"Hey." Arctic nudged Whiteout, who had also collapsed into sleep. "I'm ready. Let's go save your mother!"

Whiteout obediently rose and let Arctic lead her, shivering, through the chilly corridors of the Ice Palace.

"I fell asleep, too," Arctic told Whiteout as they walked. "I had the strangest dream." He shuddered at the memory of his nightmare. "And the ending – I dreamed about Darkstalker."

"So did I," said Whiteout.

"He was king of the NightWings," Arctic continued. Arctic laughed his crackly laugh.

"He is," said Whiteout.

"That was so ridiculous that I remembered reality and woke up," Arctic continued, not listening. "I have my wife to save. Your mother to save. A war to end." His voice dropped, half talking to himself. "Mother is right. I owe this to my tribe." His love for Foeslayer started this war, and now his love for Foeslayer was going to end it.

"Now that we have two animus monarchs fighting each other," Whiteout said, "this war will get very dangerous."

"What?" Arctic said. "No, Whiteout, it was a dream."

Whiteout gave her father a disbelieving look.

"The crown is twisted," she said simply.

"Yes, his crown was twisted in my dream," Arctic said.

Just then an IceWing soldier ran past, looking frantic and disheveled. Everything about his appearance and behavior betrayed IceWing regulations.

"What on Pyrrhia," Arctic muttered. The soldier entered the same room that Arctic and Whiteout were going to. They entered the room to see the soldier bowing deeply in front of Queen Diamond.

"Your majesty," the soldier said to the floor, still deep in his bow. "I have news from the front."

"Stand up. You may speak," Queen Diamond replied.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, if these reports are not yet fully substantiated, but the implications are urgent. We have seen – and I have seen firsthand – many dozens of NightWings flying northeast across the Sand Kingdom. They are not attacking. Those we have captured report that they are fleeing. They say Queen Vigilance has been killed. They say that the Darkstalker has taken her place."

All the breath seemed to leave Arctic's body. So that part of his nightmare was real. Darkstalker must have been using magic to speak with him. Of course he would – he was so frivolous with it. And the queen… Arctic remembered seeing her blank, dead eyes in his dream, her red NightWing blood. He shuddered, remembering the NightWing blood he had spilled that same evening. Horror and guilt and shame and uncertainty (did the killing mean he was losing his soul?) and new realizations (surely Darkstalker had lost his soul) – the weight of it all was palpable. His legs buckled beneath him and he collapsed.

"Father!" Whiteout knelt beside him.

"Arctic," Queen Diamond barked. "Get up. We need your information, NOW. About Darkstalker, too. And your long overdue gift to the tribe. This war ends tonight."

"My gift? But the danger–"

"Tonight. The war. Ends. Tonight." Queen Diamond spoke each word with fierce finality. Arctic remembered that his mother might not even be alive tomorrow night. And that if Snowfox became queen, he and Whiteout were as good as dead, too.