by J. K. Barber
The companions all beamed with pride and joy at the King’s words. Branden looked around to each of family and friends, and they nodded to him in return. Jared saw in Branden a glimmer of his former life as a proud member of the King’s Guard. The encouraged smith faced the King and spoke with a courtly tongue that Jared still found strange coming from the small town smith.
“Your Majesty, you honor us with your words, and it further honors us that you have charged us with the reclamation of our home. This fight against the Ice Queen has become personal now, and we look forward to the day we destroy the Ice Queen and all her evil minions.”
The King and Queen smiled, as did Captain Veldrun and even the Magus. King Morgan replied with a hearty, “Hear Hear!” and then said, “I remind you all to let none of what was said here leave this room.” The King looked gravely around at everyone, and then a smiled cracked his serious demeanor, “Now, let us have a toast to our brave friends. Then, we shall feast and speak of Captain Veldrun’s plan.”
The King rang a bell, and a female servant in a plain linen dress came in with wine and goblets, which she handed out to the royal pair and their guests.
Once the wine had been poured, the Queen raised her glass for the toast, “May our King remain wise, and Illyander strong. With wisdom and strength, no enemy can defeat us. And to our brave citizens, some of the finest the kingdom has to offer.” Her voice was clear, sweet, and filled the room. The Captain added his own, “Hear Hear!” The Magus, Jared noticed, looked disgruntled but still raised his glass.
All toasted and drank. The wine was cool, delicious, and most welcome on Jared’s parched tongue. Food was shortly brought in. Silver tray after silver tray flowed through the door. Meats, breads, and cheeses of all kinds were set before them. Katya slipped some cheese into her pocket with a wink to Jared. Tiny hands took it eagerly. They ate happily together. He and his friends were warm, safe, and working on full stomachs. Their minds were at ease, for now.
Epilogue
A surge of energy ran through his body, like awaking from a dream. He vaguely remembered the dream, purple eyes calling to him behind crashing azure waves on a white sand beach. The dream had faded and another call came to him. A female’s whisper, motherly yet demanding of his service. His head grew hot, and his spine grew tight as if he were a bow being drawn. Then, his body shook as though with a violent fever. The space was too tight. His lungs burned for air. He saw light above him. Fire, he thought. He pushed towards it as hard as he could. The talons before him were confusing for a moment, but his body’s desire for air quickly made him ignore the odd detail.
He pushed until his prison cracked. He breathed in cold air. It stung his lungs for a moment. His vision was not right. The room was too bright. His head rang loudly with the sounds about him. His stomach growled, as he flopped to the stone floor. He crouched on all fours, but it felt right to do so. Looking at his hands again, they were indeed talons. His skin was covered in leathery white scales, the edges tinged in blue. His blood burned still, and he immediately noticed that the veins in his front claws were jet black. He looked at his body, which was covered in an odd spider web of visible black veins under his near translucent scales. A long scar marred his left shoulder. Despite the scar, his body felt good. He felt strong. His stomach growled again.
Looking around, he now saw that other eggs were hatching. Others like him. Diamond-shaped heads with crowns of dark blue, head spikes, purple eyes, elongated scaly necks, bat-like wings sprouting from their shoulders, and long, well-muscled bodies ending in a tail with another smaller diamond of spikes. Dragons! He realized was what he was looking at, what he was.
His head terribly hurt suddenly. A soldier stood over them in plain mail armor, his torch blinding to look at. Glancing back at his brothers and sisters, he noticed that only about six eggs had actually hatched. The others, with gems embedded in their surfaces, looked dark and the skin of the egg withered. He noticed his siblings also bore a scar somewhere on their body. He looked inside his egg, where a black crystal shard had been inserted into the egg, the top of the crystal polished and cut like a gem.
A tall woman with pale skin approached him. She wore black leather armor shaped perfectly to her body, the bodice dipping low and her thigh-high boots complimenting her form nicely. A rapier rested at her hip in a comfortable way that implied she knew how to use it. She was familiar...
“What do we have here?” she asked, as she crouched beside him, her glossy black hair falling to her shoulders. The cut was flat and even at the ends, with her bangs cut in a straight line across her brow. Her face was thin with high cheekbones. “The Empress will be pleased to know she has new servants.”
It came to him like a thunderclap in his head. Memories of this woman torturing him were overwhelming. She had forced him to meld over and over with different animals until his mind grew mad. He was just another experiment of the Empress of Ice. He regarded the woman with hostility. His first instinct was to rip her throat from that milky white neck, but he could not. Something would not allow him. It was as if an ice-cold hand rested on his chest to restrain him. The woman ran her hand across his cheek, down his neck, and then back up and under his chin. Her hand was cool against his warm skin, but he did not pull away. He shivered.
“Good boy,” she purred.
“Hello, Roane,” he stated plainly. He was as surprised as she was at his ability to speak. His voice was crisp, and the words held power that vibrated the stones of the room. She gasped, as she backed away, and regarded him oddly for a moment.
“Sirus?” she asked.
Icebound
Book Two
For Our Parents
Prologue
Roane closed the iron-bound oak door behind her and stood alone in front of the black crystal that was four times as tall as she was. The lit braziers in the small room did a decent job of warming it even though ice crept up in between the smooth stones. The chamber itself was devoid of any furniture, and the stone walls held no decoration. Every time the Empress of Ice would speak the crystals would pulse, sucking the very light from the room. Gooseflesh raised on Roane’s pale skin despite the formfitting, black leather armor she wore under a cloak of dark fur. Her hand unconsciously rested on the rapier’s hilt at her shapely hip.
“Greetings of the day to you, Empress,” the raven-haired woman said as the Empress asked for a report on her newest servants. “Your Shadow Drakes are doing very well. The remaining six eat healthily and continue to grow at an astounding rate. They usually share a polar bear carcass every day and are the size of warhorses after only a month. However, they are beginning to fight over the carcass as their need increases for a larger quantity of meat. I’ll have the hunters bring down more game. If we run out of animals, there is always the therianthrope village,” the lady snickered. “Nevertheless, it appears your Shadow Drakes will survive to adulthood; the one that died seems to have been out of our control. Again, the scar was on her chest. I maintain that the crystal stabbed into her egg caused irreparable internal damage. I am pleased; however, to report the news you wanted last time we spoke. They can fly now. They take daily flights in the mornings, as they are eager to stretch their wings after a night’s rest, but always return for their noon meal.”
“Excellent. And Sirus? How is our old prisoner adapting to his new body?” the dark crystal flickered.
“Sirus is adapting. He is teaching the other five hatchlings. They can all speak now, although their vocabulary is limited. Just this past week he began teaching a couple of them to read. It is quite a sight to see the beasts lying in front of the fire in the citadel library, turning the pages of books with their claws,” Roane responded, an amused smile on her lips.
“Really?” the Ice Queen stated with surprise in her voice. “That is quite interesting. I look forward to schooling them myself. Perhaps they will have some talent with the arcane. Even if not, their intelligence is impressive. I am pleased. Continue to keep an eye on Si
rus. My spell seems to be holding him as my thrall for now. I believe he would have tried to kill you by now for torturing him if he was able. He will begin to test his limitations soon if he has not started to already in secret. I will contact you again as usual in two weeks’ time upon the new moon. I want my Shadow Drakes here by then. Two weeks will give them time to further strengthen their wings. I approximate it will take them two days to fly here. I want them by the new moon, Roane. Do not disappoint me.”
“Never, my Queen,” the woman replied quickly. “I am always your loyal servant.”
“Is there anything else to report? I assume my home is still well maintained?” the cold, disembodied voice asked.
“All is well, Empress. It is quiet without the roar of the forges and the voices of your army filling the halls, but fear not for your home. It is well taken care of with the soldiers you left behind under my direction. As long as I draw breath,” the dark-eyed woman said as she patted her chest that was snuggly fitted into a leather bodice, “you will know your home is safe.”
“Very well, my pet. Until the new moon.”
“Until the new moon, my Queen,” Roane purred. She drew her rapier, flourished it before her in a salute with the refined talent of a person who knew how to use the weapon well, and bowed. The Ice Queen severed the line of communication.
Chapter 1
The lady’s tears glistened as they dripped down her cheeks to fall on unfeeling hands. Her long gray-blonde hair waved gently in the night breeze. The massive trees of the Blodwood surrounding the meadow swayed, voicing their own sadness. Chyla wrapped her small arms around her mother’s cold statue-like figure, careful not to crush her mother’s wings and lending what strength she could with her own body’s warmth. When Lady Amara had heard the news of her husband’s death from Chyla, something had broken inside her. She had not said a word at first; she’d simply flown down from their tree home immediately. The Administrator, just a boy with short sandy blonde hair to an unknowing passerby, had been waiting for her at the base of the massive tree in the center of the tiny Nhyme village. Lady Amara’s sky blue eyes had met his timeless purple ones, and they had stood still for some time. Administrator Tomas had been patient as he watched various emotions rage behind her eyes. First, she had acted a little surprised to see him, then anger had flashed like a lightning strike above a roiling ocean, and finally sadness as he had opened a wooden box carved with magical runes in his hands. Elder Razorik’s body had lain inside. Sunflower petals had surrounded his body and the flower’s stigma supported his head like a pillow. Lady Amara had collapsed to her knees and buried her face into the mossy loam of the Blodwood. Her husband was dead.
The summer moon shone down on the meadow where the Nhyme villagers and the three humans had gathered to pay their respects. Sasha wore her full ivy-etched, plate armor, and Katya and Administrator Tomas were clothed in their formal velvet robes with mantles, hers blue with silver trim and his purple with a heavy gold. Razorik’s body lay in a box at the center of the mass of Nhyme next to a grave that had been dug in the soft grass. The tiny creatures were both on the ground and circling above in the air. They all held a single mote of magical light in their hands. The airborne Nhymes’ lights were entrancing as they slowly traveled round in perfect unison like dancers in a rehearsed performance. Katya and Sasha stood at a respectful distance, having only known the Elder for a short time but wanting to be there to show their support for Chyla and her kind. Tomas stood with the girls, watching as Niko said the final burial rites. He had been the Elder’s pupil, so it was his duty to lead the ceremony. Niko wore a robe of ivy leaves and spoke from no book; his words came from his heart. It was the most serious Katya had ever seen the usually jovial, cheese-loving creature; his face a mask of sorrow, haggard with weariness.
“May his body return to the soil from which he was birthed. May the woods carry his spirit upon the wind until it breathes life into the womb of a new mother. May he find peace. So mote it be.” Niko laid a round-cut piece of crystal on Razorik’s chest over his heart, closed the lid of the box with Head Warrior Cumo’s help, and stepped back as other Nhyme came forward to lift the box above the grave. They held it there as the female Nhyme began to hum a haunting tune. Their voices rose higher and higher until the box began to glow, first from the carved runes then spreading to encompass it entirely. The winged men released the box and it stayed put, floating on its own. The unified hum’s volume decreased and with it the Elder’s coffin sank slowly into its final resting place. A few moments later the light of the box was dim, visible only in the inscribed runes, and the humming stopped altogether. All the motes of light that the Nhyme held winked out so that only the moon above illuminated the meadow. The runes on the Elder’s coffin rose off its surface, spiraling up and then dispersing like glowing ash upon the wind, leaving the box’s outer edges smooth again. All those gathered except the Administrator gasped in awe at this unusual display. Cumo’s men dutifully carried on with the ceremony by raising their tiny spears in salute before using them to push dirt into the grave.
“Good-bye, my friend,” Administrator Tomas said under his breath. Katya wiped the tears from her eyes and accepted a hug from Sasha.
“Thank you, Administrator, for bringing us here tonight,” Katya whispered. The Nhyme watched the grave being filled and hugged a few sobbing friends and family.
“Of course,” he said, running his hands down his robe to compose himself better. “Remember your promise to keep our way of travel here secret. That information in the wrong hands could be fatal to this world. I will tell you more on the return trip so that you might understand better.”
The girls both nodded. Sasha commented, “Our companions should not have missed us and think us asleep still in our room. As you stated earlier, you met with us first and only us, so no one should even guess we were gone at all.”
“How did you know the Elder had died?” the dark-haired sister asked in a respectful hushed tone, her eyes dark pools against the light of the moon.
“I didn’t actually. Sasha, it wasn’t until I arrived in Aeirsga and sought you out that I learned of his death. I was checking in on him after he told me he would go to the capital to protect his daughter. He had foreseen her death in one of his visions. It seems he traded his life for hers.”
The twins appeared to have more questions, but the Nhyme had begun to fly past them, returning to their village. Tomas turned away to regard the four Nhyme lingering at Razorik’s grave. Cumo had a hand on Chyla’s shoulder as she continued to comfort her mother. Niko waited nervously nearby. The Administrator approached them and knelt, as not to tower above the tiny creatures any more than was necessary.
“I am truly sorry for your loss, Lady Amara. You are wise and will lead well in your husband’s place. May the Great Mother give you her blessing. You have mine.” Lady Amara slowly lifted her head to regard the Administrator. Her voice was a bit hoarse from crying but still intelligible.
“Thank you. I hope to see you again one day, Ancient One. Razorik would have liked for you to continue to visit from time to time.”
“I will try. My time here is about to come to an end though.” The Nhyme looked surprised by this news, but before they could ask questions the Administrator continued, “If I do not see you again, know that my thoughts are with you and your kin,” Tomas said with the softness of true tenderness in his voice. After a short pause, he continued, “I will take Katya and Sasha back to the human capital within the hour. If any of you wish to return with them, you will need to decide soon. We’ll be at the crystal mound.” With that he stood and walked back to where the girls waited. Sasha remained, but Katya saw this as her opportunity to approach the remaining Nhyme.
“You have my deepest sympathy, all of you. May time heal your pain,” the young sorceress gently remarked.
“Thank you.” Chyla said when her mother did not reply. Niko put a tiny hand on the sorceress’ robe. Katya nodded to accept the gesture and re
treated back to her sister and Tomas, not wanting to intrude on the privacy of the older Nhyme woman’s grieving.
The twins and Tomas waited at the crystal mound for only a short time before Niko and Chyla flew towards them hand in hand. Katya’s breath caught in surprise.
“Are you sure? Won’t your mother need you here?” she asked.
“I need to help in the battle to come,” Chyla responded. “I need to help you destroy the Ice Queen and her abominations. For my father…” her voice cracked but she composed herself. “If the Ice Queen invades the Illyander Kingdom, she will, without a doubt, invade Blodwood as well. I spoke at length with my mother after I took her home. She gave me her blessing to follow my own path for now, although I will return to visit when I can.”
“And I go where Chyla goes,” Niko said, his little chest puffed out to emphasize his determination.
Tomas nodded.
“So be it. Let’s go,” the Administrator said. “Take hold of each other like before. Flesh to flesh. Close your eyes. That’s right. Don’t let go. Remember the light will startle you at first.”
Tomas looked over the group to make sure all were ready. Satisfied, he closed his own eyes and let the magic in his body return to its source. It flowed out of him like water into the crystals before him, dragging him and those touching him forward. There was a sinking feeling and then right when they believed themselves about to fall over, light blazed behind their closed lids like the sun itself bearing down on a hot day. They were all suddenly uncomfortably warm and beginning to sweat.