Chapter twenty-three
Ever since the first flight on Jotunheim the friendship between Tritan and I had grown. So much so that Farbuati had even noticed. She hadn't commented, thank the gods, but I knew she wasn't stupid. As for Drafilie... I felt like he saw everything, and not in a good way, in a way that was constantly looking for any sign of weakness. I knew that he would use the friendship between the future heir of Jotunheim and his son to every advantage that he could.
But I couldn't help but sneak out for the last two nights to have midnight flight on Bonecrusher the Sky Chaser with Tritan and his Ice Beast Windcutter.
I gently closed the door to my bedroom and casting a look down the hall to check that the coast was clear, and I headed in the direction of the courtyard.
I wrapped the fur coat a little tighter around me. I had forgone my usual attire of ice armour for instead of many layers and wraps of fur and scales. All though it was a strange sensation to be warm in this body, since it was so different to being human and warm. Of course I would never dare to try to turn into my human form here. I would die by freezing to death in a second.
The night was so dark I had difficulty finding Tritan, Bonecrusher and Windcutter in the courtyard. I stumbled for a few steps until I got use to the blackness. Even when my eyes adjusted, it didn't stop me from tripping over a rock that sent me sprawling towards the ground. When a Frost Giant fell, they fell hard.
A firm hand grabbed my elbow to keep my from face planting the rock hard ground. "Watch out," Tritan said kindly as he steadied me on to my feet.
"Thanks," I muttered. "Are we going any place special tonight?" I asked. Like many other nights, I had agreed to meet Tritan under the cover of darkness without fully understanding of what I was setting out to do, and each time, Tritan took me some place breath taking. The first night he took me to a mountain so high that it pierced the sky. We had sat under the Jotunheim stars, with Tritan teaching me that names of the constellations and the stories that went with them. The sky was so clear, no light pollution, no smoky darkness obscuring the grace of the glittering and shimmering stars like that of earth when the sky had burst into colour. The aurora borealis of Jotunheim: beautiful, breathtaking and the most blissful moment of my life.
Or so I thought until he took me on my second night out. We had ridden for what seemed like hours. I knew there was only so long we could be out and leave enough time to get back without arising the wrong sort of suspicion. Then we arrived. A waterfall so crystal clear, it reflected the dark sky and the constellations I had learnt and it looked like liquid star-light. I thought it couldn't get any better, soaring above the towering falls, gliding through the mists obscuring the bottom of the falls, dipping my hands into the liquid as we flew up and so close to the wall of liquid, until the sun burst over the horizon. Pink, blue, orange, yellow, more colours then I could ever name! Rose, magenta, turquoise, amber, all of them shattered and fractured and shone through the liquid. There weren't any more words that could describe the beauty of it... it was just... perfection.
"I think it will be something you like." He said.
"You've got a lot to live up to then, after the last two nights." I said with a smile, still trying to remember every single colour I had seen in the night sky and at the falls.
I greeted Bonecrusher before hopping onto his back by scrambling up his massive shoulders. I secured myself by crouching down close to his neck, grasping one of his spines and steadying myself for the oncoming leap into the air. Bonecrusher huffed happily, his metal helmet gleaming dully in the lack of light. If it were up to me I would take that metal helmet and melt it down. After everything I had experience the last nights, Bonecrusher was the gentlest soul I could've ever hoped to meet.
"Which way?" I asked Tritan, already seated on Windcutter.
"Just follow me and enjoy the ride." He repeated for the third time. He rushed Windcutter into the air with a whoop of joy. I didn't even have to do the same with Bonecrusher. It was like flying back home on Drakki. I didn't have to say anything, she and I just read each other so well. She would do what I wanted to do and I would do what she wanted to do.
With just two powerful wind beats we were fifty feet in the air, the ground rushing ever more away from us, climbing higher and higher, into the cool embrace of the sky. My stomach had long since dropped to my feet and was never going to come back because I thrived in this, this moment was always the same but never boring. The spires of the great ice castle zoomed past until... nothing. The clouds obscured my vision, but we kept heading up. The vapour condensed on my skin. I breathed in deep, closing my eyes. When I opened them... everything; we broke the cloud cover. An endless sea of clouds swept around us. This might be higher than I've ever flown before. The air might be colder than I've ever felt before. But gods...it was amazing.
Bonecrusher spread his second set of wings, giving himself full manoeuvrability. He played through the clouds, spinning, diving and chasing Windcutter through the sky. He roared with pure, undiluted joy. I echoed it, letting the wind kiss my eyes, my lips, my face. I never would want this to end... this... this...
Tritan had told me that as Drafilie's Ice Beast, Bonecrusher never got to play, never got to soar through the sky, he never got to be free. He hadn't been shown a lick of kindness since becoming Drafilie's. Drafilie's methods of taming and training Ice Beasts were harsh and cruel and harrowing. It was all about intimidation. Half the scars that mottled Bonecrusher's hide like the stripes of a tiger were from Drafilie himself. It made me sick, physically sick.
And yet, after all that, Bonecrusher still soared through the sky like none of it mattered. He flew like he was a free Ice Beast, and it made my heart unbearably tight as I thought of what had happened to him. I gasped suddenly, my throat closing up. Bonecrusher levelled out of his tail spin and crooned softly, as if asking if I was okay. Of course this only made it worse.
I leaned down close to his hide and wrapped my arms around him, as far as I could reach and held him, wishing I could take him home and have him live on Midgard, free and happy, as an Ice Beast should be. He crooned, low and slowly, the reverberations rumbling through his body and into my chest, into my core. I took a deep breath and let myself live in this moment. Let Bonecrusher have this to forever look on.
So he dived, in a deep dive, leaving me screaming in shock and holding on for dear life, and grinning like mad.
Bonecrusher and Windcutter didn't have anything in the way of saddles. I crouched on Bonecrusher's back, balanced precariously on the balls of my feet. I had secured my hands on one of the large spines running down Bonecrusher's back. Tritan said that he and Windcutter would catch me if I fell, but I would never fall, Bonecrusher always made sure of that. I wasn't going to fall, not for all the world.
Bonecrusher and I chased Windcutter and Tritan through the sky for god knows how long, until the Sky Chaser in front of us suddenly dropped through the clouds. Bonecrusher dived after him and we entered in the world below the clouds. Only now did I realise how far we had flown. What I saw, I couldn't believe.
It wasn't the lake which wasn't frozen. It wasn't the shards of ice that jutted out from the shore like a frozen forest. It was the massive ice mountain that dominated the skyline for miles.
It looked like great jets of water had been fired at a mountain and froze as they refracted of it. Shards, spires, spikes, whatever you wanted to call them, jutted into the sky at odd angles. With the sky bright with stars and swirls of galaxies and nebula, it was easy to see. I marvelled in the beauty of if, but... it hadn't been like those other nights. Tritan was hiding something again.
I shifted on Bonecrusher slightly, so he swung round and came to a stop. "Umm... Tritan?" I called out, and Tritan stopped and swung Ice Beast around to face me and mine. "What is that?" I asked loudly.
"It's a nest!" He shouted back, and went to carry on his journey. Bonecrusher followed and glided next to Tritan.
"A nest... Like and Ice Beast's nest?" I asked. I crouched down low to Bonecrusher's hide. The Sky Chaser seemed comfortable enough.
"Yes!" I whipped my head around to Tritan, who was grinning at me, standing on the back of his Ice Beast easily.
"Are you insane!?" I shouted at him, my eye's going wide.
"Maybe!"
I didn't stop Bonecrusher this time. I knew what Ice Beasts could do to Jotun villages, and what they could do to Jotuns themselves. I was scared, and rightly so, but I trusted Tritan. I knew he would, in no way, show his father this, so he must trust me too. If he thought this was a good idea... then I was willing to trust him. I did trust him.
"Fine!" I shouted as we neared the nest. "But you're going in first!"
"How could I think you would say anything different?" Tritan laughed.
"Well, give a girl a title and it'll go to her head!" I said, my Manchester accent coming through slightly. Generally I tried to play it down around the Jotuns; I wanted to remind them that I wasn't that much human.
"You have a very different way of speaking, Ink!" Tritan said commented. He'd picked up on my accent then.
"I'm from Earth!" I shouted, letting myself accept it. I was a girl from two worlds; I might as well accept it. "What did you expect?"
We drew closer to the great nest. Tritan and Windcutter glided around a great ice spire. Bonecrusher and I mimicked their movements, soaring with ease. I marvelled at how easily the Sky Chasers glided and soared through the maze of ice. Drakki and Hiss would have had some difficulty. Drakki wasn't as manoeuvrable as the Sky Chasers: she had difficulty making tight turns. She was better in open air. As for Hiss, she couldn't have done it so fast. She would easily fit through some of the smaller holes, but she was better at tunnelling underground, and I couldn't exactly let her do that in New York... A pang of sadness fired through my heart. I was really starting to miss Drakki and Hiss. I hoped I could've brought them, but they'd die of the cold.
"Just in here!" Tritan said and gestured to a great opening in an ice wall. I nodded and Bonecrusher followed Windcutter into the cavern that was slightly darker then the night. Without the light of the bright stars, it was almost pitch black. I couldn't see an inch in front of my face, but Bonecrusher seemed to know the way. We zoomed past various other channels and routes, but Tritan always chose one without hesitating. As my eye's adjusted again, I could see how we glided through gaps that could fit a whole blue whale with ease, and through others which I thought we would barely fit. Luckily, we never got stuck.
Bone Crusher gave one beat of his wings to send us up, then the next thing I knew we had landed on the floor of a cavern. A cavern where the ceiling not so far away. A cavern that was also filled with Ice Beasts.
I almost stumbled off Bonecrusher, but he shifted his weight so I would stay on the safety of his ack. I looked around. Ice Beasts were everywhere. They were all different shapes and sizes. Some had four legs, some had two. Some of the two legged dragons used their wings for support, like the Sky Chasers, and others stood straight up like birds. Some dragons had huge wings, like the sails of a ship, and others had wings that I thought could barely lift them off the ground. I remember how Hiss's wings seemed out of proportion to her long, snaky body, but she always managed to fly.
All of the Ice Beasts, however, had one thing in common, their hides were blue and their eyes were red. There were variations with the colour blue, and a lot of the Ice Beasts had patterns on their scaly skin.
I glanced around the cavern again. Only now did I notice how humid it was. It was uncomfortably warm. Nothing like the humidity of earth, it was still minus temperature here probably, but it was dangerously close to a Jotun's limits. I actually felt like the furs were too much. I wished for the cool envelopment of my ice armour.
The walls were stone, cut like the walls of a cliff, where I could see each and every layer of sediment. There were hints of ice here, but nothing like the outside. Water was dripping in from everywhere, and it would have filled the cavern with the noise if not for the crooning, the grumbling, the growling, every single noise that the Sky Chasers ever made reverberated through my chest. I couldn't help but gaze around with amazement written on every feature of my face.
The Ice Beasts looked on to me with similar interest. A few were creeping forward to take a better look at the newcomers, but they hadn't got too close. Bonecrusher was growling, lowly, quietly. A warning for those who would mean any sort of harm upon me would be killed instantly. Other Ice Beasts had surround Tritan, who had leaped off Windcutter the moment we landed. I didn't dare step off Bonecrusher, and looking at him, who had just bared his teeth at an Ice Beast that had taken a step forward. It backed off instantly, as it was slightly smaller than Bonecrusher. I patted his neck, urging to calm down a little. I was okay right now.
I didn't know how Tritan felt so at home in the nest of his tribe's greatest enemy. He had been hiding something for the entire time I had been with him, probably before then too. Only now did I get an inkling of what it was.
Bonecrusher snarled at an Ice Beast that had got too close. Many were gathering the courage to come closer now. The Ice Beast hissed. It was a low, feral sound. A warning not to test it. Bonecrusher answered with just as a menacing growl and shifted to face the Ice Beast. Bonecrusher easily towered over it. I noted, with some satisfaction, that Bonecrusher had positioned himself in the best place to protect me from any kind of attack the Ice Beast could throw at him.
"Bonecrusher," Tritan warned and stepped between him and the Ice Beast. Bonecrusher relaxed slightly but I tensed. The Ice Beast had turned its full attention on Tritan, pinning him with its red eyes. Other Ice Beasts crowed around us, all having a look to see how the issue would resolve itself.
Tritan calmly put a palm up, hovering a few centimetres above the Ice Beasts horned nose. He was letting it make the final choice: resolve this calmly or bite Tritan's hand off and start a fight. I didn't dare take my eyes off the Ice Beast. If it made any kind of wrong move towards Tritan... I readied an ice spear in my hand, angling it behind my back, lifting myself slightly into a better crouch, a hand steadying myself on Bonecrusher's back. I would have to see how long I could last battling a whole freaking nest of Ice Beasts.
I never got a chance to find out though. The Ice Beast only huffed heavily and closed the last few centimetres to rest its horned snout in Tritan's palm. Tritan smiled. All of the Ice Beast visibly relaxed and took a step back; a relieved grumble filled the cavern.
"Well, well, well," I said. "I think I've finally figured you out Tritan Hoarfrost."
"I'm surprised it took you so long." He replied. He turned towards me, his eyes shining in the darkness. He held a hand up to help me off Bonecrusher. The ice spear in my hand melted away. I gladly took his rough, calloused palm and jumped down.
"This isn't the main reason you wanted me to come with you, is it?" I asked. Tritan let go of my hand. I was said to see it go.
"No," He admitted. "But it is something you have to see for yourself." He turned away. "Follow me."
The Ice Beasts parted for us as we headed through an opening that led us straight into the belly of the mountain.