Blue's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Blue woke in the snow with no warmth left in his chest. A small creature nudged his cheek, half polar bear, half fox, its eyes glowing soft gold. Blue sat up. His skin was pale blue, crusted with frost. He remembered the warmth he once carried, a heat that beat where his heart should be. A spirit had stolen it. Blue didn't know where that spirit lived. Without the trail, he could not chase his heart down. The fox tugged at his sleeve and led him across the barren ice. A flower waited there, grown from crystal petals, glowing with faint blue light. Blue touched it. The cold cut deeper than the air, deeper than his frozen skin. "You've found my flower, young one." A woman stood where no one had stood before. White hair fell past her shoulders. A cloth covered her eyes, marked with blue symbols. She was the blind oracle. Blue had heard the frozen folk whisper her name when they needed what no one else could see. Luna Frost. "You are empty," she said. Her head tilted toward his chest, though the cloth hid her eyes. "A spirit took your heart's warmth and left you ice." Blue's throat tightened. He had not spoken the loss aloud. She knew it anyway. "I don't know where to begin," Blue said. His voice came out thin and cold. "I can't find the one who did this." Luna Frost reached out. Her fingers found his face without searching. "The night it was taken left a mark on the world. Go to the shrine where the ritual was done. What they stole from you still waits there." "Why would it wait?" Blue asked. "Because they could not carry everything," she said. "Follow the fox." The fox turned and ran. Blue stumbled after it across the white waste. The animal stopped at a site of pale stone, half buried in snow. Runes covered the altar. Ice spikes rose from its center. The air here felt colder still, as if the stones drank the little warmth he had. Blue climbed the frosted steps. On the altar sat a sealed bottle. Inside, a curl of golden light drifted, shaped like a flame, shaped like a heart. His warmth. He knew it the moment he saw it. He grabbed the bottle and held it to his chest. The glass stayed cold in his hands, but the light inside pulsed as if it recognized him. "This is mine," Blue whispered. He looked past the altar for any sign of who had left it. Boot prints led away from the shrine. He followed them a dozen steps. Then the snow turned smooth and unbroken. The prints simply stopped. No tracks. No direction. The trail went dead at the edge of the ice. Blue stood alone with the bottle, his warmth in his hands and the thief gone without a path to follow.