Rings and stars filled the night sky. Green flames scorched the mountains. With each step that Alika took across the ice, cracks appeared in it, glowing turquoise lines rising from it before her. They danced with the aurora in the sky, wrapping each other like dragons coiling tails. They formed figures and squiggles, dancing as if trying to tell Alika a story that only they could read.
She squinted, attempting to puzzle them out. The lines of fire and ice converged into the figure of a dragon. It opened its jaws, laughing silently. Alika raised a wing to greet it, but it turned and ran.
“Wait!” Alika called. She tried to run after it, but her paws slipped, and she fell on her underbelly.
The dragon laughed at her again, smashing its tail into the ice. A deep crack formed, but the ice did not break. Instead, green flames rose, reaching into the sky and pulling down the aurora. The fire coalesced into ropes, forming a flat platform jutting up to the stars.
“Come on!” Tarka shouted as he climbed the bridge up into the sky.
Alika got back to her paws and followed. Higher and higher she rose, complex graphs and lines surrounding her. The air became cold and thin.
She looked down. The mountains were so far beneath her.
“Hurry up!” Tarka said. “Look, we’re almost there!”
Alika gazed past him. At the end of the bridge, she saw it. A floating island of green fire, burning in the sky.
“The Emerald Isle,” she whispered. “It feels so warm and alive.”
Tarka ran faster.
“Wait up!” Alika shouted. She tried running faster, but the faster she went, the further away he got from her. The Emerald Isle began fading from view, the flames dying out.
“Stop, please!” Alika said. “Don’t leave me here!”
A whisper of wind behind her made her turn. Serka stood on the bridge, but ice had coated her paws, and she couldn’t move.
“Mom?” Alika asked.
Serka stared at Alika. Her jaws opened, but she made no noise as she roared.
Alika tried meeting her eyes, but there was nothing there. Where Serka’s eyes should have been, there was only a hole: a deep, dark, consuming hole. Alika tried looking away, but she couldn’t. The hole stared back at her, so deep that Alika knew she was going to fall into it.
Let Nigel not into your eyes, lest you meet your heart’s demise.
Alika tried screaming, but there was no sound. The eyes opened wider and wider until they consumed everything.
“Alika, Alika, wake up.”
Alika opened her eyes, panting. Her talons trembled. Tarka had his forepaws on her, shaking her awake.
It had just been a dream. Everything was fine.
Except that their mother was dead, and that they had to cross the Wulfwoods today.
It was light outside of the den — even though the Long Day was over, their nights were still short — and the blizzard was slowing. The two had slept in a pile to keep warm, and Alika had placed a wing over Tarka.
“What’s wrong?” Tarka asked. “You were shaking and jittering and I was really worried. Are you going to die too?”
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“Not if I can help it,” Alika rumbled. “Just a bad dream. Everything is okay.” She hugged her wing tight around Tarka, before getting up to all fours.
Alika peered out at the snowstorm. It was almost calm enough now that they could walk through it. It was good that she’d woken up when she had; she wanted them to get out while they still had some cover. If they could see through the snowstorm, so could the wolves.
“I’m scared,” Tarka said, his ears flicking back.
“It’ll be okay. We just need to get through the Wulfwoods.” How they were going to do that, Alika had no clue. The spirit wouldn’t have told them to do that if it was just going to get them killed, right? Serka had made a deal with it.
“I wish Mom was here with us,” Tarka murmured.
Though they’d buried much of Serka’s remains beneath the snow, Alika could still see frozen bones sticking out near the entrance. She would be glad to no longer have that visual reminder.
“I do as well,” Alika replied. “Come on. We should go.”
Tarka lowered his snout obediently, and the two climbed out of the cave. Snow pummeled Alika’s snout as she walked into the fading storm. The Wulfwoods beyond the glacier’s edge were still obscured, but they were close to home, and Alika knew how to find the path down from here.
Or, perhaps close to what had been home. Alika glanced back at their den as it faded into the snow. Everything she’d once known, she was leaving behind in the hope of finding the rest of their family. Everything except Tarka, that is.
“Bye, den!” Tarka shouted, waving a wing at it. “Bye, glacier! Bye, rock that looks like a dragon! Bye, mountainside I could never climb up! Bye, weird spot where the snow was always deeper than it seemed to be!” He paused, his ears drooping. “Bye, mom.”
Alika nudged him with her snout, and they headed toward the path down the glacier. If only she’d led them there instead of deeper into the Wulfwoods, if only they had headed straight there, none of this would have happened. They would be playing on the glacier, and Serka would be there, safe. But Serka was gone, and they might never see the glacier again.
They descended into the Wulfwoods. Fog billowed between the tall trees, the snow fresh. Alika was tense. Around any corner, around any trunk, there could be a wolf. Her tail curled as she recalled Seluk’s hate-filled eyes. If the wolves found them, they’d be torn apart.
Alika caught a glimpse of Tasien’s curved rings, faintly shining through the fog. Even in death, the Dreamer’s eldest daughter still guided dragons and lit up the Long Night. Serka had once said that to find their way back home, their home long, long ago, all she had to do was follow them north until she flew across the great ocean, then leave them behind. Alika wasn’t sure what that meant — how would following the rings, then turning away from them, lead her anywhere? Still, she trusted her mother. Perhaps it would be apparent what she meant when Alika reached the rings.
“Alika, I can smell them,” Tarka murmured, poking her with the edge of his wing.
She placed her snout to a nearby tree. It reeked with the scent of wolf, raising the hackles on her scruff. The same scent covered the trees around them, and claws had marked their bark.
“They’ve moved in to claim Mom’s territory already,” Alika said, lashing her tail in anger. They’d never come in this close to the glacier before, not while Serka was around. “It’s a few days old. I don’t smell anything more recent.”
She led them further between the trees. A few scorched trees stood out to her in the distance, and she quickly pulled Tarka eastward to make a detour around them. She didn’t want to revisit that scene.
Yet, they reached the boundary line of their territory nonetheless. Serka’s scent was covered over with that of wolves. It lingered around them like a cloud, and Tarka stopped at the edge of it.
“I don’t want to go,” Tarka whimpered, his tail between his legs.
Alika rumbled. “Tarka, we don’t have any choice. We can’t stay here.”
“But mom — ”
“I know,” Alika interrupted. “We need to hurry. One last smell, then we go, okay?”
Tarka flicked his snout, and took in a deep breath, his nostrils expanding. Alika did the same.
It hurt. The scent was already fading, and Alika knew that this would be the last time she’d ever smell it. All because of her stupid decisions. She should’ve known better; she should’ve taken care of Tarka.
Tarka lifted his wings and let out a pained cry. Alika curled her tail above her snout and folded her ears back. Why did Serka have to die?
Tarka’s wailing grew louder. Birds in the branches above them flew off.
“Tarka, stop it,” Alika sniffled, trying to hold back her own feelings. “We need to be quiet.”
Tarka wailed again, but this time, it was answered by howling. Alika’s ears raised, her talons out and ready. Tarka went silent, shaking and covered in fear-scent.
“They’re up on the glacier,” Alika whispered, pinpointing the direction and height the howls were coming from. “They’ll find out that we’re gone soon. We need to hurry.”
She nudged Tarka, and the two dragons stepped beyond the edges of their mother’s territory for the first time, walking into lands unknown.