Glacius Frostmaw's Arc

Chapter 6 of 14

The boots came louder. Glacius stood at the top of the stairs with his brother beside him. Throk was tall and thin, his wrists still raw from the irons. Skara guarded their backs, spear ready. Three winters Glacius had not seen his brother. Now he had one path down, and the warlord's whole guard filled it. "I can fight through," Glacius said. But he counted the helmets rising toward them and knew the truth. Too many. His sword would not hold against all of them. Throk grabbed his arm. "Not that way. There." He pointed to a shape set high in the cell wall. It was the dragon cube, the scaled block Glacius had once carried from the summit, sealed here behind glass. The warlord had taken it as a trophy. Its surface glowed faint blue. "It powered the seal," Throk said. "They hung it here to lock me in. It still holds cold enough to freeze a river." Glacius understood. The blade drew power from purpose. The cube was raw power itself. He pressed his palm to the glass. The chill bit through his skin. "Get behind me," he told them. Skara pulled Throk to the wall. Glacius drove his fist through the glass and gripped the cube. Cold roared up his arm. It was not like the sword's slow warming. It poured into him like a flood through a broken dam. His vision went white. He felt the frost fill his chest, his throat, his bones. The cube cracked in his grip and drained empty. He opened his eyes. Frost sheathed his arms. His breath came out as a storm. The lead guard reached the landing and swung. Glacius raised his hand. Ice burst from his palm and threw the man back down the stairs into the men behind him. He walked down. Guards charged and he swept his arm across them. A wall of ice rose from the steps and pinned them to the rails. Where he set his feet, frost spread and hardened. The stairs became a slope of solid ice. Men slid and fell and could not stand. Skara stared at her brother. "Glacius." Her voice was low. "You're changed." He did not feel the wound in his shoulder anymore. He felt the whole fort's cold answer him. He raised both hands and the great doors below froze and shattered. Light poured in from outside. "Move," he said. His voice carried a hum under it now. They ran down the frozen stairs. Guards clawed at the walls and could not follow. At the broken doors Glacius turned and breathed once. The stairwell filled with ice from floor to ceiling. No one would climb after them. Throk looked at his brother's frost-covered skin, his glowing eyes. "What did you become?" Glacius flexed his hand. Frost curled from his fingers. The cube was gone, spent inside him. He held its power now, and it did not fade. "Something the mountain can't kill," he said. "We go home. Then I finish the blade."