A snowball thumped against the cottage wall. Inside, a mother and her son eased back from the window where they had been peering into the misty white sheets that blinded the mountainside. The drifts had piled high overnight. A lone set of tracks led away from the front door, their end lost behind a tumble of boulders in the blizzard. Somewhere beyond the veils of snow the dawn had broken.
The boy fidgeted with the tassels of his blanket. “Will papa come back soon?” he asked, posing the question more with his eyes than with his voice.
“You asked me that already,” his mother replied. She wrapped the end of the blanket over his head and brushed at a stray forelock dangling at the top of his snout. “He’s come back every time; he’ll come back this time too.” She nestled close and drew him into a hug. “Oh Silver, you’re shivering! You should have told me. Let’s go sit by the fire.”
The two of them turtled together toward the glowing brick kiln at the back of the cottage, finding a space between benches laden with long metal blades. Silver sat with his back to the flames and tugged his mother down beside him with the clinging grip of the blanket.
“Papa’s alright,” she murmured into his ear, wrapping her foreleg again around his shoulders. “He’ll throw four or five more snowballs before his watch is done. Then it will be my turn, same as always.”
“That’s not too long,” said Silver.
“Not long at all. Listen, let’s do our rhyme. Practice reading with me.” She drew a well-worn scroll from a squat bookshelf and unrolled it between them. “Ready? One, two, three, four …”
Chop off their hooves
Chop off their hocks
Chop off their tails
Icicle freeze
Chop off their legs
Chop off their horn
Chop off their wings
Mealy worms
Chop off their ears
Pop out their eyes
Pull out their tongues;
What do you have?
A blob of blubbering blubber, that’s what!
Silver giggled himself into a jiggling ball, the laughter escaping him like water trapped all winter long, bursting at last through the dams of ice that had confined them.
His mother smiled down at him, rolling him about a little more with her hoof. “See sweetheart? Nothing to be afraid of, but try to keep quiet, alright? Always important to keep quiet. The next snowball is coming up right now. Count to three with me and listen for it.” When he calmed himself and sat back up, she lifted his hooves between hers and clapped with him. “One … two … three!”
The wind leaned into the cottage, causing the snow to tickle the windowpane harder above the gale’s sibilant shriek. Silver stood up and craned his neck over the work benches to get a better view of the morning light that was growing behind the frosted glass. He held his breath and listened.
Something big slammed into the wall outside. Snow puffed down from the cracks between the roof boards like a fine dust.
“Silver Nugget,” his mother whispered, her voice harsh and urgent, “You get to your hiding place, right now! And don’t make a sound!” She grabbed the blanket away and shoved it behind her in the shadows by the kiln.
Silver rushed to obey, yanking open the false back panel of the bookshelf to reveal a hole that had been carved into the mountain bedrock. His little barrel whipped from side to side as he scrambled into the cramped space.
No sooner had the panel closed than the front door exploded inward, spraying the room with ice and hard-pack. A pony lay groaning in the pile of sodden splinters, struggling to right himself. Behind him, a dark form filled the doorway.
Black fog flowed inward with the frigid breath of the storm. A pair of eyes appeared in the living void; glaring green and red lamps trailing unnatural light. The restless darkness began to coalesce, making way for a line of soldiers to file into the room. All bore masked helmets too heavy for their bowed heads. One by one they knelt in a circle about the armored stallion that now towered in their midst.
“Jade Bracer. At last, my rarest gem.”
The rumbling voice made the mare flinch at the sound of her own name. She stood and strode forward, holding her head high so that the intruder had a clear view of her sneer. The faceless guards watched her from the holes of their blackened iron masks.
“Sombra,” she growled through grinding teeth.
“King Sombra, my dear, or have the years of running blotted your memory?” The thunderous tones rattled the silverware that had been laid out on the meager dining table. Stained teacups spilled their vaporous brew, soaking the ragged wood.
“My warriors found your friend here prowling about the Dark Spires,” the King continued, “spying, no doubt, for your pathetic insurrection. It was no trouble, tracking him here.”
Jade stomped her translucent hoof. “Firebrand is my husband, and it’s your mad obsession with control that’s pathetic!”
As if the mare’s defiance was an elixir, the bruised stallion leapt up from the rubble, a knife clenched in his teeth and aimed at Sombra’s neck.
The King had no time to defend himself, or call his guards to his aid. Jade cried out in joy, “Yes! For the Crystal Empire!”
The knife and its wielder passed through Sombra’s phantom form and crashed again to the floor. This time, a foul purple glow surrounded the would-be assassin’s body, lifting him into the air. The knife dropped from his mouth as a bulbous tendril of magic tightened around his neck.
Sombra nodded to the nearest of his guards. A hunching mare unlashed her rucksack and retrieved a helmet similar to her own. She knelt with bowed head and held it up for her master with both hooves.
He grinned as he took it, admiring his reflection in the polished metal. “All the better that the two of you are”—he grimaced—“a couple. His loyalty will be an asset in service to his King. Tell me, Firebrand,” he said, loosening the magical noose he’d fixed about his captive’s neck, “who is your lord and master?”
“Not you! Never you, you coward!” hissed Firebrand. He spat at Sombra’s hooves.
“Is that so?”
The helmet made a ceremonial arc between them. It stopped above Firebrand’s immobilized head, hanging there for a moment before floating downwards. He began to grunt as it slid down below his jaws, as if he were fighting the urgings of an invisible tempter.
“Stop it!” cried Jade. She started forward, only to be seized by a pair of hulking stallions.
“Who is your lord and master?” Sombra asked again.
Firebrand gasped, his hooves milling below him. The helmet had completed its descent. “N-not … not …”
Sombra waved a hoof. The bolts at the helmet’s nape screwed into place and locked tight. A green glow flared to life in the dim eyeholes, and Firebrand went limp.
“All hail the King,” the guards droned as one.
Sombra set his now placid enemy down as he would a child. “Now tell me, slave, who is your lord and master?”
“King Sombra, Ruler of the Crystal Ponies,” Firebrand answered. His repurposed passion rang clear in his words.
Sombra bade his guards to release Jade with a sweep of a foreleg. “It is as I have told you many times, my dear,” he chuckled. “You are my treasure. Gems do not choose their owners. Wouldn’t you agree, slave?”
“Yes, sire,” said Firebrand.
Jade sank to the floor.
“Very good. In any case, my precious prize, I think that three days in the Chamber of Fear should remind you of to whom you belong. As for him,”—he turned to Firebrand—“slave, go and camp on the Neversun Plateau for thirty days. Do not use a tent, and do not sleep or eat.”
“Yes sire.”
There was a thump at the back of the room. “Aw, you’re just a blob of blubbering blubber!” a muffled voice shouted. The secret panel of the bookshelf burst open, unleashing a bright-coated streak of fury. Silver Nugget launched himself at Sombra and began hacking at his gauntleted hoof with his scroll of nursery rhymes.
The room went still. Jade gaped at her son from where she lay, entranced by the sound of the paper batting against the gray, impervious metal. Seconds passed.
A laugh broke reverie—a low, earth-shaking tattoo of disdain. “What is this? A little Halfling runt? Is this …? Ah, I see. Jade, how could you? So senseless to dilute your crystal-clear bloodline.”
“I’d happily renounce it if it means being ruled over by a coward tyrant like you. Don’t you dare touch him!” she screamed, and charged, only to be overpowered again by the guards. She bit and slapped at their unfeeling shoulders.
Silver rose into the air, caught in the same trap that had snared his father. The scroll slipped from his mouth and unfurled for Sombra to inspect.
The King bared his fangs in a mockery of a smile as he read. At the ruined doorway, the wind howled and shrieked.
When he reached the bottom, he looked down on Jade. “What’s a mother’s greatest fear?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he turned once more to Firebrand and set Silver Nugget down in front of him.
“Slave,” he said, giving him the scroll, “before you go on your mission, I have one more set of instructions for you.”
