Serka tilted her wings down, and cold gusts pushed her south. Alika struggled in Serka’s talons. Her mother was holding her tighter than she ever had before, her grasp so strong that Alika could barely breathe.

Alika tilted her head down, trying to get a glimpse of Tarka. He was limp, but she could see his chest moving. He was alive and unharmed. The wolves were gone. They were safe.

A cold, wet feeling came over the top of Alika’s head. She smelled something metallic. Blood dripped from wounds on Serka’s neck, running down it and coating Alika’s backside. It froze as they rose higher, and Alika’s fur became stiff.

“Mom?” Alika asked.

Serka didn’t answer, her breathing labored and thin. Alika tried to move to get her attention, but her mother didn’t seem to notice. Alika glanced at Serka’s wings, seeing frozen blood on their ripped membranes.

The trees thinned, and the cliff marking the glacier’s edge appeared below them. Tarka yelped as Serka lurched, diving down towards the entrance of their den, the cavern partially covered in snow. They began spiraling faster and faster, Alika feeling herself become momentarily weightless.

“MOM, SLOW DOWN!” Alika screamed, trying to roar louder than the wind.

Tarka began screaming with her as they plummeted. Moments before they reached the ground, Serka’s wings opened with a loud crack. Alika felt herself thrown back, and Serka’s talons opened.

Alika fell into the snow, and moments later, Serka crashed. The ground seemed to rumble with her, and Alika was covered as snow collapsed onto her.

Alika frantically burrowed upwards, pain coursing through her legs. Even if her fall had been cushioned, it still hurt. As soon as she broke through the surface, she began digging for Tarka, trying to figure out where he’d fallen.

Her forepaws grabbed something solid, and she pulled her gasping brother out. The two stared in silence for a moment before approaching their mother together.

Serka lay flat in the snow, one of her wings outstretched, the other twisted into a position it shouldn’t have been. The snow all beneath her neck was red, blood still dripping from wounds that refused to close.

“Mom!” Tarka screamed, running over to Serka’s snout. “Mom. Mommy, mommy!”

“Mom?” Alika stared at Serka. She was still breathing, but barely, and her wounds opened more with each breath. Alika tried to remember what she was supposed to do in this situation, but she could barely think. Fire, it was something to do with fire. “M-mom. Stay still.” That was stupid, of course she would stay still. She could barely move. “I can cauterize the wounds.”

Alika took in a deep breath, trying to summon the flame inside her, but only coughed out smoke. She began choking up, sobbing.

“Shh,” Serka said, her voice barely a whisper. Her eyes were dull, her gaze unfocused, but she was calm, absolutely calm. Serka raised her good wing, bringing it over Tarka and Alika as best she could. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Tarka began sobbing as well. Alika tried to say something, but couldn’t make the words form.

Serka began rumbling a melody of dragonsong as she pulled the two closer, a lullaby that she’d often used during the Long Night. On the coldest nights, she would hold Alika and Tarka against her chest so that they could feel the vibrations from it, keeping them warm.

Alika opened her jaws, but the words wouldn’t come out. What could she say? What could she say that would matter?

“I love you both so much,” Serka murmured. “Be good to each other.”

And Serka went still.

“Mom?” Alika asked, touching Serka’s snout. There was no response. “Mom? Mom!”

Alika placed her wings around her mother’s head, holding it, hoping, praying that she would move again. She didn’t. Serka’s eyes looked back at Alika, dull and motionless.

“Mom,” Alika whimpered again, over and over.

“Mommy, please wake up,” Tarka said as if his words would cause her to do so. “Wake up.”

Alika let out a sound of distress, halfway between a roar and a whine. It all felt like an awful dream. It couldn’t be happening. They’d all been together at the beginning of the day, all of them. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I didn’t mean to disobey you, just please, please don’t go.”

Serka was motionless, and Alika started sobbing again, running her talons through Serka’s fur.

“She’s not waking up.” Tarka nuzzled his mother’s neck. “She’s not going to wake up, is she?”

“It was my fault,” Alika whispered. She curled up into as tight a ball as she could, wrapping her tail over her neck. Her ears rested against Serka’s chest, waiting for a sign of a heartbeat, breathing, anything. “I led us into the woods. Now she’s dead.”

As if saying it made it so, there was silence. Cold wind whisked across the glacier, and Tarka curled up next to Alika, joining her beneath the wing of their mother’s corpse. He broke the stillness by letting out a howl of grief, a horrid noise that seemed to cause the winds to get louder, just to drown out the pain. Alika added onto it, roaring and howling into the snowstorm battering the furred membrane keeping them warm.

More howls joined their chorus.

Alika and Tarka suddenly went quiet. Though the winds were loud, they could clearly hear the sounds of wolves, howling in the distance.

“They’re coming for us,” Alika whispered, her talons clenching. “They’re coming for us.”

“But the wolves never leave the forest,” Tarka replied.

“They never left the forest because mom would scare them off.”

She left the conclusion unsaid. Serka was dead, and they had no one left to protect them.

The blizzard grew louder, drowning out the howls. Tarka burrowed beneath Serka’s side, trying to escape from the frigid winds. Snow began to pile up around the grieving cubs.

It was a fortunate blessing, Alika noted. The wolves wouldn’t come up the glacier to find them during a storm. It had come out of nowhere as if the weather itself was grieving with them.

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“We need to get back to the cave,” Alika said.

Tarka grabbed Serka’s fur tighter.

Alika tensed up her wings together. “Tarka, please. It’s not safe out here.”

Tarka stared at her, his eyes wide and wet. He let go.

Alika let out a puff of warm air and poked her snout from beneath Serka’s wing. The blizzard had formed a huge wall of white, obscuring Alika’s view of anything outside beyond Serka’s corpse and the entrance to the den. The snow seemed almost like it was avoiding them, though perhaps it was blown around their cranny on the mountainside. It was lucky that they had such a clear path back to their den.

Still, Alika doubted it would last for long. She grabbed Tarka’s tail with her jaws, pulling him out from beneath Serka. Something in the wall of snow caught her eyes.

Two turquoise lights had formed within the blizzard, captivating yet ethereal. Alika felt all of her fur stand on end. She couldn’t move a muscle. It was as if she’d been frozen solid. All she could do was stare as the two lights got brighter.

Let Nigel not into your eyes, lest you meet your heart’s demise.

No. This wasn’t Nigel. There was nothing in his eyes, for that was where he put your own. These lights were the burning flames of the aurora.

A black nose pierced through the veil, followed by a round snout of white fur. The two lights were flames in its eye sockets, staring down at Alika from twice her height. It had a body like a dragon, yet stouter and crownless, its tail a stub. Yet, each of its steps emanated more power than Serka ever had. The wind moved with it, or perhaps as a part of it.

Alika stepped back as the polar bear approached. She’d seen one before, but only once: they rarely strayed this far from the ice where they hunted. Yet for all the similarities in their bodies, this one seemed nothing alike. This was something different. Her heart pounded in her chest. With Serka gone, there was no one to protect them. They might not have been prey for the wolves, but perhaps now they would be prey for something else.

The bear stopped.

Be not afraid.

The bear’s mouth didn’t move while it spoke. Instead, Alika could hear it in her mind, its words settling within her like falling snow. Her ears fell back, and her tail tucked beneath her legs, trembling.

“Was that you?” Tarka asked. “Are you speaking to me?”

So they had both heard it. Yet, unlike her, a fresh fear-scent was not emanating off of Tarka. Was it not here to hurt them?

It is not here to hurt you.

Alika stared at the bear. She saw the wind in its nostrils, flowing in and out. She saw the blizzard in its fur, twisting and warping. And she saw the cliffs in its claws, the glacier flowing between them.

“What are you?” Tarka asked, his voice full of awe.

It is the snow that touches your fur. It is the cold air within your lungs. It is the ice beneath your paws and the stone below that.

“A spirit,” Alika said, her voice joining its winds. She recalled stories from the Long Night, of forests that had grown so large that they developed souls and bodies of their own, of ice floes who danced with dragons. “You’re a spirit.”

Some call it that. Others call it a fae. More call it a god. But most call it the Irmiq Mountains.

Alika bowed her head, her wings trembling. Her entire life had been spent here, in its domain. Were they taking care of it properly? Or had they angered it? Is that why Serka had suffered her fate?

“Are you here to bring Mom back?” Tarka asked.

The bear stared at Serka’s corpse, its eyes alight with the aurora’s flame.

No.

“Please, bring her back!” Tarka whimpered. “I’ll do anything you want!”

Do not offer deals you are not prepared to make, cub. The bear twisted its head at him, its eyes growing brighter. To bring back the dead is beyond its power. There is nothing it can do for her.

“Then what good are you!” Tarka roared.

“Tarka!” Alika exclaimed, horrified. She grabbed her brother’s snout, silencing him. “I’m so sorry.”

Tarka glared at her. Did he not understand what was going on here? They were facing a being of immense power, as old as time itself. How could he offend it like that?

Your mother made a deal with it, it said, unperturbed, so that in the event of her early death, the two of you would have a chance to survive.

“Survive?” Alika asked. She hadn’t even thought about that. She barely knew how to hunt, and neither of them could fly. Without Serka, they would starve.

The flesh of your mother can only nourish you for so long. Once the wolves realize she is dead or injured, they will come for her, and you as well. Even if you escape them, you will not survive the winter on your own. You must travel north to find your pack before winter comes, or you will starve.

“But mom — ” Tarka began.

She is dead. You are not.

“Can’t you just protect us?” Tarka snapped. “If you’re so powerful, why can’t you hunt for us instead?”

Alika placed her paws over her eyes, expecting the spirit to turn them into a pile of snow.

That was not the deal that Serka made with it.

“Wait,” Alika said, removing one of her paws and peeking upward. “Are you saying that we can make a deal with you?”

The cub wishes to make a deal? The bear twisted its head at Alika, its eyes burning bright. Its own being is as vast as the glacier, as great as the mountain. The cub’s essence is but a single flake of snow to it. There is nothing it wants from you.

Alika stayed silent, shying further beneath Serka’s wing.

As per the deal, it has created a great blizzard. For nine nights it will push back the wolves. Once it is clear, you must make your way through the Wulfwoods, where its power ends. From there, you must pass through its sister in the north, and seek out Night of the Scribes to learn your path.

“Thank you,” Alika murmured. She stared down at her paws. How many steps would they have to walk before she and Tarka were safe? Neither of them could fly or swim — how could they get over the great ocean that separated them from dragon lands?

The bear began to walk backward, returning to the blizzard it came from.

“Wait!” Alika called out. She still had more to ask. She couldn’t do this, not without help.

There was no response, and the wall of snow consumed the bear. The lights of its eyes were gone.

Wolves howled in the distance, but their sounds were muted and far. In nine days, Alika would need to face them once more. This time, without their mother.

Alika stared at Serka’s gazeless eyes. The blood on her fur was frozen, and soon, she would be as well. Alika nudged her neck. It was cold and stiff. There was nothing left of the life that had once been within her.

“Alika, I’m scared,” Tarks said.

“Everything will be okay,” Alika replied. Tarka was still so small, and even if Alika hadn’t yet spread her wings, Tarka needed someone there for him. This was Alika’s fault, and she had to get them out of this. “I’ll protect you. I swear, and may Nigel take me otherwise.”

With a talon, Alika wiped away the frozen tears on her eyes. They had nine days, and they needed to prepare. Maybe Tarka could grieve, but she had to be the strong one.

“I’m sorry,” Alika whispered to Serka. There was no response. Alika raised her talons, plunging them into Serka’s fur and tearing through her skin.

“Stop!” Tarka yelped, whacking Alika with a wing to try and push her off. “What are you doing?”

“We need to eat her,” Alika said. The stench of fresh blood rose from the tear she’d made in Serka’s corpse. “It’s what we did with Father, and we won’t need to hunt until we’re through the Wulfwoods if so.”

“Eat her? Like prey?” Tarka asked. He curled his tail around his hindleg.

“The wolves will get her if we don’t, or worse, Nigel will.” Alika remembered her own hesitancy when Father died. She’d felt weird at first, but it was just a part of growing up. It was how they survived. “When Nigel speaks be not enticed — “

“ — for shadows walk the living’s ice,” Tarka finished. His nose twisted in disgust. “I know.”

“Good.” She had to do this like Mother would. She used her wing to push Tarka over to the cut she’d made. “We’ll do it together, okay? On three?”

Tarka squirmed, flicking his tail. “On three.”

“Three,” Alika said. The fresh blood pooled. “Two. One.”

The wolves howled in the distance as the snowstorm raged, and the cubs said their final goodbyes to their mother.