Blaze and Dreck spent a frigid night in a half-open cave and a solid eight hours on the trail. With each passing hour, the fire within her grew, until she knew she had enough to roast the orc.
But she didn’t. Not yet. She was out of her element in the Reach. She needed him as a guide.
So long as he stays right where I can see him. She wouldn’t be caught with her guard down. Not for a second. She made sure he always walked in front.
“Okay, what is this big surprise?” Blaze asked.
Dreck the monk merely nodded at the peaks and smiled.
Blaze had had a hard time finding a patch of ground to sleep on that was not covered by snow. Blaze produced her map from her rucksack and spread it in front of their meager campfire. Dreck pointed to an unfamiliar route that traced deep into the Frostbyte peaks. It was shorter by far, but likely treacherous. “This our path,” he said.
Blaze winced. “Monks don’t believe in the easy road?”
“What I seek is beyond all comparison,” said Dreck.
Blaze smiled in recognition. Of course. No wonder he was going so far out of the way.
Dreck was tracking giants.
“You’re going to see the jotnar—aren’t you?” She said it “yote-nar” like all the dwarves she knew did. The Frostbyte Reach was famous for the ice giants that lived there.
Dreck smiled. “Long have I prepared for this journey.”
The jotnar were simple beings of immense power and wisdom who spoke to outsiders only on rare occasions. Even when the orcs began their invasion of the dwarf settlements in the Reach, the jotnar did not intervene but merely retreated further into the nearly impassable mountains. Sometimes it seemed the jotnar were a world apart from mere humans.
“Dreck seek wisdom from ice giants.”
“Yeah,” said Blaze. He could sure use it.
Blaze stoked her inner flame just a little. Whenever she felt like igniting her spark, the orc would do something kind like take her pack or lift her over an ice flow. It was infuriating.
She had never considered how convenient it was to have a travelling companion who would soon be more than seven feet tall.
It put her on edge. Was it part of his plan? Was he trying to lure her away and ruin her chance at finding Princess Sapphire? If so, why didn’t he just crush her skull in her sleep with his walking “stick” that looked more like a small tree trunk?
Out of curiosity, she gave the orc a two-handed shove toward the downhill side of the trail.
He didn’t even notice.
Great. I have a boulder for a hiking companion.
The climb was unrelenting. As the altitude grew, the air lost its vigor, and Blaze was quickly out of breath. The temperature began dropping shortly after noon. She hoped her traveling cloak and the few extra layers the quartermaster was able to rummage up for her would be enough to ward off the cold. She had to focus on her mission: get in, find the princess, get out before she lost any fingers or toes to ice—or her head to orcs.
Dinner was a welcome respite. Dreck provided fresh game he’d killed in the woods, and she started the fire.
“What do you seek?” Dreck asked. His piercing gaze tracked her from under his pointed hood.
Blaze inched closer to their fire. The question was far harder to answer than she thought. She said nothing.
He’s a monk. Monks need patience, right? He can wait.
On the third day, when the road wound alongside jagged, frosty peaks and dropped off to one side into a steep valley rimmed by evergreens, Dreck asked again. “What do you seek?”
Blaze sighed. “Nothing . . . Everything.”
“It is true.”
“How?”
“When your heart is closed, everything is as nothing,” said Dreck.
“My heart is closed?”
Dreck nodded. “You seek to control the power of the Ember Mages, but you seek to do it alone.”
“What’s wrong with that? That’s actually how it works, you know. You summon the spark from inside you.”
“No magic is of one. It is all of Crystalia—all born of the Goddess.”
Mystic mumbo jumbo.
“None of us can succeed in our journeys alone,” he said.
Where have I heard that before? Blaze tucked her hands under her armpits to keep her fingers warm. “We’ll see about that.”
The following day, Blaze spotted more orc tracks in the snow. She said nothing about it to Dreck, who had certainly noticed the same thing. He was a tracker.
Why hadn’t he said anything to her about it? Was he hoping she didn’t notice—part of his tribe waiting to take her by surprise perhaps?
Blaze doubled her guard, checking every crag and looking behind as well as scouting ahead at turns when she could get ahead of Dreck’s huge pace.
Her spark grew steadily closer to ignition. She wasn’t going to be taken by surprise and slaughtered by the cruel creatures that had taken her parents. Thoughts of impending battle warmed her against the dropping temperatures.
“Not all magic fire from anger,” Dreck said from atop a snowy ridge as he gestured to a magnificent sunset.
“Ember Magic is.”
“And jotnar magic from cold hearts?” he asked.
“I guess.”
Dreck gave his awful smile. “You will see.” After a few hundred paces, the ridge turned and looked out over a great valley.
What Blaze saw was something she would never forget.
Far below, grand ice sculptures—great crystal pillars—rose from the steep glacial walls into sweeping ribbons and spiraling tendrils. They were grand, but at the same time delicate, like vines made of transparent stone.
The jotnar itself seemed to be made entirely of ice or living snow. It wore a short apron around its waist. The hairless skin on its bare back and chest sparkled like snowflakes in the sun.
Even from a great distance, its size was breathtaking. Its chest was huge and muscular, and its arms long enough to level a village with a few swipes.
The rays of the setting sun threaded a narrow canyon and hit the pillars, the light refracting around and between them until all were glowing with the silent fire of the setting sun.
But what came from its hands were gentle ice ribbons that twirled in arches like trestles in a garden.
Blaze gasped. She couldn’t help it. In all of Crystalia, she’d never seen anything like it.
Blaze watched in silence and awe as the jotnar climbed expertly among its garden of light-scattering creations. Slowly, it drifted between ice sheets so thin Blaze could see through them like a window. Where it stepped, great platforms of ice formed like stair steps, then receded as it passed, dissolving into a blur of tiny snowflakes that drifted away in the breeze.
Despite the howling wind atop the ridge, despite the chill of her ears and nose, a serene feeling washed through Blaze—a warmth of a kind she had never known before.
“It’s . . . remarkable,” she whispered. But that word did not seem to do it justice.
“Jotnar magic come from whole world of Crystalia,” said Dreck. Was that a tear on his cheek?
“Aren’t you going to talk to it?” asked Blaze.
Dreck shook his head. He looked surprised that she would ask. “Jotnar not talk to me. What would I say?” he said. “I come here to see jotnar.”
When they finally camped that night, Blaze slept deep, her dreams rich with twirling ribbons of ice.
She woke to a frigid dusting of powdered snow on her face.
“Ahh! That’s cold.” Blaze sat up expecting to see Dreck standing over her, apologizing about his big feet kicking snow at her.
Just the wind.
It was nearly sunrise, and in the dim glow of predawn, she saw something she didn’t expect.
Dreck was gone.
“I knew it!” she said.
His bedding and supplies were still there. Then why had he woken so early? Orcs were famously heavy sleepers, especially when they were growing. Not as utterly oblivious as napping trolls—you could bounce a rock off a troll’s face and it wouldn’t notice—but close enough. Dreck was up on purpose. And he hadn’t bothered to wake her.
That made Blaze feel exposed. And now comes the ambush.
Blaze wasted no time gathering her things. She wrapped her cloak tightly and set off across the snow, stealing glances over her shoulders as she went.
Going backward was hopeless. The ridge ran for a mile or more, and the clear skies promised no new snow to hide her tracks. She would be spotted from a distance the moment the sun came over the horizon. Her best hope was to get ahead and get away while she could.
She tried to walk in his large footsteps but finally gave up. A Crook-Eye Tracker wouldn’t be foiled by that anyway. Instead, she ran full speed ahead, charging through the snow and the bitter cold. The morning wind that crested the ridge threatened to blow her over the edge and down into the den of the jotnar. Even if it was awake, jotnar were pacifists. There was no help there.
Blessing the wind that woke her and cursing her luck at being caught by Dreck in the first place, Blaze stoked her anger. She had to be ready to summon fire in an instant.
At her first opportunity, she would break from the trail and descend the opposite slope, toward Hetsa and the populated villages of the Reach. She just needed a place that wasn’t a sheer cliff. Judging by the down slope, she was approaching a saddle, perhaps even a narrow canyon.
Blaze stopped to catch her breath behind a rocky outcropping. “Come on. Just a little farther, then it’s all downhill.” She listened to her breath for several seconds.
A creak of metal broke the silence.
Instantly, her spark lit fire and poured into her veins. She pressed her back against a rocky outcropping and leaned out slowly to peer across an ice field.
A hundred yards away, behind a rise and out of the jotnar’s view, was a platoon of large soldiers—very large.
This was a moment for which she had prepared her entire life. “Orcs,” Blaze whispered. Was this the trap Dreck had been leading her into?
How much easier was it for him to play her for the fool and make her walk the whole way herself? No, you’re jumping to conclusions, she thought. Take a step back. She had to try to understand what was going on.
Blaze’s heart beat anxiously against her ribs. There were just so many of them. Never had she felt so small and so helpless—not since Midway.
From behind a crag in the mountain, a troop of orcs hauled a great sledge. Behind them, more followed. Each sledge was loaded with cables and anchors, spears, bows, hooks, and nets of dark metal wire.
“Goddess keep us. They come to capture the jotnar,” said Blaze to herself. Or corrupt it, like everything that touched the darkness. Blaze leaned out, straining to hear the commands of the orc captain.
“Get those sledges up here!” he barked. “I want everything in place when he arrives with the Iron Collar.”
He? The Iron Collar. The very metal hoop that was slung under Dreck’s shoulder. It was inscribed with rune magic—perhaps the work of the Dark Realm. Dreck was bringing it to them.
No wonder he had left. Now she really had to stay on her guard.
Blaze looked down into the shadowed valley where the massive giant likely lay sleeping among its creations, blissfully unaware of the danger—a giant so powerful it could trample a city in a rage or destroy an entire army.
Then there was the jotnar’s magic. If legends were true, what Blaze had seen that jotnar do was just a glimpse of its power. If the jotnar became their enemy, nothing could stop them. Not even the fortifications at Dwarfholm Bastion.
Blaze gasped. “The jotnar doesn’t know. I have to warn it.”
But King Jasper wouldn’t know of the danger either. What of him? She could go back to warn him. But he was just so far away. His forces would take weeks to get there. Blaze was on her own.
Unless . . . Princess Sapphire was in the Reach at that very moment. She could rally the dwarves. If she was alive.
As Blaze watched, another figure, this one slightly smaller, stepped slowly and carefully across the ice field that separated her from the enemy on the far side of the saddle. He joined the column of orcs ascending the slope. He stopped one of them.
Dreck.
Anger surged inside her. The traitor. Of course.
She listened as a terse conversation passed between the orcs and Dreck.
“You have that which you promised?” asked one of the orcs.
Dreck opened his robe. Even from a distance, Blaze could see the runes inscribed in the large iron ring. The black diamond was set in its center.
“Finally—you certainly waited until the last minute,” said the orc. He traced his fingers over the runes. “Incredible craftsmanship. It would take years to duplicate these runes.”
“The magic of the runes will be strong enough to make your dark jotnar,” muttered Dreck. His eyes darted downward.
Blaze frowned, still listening. Dark jotnar?
The orc captain scowled. “They had better be, or Cernonos will likely have your head.”
“Dreck head strong,” said Dreck.
The orc captain laughed. “Crook-Eye head weak. Rimefrost Orc head twice as strong.” He slammed his forehead into an ice flow and knocked a great chuck of icicle loose. “Ha! See.”
Dreck said nothing to this. He simply removed his robe and lifted up his arms. Two orcs lifted the heavy Iron Collar over his head and shoulder and carried it to their sledge. They dumped it there with the rest of the metal hooks and nets.
Dreck, a traitor. And if what they were saying was true, that Iron Collar had the power to turn the jotnar into something else.
Of course Dreck was one of them. He was an orc to the core. Blaze shouldn’t have expected anything less. She could feel her rage boiling up inside her. And with that rage came power.
I have to stop them.
But there were so many of them. If she could destroy their rune-marked weapons—it might slow their attack on the jotnar long enough for Blaze to find Princess Sapphire. Princess Sapphire would know what to do.
As the column of orc soldiers marched on, Dreck slipped away at a bend in the trail. He disappeared into the woods. Dreck the orc had chosen his path of treachery. Blaze could choose hers.
“I have the spark.” Blaze said, flicking a flame from her finger. She suddenly felt so alive, so ready. “I can’t let them ambush the jotnar.”
She pushed back her hood. “Goddess save me.”
Blaze ignited both her fists. Balls of flame enveloped them. She darted around the outcropping and dashed across the ice field toward the orcs.
She was halfway there before they spotted her. “Human!” cried one of the orcs. But it was too late, her inner heat was already surging to maximum capacity.
“Fire Wave!” A blast of superheated air jetted from her hands, erupting in a wave of flame that spilled over the orcs hauling the sledge. Guy ropes snapped, support rails disintegrated, and snow turned to slush beneath their feet.
Shouts of panic rose up as the sledge slipped back.
But the orcs were strong. Twice the size of a man, with four times as much muscle, the full-grown warriors made Dreck look like a runt. They strained against the heavy sledge, keeping it from sliding back down the mountain with sheer muscle power.
“Stop her!” screamed the orc captain.
“Fireball!” She hurled a tight ball of flame directly at the Rimefrost Orc captain.
“Fireball! Fireball!” Blaze sent two more blasts in rapid succession. The orc captain hastily raised a shield. All three blasts deflected back toward Blaze’s feet where they smashed into the snow and broke it, sizzling to nothing beneath the surface.
Blaze hesitated. The fire should have wrapped around the shield, heating it until it became too hot for the orc to hold. But the fireballs had simply bounced away.
Faint lines showed on the shield, arcane markings no living sorcerer could mimic—the work of the Dark Consul’s mages.
Stupid runes, Blaze thought.
She had waited so long for a chance to face the enemy—to make them pay. To drive them back. This was the heat of battle. She couldn’t stop now.
She lunged forward. But the ground beneath her did not hold. The snow broke and Blaze fell through.
My fireballs. They softened the snow, she thought as she tumbled down. A crevasse opened beneath her, like a great black mouth.
She scrambled for a handhold as she slid and caught on something hard and wooden. It was Dreck’s staff.
“Climb!” Dreck cried as he pulled up the other side the staff.
Blaze gripped tight with both hands. She screamed, “You traitor!”
Dreck hauled her up onto solid ice. “You betrayed us!” she screamed, beating his chest with both fists.
He ignored her. “Blaze, run. Now.” He pulled her behind a rocky outcropping as a hail of arrows rained down on either side. Blaze tried to catch her breath.
“Orcs have grappling hooks,” said Dreck, glancing back toward the crevasse. “They cross soon. They follow.”
Blaze just glowered at him. How could he?
“Here we part. You find Princess Sapphire,” said the teenage orc. “I warn jotnar.”
Princess Sapphire? He knew she was here? Blaze had been so careful not to mention her. She hadn’t wanted Dreck to know, but he already did.
There was so much to be said—accusations, insults. And questions to ask. She had just seen Dreck deliver the key to the enemy’s plans. And then he had returned to save her. It made no sense. She had to find out what was going on.
And she couldn’t trust that Dreck would actually do as he said and warn the jotnar. But there was simply no time. So, she just nodded.
“Leave pack—no carry. Move quick. Follow ridge back to glacier,” he said. He took the pack from off her back. She wanted to stop him, but she just didn’t have the strength to resist. “Slide down. Cross river.” He walked his fingers, miming the path. “Follow foot of the mountain. You find Hetsa before Rimefrost Orcs capture jotnar, turn it dark.”
All depended on her success—the entire Reach. Possibly all of Crystalia.
Blaze nodded.
“Remember, cannot do alone.”
This coming from a traitor orc whom she had tried to trust. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Heart still pounding in her chest from her near-fatal fall, Blaze scurried away with nothing but her cloak on her back, sprinting back along the path. It wasn’t long before darkness would fall and the brutal night chill would swallow her. A solitary thought rang in her mind. She focused on it.
Keep moving.