Glacius Frostmaw's Arc

Chapter 9 of 14

Glacius carried the ancient ice down to a flat shelf of rock below the cavern. Skara and Throk followed. He set the block on the stone and knelt beside it. He no longer needed a forge. The cube's power lived in his hands now. He pressed both palms to the ice and pulled the cold into a shape. The block cracked along a line. Glacius did not fight it. He guided the fracture, the way Oskar had taught him to ask rather than grab. Frost peeled back in sheets. Underneath, a blade took form. Crystal edges. A hilt curved like a dragon's skull. Two eyes woke in the guard and glowed pale blue. The sword was finished. Throk let out a slow breath. "You did it," he said. Glacius lifted the blade. It hummed against his grip. Then it went cold and heavy. The dragon eyes dimmed. The runes along the steel faded to gray. He waited for the pull of purpose to feed it, the way it always had. Nothing came. The weapon had drained itself in its own making. "It's dead," Skara said. She did not soften it. "You finished the blade and it has no fire." Glacius turned the sword in the light. Under the peak, the ground trembled. A crack ran up the cavern mouth behind them. Oskar stepped out onto the shelf, small and grave, his blue eyes fixed on the sword. "You took the last old ice," the demigod said. "The peak spent everything to give it. Now the mountain is finishing its fall." Glacius stood. "I kept my word. I took one block and no more." "You did," Oskar said. "But a blade forged from a dying mountain carries the mountain's death in it. It will hold no power until the peak rests. And the peak cannot rest while it falls." Another crack split the rock. Snow slid past the shelf in a white sheet. Skara grabbed Throk's arm. "We need off this ridge," she said. Glacius looked at the guardian. "How does the peak rest?" "The cube's heart must return to the summit," Oskar said. "Not the stone. The cold you carry. You took the mountain's power into your own body. Give it back, and the fall stops. The blade wakes. But you give it all." Glacius understood. The frost in his hands was the last of the dragon cube. Return it, and the mountain lived, and the sword woke true. Keep it, and he stayed a frost-wielding being while the peak crumbled and the blade stayed dead. He held the cold sword in one hand and looked at his brother and sister on the shaking rock. "Then I climb back up," Glacius said. Skara's jaw tightened. "You'll be ordinary again." "I'll be alive," Glacius said. "And the blade will be real." He turned toward the summit. The choice was made. Only the climb remained.