Page 22 of Shadow Throne King

An owl floated frozen in midair, its massive wings spread wide, the pale tips of them lit by moonlight. When I reached out to touch it, I encountered ice so cold I hissed. Drawing my hand back, I shook it, the uncomfortable sensation of frozen flesh giving way to pinpricks of heat.

I continued following the trail of frost, my boots crunching on the soft ground cover of the forest. It shattered under my feet, leaves cracking in two at the contact with my boots. The path seemed to go on forever, and I broke into a run, moving past the frosted trees, barely glancing at a frozen deer, its head turned in the direction the dragon had gone. Massive antlers dripped icicles, the glimmer of moonlight turning the setting into something mystical, out of old stories.

The trail ended in the middle of a clearing. The trees planted by Tallu’s grandfather grew high, but they kept their distancefrom a massive tree stump in the center of the clearing. A young girl perched in the center of it, her legs drawn up against her chest. Snow-white hair fell over her shoulders, pooling on the tree stump. Her eyes were closed, cheek resting on her knees, and for a moment, I thought the dragon had frozen a tree spirit that made the wood its home.

Then she blinked open her eyes, the refracted lenses twisting the pale moonlight.

“Dragon?” I gaped. “You’re a girl.”

She smiled at me, her thin lips pale peach, her skin just a few shades warmer than the white of her hair.

“Airón of the Silvereyes Clan,” she said. Her voice was high and sweet, that of the child she appeared to be. “You have always known I was a girl. Even before we spoke for the first time.”

“Yes, but back then, I thought you were agirl dragon. A dragon who was female! Not… a girl.” I felt myself twisting my own words around. “A human girl.”

“I could be a dwarven girl or an elven girl. Would you like that better?” She inhaled, and I waved a hand.

I had no need to see how her body would shift, what it would do if she became another creature entirely.

“No. A human girl is fine. Is this how young you are?” I asked, gesturing helplessly at her long hair and enormous eyes.

“Younger and older. Age is different for dragons. We age until we stop, and then we live until we die. We are not like people who age until they die. You came to find me.”

“You froze everything. You froze Tallu.” I tried not to choke on the words, tried to remain calm, but panic ate up my stomach, crawling up my neck.

“Not forever.” She patted the tree stump next to her, and I could have easily fit—whatever ancient tree had been cut down for the Imperium’s war had over a thousand rings, and that was more than enough to share with a dragon—but that would putme too close to her, and I didn’t have the right sort of weapons to take her on if our proximity went badly. Instead, I crouched in front of her, settling on my haunches, watching her with narrowed eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“This is ice magic. For the moment, they’re frozen in time. We needed privacy, and there wasn’t a chance for it in the palace or here on the road.” The dragon crossed her legs, exposing her nakedness. She looked so small, her body slender and with that unformed shape of childhood.

I didn’t even hesitate. Rising out of my crouch, I took off my jacket and draped it over her, covering her and buttoning it closed. She looked even smaller, even younger with it on, the long sleeves that fit me perfectly falling over her hands. When I finished, I sat next to her on the tree stump.

“Why do we need privacy?” I looked up. There was a soft line of moonlit cloud above us, obscuring a few stars.

“Because I’m going to teach you my magic,” she said.

I jerked my head down, a sharp breath wrenched out of me as though she’d struck me in the stomach. She smiled at me, her white teeth shining in the darkness, too-long fangs brushing over her lower lip before she rested her chin back on her knees.

“You’re going to what?” I asked.

“I’m going to teach you ice magic. The magic I wield.” She gestured around us. “I’m going to teach you this. Eventually. You need to learn the basics first.”

“Of course. You can’t learn to speak with whales if you don’t learn how to talk to puppies first.” The ache of my missing animal speak settled into my chest, a painful tightening around my heart like Kacha’s hand was resting there, squeezing. “One small problem with your plan: I don’t have any magic anymore. According to a blood mage who tried to heal me, I’m lucky I can still human speak.”

The dragon shook her head, rolling her eyes. “You once told me that your mother taught you the story of the great northern bear’s son who fell in love with an iceberg.”

I frowned, trying to follow her change in topic. Then again, given how confusing the night had been so far, I wasn’t even sure why a history lesson was what was holding me up.

“Yes.” I settled into a cross-legged position, resting my hands on my knees as my mother always had when she was telling the story. “The great northern bear had many cubs, and one was on his way south to look for new hunting grounds when he saw the most beautiful iceberg he had ever seen. Its colors gleamed, the sun turning it from pink to blue and teal. He thought,I will never again see anything so perfect.He begged his mother, and finally, she relented, giving him her blessing. She used her great magic to breathe life into the iceberg, and it became a woman. Still implacable, still deadly, but with breath and life in her. So, the great northern bear’s son married the iceberg, and from their union came the Northern Kingdom, whose peoples’ blood is half-frozen when we are born.”

At least that was the story. In the Silver City, mother’s fifth wife had been a midwife, and I had been pressed into service often enough to know that no newborn came out of the womb frozen in ice.

But the dragon was nodding her head, the motion shifting how the moonlight touched her hair, changing the way it was lit so now it looked a pale purple.

“Your mother tells a good story. She was wrong, though.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” I said. “Not if you want to survive a winter in the Silver City. Never let it be said that my mother was forgiving of people who questioned her storytelling. You’re much more likely to survive an encounter with the great northern bear herself than my mother when she is angry.”