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Winter Rose

Chapter 6: A Pretty Awful Dragon

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That night was nothing more than a passing shadow. Winter did not sleep one bit. Then the morning sun rose ruthlessly fast, and Winter found himself waiting around in a long, horrible silence.

After what seemed like an eternity, Boreal stopped by with some much-needed lunch: an old chunk of deer and some suspiciously smelly fish. Fighting back his wounded pride and basic sense of hygiene, Winter managed to swallow a few bites. It was probably the only food she could take without getting caught. Or, he realized as he watched Boreal eat the rest, this is just what the servant dragons always eat. That thought made sicker than any rotten fish could.

"How's that distraction going?" he asked, still fighting to keep the meat down. "Did you get in touch with more rebels?"

"Everything is ready," she said giddily. "Hailstorm's connections have agreed to help mine. Nobles and servants, working together! We're gonna change the world."

Winter tried to believe her.

Before Winter knew it, the sky outside was already darkening again. Sunset. Every second brought him closer to the impossible escape.

It was Lynx who stopped by to tell him when to sneak out.

"Hurry," she urged. "I'm going to stall the guard patrols, but that will only give you a few extra minutes. Fly like the winter winds."

Winter nodded. He opened the door a crack, checking to make sure there were no lingering guards or nosy nobles outside. Lynx's wing brushed against his, and he turned to catch one last look at her.

"Please," she added with a small smile, "just don't die."

Winter sighed. "I'll try."

They shared one more laugh. Then he was off, flying like the winter winds, or at least as fast as his shaking wings could carry him.


As he flew out to the dungeons, using the clouds as cover, Winter was so busy worrying about how he was going to get Icicle out that he somehow forgot about how hard it would be to get himself in.

The plan went smoothly at first. He landed in the rocky snow drifts not too far from the entrance, crouching down and so that his white scales blended in perfectly with the fresh snow. Then he watched and waited until, just as expected, a frantic guard flew in from the palace and disappeared into the mouth of the cave. A few moments later, the whole group of guards emerged and headed back with the messenger. Just as Lynx had planned.

Wow. That was easy, thought Winter as they all rushed by overhead. Once they were gone, he took to the sky himself, scouting out the entrance one more time. Then he realized he had been too quick to celebrate. Wait, no, not so easy. Of course.

There was still one guard left.

"Great," Winter grumbled to himself. He really should have seen it coming. Lynx had mentioned that the guards could not be trusted; some of them probably suspected the plan. And besides, absolutely none of Winter's plans ever went right anyway.

Winter flew in a wide circle. The guard looked small and scrawny. The only weapon he had was a plain ice staff, which he was holding incorrectly. Winter took a deep breath, filling his throat with frost, and thought back to his days of battle training. It would all be over quickly, if he could just get one good blast in.

Before his fear could freeze his wings, he swooped down and unleashed his frostbreath with deadly precision. Or it would have been deadly precision, if the guard hadn't spotted him at the last second and swung that staff around just fast enough to break Winter's swoop. Winter fell in a flutter of wings and a frustrated snarl, somehow managing to land without breaking anything. He attacked again, but this time the guard was prepared, and and shot back an icy blast of his own.

Winter dodged, lunged toward the staff (which the poor guard was still struggling to hold), and grabbed it. Digging in with his serrated talons, he knocked his clumsy opponent off balance and lashed his spiked tail forward for another blow.

"Wait, wait, wait!" The guard dropped the weapon and stumbled back, shocked. He stared at Winter for a second, then threw up his wings in surrender. "Y-you're Prince Winter!" he cried.

Prince Winter. Winter's old title sounded strange and wrong now, and he still hated that he was famous for it. But maybe, he thought, that'll finally help me now.

"Yes," said Winter. He puffed up his chest and tried to look intimidating. He failed terribly. "Well, uh, ex-Prince Winter," he clarified. "Yeah."

"Three moons," muttered the guard. "You're... you were my hero."

"Really?" Now it was Winter's turn to be shocked.

The guard regarded him with reverence. "You helped stop Darkstalker, and you stood up to the First Circle for us!" Confusion swam in his big eyes as he stepped back and furled his wings. "I always wanted to do something like that." He looked back at the dungeons, guilt filling his face. "And I really don't want... that to happen to Princess Icicle either."

Winter realized that the little guard was no older than he was, most likely even younger. The poor dragon was probably just a trainee. No wonder the other guards had left him behind.

"Look," Winter said, resisting the rather unheroic urge to just finish the fight and leave the weaker dragon knocked-out in the snow. He had to at least try to work this out first. "If my sister is tortured to death, everything will only get worse. Snowfall will threaten everyone. The kingdom will go mad. I can't let that happen."

The guard nodded, but when Winter tried to step past him, he flared his wings again. "I can't -"

Exasperated, Winter growled and prepared himself for a battle. That knocking-out plan seemed awfully tempting now. But this young dragon clearly didn't want to fight. There was respect and trust in the guard's frightened words. Winter decided to pay that forward.

"Listen," he said. "You know Lynx, the head of the guards? She's my friend. She's in on this. She'll protect you, I promise. Go back to the palace, join the other guards, and you'll be fine."

Some of the fear melted from the guard's face. He paused, his wings fluttering nervously, as he mulled it over. "O-okay," he stammered out. "I'll do it. I'll help you. Just..." The young dragon gulped. "Just please remember to help our kingdom." Still shaking like a leaf, he stepped aside from the entrance to let Winter pass. "My name's Puffin, by the way."

"Thanks, Puffin," said Winter. I'll try my best, he wanted to add, but the guard was already taking off toward the palace.

Winter had no way of knowing whether Puffin would really keep his word, or if he would blab about the escape plot as soon as he got there. Winter had taken a huge risk, like landing on thin ice, one that could ruin everything yet again. He would have to work even faster now.

Steeling himself, and silently cursing his own incompetence, he plunged into the dark maw of the dungeons.


Winter remembered Icicle's cell. The memory of that last meeting with her was frozen into his head, so he recalled every gloomy step down those cold, cruel tunnels.

Even as he rushed past the other prisoners, his head down, his eyes focused on the darkness up ahead, he couldn't help wondering what their stories were. How many of these IceWings were innocent? He had in this little pouch a key that could free anyone. If only he knew more about them. If only he had bothered to pay more attention to the corruption in his own kingdom.

Focus, he told himself. No time for that now. Icicle. Find Icicle.

And then, as if in answer to that thought, he found himself at her cell's door.

There was no time to waste on his own hate and sadness and hesitation. He pulled out the key and jammed it into the lock. An sickening tingle raced through his talons, suffusing his scales with magic as the key's ancient spell worked. "Three moons," he muttered, shivering. Then, his stomach made even sicker by his nerves, he called out, "Icicle?"

"Winter?" Her voice was frightened and bewildered at first. Then, in her usual disgusted tone she hissed, "What are you doing here?" Her blue eyes widened when she saw that he was alone. "How..."

"We're escaping," Winter said bluntly.

The utter shock that swept across Icicle's face was truly a sight to see. First she sat there, blinking with disbelief, then her expression turned to doubt, and she reeled back as if to strike him, and then, finally, she fixed him with a blank stare, and asked him, "Why?"

Winter rolled his eyes. "Can we just finish the escape now?" he snapped.

Icicle managed a snort of laughter, nodded, and scrambled out of her cell. She led the way as they raced back up out of the dungeons, the route to her cell no doubt even more deeply engraved on her brain than Winter's. As they stumbled through the darkness, Winter thought about her single-word question, which he honestly didn't know the answer to yet. Why did I do this?

Then they burst out of the dungeons, into the fresh and freezing air, and Winter stared up at the sky's first scattering of stars and, finally, found his answer.

"Why did you do this?" Icicle asked again. "Why save me? You hate me."

A stab of meanness hit Winter, and he muttered, "Oh, yeah, I do." Then he sighed and reminded himself that now was not the time to get some sarcastic revenge. Tempting as that was. "Yes, Icicle," he said, "I think you've done some pretty awful things, and honestly, I think you're a pretty awful dragon. But I'm also an awful dragon. And I wouldn't be..." He paused, frowning, and she let him continue. "And I wouldn't be here, trying to become better, if nobody else had ever believed in me."

Icicle was quiet. "You believe in me?" she asked, her voice soft and yet scornful as ever.

Winter didn't mind. He could hear the pain behind her anger. It sounded like an echo of his own voice.

"Yeah," he repeated, swallowing his own pain and anger, "I do."

Icicle said nothing.

There were a million things he could have said then. A million ways that conversation could have gone. But there was no time for that now. No time for anything but flight, for both of them. If either of them wanted to live long enough to become better dragons, they had to leave now.

Is that all my life is going be? Winter wondered plaintively. Flying away from everything? From everyone? Then he shook himself out of his own frigid thoughts. Not a good time to get all tragic, Winter!

"Fly to Sanctuary. As fast as you can," he told Icicle, shoving her forward with his wing. Then he nodded toward the sky, at a familiar constellation. One they had both memorized as dragonets. "If you get lost, follow the Triplets." Icicle's scowl deepened with questions, but Winter waved them away. "We'll find somewhere for you to hide, somewhere out in the provinces. Right now you just need to go."

Another resolve had hardened in him, frozen into his heart like a great glacier of dread. Lynx, Hailstorm, and Boreal were still at the palace, probably risking their lives just to buy him this time. He wouldn't leave without them. He couldn't. If he truly was a better dragon now, he would have to go back for his friends.

"Winter..." Icicle started. Something changed in her voice.

"Icicle!" he snapped. It seemed cruelly fitting to be the one bossing her around now. As dragonets, it had always been the other way around. "Just go."

"Do you remember the old stories?" Icicle went on. Her talons twitched as if she wanted to take his, but Winter's gut still clenched hatefully at that thought, and Icicle's heart clearly hadn't become mushy enough to really reach out to him. "Do you remember the one about the dragons reborn from ice? Who got to live again?"

Winter didn't really remember that legend. He nodded anyway. Anything to get her to go.

"You're lying," said Icicle, smiling slightly. Coldly. "Of course. You never studied enough."

"Sanctuary," he reminded her. "Go."

She nodded. Wordlessly. Thanklessly. Then her wings unfurled in a flash of blinding white and she took to the sky as seamlessly as ever, swift and silent in the sparkling night. She was always better at flying than Winter. She always beat him and always gloated. Would she ever really change?

Winter watched for a moment, and remembered. Then he, too, took to the sky and flew off in the opposite direction. On toward the palace, and whatever awaited him there, whatever wild distraction was already unfolding. There were dragons down there he could not bear to leave behind, dragons who had believed in him. He would not flee until he knew that they, too, were safe. It was the right thing to do and, of course, incredibly stupid.