Faelan Wildwhisper's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Faelan walked back to the frozen pond at dawn with the small dragon perched on her shoulder. The pink ice glowed faintly under a dusting of snow. The old snapping turtle still waited beneath, a slow blue shape under the surface, eyes lit like lanterns. Faelan knelt at the edge. She could not reach him. She knew that now. But the cold creature on her shoulder could. "Will you carry my words?" she asked. The little dragon chirped and stepped onto the ice. Its claws made no sound. It pressed its nose to the frozen surface and breathed out a pale mist. Faelan spoke her question aloud, the one she had carried for years. Are you locked away from me, or am I locked away from you? The dragon's small body shivered as it passed the words down through the ice. Faelan held her breath. A white cat with wide, shimmering wings settled on a snowy bonsai branch above the pond, watching without sound. The turtle answered. Faelan felt nothing of it — no warmth, no resonance — but the dragon's eyes went wide and silver. It listened a long time. Then it climbed back to her, slow and careful, and laid something at her knee. A thin branch, frost-pale, studded with ice flowers and red berries that had not been there before. A gift from below. The turtle's mark. The dragon spoke for him. "He says you are not locked out. He says you are young. He says the cold does not speak in feelings, so you must borrow a mouth that does." Faelan's eyes stung. The barrier was not in her. It was simply the shape of the world. She would need a bridge, always. She had one now, curled warm-cold against her neck. She picked up the frosted branch and tucked it into her basket beside the fox fur and the jay feather. Her first cold-blooded answer, written in ice and berry. The winged cat lifted from the bonsai and was gone. The turtle sank deeper. Faelan stood, smaller and larger at once, and turned toward the trees with the dragon humming against her throat.