Luna Frost's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Luna reached the frozen plain by late afternoon. The ring pulled her forward until it pointed straight down. She stopped and pressed her boot to the ice. Beneath her, something stirred. She felt it hum through the soles of her feet, faint and warm, like the flower in her shop. The buried magic was here. It was waiting. She dropped to her knees and dug. The snow gave way, but under it the ground was solid ice. Her gloves slipped. Her nails scraped and found no crack. The sun sat low and red on the horizon. She had heard what nights did in the tundra. If darkness caught her out here, the cold would take her before the magic ever could. Luna pulled off a glove and pressed her bare palm to the ice. The ring flared hot. She pushed her will into the ground, trying to melt a path down. A thin skin of water spread and froze again at once. The plain was too cold. She was too weak. Her breath came fast and white. The red light slid lower. She could not reach the magic in time, and she could not stay. Then a white shape moved at the edge of her sight. A fox stepped from the snow as if the snow had made it. Its fur was pale as frost, and soft blue light curled off its back like smoke. Its eyes glowed. It was not afraid of her. It walked straight to the spot where she knelt and looked down at the ice, then up at her, as though it had come for this and nothing else. "Did you feel it too?" Luna whispered. The fox lowered its head. It breathed on the ice. Where its breath touched, the ice did not melt. It changed. It grew clear as glass, and a soft glow rose through it from below. Luna saw the shape of the buried magic now, close beneath the surface, pale and slow like a heartbeat. She understood. The fox could not break the ice, and neither could she. Not tonight. But it had shown her the magic was alive, and that she was not alone in wanting it saved. The sun touched the horizon. Cold pressed against her back. The fox turned and trotted a few steps, then stopped and looked at her. It wanted her to follow. It knew a place. Luna rose on stiff legs and went after it, away from the buried magic, toward shelter, before the dark could close over both of them. She had not reached the magic. But she had found something that would help her return for it. The fox led her across the plain, its light steady in the falling dusk, and Luna followed the first friend the tundra had given her.