Anon Frost's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Anon sat on the frozen shore, the crown cold against his chest. His burned hand throbbed. Azura stood over him, the blue flames in her long hair swaying without wind. She was the fire priestess who had pulled him from the melt, and now she wanted her price. He knew this moment would come. He had not known it would come so soon. "Speak your debt," Anon said. "I have far to go." "You go nowhere yet." She crouched, careful not to touch him. Steam rose where her breath met the cold air. "The tree you cut is dying. Its roots hold no light now. Give the crown back. Set it into the wound you made. That is what I want." Anon's grip tightened on the circlet. Green and violet light pulsed between his fingers. "This crown buys me the clans. Ask for gold. Ask for years of service. Not this." "I ask for the tree." Her eyes did not soften. "I felt it die under the water while I climbed for you. Fire and aurora are not friends, ice elf. But I will not watch a living thing bleed out for your pride." A small shape moved at the edge of the frost. The white fox. It stepped from the shadow of the dead tree and watched Anon with orange eyes. It had led him to the roots. It had turned from him the moment he cut them. Now it stood between him and the slope out. "Refuse," Azura said, "and I hold you here. You will not pass me to chase your crown. My warmth alone would end you if I chose." Anon looked at the fox. He looked at the dark tree, its branches bare of light. He thought of Aelindor's tracks running north, growing colder by the hour. Every breath he spent here was a breath his rival spent reaching the clans first. He stood. He unclenched his fist and held the circlet out over the roots where he had cut it free. The light caught the fox's fur. Then he pulled his hand back. "No," he said. "The tree is dead already. Returning the crown will not raise it. I will owe you another way, or you will kill me here." Azura rose. The flames in her hair flared white-hot. For a long moment she said nothing. Then she stepped aside from the slope. "Then the debt stands unpaid," she said. "And an unpaid debt to fire follows you. I will follow you. To every clan. To every fire I have kin in. You will not be free of me until the tree is answered for." The fox turned and vanished into the snow. Anon climbed the slope, crown in hand, the priestess close behind him. He had kept his crown and his path north. But he had traded a debt he could pay for one that would never leave his side.