The temperature began to drop as they approached the middle of the room, and the wolf in Anders knew without question that this was an ice wolf’s work.
With matching intakes of breath, the twins stopped short as they saw what was causing both the cold and the glow. A step behind them, Lisabet bumped gently into Anders, then gasped.
In front of them was a huge block of ice, nearly a hundred feet high and a hundred feet across. Suspended at thevery center of it was a dragon, a deep red with glorious bronze undersides to her wings, reared up on her back legs as if to breathe flame at someone.
Anders stared. It couldn’t be...
Could it?
“It’s her,” Rayna breathed. “It has to be.”
All their lives, the twins had wondered about their mother. Where she’d gone, why she’d left them. Until they’d found Cloudhaven they’d always believed she’d died in the last great battle, but a tiny part of Anders had still dreamed of meeting her.
He could scarcely believe that she was here, right in front of them. So close, yet impossible to touch.
Lisabet squeezed his hand gently. “What are those?” she whispered.
When he tore his attention away from where his mother was encased in the ice, he saw what looked like ropes—they seemed to be attached to Drifa, emerging from the ice block and snaking away into the dark. But when he crouched to look at one more closely, he saw that they were made of metal.
He followed it from its source out into the dark, and discovered that it stretched in a perfectly straight line, a long row of artifact warriors standing on top of it.
Then Anders knew what he was seeing.
“She’s powering them,” he said softly. “Our blood has essence in it, and the essence in hers is powering the artifact warriors.”
“But she can’t be controlling them,” Rayna protested. “They attacked us. She’d never do that.”
“No, I don’t think she is,” Anders said. “She couldn’t have frozen herself in the ice. Someone did this to her. The question is, can we get her out?”
“I’ll follow one of the ropes to the end,” Lisabet volunteered. “See if there’s anything I can learn about it.”
“Be careful,” Anders said.
“Oh, don’t worry, if one of the warriors moves, you’ll hear me screaming about it.”
She slipped off into the darkness, and the twins stood side by side, each absorbed in their own thoughts.
Anders lost track of time, but he was just beginning to wonder where Lisabet was when a voice broke the silence behind them.
“What areyoudoing down here?”
He spun around, Rayna a moment behind him, and found himself face to face with Sigrid—the Fyrstulf, the head of Ulfar, the leader of his pack, and Lisabet’s mother.
She looked almost as she always had, with her very white skin and her pale-blond hair. But her Ulfar uniformwas filthy, and there was a smear of dirt across one cheek, a hint of wildness in her eyes.
The children stared at her in disbelief.
Sigrid.
All this time spent wondering where she was, wondering if she was alive at all, watching Lisabet try to hide her own fears while they all worried about what her mother was going to do next... and here she was beneath Cloudhaven itself, standing next to the twins’ mother and tellingthemto explain themselves?
Something inside Anders exploded, a swirling mix of surprise, anger, and fear pushing to the surface. “What arewedoing here?” he echoed. “What areyoudoing here? Did you do this to Drifa?”
“I needed her power,” Sigrid said, glancing past them at Drifa without a trace of guilt. She spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The artifact warriors are the answer, and she was an incredible dragonsmith. Her blood can do things nobody else’s could. The warriors can fight for us. I’ve already been teaching them to attack.”
“Is that what they’re for?” Anders asked, feeling like someone was squeezing his chest. There were thousands of the warriors all around them. “Were they designed to fight?”
Sigrid waved a dismissive hand. “The founders had no imagination. They’re for assistance. Maintenance. Whatever they are required to do. Now, they are required to fight. They can move anywhere within Cloudhaven—I can’t get through the door at the top of the stairs, but they allowed me glimpses of you. And more to the point, the warriors can march out into Vallen with enough power.”
