Dangerous Gift Read online

  That figured. Snowfall would never have dared to crawl into her mother’s room in the middle of the night. It was highly against the rules and would almost certainly have gotten her knocked down a few spots on the wall. Training herself to go back to sleep alone was part of being a First Circle kind of dragon.

  But that wasn’t the kind of thing Mink worried about. If she weren’t everyone’s beloved princess, she’d probably be stuck in the Sixth Circle her whole life.

  “You can’t sleep in there now,” Snowfall said. “It’s my room.” She had enough trouble sleeping without adding a fidgety little snuggle lizard into the situation.

  “I know,” Mink said, her wings drooping. “I just w-want to see it again.”

  Snowfall sighed. If she sent Mink away now, these guards would probably tell everyone in the palace that she’d hurt her sister’s feelings. Not an excellent queen move, for sure.

  Besides. She should probably know about the Forbidden Treasury.

  Queen Glacier had taken Snowfall down there only once, when she was four years old, and she’d done the same with Crystal, three years before that. But not Mink. She was still too young.

  I should show it to her. With Crystal gone, if anything happens to me … this secret could be lost forever.

  Snowfall shivered. It was extremely strange to think of little Mink as her sole heir; even stranger to think that Snowfall should teach her how to be queen, just in case. Snowfall wasn’t cut out to be a patient teacher — and Mink definitely wasn’t cut out to be a ruthless queen.

  “All right, come in,” Snowfall said grumpily.

  Mink squeaked happily and bounded into the room ahead of her.

  “Nobody else is allowed in for the rest of the night,” Snowfall ordered the guards. (Did that sound cool and calm, or strange and paranoid? Wasn’t this a perfectly normal thing for a queen to command? The guards’ expressions were impassive, unmoving. What were they thinking about her? Did they find her queenly, or ridiculous?)

  In the main chamber, the bed dominated the center of the room, a block of ice carved into whorls and drifts where a dragon body could fit perfectly. As Snowfall shut the doors, Mink leaped onto the bed and wriggled around, looking ridiculously comfortable.

  The truth was, Snowfall still hadn’t slept in her mother’s bed — she couldn’t stop thinking of it as her mother’s bed. She wasn’t sure how she ever would. Most queens killed their predecessor on a battlefield, or in an arena, or before the whole court in a bloodstained throne room. They didn’t watch them slip away into darkness in the very spot where they then had to fall asleep for the rest of their lives.

  It was just as comfortable up on top of the jewel cabinet anyway. Or on the polar bear rug by the window. Or in the icy bathtub in the next room.

  Fine, nowhere at all was comfortable, but that was FINE. Queens didn’t complain about their sleeping quarters! Real queens probably didn’t need as much sleep as regular dragons anyway!

  “Off,” she ordered her sister. “I have to show you something.” Mink hopped off the bed immediately, her eyes wide.

  Snowfall braced her talons against the spot at the foot of the bed, the one her mother had shown her, and pushed. The bed slid aside soundlessly, revealing a hole underneath that plunged into endless darkness.

  “Wow,” Mink breathed. “Wow oh wow. Why is there a hole in the floor? I never ever knew there was a big hole under the bed!”

  “It’s a secret for queens,” Snowfall said.

  Mink’s face fell. “Oh,” she said. “Not for m-me, then.”

  “Well,” Snowfall said reluctantly. “It could be for you, one day, if anything happens to me and you have to become queen.”

  “What?” Mink cried. “No! I don’t want to be! What’s going to happen to you?”

  “Nothing!” Snowfall said. “I’m going to be queen for AGES and ages. But you should see it anyway, just in case. Hang on to your light globe and follow me.”

  She clasped her own light globe in her front talons, spread her wings, and dove into the chasm. The walls glittered around them as they spun down and down and down, until soon all she could see above and below them was darkness.

  Finally her light reflected off a smooth glassy surface at the bottom of the hole, several heartbeats away. She banked her wings and slowed to a gentle drift until she felt her claws touch down. A little thump behind her announced the arrival of her sister as Snowfall released her light globe to drift over her shoulder once more.

  “Oh my gosh oh my gosh,” Mink whispered, trying to crawl under one of Snowfall’s wings to press against her side. “What is this place?”

  Teaching her little sister about royal secrets was one thing; snuggling was quite another, and definitely not on her list of queen responsibilities. Snowfall wiggled away and took a step into the dark corridor before them.

  “This is the Forbidden Treasury,” she said. “You must never tell anyone where it is or how to get here. There are secrets down here, and magic that only a queen can use.” She realized she’d slipped into her mother’s voice, echoing the words Queen Glacier had said to her on this very spot.

  “I won’t tell,” Mink breathed. “I promise promise.”

  The walls around them were blackest ice, gleaming with silvery filaments and bubbles when the light hit them. Snowfall led the way through the passage’s spiral; it coiled in on itself like a snail shell, with alcoves cut into the ice at eye level every few steps. Well, eye level for an older dragon; they were slightly above Snowfall’s head, but she could stretch her neck up and see into them. Everything was too high for Mink to reach without flying.

  The first two alcoves were empty — they had been when Snowfall visited with Glacier, too. She didn’t know what had been in them, or if they’d been left empty in anticipation of gifts that had never arrived (thank you, NightWings).

  Her light glittered off something shimmery in the third alcove and she paused. It was a tiara, delicate and elegant. Much lighter and smaller than her hideous crown, and prettier, too. Hmmm. She nudged the light globe closer to the wall, where words were carved into the ice.

  THE GIFT OF STRENGTH. USE CAUTIOUSLY.

  Oooooo. Strength sounded promising. This would definitely be useful! Would it make the whole kingdom stronger somehow, or specifically just whoever wore the tiara?

  Snowfall thought for a moment, then lifted out the tiara and placed it carefully on her head.

  Nothing dramatic happened. She felt the same. It fit so comfortably she could hardly tell she was wearing it. She glanced down at Mink.

  “What do you think?”

  The little dragon’s eyes were shining. “It’s so pretty,” she breathed. “Can I try it on?”

  “No, no, definitely not,” Snowfall said quickly. “Everything down here is only for queens. You can look, but you can’t touch, all right?”

  Mink’s face fell and her wings drooped on either side of her. Snowfall turned away quickly before she could see any tears in her sister’s eyes.

  “Come on, let’s see what else there is,” she said briskly. She trotted forward, and she heard Mink’s tiny claws scrambling on the ice to keep up.

  The next alcove held a scepter, carved from some dark blue rock with little diamonds set into it. Snowfall disliked it immediately. It reminded her of NightWings.

  THE GIFT OF COMPROMISE, read the inscription.

  NO, THANK YOU, Snowfall thought furiously. She didn’t read the rest of the carved words, which covered half the wall under the alcove. Compromise was NOT what the IceWings needed! They needed a strong queen who could do impressive giant scary magic things, like maybe shoot lightning bolts from her claws, or suddenly grow to three times her size, or flick her tail and make it rain poisonous scorpions! Compromise INDEED.

  Mink fluttered her wings to get high enough to see the scepter, but Snowfall was already whisking away.

  “Not useful!” she called, striding to the next alcove.

  This one held a ring
— a weird-looking ring. It had a milky pink-gold-white-green opal set into the center of it, and the rest of the ring looked like silver dragon tails, winding around the opal and the space where a dragon’s claw would go.

  Snowfall studied it for a moment. The opal was kind of mesmerizing. The more she looked at it, the more flecks of different colors she could see in it.

  This one said: THE GIFT OF VISION.

  No other notes. Well, that was pretty straightforward. Better vision? Snowfall would take that. It wasn’t as useful as strength or scorpion hail, but maybe it would help her see the mystery dragons from much farther away. Maybe she’d be able to identify them long before they hit the shores of the Ice Kingdom.

  She lifted it out and slipped it on one of her front left claws. It was a bit too big, as if it had been designed for a bigger, older dragon. A real queen. Snowfall sighed. SHUT UP, BRAIN. STOP THINKING LIKE THAT. This is MY gift now; that MAKES me a real queen!

  She stormed on to the next alcove, which was empty. Whatever had been written underneath had been violently scratched out sometime long ago. Snowfall wondered if there was any explanation in one of the old IceWing history books. Not that she had time for HISTORY right now. Three MOONS.

  After that was an alcove that seemed to have been added later; it wasn’t at the same distance from the others, and it looked hacked out of the ice instead of beautifully carved. The item inside looked like an unwearable mystery piece of silver. The scribble-scratch writing underneath said PART OF THE GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING, which was weird (part of? where was the rest?) and not helpful either (bah humbug understanding!).

  Snowfall was getting nervous. The walls were spiraling in tighter and tighter; soon they’d be at the end. Wasn’t there ANYTHING down here that could destroy an invading army with one swoop if she wanted to?

  Absolutely useless animus idiots.

  The next treasure, though, looked a lot more promising. Pale silver wristbands set with diamonds … and underneath …

  Snowfall read the inscription and smiled.

  Well. It’s not exactly what I wanted.

  But it’ll definitely give those invading dragons quite an unwelcome surprise.

  Snowfall arrived at the front gate at dawn with five guards, because she was the queen and she did what she liked and Lynx didn’t get to decide all the things, so there.

  Lynx was waiting at the gate, looking unfairly well rested. She kind of rolled her eyes at the five guards, but she didn’t say anything, so Snowfall didn’t have to threaten her face first thing in the morning.

  They flew south and west along the coast, out toward the farthest peninsula that reached into the ocean. The ocean that was supposed to be so big no one could cross it, so even if there was a continent full of dangerous dragons on the other side, they’d have to stay over there. If Lynx was right, how had they gotten here? And why now?

  Why would they arrive right when I’ve just become queen? Did they hear about me and decide to invade because they think I’m young and useless and I’ll be easy to defeat?

  She gnawed at these questions as they flew and the sun rose higher, setting the snow below them into a dazzling blaze of sparkles. It was so beautiful and pure out here, all these untouched snow drifts stretching out below them. No murder plots or magic plagues or untrustworthy dragons anywhere to be seen.

  “You look tired,” Lynx said after a little while.

  “That’s treason, and no, I don’t,” Snowfall snapped.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Lynx asked.

  Did Snowfall ever actually sleep? Or did her brain just slide a little underwater, where the worries were blurrier and NightWings stalked around in the dark trying to kill her? Did it count as sleeping when she woke up more tired than she’d been before? Could she even call it waking up, when it felt more as though all her worries suddenly became so pressing that her eyes flew open? The arrival of dawn only seemed to shove her from a drifting haze of nebulous problems straight into a blistering ice storm of them.

  Last night she hadn’t even tried. “No,” she answered Lynx. “I was very busy.”

  Lynx tilted her head. “Doing what?”

  “You might find this hard to imagine,” Snowfall said, “but QUEENS have A LOT TO DO, ACTUALLY.”

  “But … when everyone else is asleep?” Lynx asked again. “What did you do, specifically?”

  Snowfall tipped her wings to catch an air current. “Last night, specifically, I visited the treasury.” She knew Lynx would think she meant the regular royal treasury. “And then I spent absoLUTELY forever trying to make a certain pathetic seal-eyed princess go away, but she ended up falling asleep on MY bed in the MIDDLE of my lecture, which was VERY RUDE.”

  “Oooooh, the treasury,” Lynx said. “I thought you looked extra-sparkly today. Is this to impress the strange dragons?” She flicked her tail at Snowfall’s accessories.

  “Sure,” Snowfall said, rolling her eyes. “Wow oh wow, I really hope they think I’m extra-sparkly, too!”

  “All right, sarcasm face.” Lynx flicked her tail at Snowfall again. “Then what’s all this about?”

  Snowfall held out her front talons, where the diamond-crusted wristbands glittered alongside sleek, fitted knife sheaths. The tiara of strength was perched on her horns. The ring of vision was still on the front left claw where she’d put it, but so far, she hadn’t noticed any improvement in her eyesight. Maybe she had to activate it somehow.

  If Lynx couldn’t guess why she was wearing all of this, maybe she wasn’t cut out for the new council Snowfall was thinking about, after all.

  Just as she had that thought, Lynx’s eyes widened.

  “Wait,” she said, lowering her voice even though the guards were flying a perimeter around them, just out of earshot. “Snowfall! You don’t mean the Forbidden Treasury, do you? Are those jewels animus-touched?”

  Snowfall smiled slyly, letting the sun catch on the opal in her ring. “I’m glad to see your brain does work sometimes.”

  “But — you can’t go to the Forbidden Treasury! It’s forbidden! It’s right there in the name! And you definitely can’t take things out of it!”

  “Of course I can!” Snowfall snapped. “I’m THE QUEEN, even though you can’t seem to remember that! I’m literally the only dragon allowed in the Forbidden Treasury! It’s MY treasury!”

  “Yeah, but — isn’t all that stuff forbidden for a reason?”

  “It’s forbidden to dragons who would be too weak to use it properly,” Snowfall said. “Not queens. And besides, this is an emergency, and why would we keep stuff like that around if not for exactly this?”

  Lynx tilted her wings, looking puzzled. “An emergency?”

  “You are a very poor listener!” Snowfall shouted. “Animus magic is BROKEN! No one can cast any more spells! We can’t make anything to protect ourselves from the invaders!”

  “But … hasn’t that been the case … for, like, two thousand years?” Lynx asked. “IceWings haven’t had an animus dragon since Prince Arctic.”

  Snowfall didn’t want to tell her about Jerboa, the difficult SandWing animus that Queen Glacier had found and formed some kind of alliance with. Glacier had told Snowfall to go find Jerboa in the hopes that the animus could stop the plague, but they were too late. And, of course, now it turned out the SandWing was perfectly useless. Now. Right when Snowfall needed her.

  Maybe the invading dragons somehow know that, too. Or maybe THEY froze everyone’s animus magic!

  “Irrelevant! And classified!” she hissed at Lynx. “The important part is that I realized we can use something we already have. The Forbidden Treasury is where we keep our ancient magic from thousands of years ago, before we lost our animus bloodline. Back then every animus dragon made a gift for the tribe. I realized, because I am a genius, that there’s a chance one of those could save us, and I could find it in the Forbidden Treasury.”

  “I never saw Queen Glacier wearing any of that,” Lynx said cautiously.


  “Maybe my mother was not as brilliant as everyone thinks,” Snowfall said. “Maybe if she’d thought of this, she could have found something in the treasury to protect us all, and maybe she’d still be alive.”

  She tipped her head up until her eyes stopped watering. The thought of magic lying under the palace, forgotten, unused, going to waste … it made her claws itch to stab something.

  “All right, so what do all those jewels do?” Lynx asked.

  “I’m not telling you,” Snowfall snapped.

  “But … you do know?” Lynx asked nervously. “I mean. You understand each of the things you’re wearing? You can control them?”

  Snowfall cast her a withering look. “Of course,” she said. “Most of them were stored with notes from the queens who used them.” She squinted at a shape moving below them, but it was only an arctic hare — and it looked the same as arctic hares always did from up in the sky. She’d kind of expected the gift of vision to actually, you know, DO something to her vision. Maybe that one was broken. Lynx didn’t need to know about that.

  “Most of them?” Lynx squeaked as Snowfall whisked ahead of her. She flapped her wings to catch up. “Snowfall, what if they’re dangerous?”

  “They’d BETTER be dangerous,” Snowfall said. “That’s the whole point! There’s an invasion on its way here, remember? We need all the protection we can get. This is why facing them with an army would be the best idea.”

  “I think you’re just as scary as any army all on your own,” Lynx said. “Without any magic.”

  “HA,” Snowfall snorted. “I only have, like, seven non-magical weapons on me. We need THOUSANDS of weapons to drive these dragons away!”

  Lynx glanced down at her claws, as if she’d only just noticed that those were the only weapons she’d brought. “Really? Seven weapons?”

  “Yes, of course!” Snowfall said. She pointed to the spear on her back. “Spear.” Then to the knives in the sheaths at her wrists. “Knife, knife.” Then to the sheaths under her wings, the concealed pockets of her chain mail armor, and the pouch around her neck. “Knife, knife, throwing stars, poison.”