Part I: The Verdict

Winter had known what was coming. Had tried to prepare for it. Tried to freeze off his heart, his mind, his desperately shuffling wings and bring back the stoic face that had served him for so long. If there was any time that he needed to slip on an icy, loveless mask, it was now. For her sake.

But hearing that hiss. Those words. That verdict...

It rattled him like a glacial wind, shook him down to his bones, and broke the heart that he had tried so hard to freeze solid. Good thing his family and tribe had both disowned him, because the open rage and flagrant disobedience that he showed right then was, as his mother would say, "a disgrace to every IceWing in history!"

Winter didn't care. He rushed out of the council chambers, shoving rudely past all the other spectators with rough, uncaring wings. Though technically against the rules of the court, nobody really noticed his defiant exit. He was a nobody now, after all, relegated to the lowest benches, the ones roughly hewn from rock and ice, seated with the invisible classes of servants and lower-circlers.

Numb with shock, he fought his way through the packed corridors of the inner palace, pushing and pushing through servants and nobles alike until he came to the fresh air of a courtyard. There he stopped, and remembered, and felt sick and furious all over again.

Queen Snowfall had worn her finest crown for the occasion, an intricate masterpiece of glass that showed off her kingdom's cruel beauty. Every scale polished to a blinding sheen, every talon sharpened to a deadly point, she was there to make an impression. Her council was, as usual, seated around her with unfurled wings, all looking deceptively powerful and confident considering the fact that any one of them could be dismissed at her instant command.

The chambers of the inner palace - the place of the trial, had been draped with banners of menacing dark blue. The color of IceWing blood, the sign of a trial for treason. It was clear to even the lowest of the tribe that Snowfall wanted this day, and this verdict, remembered.

"The prissssoner," she had hissed, dragging out the word with torturous leisure, "is found guilty and sentenced to the Breaking."

The Breaking. Winter had only heard that term in history scrolls and ghost stories, and in a cruel trick of fate, it had usually been Icicle telling those terrifying stories. This ancient punishment, unheard of since the time of Queen Snowfox, was the kind of thing only whispered of and shuddered at today. The thought of it happening to any dragon, even Icicle, especially Icicle...

Winter wanted to throw up.

Eventually, the trial was officially concluded, and the rest of the audience came streaming out. Some had come out of curiosity, others seeking some twisted sort of entertainment, but all now left in bad spirits. It was somewhat healing for Winter to see all the disgust and discomfort written on their faces. Even the servants, usually quietly happy to see a First Circle dragon get what she deserved, were twitching and growling as they left. Nobody wanted to see torture return to the Ice Kingdom. Except, apparently, for its ruthless young queen.

A shadow passed over the courtyard as Snowfall and her council soared out of the chambers in perfect, predatory formation. Only they, the highest-ranked IceWings of all, had the right to exit by flight, and only the queen could fly at the head of their sparkling "V". They flew a ceremonial circle around the palace, spiraling down as if closing in on a wounded animal, to announce the official end of the trial. For a few moments, white wings filled the gray sky, and the whole palace watched in awe.

Somewhere, deep in the chambers of the inner palace - the rancid guts of the kingdom, Icicle was being led away in chains. She probably showed no emotions, probably stood strong in the face of the horrors that awaited her. For better or worse, she had always been the thickest sheet of ice in the family.

Hailstorm, who was a strong contender for second on that list, was one of the last grim-faced dragons to slink out. Though he had been a key witness in the original trial, Winter's brother had not been allowed to speak this time. By meddling with Icicle's first trial, Tundra has inadvertently doomed her daughter to an infinitely worse fate; Snowfall could now, by accusing Icicle of "treason" in addition to her other crimes, condemn the prisoner to whatever she wished. Such was the terrible right of the queen of the IceWings, a law clearly meant only for times of emergency, but oh-so-easy for a power-hungry young ruler to abuse.

"Hey, Winter." Hailstorm approached Winter cautiously, his spiked tail lashing with suppressed rage and revulsion of his own. "Winter. Winter, are you okay?"

Of course not! Winter wanted to snarl. He wanted to freeze every sneering face in the palace. He wanted to bring all the beautiful walls and statues and drapings crashing down, expose this place for what it was: the rotten heart of a corrupt kingdom that was melting from the inside out.

"I'm fine," he growled to Hailstorm. He sunk his claws into the fresh snow, counted his breaths, and calmed himself. He had never known a sudden, frigid rage like that before, and it frightened him. Then again, he had never watched someone get sentenced to one of the worst deaths imaginable before, either.

Hailstorm extended a large white wing and gently guided his brother through the courtyard. His help was guarded and awkward, but he seemed to be doing his best. After living between walls of ice all their life, it was still hard to act like actual brothers. And right now, what Winter needed more than anything was a big brother.

"Snowfall wants to make an example of her," Hailstorm muttered. He kept his voice low, his dark blue eyes scanning the empty halls for other IceWings. They had both just seen what happened to traitors. "She knows the whole tribe is upset with her reign. She just wants her power back."

"Power." Winter spat the word out like RainWing venom. "Is everything in this tribe just about power?"

Sorrow and pain darkened Hailstorm's expression. "It was the same in the Sky Kingdom. Worse, even. When I was..." He shook his head, rattling his icy frill of spikes. "Same story, all over Pyrrhia."

Winter glared down at his own shaking talons, his throat filling with angry ice. "So we're just supposed to sit here, furl our wings, and watch while..."

The Breaking could last for days on end. Weeks even, according to some scrolls. Each limb would be frozen solid, just like in the Diamond Trial. Then, one by one, while the victim was fully conscious...

"Keep your voice down," Hailstorm hissed, eyeing a passing noble pointedly.

Another flash of white, fluttering down to an elaborate parapet, made them both pause. Winter's heart jolted sharply when he recognized those freckled scales. It was Lynx, returning to her guard post. She caught Winter's gaze, her own face shattered by shock. I'm so sorry, said her broken expression. Winter turned away, ashamed of her pity, of bringing it upon her. He had known this would happen. A small, dark part of him had always known.

All this time, all this stalling, he thought, and somehow I let myself hope that she would make it out alive. That maybe, just maybe, we would all make it out alive, and one day, we would figure this mess out.

What a joke. What a cruel, cruel joke.

"It isn't fair," he muttered. Understatement of the century there, Winter. "None of this."

"Oh, I know," Hailstorm said gloomily. They both knew, from painfully personal experience, just how cold and unforgiving the Ice Kingdom could be. "But that's how it's always been, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Winter sighed, defeated. The rage began to slip from his scales, replaced by that bleak, bitter resentment that had poisoned him for years on end. "I guess so."

That evening, as Winter trudged back to his tower after a day of hopeless and lonely flying, his mind swam and his heart raced. It was in one of his worst moods yet that he stumbled up the stairs, flung open his door, and stalked into the waiting darkness.

Then something slipped under his talons. A tiny scrap - some piece of old pelt, long since torn to rags, waiting there as if it had been slid under his door. Peering down at it in the darkness, he noticed a faint scrawl across the pale surface. Ink. Some kind of note, clearly secret, like a whisper put into writing. He quickly closed the door, made sure it was locked, and pulled his globe of light closer to investigate.

Hailstorm's writing. Neat as ever. He would know it anywhere.

Tomorrow night. Tree of Light.

He turned the scrap over in his trembling talons. The words there were three bolts of lightning to his heart.

There's a plan.