Oxyura follows her, struggling to keep up with her wide and swift strides, to the back of the monastery, a space where only Nakkamo resides. She leads him softly as her bare feet glide across the stone, snowflakes whishing about in fluttery sweeps. He hesitates to speak a word. Anxiety brushes his stomach.

The white, granite walls conduct them down long chambers full of tapestries, engravings, and pottery made by the Tankamo. Generations have served the fey lord and many more will. As the silence builds thick through doors deeper than any he has ever seen before, Oxyura follows Nakkamo, suppressing jitters from within. Several inlaid entryways are carved into the opaque, white ice, and in the middle of the room, a large spiral staircase consumes the floor Nakkamo hands Oxyura a blazing blue torch. They descend.

The stairs are slippery, tempting Oxyura to slip on several of the glassy steps. In the presence of Nakkamo, He manages to compose himself enough to not skid. Neither of them speak. He attempts to quell the uncertainty.

A quickly passed minute down, Oxyura asks, “Am I in trouble?” He tries to end the quiet, still environment.

After offering silence, she exhales, “No.”

A violently dark ravine lies in front of them, the opening guarded by threatening icicles that dangle down into the cave. As they approach the fault, Nakkamo waves her hands, summoning a path of ice that had not been there before. She steps across.

“Hurry along, darling,” Nakkamo urges. He follows, trying to stay away from the elaborate spirals and braided poles of the railing on the sides.

While covering an obsidian slab behind a curtain across from the entrance of the room, Nakkamo brings him inside a library, and she settles him into a chair in front of a dark, spruce desk. Flush with the walls, the bookcases hold mysterious tomes never seen by Oxyura. Spell components and brewing supplies clutter the other desks in the room. He attempts to identify them. Nakkamo places the torch on a silver sconce, under the wintery blue vines on the ceiling, and pours two glasses of wine. Oxyura’s breath visibility dissipates into the air with each exhale. In. Out. In. Out. he clutches his forearms, shivering.

“Sweety,” she softly guesses, “are you cold?”

“Yes, Nakkamo.”

She lays a dense fleece, after carrying it from a lower cabinet, over him and gives him a warm smile as she tucks it in. “There you are, my darling.”

“Thank you, your grace.”

Sitting on the opposite side of him, she elegantly reassures him, “In here, you can refer to me Nakkamo, though I do cherish how you strive to nourish my formalities.”

“Of course,” he pauses, “Nakkamo.”

“Care for a taste of Bloodberry Wine?” She pushes one of the glasses towards him.

He hesitates. “Uhm, I’m okay.”

“I insist,” she says while leaning over the table and directing his gaze to the violet liquid.

He holds the glass and takes a sip. It’s bitter and seems to burn in his throat, leaving a warm sensation. His face shrivels. Attempting another sip, he puts it down quickly.

“Now, Oxyura, I have brought you here to discuss that book. I would like to have it,” she gingerly demands.

Still holding it with an arm, he looks at it and places it on the table. A few grains of sand come loose from its pages. “But Nakkamo, I believe it's a spellbook. Don’t all great wizards get a spellbook?” he reasons, “And this particular one, it calls to me.” Oxyura reads the judging expression on Nakkamo’s face.

“Do you know where we obtain spellbooks, Oxyura?”

“Yes,” he begins, “we make them with the leather from rock goats and paper from balsam trees. It is labor intensive, but it results in a tome that a belongs to the wizard.”

She challenges, “So..?”

“The… the book does not belong to me.” He looks at the cover, it seemingly beaconing him. He continues, “But! I can gain its knowledge. I can help our village!”

Quickly, she responds, “No you will not. It will only harm us.”

“But Willonave said I have the potential to be a great wizard,” he insists, “I can tame whatever magics this tome contains!”

“You’re delusional!”—she slams her fists on the table—“You will never have enough practice to tempt the darkness in tomes.” She restates, “You will never be enough.”

His eyes question her under quivering eyebrows.

“It is shameful to defy me, Oxyura. You should feel guilty for even challenging my word. It was an ignorant decision. I know you show promising progress under Willonave, but I refuse to let you practice the text from a foreign book.” She eyes him with a petrifying stare. She reiterates, “It is astonishing that you would entertain an idea so stupid and irresponsible.”

His stomach twists into knots. Oxyura mumbles, “I’m sorry.”

“I should have spoken to Willonave; she does not teach Tankamos to disobey me. She will not.” Nakkamo closes her eyes as she gracefully places her lips to the glass and sips.

Oxyura feels a sense of agency from a disparity in her demeanor. He looks at Nakkamo with a fearful expression and swallows. He grabs the tome.

“Oxyura,” she says sternly as opens an eye and places her glass down.

“Your grace, I believe this tome can aid my people. We may find magics that we have never known. Magics that may save our sick. Our dying. We-”

Nakkamo drags her glass to the side. “Darling, I do not know why you cast me into a malicious role,” she begs. Her fingers lace together.

“What..?”

“Do you sincerely believe I do not wish to assist the sick? The dying? You are accusing me of acting immoral, Oxyura. I am no villian.”

He catches his racing heart and pleads, “No, I meant no such thing. I just think-”

“But you do,” she says persuasively. Her eyebrows drag down, making Oxyura feel stuck to the chair.

Holding the fleece around him tightly, he claims, “I want to practice this magic.”

“My darling, please,” she attempts.

“No,” he insists, “I will practice this magic, Nakkamo.”

She considers options. “I am afraid you are not welcome here then,” she says coldly while tapping her fingers on the table. “Not welcome in the Court of Ice,” she clarifies.

“No, wait!” he pleads, “don’t exile me, please.” He begins to regret his decision, fearful he has lost his family and his home already. The beating of his heart pounds in his chest. He fights to slow his breath.

“Perhaps I may spare you,” she says, his anxiety reducing immediately. “But,” she continues, “I will erase your recollection of this evening.” She adds, “And any other unnecessary memories.”

Oxyura blinks. He glances at the book. A whirl of light entices him. Nakkamo casts an unknown spell, within her palm, by muttering an untold language, small lights wavering in her grasp. Finally, he examines her venomous intent.

“And if I don’t?” he manages to ask.

“You will leave immediately, past the Eternal Blizzard.” She threatens, “You won’t return. Like the ones banished before. You will never return. Never.” Nakkamo’s left hand grips the table, freezing it in a thin sheet of ice at the edge. "But you will not exile yourself, Oxyura. You are too intellegent to consider such a crooked option."

He grabs the spellbook.

While rising from her chair, she explodes, "OXYURA!"

His ears lower. She grits her teeth as Oxyura backs away, clutching the tome to his chest.

Rage manifests in her wild eyes. “The village will reject you!”

He edges backwards.

“You will never see your family again!”

He begins to stumble back towards the bridge, faintly slipping with each stride.

“Get out of here! Never return!” she screams from the study. A waiver heard in her voice. A glass shatters.

He races up the stairwell. A great raucous reverberates behind him, items hurled to the ground and bookshelves ripped from the very walls that held them. He races to the top. Echoing from deep within the chambers, Nakkamo roars, “If you return, I’ll kill you!” His eyes wide, he does not stop. "I'll kill you!"

He quickly descends down the mountain, only a spellbook to his side, and passes the Eternal Blizzard; it's cold presence scraping and choking him. Guided by only the light of the moon from the now cloudless sky, he escapes the Court of Ice, fleeing to the mysterious lands below.