Glacius Bloodfrost's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Glacius Bloodfrost pressed his claw to the shattered throne and waited for the ice to answer. It did not. For a thousand years his frost had flowed into any surface and held. Now the throne's cracked ice drank his power and gave back nothing. He could not sit as sovereign of the winter court until the seat took his cold. The dead ice refused him, and every hour it refused him, the court whispered that the throne had no master. He struck the seat with his fist. Frost spread across the glacier, then died at the fracture line like water on hot stone. The wound in the throne ran deep. Something had killed the ice from the inside, and his own power could not revive what was already dead. Glacius left the cathedral and descended to the armory beneath it. Blue ice lined the walls. Ancient blades hung in rows, and a greatsword stood locked in a frozen pedestal at the center. He had come for the sword. Living ice could cut what dead ice could not. But when he gripped the hilt, two small shapes darted from behind the pedestal. They were griffins, each no larger than a hound. Falcon heads, lion bodies, quick little wings. They planted themselves between him and the blade and shrieked. Guardians. He had forgotten the old wards kept living things down here. The larger griffin snapped at his wrist. The smaller one clawed his boot and would not let go. "Move," Glacius said. "The sword is mine." The griffins did not move. They guarded the pedestal as they had been made to guard it. He raised his claw to freeze them, then stopped. Their eyes were bright and afraid, not hostile. They defended the last order left in his broken hall. He lowered his hand. Instead he watched them. The griffins never left the pedestal, but they leaned toward one thing across the room. A slender ash tree grew from a crack in the ice floor. Pale bark, frost-veined branches, small blue crystals hanging in its limbs. Living wood in a dead place. The griffins' feathers lifted toward it as if it warmed them. Glacius understood. The throne's ice was dead. The tree's ice was alive. He crossed the armory and set his hand against the pale trunk. Cold rushed into him, clean and old, colder than his own. The tree fed on the deep frost beneath the cathedral and never died. He broke a single frost-veined branch. The griffins shrieked but did not chase him. He carried the branch up to the throne and drove it into the fracture. The living cold spread from the wood into the dead ice. The crack sealed. Frost climbed the seat and held. Glacius sat. The throne accepted him at last. But below, the ash tree bled sap where he had cut it, and the griffins were already screaming.