Thorgrim Frostborne's Arc

Chapter 11 of 11

Thorgrim held the blue stone in his good hand. The frost had passed his shoulder now. His neck ached with cold. He turned the stone over and pressed it to his frozen arm. Nothing happened. The stone stayed dead. The scabbard beside it hummed, but the stone gave him no answer. "It won't wake," he said. "I don't know how to make it pull." Elara knelt in the wrecked house. She was the exiled witch who had taught him to survive the curse, and her own grandmother forged the lock that had bonded the sword to his hand. She took the stone from him and held it to the light. "My grandmother built the lock to read intention," she said. "So does my ice. The stone is the same craft. It won't answer a hand. It answers a will." "Then tell it what I want," Thorgrim said. "You have to fight it," Elara said. "The cold in you is part of a storm. The stone won't beg it out. It has to force it." She pressed the stone flat against his chest, over the heart. "Push against the frost. Make it resist you. The stone drinks whatever pushes." Thorgrim shut his eyes. He drove his mind against the cold in his arm, the way he had once fought the blade. The frost fought back. It climbed faster. Pain lanced through his chest. He gasped and nearly dropped to his knees. The stone flared. Pale lightning threaded across its face. It grew warm, then hot. Thorgrim felt a pull under his skin, like water dragged down a drain. The cold in his shoulder loosened. It flowed toward the stone and vanished into the blue. "Keep fighting," Elara said. "Don't stop." He pushed until his teeth chattered. The frost retreated down his arm, past the shoulder, past the elbow. The stone drank it all. Then the stone shuddered in Elara's grip. It swelled with light. Frost burst from its surface and spread across the floor. The ice climbed the broken walls and gathered outside the door. Elara yanked the stone away. "It's full," she said. "It can't hold a whole storm's worth." Outside, the gathered ice began to move. It rose and took a shape. A huge body pulled itself up from the drifts, half water and half jagged frost. Spikes grew across its chest. It stood taller than the ruined house and turned its head toward the door. Thorgrim looked at his arm. The frost had fallen back to his wrist. His fingers moved again. The stone had saved him. But the cold it drank had not gone away. It stood in the street, breathing, waiting. "The stone doesn't destroy it," Elara said, flat and quiet. "It only moves it." Thorgrim gripped the empty scabbard and stood. The curse was out of his body. Now it had a body of its own.