Aelar Brightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

Aelar ran east until the crystal prints stopped tricking him. Then they split. One line of hoofprints bent left, toward the ridge. Another crossed it, older and shallow, curving right into a field of blue ice. He knelt and pressed his glove to the ground. Both trails glittered the same. He could not tell which one the elk had made today. He picked the right-hand trail because it looked easier. Ten steps in, the ice sloped down. The prints under his feet grew fainter, then vanished. Cold air rose from a crack ahead. He stopped. The glacier had led him here on purpose. He remembered the warning: the ice heals over quickly, and it wants you lost. "Wrong one, little seeker." The snow beside him lifted and formed the woman with white hair and green eyes. Leaves showed at her collar. Sylvana had found him lost on this same ice before, and she had given him the elk to follow. Now she frowned at the fading trail. "I can't choose for you," she said. "But I can show you how the elk chooses." She touched a print with one finger. The ice cleared. Inside the old track, tiny crystals lay dull and gray. Then she touched the left-hand trail. Those crystals glowed faint blue, like the ones in the elk's antlers. "Fresh crystals shine," she said. "Old ones die. The glacier can copy the shape. It cannot copy the light." Aelar looked back at the trail he had chosen. Every crystal in it was gray and dead. He had walked toward the crack, toward nothing. His stomach dropped. "Follow the light," Sylvana said. Her voice was already thinning. "And Aelar—the elk knows you are coming now. Show him you are a seeker, not a hunter." Then she was loose snow again. Aelar backed away from the crack. He returned to the split and crouched over the left-hand trail. He pressed his glove flat and watched the crystals wake under his hand, blue and living. He rose and followed them, checking each print, ignoring every gray one the ice offered to fool him. The trail climbed. The ridge grew closer, white and steep. Near the top, the fresh prints ended at a patch of trampled snow. Something had stood here and watched him climb. He lifted his eyes. On the crest stood the white elk. Crystals hung from its antlers and caught the pale light. Its dark eyes held him without fear. It did not run. It turned its head toward the far side of the ridge, where a spring must lie, and waited. Aelar stood very still. He had found the elk. But he was empty-handed and thin, dressed like a lost boy. Sylvana's last words rang in him. To follow the elk home, he would have to prove he was a seeker—and he had nothing yet to show it.