Elara Frostwhisper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Elara Frostwhisper had three winters left to find an heir, and the storm meant to take them all today. She pushed through the snow with her crystal staff, blue stones swinging from its top. Her white hair whipped across her face. Each vision she had ever read had cost her a little more of her youth. Soon her sight would be gone, and no child would carry it after her. She had come onto the Permafrost to search for such a child. Now she could not even see her own hands. The wind turned white. Snow struck her like thrown sand. She could not tell up from down. Her boots sank, then stuck. She knew this cold. People who stopped moving out here did not start again. She gripped the staff with both hands and breathed on the crystals. Nothing came. She breathed again, slower, and a faint blue light spread from the stones. It did not warm her. It only showed her a few steps of snow ahead. Then a shape moved in the light. A butterfly with the body of a small dragon, its wings deep blue, hovered before her face. It should have frozen in a second. Instead it beat its wings and drifted sideways, waiting. "You want me to follow," Elara said. Her lips barely moved. She had no better plan. She stumbled after the creature. It led her a dozen paces, then a dozen more. Her legs shook. She fell once and tasted snow. The dragon-moth circled back and hovered until she rose. At last a glow broke through the white. Not the creature's glow. Something larger, golden, steady. A house stood in the storm. Its walls were pale crystal, every facet lit from within. Warm light poured from the windows and the tall front doors. The dragon-moth flew to the glass and tapped it once. The doors opened. A child stood in the gap. She was small, with raven hair and large dark blue eyes. Her black fur robe was marked with bright blue lines that glowed like the house itself. She did not look afraid of the storm or the stranger. "You almost waited too long," the girl said. She stepped back to let Elara in. "I sent him for you an hour ago." Elara crossed the threshold. Warmth hit her like water. She leaned on her staff and stared at the child, who had summoned a creature through a whiteout to find one freezing stranger. "You sent him," Elara said. "How?" The girl shrugged and shut the doors against the wind. "I knew you were out there. I know things before they happen. Nobody believes me." Elara's heart beat hard. She had searched the whole Permafrost for a child with the sight. The storm had nearly killed her. Instead it had driven her straight to the one person she needed. "I believe you," Elara said. "What is your name?" "Michaelah," the girl said. "You're going to stay."