Glacius Frostmaw's Arc

Chapter 14 of 14

The hunter was dead, but the climb remained. Glacius left the low road behind and turned back toward the peak. Skara and Throk climbed beside him. The sword rode on his back, its dragon eyes dark. It was awake but untested. Oskar had told him the truth on the summit: a forged blade is not finished until it cuts the ice that made it. Until then, it was only a shape. They stopped one last night at Skara's ice hut below the tree line. Frost panels glowed pale blue in the dark. Outside the door stood her cold-blooming tree, its pink blossoms rimed with white. Skara touched a branch. "Three winters I grew this," she said. "I could have climbed. I turned back." She looked at her brother. "You didn't. Finish it." The next morning they reached the summit. Oskar Drumm waited among the wind-carved stones. The guardian was small and ancient, white hair whipping, blue eyes bright as cut glass. Frost ran across his skin in thin lines. He had blocked Glacius once. He had also saved his life. He watched Glacius climb the last stretch and said nothing at first. "You came back," Oskar said. "Most take and never return. You returned twice." He pointed to a wall of ancient ice, older than the mountain's memory, blue-black and hard as stone. "That ice broke every blade brought against it. The dragon slept inside it once. If your sword cuts it, the blade is true. If not, it stays a trinket." Glacius drew the sword. The runes woke and glowed green along the crystal edge. He had no frost magic left in his body. He had only intent, and Oskar had told him intent was the fuel. Glacius fixed his mind on the whole long road. His sister who had turned back. His brother freed from the cell. The mountain restored. This one cut to make it mean something. He raised the blade and struck the wall. The ice screamed. A crack split from the point of impact and ran up the whole face. The dragon eyes on the hilt flared bright blue. Then the ancient wall broke apart and fell in heavy sheets around his feet. The blade held. Not a chip on its edge. Oskar stepped forward and touched the fallen ice. "It cuts," he said quietly. "The forging is done. The blade is true." He looked up. "The peak can rest now." Glacius lowered the sword. His arms shook. Skara gripped his shoulder. Throk laughed once, sharp and glad. The weapon he had crossed a dying mountain to make was finished at last, proven against the oldest ice in the world. Then Oskar's face changed. He turned toward the broken wall. Behind it, deep in the split rock, something pale stirred in the dark. "You woke more than the blade," he said. "Something answered the cut."