37. Farron
37
Farron
D ayton and I run alongside the frozen stream, my feet nearly tumbling out from beneath me.
“Kel! Ezryn!” Dayton booms. “Rose!” They turn to us. “This way!”
They run to us, and we meet along the edge of the forest. My words are ragged in my throat. “It’s Flicker. He’s in danger.”
Rosalina covers her mouth and gasps. “Oh no.”
Then we’re off again. “There!” I point near the maple trees. Flicker’s small body writhes against the frost that covers his feet, trapping him to the ground. Ice captures Koop’s small legs, and he howls miserably.
Ezryn is fastest, not even stopping to assess the situation. Ezryn leaps on the frozen stream, using the slick surface to slide toward them. He vaults onto the brown grass and runs to the boy.
“Ez!” I call. “Watch out!”
Ez turns just in time to raise his sword against the stumbling pale-blue creature.
I’d hoped it had been a hallucination, a trick of the sun beaming off the growing frost. But I realize with sickening fear, this thing is real.
A walking corpse made entirely of ice, frost, and bone. Its body is a crystalline structure, glinting under Autumn’s cold sunlight. With empty sockets for eyes, its mouth hangs open in a silent scream. Each movement is jerky and unnatural from the frozen solid limbs.
The temperature seems to lower, and I shiver uncontrollably. This thing is not alive—not in any way that I understand. It’s a creature of the winter, a being of frost and snow and cold.
Holding tight to Ezryn’s blade, the wraith pushes against him, and he slips in the grass. Then a glacial frost grows over the sword, emitting from the corpse’s touch. Ezryn’s entire blade cracks then shatters.
“Ezryn!” Rosalina screams. He leaps back, disbelief evident as his helm tilts down at the shards of his blade.
“Fuck this.” Dayton sprints ahead of us. “Blades are a no-go, eh, ice-bones? How do you feel about magic?” He throws his hands forward and a gale bursts from him, a wind of salt and storm, summoned straight from Summer’s Blessing.
The frozen corpse screeches, a sound like cracking ice. Holes tear through its flesh, revealing moon-white bone. Dayton grunts, continuing the wind, but smiles as more and more frozen skin peels away from the creature.
I hold my breath. It’s working. He’s got it.
The wraith falls.
Kel and I catch up, and Rosie runs to Flicker. She touches his head, his hands, asking if he’s okay.
It’s all right, I tell myself. It’s dead now .
Ezryn slaps Dayton on the shoulder, but Dayton doesn’t respond. He stares straight at the corpse, eyes all too serious. “Wait…”
The creature spasms and jerks. Then it rises. The holes Dayton ripped through its body… They’re knitting together, frost filling the gaps. The wraith tilts its head, then charges.
I leap to stand in front of Rosie and Flicker while Ez, Day, and Kel trap the creature in a semicircle. The ice making up its form is mottled with dark veins, like frozen blood vessels. Its joints rattle with each movement as if it’s about to fall apart. And yet, it keeps moving forward, milky eyes darting between each prince.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Rosalina says. She grabs the small dagger we’d given her before our journey today and starts chipping away at the ice trapping the boy’s feet.
Flicker’s face is knotted up with courage, but his nose is bright red. “I’m… I’m real cold.” Koop lets out a mournful howl, half his body now covered in ice.
I stumble away from them. My heart races. I need to help, but what can I do?
Keldarion paces before the wraith. It grabs for him, mouth agape in hunger, but he dodges easily. “You are no creature of Winter,” he growls. He bends his knees, then surges upward, arms reaching for the sky. “You’re a monstrosity!”
Huge ice spikes shoot up from the ground, impaling the creature through its legs and chest. The wraith lurches and a gurgling squeal fills the valley. Then its head jerks, eyes like twin points of frozen lights. The ice spikes creak and groan… and merge with the being. It grows, as if enveloping the magic, Kel’s ice making the creature bigger, taller.
“I think you fed it,” Dayton says.
Ez grabs Dayton and Kel by their tunics. “Get down!”
The ice monster erupts, shooting daggers of frost. The princes barely leap out of the way before the creature is on them again.
Oh no, oh no, oh no. I grip my hair. I have to do something. But if Kel can’t even stop this thing, what good am I?
Rosalina gives a frantic look at the fight, then jams her dagger harder against the ice crawling up Flicker’s chest. “Koop!” he cries, fingers straining for his dog.
Koop’s big, sad eyes stare up at his owner before the ice covers him completely. He’s frozen, mouth trapped in a sorrowful howl.
Now, Flicker’s crying in earnest, the ice nearly overtaking his arms. Rosalina swears and tries to pry her dagger into the growing frost. Her dagger snaps, the tip shattering. “No.” She stumbles back. “No, no, no.” She’s using her fingernails now, scraping at Flicker’s frozen body.
I can barely breathe, my heart is racing so fast. The abomination has Ezryn in his hands. Frost crawls over his armor. Kel roars, ramming his sword into the creature’s colossal ice leg, but it gets stuck and is yanked from his grip. It throws Ez straight into Dayton and Kel, and they roll one over another before landing in a pile.
This is what’s killing my home. It’s going to freeze my friends first, then take Coppershire. My family…. And Rosie. Rosie’s here.
The abomination stretches a frozen claw over the princes, who stare up in horror.
But I can’t let them do this alone.
There’s a well within me, a reserve of power in the deep darkness of my spirit. A well that needs only a spark to ignite.
My friends, my family, Rosalina… They are that spark.
I focus all my energy on the abomination. Heat spreads through my chest, growing outward, lacing through my veins and swelling at the tips of my fingers. Flames erupt from my hands.
A torrent of fire hits the creature, each burst striking like an explosion. The wraith staggers, struggling to maintain its footing on the slick ice beneath it. But I don’t give it a chance, pouring every reserve I have into the attack.
Its frozen flesh begins to melt and crack. A roar explodes out of me, and flames engulf the corpse. The ice dissipates, and all that is left is charred bone.
I slump to my knees, breathless. Kel, Ez, and Dayton rush over. They pat my shoulders, touch my face.
“Good work, kid,” Keldarion murmurs. “We were in a tight spot.”
“You been holding back on me, Fare?” Dayton smirks.
I try to smile at him, but I feel like I’ve just walked through an inferno.
Our moment is broken by Rosalina’s scream: “Help! Quickly!”
We all rush to her. She clutches Flicker’s face; his body is like an ice sculpture, hands frozen as they reach for Koop. Only his face is untouched, but the frost is moving quickly, crawling over his skin.
“I want to go home,” he whimpers. “I want Koop.”
Rosalina laces her fingers through the little boy’s hair and turns to us. “Help him.”
I feel it: everyone’s eyes on me.
“High Prince of Autumn,” Ezryn says lowly, “your people need you.”
I sink to my knees beside Rosalina and place my hands on Flicker’s face. His eyes are desperate, pleading.
That well within me is still there, burning brighter than I’ve ever felt it before. But I can’t very well firebolt this child like I did the ice abomination.
I close my eyes, seeking within myself. I think of my mother, who she was as High Princess. Everything you need is inside of you already, Farron, she’d told me when she passed the title down to me. But you must be brave enough to claim it.
Warmth drifts through my body, but this time it’s not an inferno. It’s the glow of the bonfires we hold at night, the steaming mugs of mulled cider shared with friends, the coals of a bushfire that has cleared the forest of debris and made way for regeneration.
My hands dance with orange light, and I trail it over Flicker, chasing away the frost. The ice retreats and melts down his body. With a crack, his arms are free, and he gives them a big shake before hugging himself.
“Keep doing whatever you’re doing,” Dayton says. “It’s working.”
Sweat drips down my forehead, but I hold that reserve in my chest, keeping the warmth of Autumn close to me. The Fool’s Summer we sometimes get where the sun’s rays burn too hot; the crackling hearths in the great halls where we hold festivals; the looks of love shared over a bountiful harvest. I hold it close to me, then it flows to him.
Flicker falls forward, feet finally free of the frost. I catch him in my arms, and he holds me tight around the neck. “You saved me, High Prince.”
“I… I suppose I did.”
Still, he sniffles. “Koop?”
I shuffle over to the dog trapped in this frozen tomb. Is the Blessing of Autumn enough to save those we thought lost?
Orange light glitters off the ice as I summon the magic once more. My friends don’t make a sound, all of them holding their breath.
A howl fills the valley as Koop shakes melted ice from his coat and runs to Flicker. The boy grabs his dog, and they collapse to the ground, laughing.
I fall.
“You did it!” Rosalina wraps me in her arms until she falls to the ground, too. “Oh, Farron, I knew you could.”
Kel raises a brow. “We might have a fighting chance yet.”
“I don’t know.” I touch my chest. “My own well of magic feels so small. I don’t think I could do much more than that.”
“If only Caspian wasn’t sucking all the magic from Castletree,” Ezryn growls.
“At least we know how to kill them,” Rosalina says perkily. She still has her arms all over me and I pull her close, breathing her in. “I bet we could figure something out. Maybe there’s a way to channel your magic.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say. “Autumn has many old spellbooks. I wonder if one of them contains—”
“Hey, I hate to break up the party,” Dayton calls. He’s standing up at the top of the hill away from the wood. “But you should get up here.”
We all exchange a look, then run up the hill, joining Dayton at the very peak.
“Oh my god,” Rosalina breathes.
“Yeah,” Dayton says. “I think we’re going to need some more fire power. And fast.”
At the very edge of the horizon, a shambling line of glinting white hobbles over the rolling hills.
An entire herd of frozen corpses, bringing the deathfrost with them.