King frostwalker's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Muffin held the glowing shard in one paw. Frostwalker watched the runes pulse against her orange fur. Then the great doors of the Icekeep burst inward. A red cat strode through, gold crown tilted on his head, cape dragging snow across the floor. Eric the First. Frostwalker's rival for the throne. Behind him, the ice pushed back like it feared him. But Eric was not alone. A pale figure floated at his shoulder, wrapped in white, calm as still water. "The try king," Eric said. He grinned. "Or the used-to-be. I heard your crown broke, Tundey. So I brought someone to take what's left." He gestured at the pale figure. "She's earned my army, my dragon, all of it. Kill the ice cat. Take the shard. And the frozen north is mine." The pale figure raised her paws. A glass flower bloomed in her grip, layered petals shining like blue ice. Light gathered inside it. Frostwalker's frostbitten paws throbbed. He could not use the crown's power anymore. He had none left to give. "Muffin," he said quietly. "Get behind the guard." But Muffin did not move. She stepped forward instead. She looked straight at the pale figure and did not blink. "Okay, so here's the thing," Muffin said. "You don't want this shard. You just want to win." The glass flower flared brighter. Muffin held her stare. One second. Two. Ten. The pale figure's paws began to shake. "You're going to look away," Muffin said. "You always do." The pale figure blinked. The glass flower dimmed. In that gap, Muffin pressed the shard to her chest. The runes she had read her whole life answered her hand. Cold poured out of her, sharp and clean. It swept across the floor and climbed the pale figure's legs. The glass flower cracked. The light inside it died. The pale figure dropped and did not rise. Eric stared. His grin was gone. "That's not possible," he said. "The crown answers a king. It answers me." He drew his blade and rushed at Frostwalker. The royal guard stepped between them, a black cat armored in ice, and caught Eric's arm mid-swing. "You lose, red cat," the guard growled, and hurled him back through the broken doors. Eric landed in the snow. He looked at Muffin, at the shard glowing in her paw, and understood. "You lied to me," he snarled at the fallen figure. Then he ran. His footsteps faded into the wind. Frostwalker knelt beside the dead glass flower. He picked up a shard of it. Eric was beaten, for now. But Muffin had won the fight, not him. The power to crown a king lived in her hand alone. "He'll come back," Frostwalker said. "With worse than a hired sorcerer. They all will." Muffin closed her paw around the shard. "Then we don't wait for them," she said. "We find out what this thing was built to do."