Anon Frost's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Anon Frost stood beneath the great white tree and watched his crown die before he could forge it. The aurora fed its crystal branches. That light was the only thing he could shape into a crown, and a crown of living aurora would bind the scattered ice elf clans under his hand. But the sky was warming. Green ribbons thinned to gray. Meltwater ran down the tree's trunk in dark lines. He pressed his palm to the crystal. It felt warm. Wrong. Ice elves fear warmth the way fire fears water. A thaw this early could strip the northern sky bare for a full season. If the light faded now, he lost his one chance to claim the clans. A small white fox darted between the tree's roots. It stopped and stared up at the branches, ears flat, tail low. Its coat glowed faintly, the same silver as Anon's hair. It sniffed the meltwater and backed away, whining. "You feel it too," Anon said. The fox pawed at the trunk, then bolted three steps north and looked back. It wanted him to follow. Anon had no better plan. He ran. The fox led him uphill to a hollow where cold still held. Here the meltwater had not reached. The tree's roots surfaced through frozen ground, and the last strong band of aurora poured straight down into them. The color gathered thick at this one root, pooling like liquid light. Anon understood. The tree was pulling its light inward to survive the thaw. If he cut the crown from a high branch, the warmth would ruin it. But here, at the root, the aurora ran cold and concentrated. He had one window before the tree sealed it away. He drew his knife. His hands shook. Cut too deep and he killed the tree that gave him everything. Cut too shallow and he took nothing. The fox pressed against his leg. Anon steadied. He set the blade where the root met the frozen soil and drew a ring of light free. It came away in a cold, shining band, thin as a reed, curved like a circlet. The aurora held inside it, trapped, alive, pulsing green and violet. He lifted it. A crown, or the start of one. The thaw could bleed the whole sky now and it would not matter. He had his material. Then the ground shuddered. The wound in the root wept light, and the tree's glow dimmed across every branch above him. He had taken what he needed by hurting the one thing that made it. The fox backed away from him, ears flat, and would not come near. Anon closed his fist around the cold circlet. He had the crown's heart. Now he needed the clans to bow to it, and he had just proven he would wound anything to win.