Theron Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Theron knelt by the coals until dawn, chasing the same thought. His blade needed one rare thing to hold the enchantment, but he only had rumors. Old men had spoken of frost-thread spun by spiders in the high crags. They had spoken of a dead wizard who wrote the binding down. Rumors would not forge a weapon. He needed the record, and he knew where the dead were kept. He fed the coals, whistled for his fox, and climbed toward the ice castle above the tyrant's roads. The castle rose from the mountain, its crystal towers sharp against the gray sky. Its walls shone like frozen glass. Soldiers held the gates, so Theron went around. His fox found the crack, a narrow seam in the ice where the wall met the cliff. He wedged himself through and dropped into cold darkness. He went down. The air grew colder with each stair. At the bottom lay the crypts. Stone caskets lined the walls, sealed in frost. Theron wiped ice from one lid after another, reading the worn runes. His fingers went numb. His fox stopped at the last casket and dug at its base. He cleared the frost and saw the carving. A wizard lay beneath the ice, hands crossed, a tall pointed cap on his head. This was the one. The old men had named him. Theron pried the stone lid until it slid free and crashed on the floor. The wizard lay perfect, untouched by rot, held whole by the cold. Theron reached for the cap. His hand shook, not from fear but from the freezing air. He lifted the cloth and found a rolled scroll tucked inside, dry and brittle. He unrolled it by the light of his lantern. The scroll named the binding. His eyes ran down the faded ink. Heat alone would not hold the enchantment. The molten iron had to be drawn out and wound with a thread that would not burn. The scroll named it plainly. Frost-thread. The shimmering silk spun by the ice spiders of the crags, the only fiber that carried a spell into cold steel. Theron read it twice to be sure. The rumor was true, and now he held the proof in his hands. He rolled the scroll and pushed it into his coat. A shout came from the stairs. Boots struck stone above him. The falling lid had carried its sound up through the castle. His fox growled and bolted for the crack in the wall. Theron ran after her. He knew the binding now. He knew what his blade needed. But the thread grew far above, in crags crawling with the spiders that spun it, and soldiers were already at his back. He squeezed through the seam into open air and did not stop running.