pull out the ugly knitted hat Mama made him one year, which is far from appealing but does have flaps that hang down and cover my ears. I shove on my only pair of gloves, too, but the right one has holes in two of the fingers.
Ari climbs down from Lilja’s back, and I slide after him. The ice coating the grass crackles beneath my feet. Ari and I both let our gifts flare through our fingers, lighting the landscape surrounding us. An ice forest stretches out to the south and west, every visible tree and branch and twig topped with snow. Directly to the north and east lies a gigantic glacier, a huge sheet of ice spreading almost as far as the eye can see. Only the distant mountain peaks on the horizon provide landmarks in the expanse of white.
“It’s beautiful,” Ari says quietly. He’s right, but that’s not what I’m thinking about.
What I’m thinking is that this is entirely the wrong season to be tracking icefoxes. The warmer summer temperatures mean that there’s less snow sitting on top of the glacier. At this time of year, the top layer of ice will be thinner and slicker. Of course, there’s no need to worry about the ice melting out from under us. The glacier is so massive that it would take years of warm temperatures to melt it. But a slicker surface means it will be slippery, without the help of snow to give our feet more traction,
and there will be no icefox prints. The best time to find icefoxes is in the early spring, right after they first emerge from their dens but while there’s still plenty of snow to show their tracks.
An owl hoots somewhere in the trees, and Lilja’s head swivels toward the sound. “No, Lil,” I say quickly. “You need to stay here.”
Together Ari and I set a quick boundary spell that will keep Lilja within a mile of this spot. Lilja snorts when she recognizes the feel of the spell, and Ari tosses her a berry. “Good dragon.”
Lilja snorts again in response. Probably wondering why we’re standing around in the cold and not giving her enough berries.
“So,” Ari says, “which direction should we start off in?”
“Well, they hibernate in their dens in the caves during the winter, but during other seasons they will trek across the glacier from their dens to the forests, where they hunt. So the icefoxes have probably finished hunting in the forest for tonight and traveled back across the glacier to their dens. If we start walking in the direction of the nearest caves, we should come across signs of them that we can track. And if not, we should check the nearest caves anyway, to see if there might be icefoxes sleeping inside.”
“But how do we know where the nearest caves are?”
I point to the horizon. “We should start to see rock formations that will create natural caves as we get closer to the northern mountain range. So we want to head that way, toward the mountains.”
Ari gestures in that direction. “After you, then.”
I whistle again as we take a few more steps away from Lilja, tossing her a berry when she turns my way. Her eyes look sad and confused as Ari and I head north, and she takes a single, tentative step in our direction.
“Stay there, Lil,” I say. “We’ll be back soon.”
She lets out a low rumble of discontent, never taking her eyes off us. I force myself to turn away and focus on the horizon. She’ll be fine. We won’t be gone for long… probably. Unless we get hopelessly lost and die of frostbite or something.
I shiver and wrap my arms around myself as Ari and I set out across the glacier, surrounded by nothing but a dark expanse of ice. The howl of a sea wolf somewhere in the distance is the only sound aside from our footsteps.
“I haven’t seen any tracks, have you?” I ask after a minute, just to break the silence.
Ari smiles. “Not on bare ice, no.”
I roll my eyes even though he probably can’t see it in the near dark. “I’m not just talking about prints,” I say. “Obviously, there aren’t any, but the foxes leave other traces behind.”
“Like what?”
I point to the rock formation on our left. “Look at the patterns there. The edges of those rocks are jagged, and they aren’t piled very high. Generations of icefoxes may use the same dens for decades or even longer, since they can remember every location they’ve been to. So many years of icefoxes traveling in and out tend to wear down the rock, making it smoother near the entrances of their caves. Like they carve out a little doorway for themselves. And they always prefer formations that are high off the ground and require lots of climbing. They’re nimbler than most predators and want to use their climbing skills to their advantage.”
“Which means…?” Ari says.
“Which means that formation on the left would be a less likely place to find a fox den. Unlike, say, this formation over here, which is taller and looks like it has smoother surfaces up top.”
“Oh,” Ari says, nodding. “That makes sense.”
I grin. “There’s also the fact that there are icefox crystals piled along the rocks.”
“What?” Ari’s head swivels toward the rocks on our right, straining to see. “How can you tell?”
“Look at how much the moonlight sparkles over the rocks there, even in places that should be more shadowed. The light is reflecting in the crystals.”
Ari frowns. “If you say so.”
“You wanted me to share my knowledge,” I say with a smirk. “I can’t help it if it’s too advanced for you.”
Ari glares for a second, but then a slow smile edges onto his face. “Just for that, you’ll pay,” he says. Before I get the chance to respond, he cries, “First one there gets all the crystals!” and takes off.
I race after him, slipping and sliding on the ice, as we approach the den. He has a good head start and longer legs, so there’s no way I’m going to catch him. But there’s also no way he can collect all of the crystals before I get to them. So I veer to the right, heading for a different part of the rock than he is, where the light is especially bright. Ari reaches the rocks first and whoops in triumph, but then scrambles to find crystals when he sees me scoop one up beside him. The crystal is cold even through my gloves, a gleaming shard of ice barely bigger than my thumbnail. An entire rainbow of colors glimmers inside of it, more beautiful than any diamond. I stuff it into my pocket and reach for the next one.
After a few minutes of searching the rocks, we’ve found half a dozen crystals each, just on the lower levels. “Why are there so many?” Ari asks.
“The foxes shed a lot during the summer,” I say. “Some of the crystals melt off during the warmer months. There’s probably a whole lot of these things scattered out on the glacier too; it was just difficult to see them. Easier to spot when they’re all piled together like this, and when you know where to look.”
“Do you want to grab a few more?”
“This should be plenty,” I say. “I didn’t come all this way to see icefox crystals but not icefoxes. Let’s climb a little higher, see if we can get a peek into their dens.”
“Is it safe?”
I shrug. “They’re generally friendly as long as they’re not threatened.”
Ari nods. “All right. I think I see a good handhold over here.”
Ari and I carefully climb up the side of the rocks, scrambling over ledges and darting from one handhold to another. We’re relatively quiet the whole way up, so it doesn’t occur to me that we might be in trouble.
But once we reach the top of the formation and spy the entrance to the icefox den, I realize I made two mistakes.
One: I forgot that icefox mothers are extra defensive of their dens when their babies are inside.
Two: icefoxes are nocturnal, which means they’re already awake.
As we cling to the side of the rocks, looking up into the den, a mother icefox bares her teeth from above, her hackles raised, her babies’ eyes peering out from behind her. And every single one of her sharp, icy spikes is pointed directly at us.
NINE
The mother icefox glares down at us, her yellow eyes fierce.
“Um, Bryn?” Ari whispers. “She’s really, really angry.”
I think fast. “Don’t make any sudden movements. Keep your hands visible. And tilt your head down! Icefoxes show deference to one another by bowing their heads.”
“If I look down, I won’t be able to see if she’s lunging for my face or not!” Ari protests.
The icefox makes a hissing sound, her pointy teeth bared in his direction.
“Just do it!” I yell.
I don’t wait to see if he listens. I lower my own head, fixing my gaze on the rocks below. We’re too high to jump down. We could climb, but that would require moving our hands, and the icefox wouldn’t like that at all. They seem to associate hands with claws, so she’ll be watching ours closely.
The fox makes a low growling sound in warning, which means Ari probably isn’t listening to me. “Use your gift to calm her down!” I say. I’m already casting mine out, but while I can feel the cold core of the fox’s life source just fine, I can’t do much to make her calmer. I can’t sense her emotions the way Ari can. All I can attempt is to touch her life force with mine, so that she can feel it and sense that I mean her and her babies no harm. But she’s too angry for me to attempt that right now. She’d see my encroaching magic as a threat and lash out.
“I’m trying,” Ari says from s
omewhere to my left. “She’s pulling away from me.”
The sound of claws scraping against rock echoes above my head. “Try harder!”
I don’t dare look up to see if he’s doing anything, or if his magic is working. I try to remember anything Papa’s ever told me about icefoxes that might be useful right now, and suddenly it hits me.
Clearing my throat, I start to hum a simple melody. It’s an old lullaby, one Mama used to sing to me and Elisa before we went to sleep. But I’m no good at singing and can’t remember all the words, so I just hum the notes as best I can. It’s a soft, soothing song, the kind that lulls you into relaxation, and I hope it’s enough. Papa always told me that when he befriended icefoxes to use as guides around the Realm, he’d hum or whistle melodies. “They like music,” he’d say. “But don’t tell the other Seekers. They haven’t figured it out yet!” He winked at me then, like it was a secret just for us.
I have to hope he was right, or I might be about to face the attack of an angry icefox.
“It’s working, Bryn!” Ari yells. I’m not sure if he means my song or his magic, but I hum louder, trying not to imagine which sharp pointy thing will kill me first—the fox’s teeth or its claws or its long icy spikes.
My fingers are losing their grip on the ledge, and I’m forced to tilt my head up quickly as I scramble to find a better purchase. I get a quick glimpse of the fox, who is still pointing spikes at us but no longer baring her teeth. She’s watching me.
I reach out with my magic, just a little, and sense the presence of Ari’s gift, already entangled with the fox’s energy. I can’t detect her emotions, so I have no idea if he’s actually doing anything, but her energy does seem less bright than before, like maybe she’s calmer.
“Keep going,” Ari says as I reach the end of my song. “She definitely liked it.”
I start the song over from the beginning, humming as loudly as I can. I want to ask him if his magic is working, but I don’t dare stop humming.
Legend of the Realm Page 8