What if Darkstalker never caught and killed his father, Prince Arctic?
—-
Arctic's wings beat furiously, carrying him north toward the Ice Kingdom.
Foeslayer.
Foeslayer. I'm coming.
He knew that Foeslayer was in the Ice Kingdom. And he knew his mother, Queen Diamond, well enough to suspect that she was keeping Foeslayer alive for her own purposes.
Arctic would do anything for Foeslayer. Maybe his mother knew that. The miserable, friendless years he'd spent in the Night Kingdom just to be at her side, however hard their marriage was, should have been enough to prove it to Foeslayer. But it hadn't been.
So now, here he was, using his magic for her – again. Betraying an entire tribe for her – again. His soul really did belong to her, after all this time, just as he told her all those years ago.
Although loving her and staying with the Nightwings had meant living nocturnally, in literal darkness, she was still the sun to him. Certainly, as he had learned through her relentless angry words – certainly the sun could burn. But the sun was, is, and always would be necessary for life. These past weeks existing without her had made that one simple truth impossible for him to doubt.
Arctic glanced to his left, where Whiteout beat her wings to keep pace with him. Then he looked ahead to the Great Ice Cliff. It was massive, glinting dazzling sunlight and casting ominous shadows simultaneously. Arctic knew from studying his tribe's animus gifts that his daughter had enough IceWing blood to be safe flying over the cliff.
His eyes flicked back to Whiteout, his eyes focused now on her newly enchanted necklace. That necklace would protect her from whatever dangers lay on the cliff's other side.