Frost Winterchase's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

By morning, Frost saw the truth. Her steed had changed in the night. Its legs had grown thinner, sharper, split into extra joints like a spider's. Water dripped from its glass flanks and pooled in the grass. The valley's warmth was eating it. When she touched its muzzle, cold barely answered. Nearby, her four serpents lay slack in the sun, softening at their edges. The heat that kept the crew alive was killing the very things she needed to master. Magnus knelt by one melting serpent. "They're dying," he said. "All of them. This place is too warm for your ice." Frost pressed her hand to her chest. She was too drained to feed them all again. Feeding cost her life force, and the steed had already worn her thin. If she poured more of herself out, she might not rise. But if she did nothing, she would lose her pack before the riders came. She dragged the stolen book from her pack. Its leather was cracked and cold, marked with silver runes and a snowflake sealed in a ring. Caeleth's teaching came from these pages, though the old script was damaged and half its lessons lost. She turned to the worn drawings of serpents and steeds. There, in the margin, she found a rune she had skipped before. Beside it, a faded line: hold the cold within, not around. Frost understood. She had been feeding her creatures from the outside, pouring cold into them like water into cups. The warm valley drank it faster than she could give. But if she pulled them inward, closer, they would share her own cold instead of fighting the heat alone. She knelt in the wet grass. She called the four serpents and the melting steed to her. She did not push. She held the thread of each bond and drew them close, the way she had learned to close her power rather than grip it. Cold gathered at her core. She let it spread outward through the bonds, one shared body of frost. The steed shuddered. Its split legs firmed. The glass hardened, brighter now, the spider-sharp joints locking into place. The serpents drew tight around her wrists and stopped dripping. The pull hit her spine, but softer than before. Sharing cost less than feeding. When it was done, Frost stood without falling. The steed rose beside her, its new legs steady on the grass, its form fused hard and clear. She had stopped the melting. Her pack would hold in the warmth now. Greta whistled. "That thing looks meaner than a horse should." "It's stronger," Frost said. She rested a hand on its cold flank. She had saved her creatures. But the sharing tied them all to her core now, and she felt the strain of it. If one broke, they all might. The riders were still coming across the ice, and she would face them as one bound thing, not five.