Queens of Ice

Chapter Four

Moon watched as Taiga held up a simple necklace with a diamond dangling from the bottom. It was her sister's gifting ceremony, but Moon had expected Taiga to want to enchant something a bit more dramatic than a necklace. Then again, maybe she didn't know Taiga as well as she thought.

Taiga placed the necklace down and shivered, staring blankly into space for a second.

"Well?" Frostbite asked.

Taiga blinked, as though she was just remembering where she was. Then she shook her head. "I enchanted the necklace so that any royal IceWing will be able to cast animus magic, without losing her soul."

"But why?" Aurora asked, confused. "Animus magic already runs in the royal family."

"It didn't always," Taiga said. "For over two thousand years, the NightWings had it, stolen from us. They, or some other tribe, may try again. But, as long as we keep this safe," she lifted the necklace again. "We will still have our magic."

"But how would any other tribe steal from us?" Moon asked, curious. " The Great Ice Cliff keeps them out of our kingdom, and even if they could get past that, they would freeze to death."

"You can never be too careful. Foeslayer managed it once, even with the Great Ice Cliff. Who's to say another tribe won't figure out how she did it?" Taiga stared into Moon's eyes. "We can never trust the other tribes."

Moon nodded. Of course Taiga was right.

"All right, go away. Let me get some rest." Taiga placed the necklace back on her desk and curled up on her bed.

Moon walked up the many stairs, to the top of the tower. She stopped at Arctic's old room. After a moment's hesitation, she walked in.

Even in the two years since Arctic's death, the room hadn't changed. Moon had to beg and beg, but Frostbite finally agreed with a little nudging from Taiga.

Moon glanced around the room, and something caught her eye. She walked over to his desk, and looked at the scroll on the rainforest. A picture of a tall, regal tree dominated most of what she could see, and when she glanced over at the scroll on animus magic, she saw it was open to the part about Frostbite, the animus who'd carved the moon globe tree.

Arctic's words from three years back echoed in Moon's head. I could enchant something in the shape of a tree, and carve it instead of using magic to make it grow, like the Frostbite of old did with the gift of light... I was thinking something that could cure other injuries, and sicknesses, too. I could put it right out in front of the palace, where anyone could get to it.

It dawned on Moon that Arctic hadn't been studying the rainforest itself on the day he died; he had been studying the trees, memorizing what they had looked like.

After his death, she had wished that Arctic had had the chance to give the tribe his gift, since he'd been so excited about it. Moon couldn't bring him back from the dead, but maybe...