A Feast in the Frost

Time passed slowly in the sky.

There was no sense of scale out here—no mountains to chart, no cities to break the horizon, only clouds and wind and the endless frozen world sprawling beneath them.

Argolaith sat near the front of Thae'Zirak's broad back, watching the bleak landscape scroll by. It was still cold, even through the layers of enchanted cloth they wore, and the silence had become something deeper. Meditative.

He focused inward often, reaching for the pull that had led him to his previous trees. But there was nothing yet. The second tree's lifeblood still pulsed softly in his ring—waiting. But the third remained silent.

Behind him, Kaelred groaned for what had to be the fiftieth time that hour.

"Can't we fly somewhere warm for once? I'm serious. I think my lungs have turned to snow. I'm not even breathing air anymore, just flavored frost."

Argolaith glanced back, unimpressed. "Your boots smell like basil. You'll live."