Frost twins's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

The Frost Twins stood knee-deep in snow and argued about which foot to move first. She wanted to cut west toward the low pass. I wanted the ridge. Our body did not move. It never moved when we disagreed. Wind pushed snow across our boots, and still we stood there, one head glaring at the other on the shoulders we shared. "West," she said. "The pass is faster." "The pass is watched," I said. "The ridge is empty." We are one ice fairy with two heads, a boy and a girl on a single body. Long ago something of ours was split in two. Neither of us can say what it was. Every time one of us tries, the other goes quiet, and the words drop away like snow off a branch. We are traveling to the frozen lake where winter was first born. We believe the other half waits there. We believe finding it will make us whole. A small shape burst from the pines above us, a spotted fawn with pale wings, chased by nothing we could see. It skidded down the slope and stopped short of our boots, sides heaving. She reached to steady it. I reached to check its leg. Our arms crossed and locked. The fawn bolted before either of us could touch it, straight down the slope toward a cluster of blue lights we had not noticed before. We followed, because for once we both wanted the same thing. The lights grew into windows. The windows grew into a home built from frost and pale stone, tiered like shells stacked on shells, with stairs of clear ice curving up its face. An older fairy watched from the lowest step. Her wings were folded flat. She did not smile. "You are the two-headed one," she said. "You want the spell no fairy has finished." She looked at each of our faces in turn. "I taught the last student who tried. She froze her own heart trying to cast with a will she did not have. You have two wills. That is worse, not better. I will not teach you." She turned to climb the stairs. I opened my mouth to beg. She spoke first, without looking back. "Come inside. Sleep one night. In the morning I will tell you where to find someone who might. I will not, and I will not watch you die on my step." She left the door open behind her. Inside, past a narrow hall, we saw a single bed made up for two, and above it a portrait of a boy and a girl rendered in cool blue, the frame cut from ice. We stared at the picture. Neither of us spoke. Our body would not move.