Once-King Olstryn
The Ice Forest in Northern Isulfr
Spring, Year 1150
Age 19
On his first hunt, when he was still small, Stryn made the mistake of asking his mother why they could not cut through the quiet woods nearer their longhouse.
The words had barely left his mouth when she pulled him to a stop and tilted his chin to better look him in the eyes. “Because you must never bring metal into a spirit’s home. No armor, no weapons.”
He squinted against the battering wind, hoping still to take a more sheltered path. “You never ask visitors to leave their blades outside.”
Her smoky voice cut through the rain as they continued walking. “This is an old rule, from ages where war touched the land rarely. We observe it to show deference.”
“It’s only to be polite?”
His mother, decked in felt and furs she had skinned with her own two hands many decades before he was born, watched him with the vigilant look she wore when eyeing an ill-trained wolf. “Would you raise your spear to a spirit?”
“Never!” To do so would be to invite calamity.
His mother raised her eyebrows as she often did whenever someone fell for one of her endless trick questions.
“‘Never’ is a word alone,” she said, looking not smug but patronizing nonetheless. “Many are the mortals who operated on a whim and ruined the lives of thousands. If you give a spirit cause to think you may strike them, you've given them reason to attack.”
Stryn still felt this an undue burden, that anyone could see the difference between a warrior drawing their weapon and a hunter passing through with their arms at their sides, but he would rather get on with the day than listen to more of her lectures. So to his mother, he nodded solemnly, and to the tangle of trees encased in ice, he muttered an apology.
Years later, when he could scarcely recall a time when he’d had to look up at his mother rather than stand before her at eye-level, he knelt at her throne and announced his intent to meet a spirit in those same woods.
Her eyes, wise and dark, crinkled with curiosity. “And what is your goal? Will you ask for a blessing?”
“No.”
She waved her hand to send him on his way. “I trust you’re not off to be a fool. Bring back a good story, at least.”
He set out unarmed but for a rope to snare a meal outside the forest. It was a fair jaunt to travel alone, and he had no way of guessing how long the venture might take. Spirits were not known for appearing whenever it suited a mortal’s fancy.
He stopped along the way set his snare and pluck an orange flower from the field.
All signs of spring vanished at the foot of the trees. The young leaves and heather sprouting around his shoes gave way to brittle grass that cracked underfoot. Humming bees kept their distance.
The shadows of late day grew longer as he approached the towering outer trunks. Clouds hung low and heavy overhead, but never in all his memory could he recall seeing snow fall over this white patch of land.
His breath stilled in his chest as he stepped into the undergrowth.
It was stunning, the silence that greeted him beyond even the first branches. He felt as though he were intruding on some moment in the distant past.
Stryn reached a spot in the forest that was barren of life and sound, where not even his footfalls left indents beneath him. Snow blanketed the earth and shimmered in cloudlike drifts on the old firs. The boughs were quiet and still. He clutched the wilting flower in his fist, hoping the warmth of his hand would keep it alive.
It was at least an hour before the spirit appeared. Not daring a breath, he watched as a white hare darted out from under an eave of snow and dead leaves. It stopped in the shadow of a tall tree, regarding him with a furtive twitch of its nose and a brown, daring gaze. As soon as he blinked, the animal dashed out of sight.
He waited. He knew better than to move, whether he turned to head home or tried to chase the hare. The cold itself did not bother him. He was of the old winter gods, warriors and pilgrims, and he knew the lore of the Ice Forest.
Spring never came to these woods, nor any other season. It was a desolate place to outsiders, but the winter gods looked on it fondly. The plants were fossilized relics of an early era, when giants walked the earth and rarely slumbered. Even the leaves, which looked newly dead to the untrained eye, were ancient.
The animals who nested in the Ice Forest were not mortal. Only spirits and their companions lived here. Stryn had heard that spirits of the Ice Forest enjoyed gifts that were still alive, and so he brought the flower as an offering. He imagined it reminded them of a time when spring and summer still visited their wood.
The spirit he hoped to meet was a prophet. He had studied for weeks in preparation for his venture into these woods, reading every tome he could find on the gods and spirits who lived there. Accounts had it that this particular spirit was a wily one.
As with all prophets, there was a limit to how much of the future they could divulge. The prophet of the Ice Forest was only permitted to speak with a person for a short time. Before setting out, Stryn promised himself he would only ask the most important questions.
Standing, he waited for what felt an age for the hare to return. The stillness of the forest began to bother him. He was fine with the cold, but he had never liked silence. In the great halls of his home, he was never without company, without someone to spar and laugh with him. But if he was to find a spirit here, he had to come alone.
Finally, a rustling in the silver leaves caught Stryn’s attention. He did not speak for fear of scaring off his good fortune.
The hare emerged again, heading a pack of its brethren. When they were all sitting in a line in front of him, the hares shivered violently. Before his eyes, the creatures melded together and took the form of a young, round child.
Stryn knelt before the humble visage. He laid the shriveled orange flower at the child’s feet and retreated respectfully. “It is a great honor,” he said to the spirit. He waited for permission to rise.
The child’s skin had the translucence of an icicle. Rabbit hides engulfed them from shoulder-to-ankle, and their white-gold hair was plaited in a circle around their head. They retrieved the flower with a fragile hand. “You are Prince Olstryn,” they said, twirling the gift in blue-tinted fingers. “But that is not how you will be known.”
Stryn stood to his full height. “So, you are the spirit who can tell the future. I am lucky indeed.”
The flower’s petals wrinkled and fell in the child’s grasp. They studied Stryn with the same piercing eyes as the hare and tucked the now-bald flower behind a chipped ear.
“I've come to ask you how my rule will be,” he started.
The spirit cut him off with a wave of their glassy palm. “I see through you as clearly as if you were made of ice, yourself.”
“Is this also how you see the future?” As soon as the words were past his lips, Stryn cursed himself for falling prey to the prophet's trick.
The child stared at him blankly. “It is true that everything is clearer in winter. At night, the stars shine brighter than at any other time of year. The lakes are transformed into great mirrors. There is no noise.”
The spirit shivered again, and this time, they transformed into an elder with a beard so long that it wrapped around them like a scarf. They smiled at Stryn, their wrinkles not true wrinkles, but cracks in the ice.
Stryn worried the spirit would break before they answered him. “Please tell me what you see in my coming years.”
“You will not sit on your mother’s throne for long,” they said. “Restlessness will lead you to wander the continent. You will be a braggart, and for good reason. A River Bear stands in your bestiary, but that is only half the tale.”
This all sounded good to Stryn. “What should I worry for?”
The spirit’s gaze turned hard as the cracks spread to their eyes. “This country,” they said. “You will be betrayed by your own strength, and if you are not watchful, it will happen several times over. Winter will claim you, but not before it claims your land and your people. Be a strong leader, and others will follow wherever you go.”
Stryn’s mind raced to remember his last question. The spirit’s face had almost disappeared beneath a layer of cracks and puncture marks in the ice. Chips broke around their ears, and the flower fell to the ground.
“Is there anything else I should know?” he asked, thinking that would cover him from all angles.
When the spirit spoke next, their jaw hung at an odd angle. “In your conquests, you will meet a warrior whose tenacity matches your own. Neither of you will ever be destroyed in battle. Working together, you will be unstoppable.”
His future partner sounded like they might become a troublesome enemy. “This sounds like an ideal partner, but… I will be watchful,” Stryn vowed. “I will not let them out of my sight.”
The spirit smiled at him shrewdly once more before shattering in a spray of icy shards. Hares of all sizes sprinted away from the scene, kicking up clouds of snow in their wake.
As Stryn turned to leave the forest, the spirit’s voice echoed off the trees.
“I will enjoy the next centuries of winter.”