by Joel Ross
Ji clenched his fists. Fine. You want a villain? I’ll show you a villain. He snuffed his flames and lashed out with his hunger instead. Not his hunger for treasure—his hunger for souls. And dragons didn’t need a water tree. Tendrils of pure magic erupted across the hall and grabbed Brace’s soul like a pebble in a goblin’s hand. When Ji seized Ioso and the twins, he felt their souls flowing and shifting like fire, like opal and amethyst and lapis lazuli.
Power and revenge beat in Ji’s chest. He understood everything now: how to drain Brace and Ioso and the twins, how to break the Diadem Rite. He felt the Summer Queen coming through the wall, a hundred times more powerful than Brace or the Ice Witch—but she was too late. He would drain Brace’s soul, killing the queen’s heir, breaking the diadem spell, and healing his friends. Souls fluttered in Ji’s mind like blue-bats in a bottle. He touched Roz, Sally, Chibo, and Nin with his magic, gently preparing them to receive the humanity that he’d steal from the others.
And he felt their souls, too: honorable, strong, goofy. Dignified, curious, hopeful, stubborn. Brighter than any diamond, purer than any gold. Sweeter than any revenge.
For an endless heartbeat, Ji balanced on a knife-edge. He wanted to return his friends to their true forms. He wanted to hurt Brace and Ioso and the queen. But Roz and Sally and Chibo and Nin deserved better than stolen souls. They were better than stolen souls. Maybe Ji wasn’t, but they were. He felt their goodness shining in his mind, and knew that they wouldn’t want him to do this. They wouldn’t let him.
So he muttered, “Stupid goodness,” and released his dragonmagic.
Brace and Ioso fell gasping to the ice-covered floor. The twins groaned and the Ice Witch chanted. Roz helped a limping Sally toward the onyx platform, while Chibo’s wings gathered stunned ant lions around the shattered crystal.
“What just happened?” Roz asked Ji.
“You ruined my plan,” he snarled at her. “You and your dumb souls.”
“We’re running out of time,” Sally growled, wiping blood from her muzzle. “The queen’s almost through the wall.”
The Ice Witch spoke to Ji while still chanting, like she had two voices: “Melt the snow, Winter Snake. Or you will perish and the humaNs will reign for another thouSand years and the ogres will die and the goBlins will weep.”
She was right. If he did nothing, nothing would change. He lifted his gaze to the chimney and called fire into his eyes.
“No,” Sally told at him. “You can’t do this.”
“Then all the ogres shaLl die,” the Ice Witch said, “and the goBlins suffer.”
“How come keeping the same people suffering feels easier than making new people suffer?” Chibo asked. “I think that’s bad.”
You must burn, Nin told Ji. You must snowmelt.
“Enough!” Roz rumbled. “What do you think is right, Ji?”
“Nothing’s right!” he cried, and grabbed the Ice Witch’s hand.
The awful power of a dragon roared through him. He looked at the chimney and imagined snow melting and floods crashing across the realm. He saw raging currents pounding fishing villages into mud, smashing Primstone Manor into kindling. He heard the Ice Witch chant now, now, now, and flames burned his cheeks . . . except they weren’t flames, they were tears.
Ji wept for the ogres, he wept for the goblins—and he didn’t unleash his flames. I’m sorry, Nin. I can’t destroy the realm. Chibo was right: watching the same people suffer didn’t feel as bad as hurting new people. The ogres and goblins were used to hardship. They were tough; they could take it. They didn’t expect any better.
Except no. No. Hardship shouldn’t strike the same people every time. The fact that the ogres and goblins were used to hardship didn’t mean they needed less help, it meant they needed more. And what if Ji controlled his fire? What if he kept a grip on his power and—
Flames blazed from his eyes.
A column of fire shot into the chimney. Ji’s head snapped backward, his spine locked. His eyes opened impossibly wide, sending flames roaring across the mountain to unleash a murderous flood.
29
THE ICE WITCH’S grip tightened on Ji’s finger and her gemlike hand blackened and flaked. Cracks spread across her arm as Ji transformed her life into dragonfire, but her voice chimed with exultation: “Let my sins be fixed but never forGotten. Cast aside the yoKe of—”
A wall of the great hall exploded inward to reveal the Summer Queen. Shards of ice slashed Ji’s clothes and sliced his skin. Sally growled and Roz spun to protect Chibo. Nin jabbered about “shamoons” and “Mer-Lin-Su” while ice columns melted and became serpents of living water that flanked the Summer Queen as she strode ahead of her army.
“Thou shalt bow to the might of Summer!” the queen cried.
“More!” the Ice Witch—raising slabs of ice to block the queen’s approach—shouted at Ji. “All your poWer, now, now!”
Ji jerked his hand away from her. “No.”
Even after he broke contact, a conflagration flowed through him. Somewhere far above, flames vented from Mount Atra, melting snow into torrents every second, sending rivers crashing toward the human realm. He needed to control himself. He needed to rein in the fire. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Last chance. Last chance to stop this. Last chance to make your own choice instead of serving the witch or the queen like a boot boy on his knees—
With a howl of effort, he crammed the dragonfire back into his heart and slammed the lid shut. His fingernails dug into his palms and his pulse pounded in his ears.
“You didn’t melt enough to desTroy them,” the Ice Witch chimed. “You stopped too soon, Winter Snake! You—”
“I’ll start again!” Ji shouted at the Summer Queen, over the roar of flames in his mind. “Come any closer and I’ll start again.”
The queen paused, her golden crown reflected in the watery snakes flanking her. Brace stepped to her side while Mr. Ioso and the twins fell in behind them. Nin chattered, Almost here, Missroz! Snowbiting fast as snowbiters snowbite! while dozens of knights scrambled across the ice-covered floor and two bald women, mages with fierce eyes, crackled with magic behind Mr. Ioso.
“I’ll melt the snow,” Ji yelled at the queen. “I’ll destroy your realm.”
“Don’t wait, you fooLish boy!” the Ice Witch chimed. “Finish what you staRted!”
“Roz, please,” Ji begged. “Tell them.”
Flames flickered in Ji’s vision. He didn’t know what he wanted Roz to say. Something kind, something wise, something trollish. He knew this wasn’t his best plan ever: melt the snow a little, then hold the Summer Realm hostage and pray that Roz saved everything. Still, it was the only plan he had.
“If Ji continues, Your Majesty,” Roz told the queen in her gruff voice, “he will destroy your realm.”
“He muSt,” the Ice Witch said. “There is nothing more imPortant than—”
At a gesture from the Summer Queen, a fist of water rose from the crystal pedestal and grabbed the Ice Witch, silencing her. Despite her blackened arm, she glittered brilliantly in the magnified water, her mouth open in fear and surprise.
Ji drew on the fire still in his chest to blast the queen and—
“Ji, wait!” Roz bellowed at him. “Everyone, wait! Your Majesty, Ji will not flood the realm if you free the goblins and allow the ogres to roam the foothills.”
“Thus permitting them to attack the humans?” the queen asked Roz.
“They won’t!” Roz said. “Well, hopefully not. But if you don’t agree, Ji will wash your realm into the sea.”
“And if they attack, defend yourselves,” Sally snarled at the Summer Queen. “You can’t keep them in chains just because you’re afraid of what might happen.”
“Chains are bad,” Chibo said.
“If they had emerged victorious,” the Summer Queen asked, resting her hand on Brace’s arm, “would they have shown humans such mercies?”
“We act with honor because we have honor,�
� Sally said, “not because they do or do not.”
The snowbiters snowbroke through! Nin jabbered to Roz.
“You’ve forgotten one thing,” Brace said, his voice ringing across the shattered hall. “Her Majesty is the Summer Queen. None can stand against her. Not a hundred mages, not a thousand knights. Even if you had an army—”
“We do,” Roz said, and gestured toward a half-collapsed balcony.
Ji’s breath caught when he followed her gaze. So that’s what Nin had been nattering about! “Snowbiters” meant that goblins were chewing through the ice. Between threatening the queen and shooting flames, Ji hadn’t noticed goblins and ogres pouring from a frozen tunnel. Ji recognized the goblin in front—Chiptooth—and most of the ogre war party stalking across the balcony. The gorilla-ogre roared, the bull-ogre bowed her head to Roz, and smaller ogres gathered in the center, each with crimson, glowing tusks.
Shamoon! Nin said. Shamoon are here! And burrowfighters!
“Look there,” Sally breathed. “In the walls . . .”
Faces appeared in the cracked blue-white ice of the balcony wall: Ti-Lin-Su and three other mermaids, white hair flowing gently in a distant current.
“You will require the aid of a mightier army than that,” the Summer Queen scoffed.
Nichol stepped forward. “We’re not mighty, Your Majesty—”
“—but they’ve got our aid,” Posey finished.
“No way,” Ji breathed.
“You’re joining us?” Sally asked, peering in shock at Posey.
“You’re betraying us?” Brace asked, glaring in fury at Posey.
“I’m sorry, Prince Brace,” Posey said. “The hobgoblin is right. There’s no honor in this.”
“You’re traitors to the Summer Realm,” Brace snarled, as glimmers of light traced the edge of his diadem. “Traitors to your race and your family!”
While he ranted, the twins crossed the hall to stand beside Sally, who flattened her tufted ears warily. Chibo waggled his fingers in greeting and Ji stared in shock. Posey and Nichol were the last people he’d expect to do the right thing. He almost resented them: if you couldn’t enjoy hating a couple of highborn bullies, who could you enjoy hating?
“You’re still a filthy beast,” Posey muttered to Sally.
“You’re still a spoiled brat,” Sally replied.
Then they stood side by side, facing the queen.
“And in the end, you’re nothing,” Brace finished. “All together you don’t have a shadow of Her Majesty’s power.”
“Perhaps not,” Roz told him. “But she cannot defeat us before Ji melts the snow.”
“Not while the Ice Witch lives,” the queen said, her crown gleaming.
Crackles of golden light arced into Mr. Ioso and the other mages. They shriveled like leaves in a fire as the Summer Queen absorbed their magic and their lives. Her eyes glowed golden; then a fourth spark burst in the fist of water around the Ice Witch, and her tiny gemstone body started to crack and blacken.
“Oh, no,” Ji breathed. “No, no.”
“I only wanTed to . . . ,” the Ice Witch whispered before she crumbled into ash.
Ji felt his dragonpower fade—and his anger grow. He’d barely known the Ice Witch, and he hadn’t liked her much, but he hated the queen for taking her life as if stepping on a bug.
He unleashed a fireball across the hall. “No more!”
The queen smiled, and a shimmer of white magic absorbed the flames. “You’ve lost.”
“We must work together,” Roz rumbled. “We must act as one to—”
“Attack!” Sally shouted.
A black glow shone from the tusks of the shamoon and the crash of waves sounded from the mermaids. The ogre war party surged forward and goblins opened tunnels beneath the knights. Chibo’s wings deflected Brace’s magical onslaught while ant lions dropped from the ceiling. Roz pounded toward the queen, her ragged dress flapping. Nichol fired his crossbow, and Sally and Posey waded into battle together.
Ji gathered his anger and fear and hope and hate into a single burning spear and shouted, “NOW!”
The shamoon and mermaid magic roared at the queen while Ji’s blast ripped through the air. All three blows struck the Summer Queen at once. The impact shook the mountain. The queen staggered, and bolts of lightning, brighter than the sun, flashed across the hall. The roof trembled and cracked, filling the air with white-blue shards. Bugbears curled beneath their shells, and soldiers—human, ogre, and goblin alike—cowered from the hail of falling ice.
The Summer Queen’s brilliant white glow dimmed beneath the rubble, then faded away.
30
SHARDS OF CRYSTAL littered the onyx platform around Ji. He stared at the massive mound of wreckage that covered the Summer Queen, her army—and his friends. Goblins chuffed and knights moaned and Ji breathed his friends’ names. Then Ti-Lin-Su’s voice sounded above a faint rumble of waves. Roz, Chibo, and Sally—and hundreds of tiny ant lions—sifted from the rubble. Scraped and slashed and bleeding, but alive.
Relief, warmer than any dragonfire, burst in Ji’s chest. He trotted toward his friends, crunching over shattered ice while the tusks of the shamoon glowed feebly. A black tint touched the blue-white shards, and the twins slid from the wreckage, along with a few dozen humans, ogres, and goblins.
Ji hugged Chibo tight. “You’re okay!”
“Did we win?” Chibo moaned. “I think we won. Did we win?”
“Of course we won,” Sally purred, brushing debris from her fur.
Ji hugged Chibo even tighter. He didn’t know exactly how they’d won, but he didn’t care exactly how! They’d done the impossible: they’d beaten the queen.
“Even her voice is adorable,” Posey told Nichol as she limped toward Sally. “And look at her ears!”
“At least I can walk,” Sally growled.
“On your furry little pawses,” Nichol said.
Furrylittle footpaws! Nin agreed as ant lions hopped from a toppled ice column onto Chibo’s bald head. Now the evilqueen’s terrorgrip will loosen! The Gravewoods will soften, the goblins will freewalk! She is defeated and we—
“She’s not defeated,” Roz rumbled, frowning at the mountain of wreckage.
The warm glow of relief in Ji’s chest turned to cold sludge. He didn’t want to look; he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to fight anymore.
“She has to be,” he said. “We’ve got nothing left.”
No Ice Witch, no gems. No dragonfire. The shamoon and mermaids were exhausted and the ogres and goblins were battered and limping.
Except, of course, Roz was right.
White magic gleamed beneath the rubble. The ice shards melted, flowing into the center of the hall. A blue pool deepened around the onyx platform and the Summer Queen and Brace stepped from the white glow.
Unhurt, unscathed, unruffled. Undefeated.
“The reign of Summer shall never end,” the queen said, her crown glowing golden. “Thou art defeated, Winter Snake. The paltry magic of thine allies is spent.”
When the light of the Summer Queen’s crown seeped into the floor, the blue-white ice rippled with the color of dried blood. The ogres roared in anger—then bellowed in alarm as red-brown stripes of clay branched through the ice.
One streak touched the bull-ogre and transformed her huge ogre paw into a human-sized boot.
A terra-cotta boot.
A wave of clay rose on the ogre’s body, coating her legs and chest, shrinking her into the shape and size of a terra-cotta warrior. Clay stripes marbled the floor, striking every goblin and human, every ogre and shamoon, warping them into clay statues. Posey and Nichol transformed in an eyeblink, and the clay even struck through the ice wall, twisting Ti-Lin-Su and the mermaids into blank-faced terra-cotta soldiers.
Then the spell ended and silence fell.
Silence and dread.
Roz covered her mouth with her two-fingered hand, her eyes shining with grief. Sally’s tufted ears drooped an
d Chibo whimpered, while Nin’s mind-speak echoed with an ogre lament. Ji trembled, trapped in a nightmare. Everywhere he looked, another horror appeared: the magnificent ogres were lifeless clay; the weird goblins were identical statues. The wise mermaids and mysterious shamoon—and even spoiled, brave Posey and Nichol—were nothing but unthinking mud.
“Turn them back.” Sally prowled toward the queen. “Turn them back.”
“Even I cannot reverse that spell,” the queen told her, stepping toward the rippling blue pool. “So long as the Summer Crown reigns, they will remain our most loyal subjects.”
“Our most loyal objects,” Brace said.
“You’ve turned people into things,” Roz rumbled, a blaze of contempt in her voice. “And you don’t even know why that’s wrong.”
White ribbons sprang from Brace’s hands. “I know we won, Roz. Good always triumphs over evil.”
Sally leaped at Brace, her claws slashing—and a ribbon of white magic lassoed her in midair. Three more ribbons snared Chibo and Roz and Ji, while a fifth tore Nin’s pack from Roz’s back and wrapped it in a glowing net. The ribbons lofted them high and left them dangling like sides of beef in a butcher’s shop.
The Summer Queen turned to Brace at the edge of the blue pool. “Art thou ready, my prince?”
“I am, my queen,” Brace said.
“Dost thou pledge thyself to the realm?” she asked him. “To hold the welfare of humanity even above thine own?”
“I do, my queen,” Brace said.
“I don’t!” Ji snarled, and the ribbons tightened around him, stifling his words.
“After unseemly delay, we bring the Diadem Rite to completion,” the Summer Queen intoned, raising her arms.
A geyser burst from the pond. Streams of water branched until a tree loomed overhead. The water tree. The end of the road. The end of Ji’s hopes and dreams, his plans and schemes. The end of freedom for goblins and of life for ogres. The end of his future, the end of his friends. Chibo’s huge emerald eyes filled with tears, his wings trapped by the ribbons of light. Sally struggled in her bonds, her ruff raised and her ears back. A few ant lions tried to sting the ribbons, while the rest of Nin clustered inside the net. Thick ribbons wrapped Roz, but despite her ragged dress and her trollish horn, she looked dignified.