Aelar Brightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Aelar Brightwhisper had walked the same ice three times, and he knew it by his own boot prints. He was a boy of ten, with strawberry hair frozen stiff under his hood. His people had sent him to wake the guardian spirit that slept beneath Riftglacier. When the spirit woke, the frozen realm would speak to them again. But no one had told him where the spirit slept. The glacier stretched white in every direction, flat and silent, and his tracks curled back on themselves like a snare. He sat down on the ice and pulled his knees close. His water skin had frozen solid. He had eaten his last strip of dried fish that morning. "I don't even know which way is forward," he said out loud. His voice cracked. No one answered. The wind pushed loose snow across his tracks and began to erase them. Then the snow before him gathered and stood up. It took the shape of a woman with long white hair and green eyes. Leaves grew at her collar though nothing green could live here. Aelar had heard the old stories of the forest spirit who guided lost travelers. He had never believed them enough to hope. "You've been walking in a ring, little seeker," Sylvana said. Her voice was soft, but it carried a smile. "The ice hides the sleeping one on purpose. It won't show the way to just anyone." Aelar scrambled to his feet. "Then tell me the way. Please. My people are counting on me." She shook her head. "I can't tell you. I can only show you what to look for." She knelt and touched the ice with one finger. Under her hand, the snow cleared. Aelar saw hoofprints frozen deep in the old ice, each one ringed with tiny crystals. "An elk crosses this glacier," Sylvana said. "White as the snow, with crystals in his antlers. He drinks from the spring above the sleeping spirit. Follow his trail and you follow him home." Aelar dropped to his knees and studied the prints. They led east, away from every path he had tried. His own tracks all bent west. He had been walking the wrong way the whole time. "Why help me?" he asked. He looked up, but the wind had already thinned Sylvana to loose snow. "Because the realm needs a voice," her voice said, fading. "And you were brave enough to keep walking. Don't lose his trail. The elk won't wait, and the ice heals over quickly." Then she was gone. Aelar stood and looked east along the crystal prints. He had a direction now, a real one. He pressed his cracked lips together and started to run before the wind could hide the trail. The prints led toward a low white ridge he had never dared cross.