Queen Glaciana Frostborne Alpineglow's Arc

Chapter 12 of 33

At first light the three of them climbed toward the peak. Kira led, quick and sure. She was Glaciana's maid and closest friend, half snow leopard, and the cliffs meant nothing to her. She sprang from one ledge to the next, tail flicking for balance, then reached back to haul the queen up by the wrist. Victor followed with his fingers always intertwined with hers. The cold poured thicker the higher they went. The source of the curse lived somewhere above them. "Small steps, my queen," Kira called. She wedged herself in a crack and stretched an arm down. "I've got you. I always do." Glaciana took the offered hand and climbed. Below, the villages shrank to gray specks. Above, the wind screamed off bare stone. Then Glaciana heard a voice. It was thin and clear, threaded under the wind. It called her name. She stopped on the ledge and turned her head. "Did you hear that?" Kira's ears twitched. "Hear what?" Victor drew closer, his hand tightening in hers. "Glaciana. What is it?" "A voice." She scanned the rock face. Neither of them had heard it. The voice came again, patient, pulling her eyes to a shadow in the cliff. A cave mouth opened there, half hidden behind a shelf of ice. "Come inside," the voice said. "Only you, Queen. Come alone." Glaciana stepped toward the opening. Victor caught her sleeve. "No. We don't know what's in there." His grey eyes flicked between his wife and the dark. "Let me go first." "It only wants me," she said. "I can feel it. This is the knot, Victor. This is what we climbed for." She squeezed his hand once, then let it go. Kira crouched by the entrance, ready to spring. "I'll be listening," she said. "One scream and I'm through that gap." Glaciana ducked into the cave. Blue light glowed from the walls. The air did not bite here. She followed the voice deeper until the passage opened wide, and there, hovering above a slab of frozen stone, was a fairy. Small. Barefoot. Wings of clear ice caught the glow and threw it across the floor. Grey eyes fixed on the queen without blinking. "You came," the fairy said. "Good." Glaciana stopped. "You called me. No one else could hear." "Only the one who can end this needed to hear." The fairy folded her wings. "I am Frosty Winterglimmer. I have watched your kingdom freeze for three years." She drifted lower, until she hovered level with Glaciana's face. "You've been hunting the source. You think you'll fight it but you can't. Not with force." "Then how?" Glaciana asked. Frosty's voice dropped, quiet and careful now. "There is a crystal. The Snowheart. An elder showed me where it hides, and I've told no one until now." She met the queen's eyes. "Find it, and you unmake the winter. I'll take you. But you must trust me, and no one else can know the way." Glaciana understood then. The peak was not the end. It was the door.