"For two whole fortnights, I travelled across the Plains of Forever Winter, losing three toes in as many nights, until mountains rose and stars brightened up the pitch black sky. I clambered up Highcrag, lowered down the deepest crevice, and there it appeared, hidden from sight—the northernmost cave. The birthplace of magic."

Fox gasped at the precise moment that Storm paused, the noise filling the mouse-still council chamber. The Prince of Ice remained unfazed, yet Fawn, who was sitting next to Fox on the brown woolly carpet, glared at him.

He repressed the urge to stick out his tongue. It wasn't his fault that Storm had stopped his tale. Instead, he shuffled away from her, accidentally touching the laces of the Scorian woman who always occupied the blue chair on the first row because she had poor eyesight. She wiggled her foot; of course, she had seen that.

"And then what... did you find that Summer Dragon of yours?" a light voice uttered.

Fox didn't need to look back to know that it belonged to Master Robin, an Air Magician with a bigger moustache than a brain.

Though Storm kept his calm demeanour, the wrinkles on his face deepened. "The dark cave of abundance only shows itself to the Winter Bear and the Summer Dragon. We mere mortals are but shadows that aim to walk in their footsteps, but can never follow nor surpass them."

"Sounds like a lot of foam to me," grumbled Robin.

"Tell me, Air Magician, have you ever known winter to take orders, to do as mankind pleases?"

"I can tame the winds if I wish—send snow clouds up to seven leagues away."

Yet not make them disappear altogether," Storm reasoned. "You pretend to be a God, yet you are limited by what greater beings allow you to do."

"And by what your Grandmaster forbids you to do," Hawk said from the blue chair next to Katla. She had conveniently squeezed herself in between him and Badger.

"I still wish to reopen that discussion, Grandmaster," Robin insisted. "Let me gather a team of the finest—"

"As I said, I forbid it." She shot an angry look at the man, the kind that beamed poison from her eyes.

"But we could."

"Silence!"

Fox groaned. There were losing precious time talking about winter. It was bad enough that this was the moon of burning and yet he still had had to trudge through muddy slushes to get Moonstone Castle. His wet socks were glued to his frozen feet. Storm had opened the council meeting by saying that the Summer Dragon has arrived, but the battle with the Winter Bear was far from over.

Whatever that meant.

Scratching his throat, the Prince of Ice ran his hand through his ashen hair, rearranging his cowlick to the other side of his face. "So... I won't bore you with the details of how I dangled from a rope for hours, but eventually, after a lot of struggling, I managed to lower myself into the cave. It was dark, my only light that of the flickering flame in my hand. It was a labyrinth of long, narrow tunnels, filled with icicles that tore my clothes to rags. Twice I met a wall of ice and rock, impenetrable. I tried Air... Fire... Water... not a single crack. And then I found it... a purple sea of glistening stars, gemstones the size of conifer cones and bigger. It wasn't easy to convince the cavern to part from its treasure, but I persisted and brought home this..."

As the prince walked away from the stand and to the table, Fox climbed to his knees, towering over Fawn. Storm picked up a shiny black rock, hardly bigger than his fist.

Fox pouted, cocking his head. Was that the big news for which he had come all the way from the North—a stone so ordinary it could have been spat out by one of the twin rivers?

"I'm gonna need some volunteers," Storm muttered, then pointed to him. "Fawn, Fox, come here. I need you to hold this, each in turn, and tell your fellow council members what you experience?"

Eager to do something else than sitting and listening, Fox rushed to his feet. He cut off Fawn before she even had the chance to reach the table before he did, ignoring the annoying high-pitched scream of his name. Pride coursed through his veins as he grabbed the stone, as though he had snatched it from the magic cave himself.

He shook the stone and squeezed it. It weighed less than he had expected to be, yet didn't crumble like chalk. He blinked rapidly—the reddish hue wasn't there before, was it?

"Share your thoughts, Fox. What do you see?" Storm asked.

"I thought it was black, but it isn't. I can see bits of red in it, some brown too and even..." Fox paused. A thin white crack formed on the side, slowly but steadily. "It's changing."

"It adapts itself to the magician holding it," Storm explained. "Now light it on fire for me—pretend you want to burn it."

Fox looked up, twitching his face. "But I don't want to destroy it."

"Try it."

Still reluctant to do so, he sought Katla's approval. His master was no longer slumped in his chair but had moved to the edge of his seat, his dark eyebrows pulled together. He wasn't the only one. Badger sat straighter than usual. Several mouths hung open. Hawk gave him a faint nod.

Uncomfortable to obey her, Fox retreated his gaze, his eyes landing on Fawn, who looked as though she would snatch the stone from his hands if he didn't do anything soon. Oh, no, she wasn't going to steal his thunder this time.

Keeping a firm grip on the magic rock, he imagined flames flowing from his mind through his bloodstream to the tip of his fingers. The stone lit up, a brilliant glow at first, then carmine red oozed out of his pores, cold and smokeless. One flame shot up, then another. The fire grew, engulfing his hands, his wrists, then crept further up until it reached his elbows.

"I can't feel the flames," Fox told the council. "It's like they're not there."

"But the magic is real." Storm picked up a piece of bread the length of his finger and dipped it into the ball of fire, briefly. It came out toasted, with bits charred even.

Various members of the Mage Council had stood up from their seats. Katla was dividing his attention between Badger and Hawk, whispering and gesticulating. Sparks twitched and jumped from one end to the other. The murmurs grew louder.

"What's that?" said the Scorian Water Magician on the front row.

"I call it an 'Enhancer' but I'm Ician." Storm grinned. As he plucked the stone from Fox's hands, the fire went out as though it had never been there. It returned to its ordinary state, just black with no cracks. The bread was still toast. "Now let's see what an Earth Magician can do."

The man handed the enhancer to Fawn, who was over-eagerly jumping up and down, and ordered her to try and destroy it too.

As she held it, the stone turned a sandy brown. Keeping its shape, grains twirled down. They covered the spot where she stood, then her shoes. Her hair didn't change colour, not even when a downpour of sand started gushing out the bottomless rock.

"I've never been able to conjure that much sand!" Fawn beamed. "I can keep on going—fill this whole room."

"I won't let you. I'll melt the sand with my flames," Fox mumbled.

The Scorian Water Magician was flinching, not looking directly at the scene. "I'm not sure if I can trust this. It seems demonic."

"Or a gift from the Gods," a male Earth Magician with whitish-grey hair and an oversized cloak proclaimed, his voice silencing the countless whispers. There was a smug look on his scrawny freckled face. "A weapon to slay our enemies, dethrone promisers of falsehoods and place our own in various positions. It can start with you, Lord Storm."

Storm removed the magic stone from Fawn's hands and placed it back on the table. "I have no intention to challenge my brother and reclaim my birthright."

"But you'd win. And then we remove Half-Ear and King Ariel. I'm done dealing with Kings who either wish you dead or disregard my basic needs. My wife and children are starving... I'm starving."

"There's a plan, Damon," Hawk said.

"A plan... a plan!" Damon thrust his finger at Hawk. "I've been hearing about this so-called plan since I first arrived in this country, since you bought off my knowledge and loyalty with a seat in this council. I give every crumb I earn to my boy and girl, yet I can still count every bone in their bodies. I've long stopped believing in this plan!"

"I agree," Robin butted in. "The Mage Council was set up to rule alongside the King of Silvermark, to voice our concerns and keep every magician's interest at heart. King Leptailurus and Grandmaster Pike had their differences, but now... King Ariel only cares about himself, and you let him, Grandmaster."

"So what is your proposition, Robin?" Hawk looked directly at him, unperturbed. "Give every magician a stone, then conquer the world... Politics aside, it's not that simple. We know hardly anything of this enhancer. It must be studied, its effects analysed..."

"And then what?"

"I shall present it to His Majesty, as a weapon to use in the war against the Greenlanders. I do not stand above him, nor do I see it fit to cripple an already unstable nation—because that is what wars do."

A defiant chuckle came from Damon's oversized cloak. "So until then we just starve? Pray Ariel will consider us when he has conquered an additional nation to bleed dry."

Fox bit his lip. He wanted to tell this man so badly that he shouldn't worry—that he would end the reign of Half-Ear Tom, then scare Seb into giving him the Greenlander throne. With him as King, Damon and all the other magicians would never have to go hungry again.

But Katla had his eyes on him, subtly shaking his head. His royal descent was a secret, and apart from his master, Doe, Hawk, Leo, and the King, nobody was allowed to know it. Katla had repeatedly told him that.

"You know what," Damon continued his rant. "At this rate, I'm praying Felix quickly succumbs to the poison that's eating him alive. It seems the only time His Majesty cares about feeding his people."

Katla squinted, shaking his head. "You can't be serious."

"Can't handle hearing the truth, Dragon Boy? You may have saved the boy for now, but he'll die—be it tomorrow, next moon, or next year. Either the Gods will see that a sickly boy can never rule or, or we take matters into our own hands."

"It's treason," Katla snarled.

"Of the highest kind," Hawk added. "The way you talk it's as though you know more about the attack on the royal children.

"Me?" The Water Magian pointed to himself. "I know nothing, see nothing, and hear nothing. If only my family were fit to make the journey up north, to Ice. I think we'd do well there."

"Us, Icians, don't like troublemakers," Storm said calmly. "We're hard workers. And hard work still needs to be done to understand the Enhancer. Your Grandmaster invited me to Moondale to study it with her. What will happen afterwards should not be my concern, but I don't want my discovery to be the start of a brutal war."

"It doesn't have to be, but alright." Damon sunk back into his chair. "I won't waste any more of your precious time, My Lord."

"I'm not a Lord. I'm a Prince," Storm said.

For the rest of the hour, he invited various council members to the front to hold the enhancer. Hawk had left her spot next to Katla and was standing next to the Prince, scribbling down notes. For most the stone only turned two colours, that of their main and connected element. But Katla's stone also had the brown spots of his optional element, as well as a pink shine that instantly made him pass the rock to Badger.

"The rock shows what elements you master," Fawn whispered to him. "See—Badger's lighting up brown and blue. Mine was only brown."

"Mine had bits of brown too, but I've never wielded Earth Magic," Fox argued.

"What if it shows our future, the affinities we have to the different elements?"

"I think you two are right," the Scorian Water Magician said. "When I touched it, some white appeared, yet I've never been schooled in Air Magic. Perhaps, I should give it a try."

A sadness settled in Fox's belly. His had only turned red, white, and brown. "But that can't be. I want to be the best magician that ever lived—I must learn Water Magic too."

"At least you'll learn two other elements. I'll just be an Earth Magician forever." Fawn pressed her hands to her cheeks and puffed them.

"Or the stone could be lying. You heard Prince Storm and Grandmaster Hawk—there's a lot they still don't know," Fox said, mostly to cheer himself up.

But he couldn't help but feel happy too when Fawn agreed with him. "Yeah, Badger always says that nothing is set in stone, not in special magic stones either. I'm sure."

As Storm concluded the meeting not much later, Damon was the first one to leave. He didn't get very far. Katla and Grandmaster Hawk were quick to seize him by the door. After some tumult and Katla casting chains of fire around his wrists and ankles, they disappeared.

Fox wasn't too worried. Katla has said he and Hawk would have an appointment with the King, yet it did hurt to see his master abandon him without as much as a word.

Storm had promised to train him, but he was too busy having a conversation with an older Water Magician to notice he was all alone now. Fox didn't know much about the man, other than that he was called Fennec and had big ears that didn't work very well, because one always had to shout at him.

Fox shifted his gaze from the door to Storm and back. Fawn and Badger left, but he didn't want to ruin the opportunity of learning proper Air Magic; not just the tricks he had picked up from Falcon.

Then, suddenly, the Ician Prince stood next to him, wearing a bag around his shoulder. The stone had disappeared from the table. I'm ready if you are, young Fire Magician."

Fox puffed his chest out, raising his head. "I was born ready."

"Good, Her Majesty and the young Prince requested to be our spectators in the courtyard."

"Queen Cobra and Prince Felix are going to watch us? But what if I make a mistake?"

"Then they'll see how much you learn."

Fox moped, his hands in the pockets of his trousers as they descended from Mage Tower and walked through the long hallway that ran all the one from the outer gate to the courtyard. He could fake a bellyache and go to Doe's, but the urge to become a better Air Magician was bigger.

He regained his composure as he stepped outside and found the courtyard deserted. There was a nice breeze and nearly all slush had disappeared and dried up. He stepped on the loose cobblestones; the stones wiggling and squishing beneath his feet.

"I talked to Leo last night—said you like swords," Storm said.

"Yeah, you'll probably think it's weird. But I wanna be the best magician and the best warrior in the world. When Katla was sick, Leo taught me a bit of sword fighting."

"So I heard, which is why I wanna teach you this." The man closed his eyes, and stretched his arm. With twirling fingers, he gestured at the open door they had just stepped through. The wind flocked to Storm, the stream visible, like a lengthy cloth turned around at rapid speeds.

At first nothing happened, then something whizzed by. A blink later a simple short sword with a curved hilt and a white pommel sat safely in Storm's hand. The man placed it on the ground. "I don't expect you to fetch it all the way in my room, but let's see how far you can come."

"I have to pick it up, using Air Magic?" Fox asked.

"Yes, find the wind, bend it to your will."

"Alright." He copied Storm's stance, concentrating on the flow of the wind. This was so different from letting marbles float. Even King Ariel's arrow had already been soaring through the air when he had changed its course.

"Gather the wind, feel it dancing on your fingertips, then guide towards the sword."

Fox took a deep breath. The wind pushed against his arms, his muscles trembling. "Come on," he whispered. The force gathered in his palm in the form of a jumpy ball. A spike of fire shot out.

"That's fine," Storm assured him. "You're a Fire Magician—these things happen. Continue."

Fox was growing hot. Standing stiff, he moved his arm until he and the sword were aligned, then flattened his hand. "Here, here, sword."

The sword stirred.

"Keep your back straight." Storm pushed his shoulder backwards. "Show the wind who to obey."

"Me, it has to obey me," Fox grumbled.

Grunting and groaning, he mentally pushed the air towards the sword, the tail of his stream licking the pommel. Then, with tumbling speed, it shot up and crashed into his chest.

He smacked to the ground, right on his butt, the hilt knocking him in between the legs on the way down. It hurt so much that tears instantly sprung to his eyes. He bit his bottom lip and didn't shed them.

"That hurt!" He bent over in pain, his arms clasped to his nether regions. "Why didn't you stop it?"

"Because it's a good lesson."

"You're just as bad as Katla. It's like you two don't want me to learn Air Magic."

"We do, but fear and pain are good teachers. They bring caution and focus to impulsive minds."

"I'm not impulsive." Fox sniffed, rubbing his eyes. He didn't really know what it meant, but it didn't sound too good.

"Next time, you'll know to balance the power. Now you've used up all your energy—your hair is all black."

"So this lesson is already over?" He pushed himself up. With that out of the way, he could go to Doe and stuff himself full of pie. He had deserved that.

"On second thought, looks like you're regenerating energy. We'll give it one more go."

Who knew thinking about pie would ever turn against him? Muttering a curse under his breath, Fox picked up the sword and placed it back in its original position. He retook his stance and closed his eyes.

Air whistled through his ears, streamed along his face and followed the course of his arm and shook him. It drained him to the point where his knees wobbled under him. His shoulder twitched in pain. Gently, he turned his hand in a cupping motion, his mind physically hoisting the sword up.

There came a swishing sound. He flicked his eyes open and jumped up, scooping the weapon up mid-air. Landing back on his feet, he tottered but held himself up.

He couldn't help but smile as he pressed the sword against Storm's chest. "I got you, old man."

"You do." The Prince held his hands in the air, blowing a strand of hair from his eyes. It was enough to turn the wind around, and out of Moonstone Castle flew a second sword, a bigger one. It latched itself to Storm's hand. Fox was no longer laughing when the Air Magician struck the first blow. "Show me what you got, warrior boy."

"With or without magic?" he asked.

"Give me everything you've got."

Fox swung the sword, iron meeting iron as their feet danced over the courtyard. If only it were made of another material, like that enhancer stone, he would be able to make the blade burn.

Storm blocked his sideways attack with a shield of impenetrable air. He pushed Fox back, forcing him into a squatting position. Tired but not ready to give up, Fox swept a whip of fire at the man's ankles. Storm jumped up, the gust of wind that came with it pinning Fox to the ground.

The Prince landed, his legs apart, towering over Fox. He pushed the blunt point against Fox's throat. "Not bad for an old man, don't you think?"

Fox saw his chance. He made a fist and pounded it against Storm's manly parts. "Not bad, but I'm better."

As the man grimaced and moaned, a two-man-applause came from down the stairs. The cheering was faint, but no less rewarding.

"That was a marvellous performance," Queen Cobra stopped her clapping to clutch her hands to her chest. "We hope we don't disturb you."

"You can never, my Queen." Storm hung on his sword, groaning and exhaling deeply.

"That pleases me, though I do not wish to see you in pain, Prince Storm."

"It'll pass. Just give me a moment."

Fox scrambled to his feet, his tongue hiding to the back of his throat. The Queen of Silvermark was pretty, and not in the same way that he always believed his mother was pretty. He bowed, unsure if he really needed to do that. He was a Prince too.

Queen Cobra let a sweet, honeyed giggle. "You don't have to stand like that, Young Fire Master. Fe actually wants to ask you something."

The sickly looking boy stared at her, shaking his head. He searched for her hand and grabbed it.

"Come on," she hissed to her son.

Curious, Fox moved closer to them. Their last conversation had ended in him running away, but now there weren't any more secrets he should be afraid of.

Prince Felix pulled his mother along. Keeping his blue eyes set on the cobblestones, the young Prince mumbled.

"Fox can't hear you like this, Fe."

Felix sighed, blood rushing to his white cheeks. "Maybe... I hoped that perhaps... you wanna play with me?"