“Smile,” my mother whispers, and I force my lips wider. A ghastly grin that stretches my face too wide. It can’t possibly look appealing, but I can hear the thud of his footsteps and I lean up on my tip-toes, puffing my crest up to its very highest.
My father is coming.
Mother’s claw digs into my back. “Stretch,” she hisses, like I’m not already trying my utmost.
The clack of claws on ice. The great stretch of time between each loping stride. The dark ghost of the shadow that slides over me long before he arrives. My smile trembles, and to my horror, I feel tears prickling at my eyes. No, no. Not now.
“This is the same cub?” my father asks, a growl rumbling deep in his chest.
Desperately, I blink away the moisture and crane my neck to look up at his face. My father. The face familiar to me from the thousand portraits that line our halls, and yet this is the first time I’m really seeing him. All my life he has been away on campaign. Our fleet of airships soaring through the stars above the clouds, laying waste to the lands below and adding to our glorious empire.
“It is, Lord Storm King.”
There’s one portrait in the westernmost hallway. It hangs at the far end, draped under a dusty velvet curtain and half-forgotten. In it, my father is young. Still a prince rather than a king. His white mane is softer and fuller, his antlers smaller. But he does not scowl or snarl like in the more recent ones. He looks at the painter with serious eyes and an expression that is almost a smile. That’s the portrait I go to after my lessons, to whisper my secrets to and dream that he pats me gently on my white-spiked head. That he is proud of me.
He grimaces. An expression as far from the west hallway portrait as can be imagined. “A weaselly little thing. Barely a yeti at all.”
Those words reverberate in the air between us. My smile is cracking, cracking — surely he must see through it soon. He will see the weakness that pollutes my inside as well as out. I know what I am. Too small. Too stubby. Everyone tells me. But I hoped…I don’t know what I hoped.
“You’ve borne me a runt, Pulwar.” His gaze goes from me to my mother, who cringes almost imperceptibly. If I couldn’t feel the anxious flick of her tail against the floor behind me, I’d never know. “This is not what your father promised me when I chose you. Strongest maiden in the mountains, he said. A lineage of warriors.”
“We can try again,” my mother says, almost desperately. “The next one will be bigger. I’ll go out to the ice-caves instead of staying here — the whole pregnancy. It will be stronger, my lord, I swear.”
My father growls. “I’m learning not to trust in your clan’s oaths, Pulwar. Your brother was my fleet vice-admiral, and last month at Mount Aris he cut and run. I haven’t seen his flagship since. You know what I’m doing next campaigning season?”
He waits for a response, and my mother shudders. “W-what, Lord Storm King?”
“Giving the hippogriffs a rest while I hunt him down.” His smile is snakelike. Musteline. His eyes flick to me. “What do you think, little cub? How do you like your traitor uncle? What’s the brat’s name, Pulwar?”
“Greataxe, Lord Father,” I say before she can answer. These are the first words I’ve ever spoken to my father, and my voice does not waver. My smile does not break. “After your grandfather. And I don’t give a broken icicle for my un—for my mother’s kin. I am your son.”
His mouth twists at one corner. It’s a smile, I realise. Almost. It bears as little resemblance to the real thing as the horrible parody on my own face. Making the decision to abandon my mother’s advice, I let the expression fall. I’m on my own here, and this conversation could make or break me. This is my chance to make my father love me. I will not get another.
“What would you do come winter, if you were me, Greataxe? When the storms rise high enough for the airships to ride again?”
My mind racing, I remember the trip to Clan Mameluke’s headquarters last summer thaw. I remember the pride my maternal grandfather took in having a prince of the blood as his descendant — even a runty one. I remember the secrets he showed me.
“I would pay a visit to the bastion tower on Mount Cumulus, Father,” I suggest, my voice as steady as I can make it. “The Mamelukes dug it deeper than the official census shows. There are tunnels under the tower. An airship hangar. Enough supplies for a siege.”
His eyes widen slightly as he looks down at me. Bloodshot and blue, the same pale frozen shade as the glaciers outside the palace. Then in one great barking blast, he laughs. “Hah!”
My mother flinches again, but I stand strong, fists clenched against the grey fur of my legs.
“What a little machiavelli,” he booms. “There’s none of that in you, Pulwar. He must get it from me.”
“I do,” I say immediately.
The smile fades from his face and he slaps the tip of his tail onto my shoulder. “Shame you’re so puny, boy. A cub of your age ought to start working on the airships around now.”
“I can do it.”
“I think not.” He turns away, his eyes already on the council chamber, the war, on anything other than the son who waited hours to catch him between meetings and a lifetime for this moment.
“I’m going to train even harder, Father,” I call after him. “When we meet again, I’ll be stronger.”
He snorts contemptuously, and I try to cling to that. He was pleased with my suggestion for the campaign. And I made him laugh. Twice, I made my father laugh. That must mean something.
It must.
The poleaxe haft slips beneath my claws, the icy wood too slick to grasp. I snarl in frustration and stab at the dummy again and again.
Mother suggested I train with the weapon that is my namesake. “You’re small,” she said anxiously. “But we could have the smith scale one down for you.”
But before he ascended to the throne, my father’s name was Prince Ranseur, and I want to learn the weapon he was named for. If he sees me fight with it, if he sees me fight well — something might change. He might realise how like him I am, despite my stubby limbs.
My cousin — my father’s niece Claymore — is already a governor. I’m old enough. I’m the crown prince. I want that for myself.
And despite the size of my skull, I’m not stupid. The extra reach this weapon gives me could be an advantage in an arena setting.
Eyes narrowing to slits in concentration, I level the blade at the dummy and jab at it — once, twice, three times. Stuffing spews out from the wound I open in its stomach, and I smile viciously. I’m getting better.
“Prince Greataxe?” asks a voice, and I turn to see an aide in my father’s personal livery.
At once, I draw myself up to my full height, crest rising like a bird’s to give me that extra little lift. Once my antlers come in — if they come in — I will be terrifying. I know it. “A message from my father?”
“He wants you in the ringhall. A new prisoner that he thinks it would be advantageous for you to meet.”
I let the poleaxe fall, steel clanging on ice. My heart beats loud in my ears, and my blood is singing. Father wants me. “On my way.”
I don’t know what he needs from me, not yet, but I do know one thing. I will not fail.
The pony in the ring is scrawny and half-starved. Maroon fur over prominent ribs. A shattered horn on its head. I’ve not seen many ponies, and none outside the silver mines where Father keeps them chained, but even I know the horns aren’t meant to look like that.
“Claymore sent this thing to me as a gift,” Father says, his tone one of idle interest. “Found it wandering the edges of her mountains and thought I’d like to see it. Apparently it’s capable of quite the little lightshow.”
“Looks like it should have faded into light already,” I joke, ready to fall back into the role Father likes best. “Bonier than a slaveling. Ponies do that, right? They turn back into rainbows when they die?”
I address the words half to Father, half to the pony. My tone is cruel, and the filly’s eyes narrow as she looks at me. There’s something familiar about those eyes — something almost yeti-like. Whether it’s the anger there or the shade of icy blue, I’m not sure. But she’s not the broken beast I took her for.
“Let me go,” she says, her voice high and childish.
She’s no bigger than me, and in this kingdom that’s a difficult feat to achieve. But I have yeti strength, and what does she have? Nothing. It feels good, to look down on something with the contempt everyone else reserves for me.
“I don’t think I will,” Father remarks conversationally.
Her eyes narrow. “Let me go or I’ll make you regret it.”
Father laughs, but I surge up out of my chair, leaning against the ice-carved balustrade to glower down into the arena below. No one makes him laugh but me. “You’re speaking to the Storm King, pony. Show some respect.”
At his words, the filly looks up. A spark of interest in her grey-blue eyes. “You’re the king, then?"
“What’s it to you?” I growl. “Perform the pony magic Claymore promised, and get ready to go back to your cell.”
She glares up at me, and I can see real yeti hate in those soft pony eyes. But she knows she’s in our power. She composes herself. Shuts her eyes.
But instead of a gentle fizz around her horn and a little tame levitation, blue fire sparks. Building and building around her until suddenly — fffzt! — she releases it, and it cannons away to impact with shattering force in the ice wall of the arena. A crater deeper than I am tall, cracks splintering away in every direction.
Three more hisses, three more booming detonations, and the arena lies almost ruined. The pony child stands at its centre, broken horn smoking, an expression of almost defiant pride on her face. She knows what she can do. What she is capable of.
And my father is smiling. The long lupine smile of his most dangerous brand of pleasure. He looks at this alien creature, and she puts him in mind of war.
He leans forward, sinuous as a mustelid, his eyes alight with interest. “What’s your name, pony?”
And this pony looks him in the eye — like she has the right — and answers him as an equal. “Fizzlepop Berrytwist, your Majesty.”
“I should have guessed,” I cut in. “A ridiculous name for a ridiculous pony, right, Father? I suppose she’ll be useful in the munitions section of the mine. We’ll save a fortune on gunpowder.”
“No, Greataxe,” Father murmurs, soft and thoughtful, and I feel the first seeds of fear begin to sprout. “I think we can find another use for her.”
“A pony, Father?” I venture one last time. Trying to persuade before he has stated his decision, when I cannot risk going against him. “Surely she can’t be trusted.”
But Father’s mind is already made up. “Tell me, little pony,” he hisses, rising from his throne and stalking towards her. “How would you feel about a place in my army?”
Three seasons she has been on campaign with him — in his flagship, while I am relegated to captaining some moth-eaten little frigate. His son.
She is the one given command of the mission to reclaim the staff of my ancestors. She is the one who took credit, though I was there every step of the way. And when we present it to him, when we kneel, glowing with triumph, my father — my father — claims a pony as his family.
“Rise, daughter,” he says, and she does. Rises up and up and up, one hind hoof lashing out and kicking my paws from under me.
Father laughs. He always laughs. And this time Tempest joins him.
"Look at you down there in the dirt,” she hisses, the court hanging on her every word in this, the hour of her ascendancy. “Wriggling like a little worm. Greataxe isn’t a fit name for a thing like you.”
“What is a fit name for him, Lady Tempest?” someone shouts, bestowing immediately the title she does not deserve, does not possess a right to.
And this stranger — my sister — laughs as cruelly as my father. Like they really are parent and cub. “Grubber,” she says, and the word sticks in my heart like a blade.
“In ice blue, Lady Tempest!” the announcer cries, and the crowd roars.
Tempest stalks into the arena, her armour polished to a high sheen, covering almost every inch of her alien pony colouring. “Ready, little brother?” she calls, high and taunting. A threat more for the audience’s benefit than for mine.
But I grip my spear and curl my claws angrily into the ice beneath me, feeling it splinter and crack. I am ready.
“And in storm blue, Lord Grubber!”
A few muted cheers. A couple of minor lordlings from my dead mother’s family. This is what Tempest Storm, this cuckoo in my nest, has stolen from me. My place at my father’s right hand, my name, even my title. I am Crown Prince Greataxe, and she and her wretched pony magic have made a court jester of me.
Not this time. I vow it by the storm and the snow. This time, I will beat her.
Her armoured hooves clack against the ice and I plant my feet. Level my spear. Flick down the visor covering my face.
“Ready, little weasel boy?” she croons. Her favourite insult for me.
But I know the truth. Why she tries and tries to make me doubt myself. I’m what she will never be: a yeti.
“Ready, pretty unicorn princess?” I ask her in an undertone just too quiet for the court and my father to hear. “Just a pony, and not even a whole one.”
Behind the eye-slits of her helmet I see her face contort with fury and she lowers her fractured horn. She carries no weapon, of course. She is her own weapon.
She fires. I skip to the left and roll on the way down. Father’s favourite summertime amusement to while away the long period between storm seasons is to watch his courtiers fight, and his children are his favourite combatants of all. I’m used to fighting Tempest, and I know how little control she has. The angrier I can make her, the worse her aim gets.
“Missed me!” I cackle, darting away into the cloud of icy dust she’s created.
“Runt!” she bawls, and fires blind.
And like the weasel I am I scurry left and right, up and down, always just out of reach. Letting her build the smoke and the confusion to fever pitch — until suddenly I am there, using my spear to vault up over her head, hefting it back up in my hand and aiming right at her eyes — is this the moment I finally win my freedom and my father back?
Those flinty eyes widen in horror as she sees me coming, sees her judgement coming, and she frantically sucks in power for one last blast. Surely she hasn’t got it in her. I know her endurance, I know every inch of her chaotic attempt at technique. She shouldn’t have anything left.
But that awful purple-blue magic — that thief of my birthright and perversion of my father’s love — sparks one last time, and she shoots me dead in the chest.
I am hurled aside, my spear gone and my dreams shattered all over again, and I land amidst the rubble like a broken toy. My claws won’t uncurl and I can’t catch my breath. The crowd is screaming her name over and over. Tempest Shadow! Tempest Shadow! Tempest Shadow! Like a heartbeat. Like the drummers that keep time for the stokers in the airships’ bellies. Carrying me one armful of coal at a time over the cliff edge, to be dashed on the rocks below.
She comes to me, through the smoke and the ruin. “Told you, little weasel,” she says, casual in her cruelty. “You should learn your place.”
We ride for Equestria, my sister in command. I am her vice-admiral, just as my maternal uncle once served my father. I can see the jab Father is making, but I will not rise to it. There will be no betrayal here, not from me. The sister he chose to give me is — accepted. I will obey her.
But just like me, Tempest cannot escape what she is. I am a runt, but Tempest is a pony. No matter how sharp she hones herself, her predator heart cannot overcome the herbivore flesh that houses it. We’re going back to her people, the home she tries so hard to forget, and she’ll slip up. I can feel it with glacier-deep certainty. One crack in that ice-brittle shell, and it will all come pouring out.
“Haul anchor,” Tempest snarls, her armour shining the same shade of slate as yeti fur. She works so hard, just like me. But in her case, it will not pay off. It will never be enough.
“Aye aye, Admiral,” I say obediently, and then bellow the order loud enough for all our crew to hear. The flag-signallers relay the command, and like a flock of birds, the airships rise.
“Ready to visit home again, sister dear?” I ask her, and she growls at me. An unnatural sound from equine lips.
“Leave me alone, Grubber.”
The name she gave me hangs ugly in the crisp morning air, but she stalks away and I let the spectre of our past fade with her. She’s on edge. Too tense. I know that sooner or later, something will give. And just like always, I will be there to clean up her mess. All the combustion magic in the world won’t be enough to save her this time.
A smile spreads over my face, and my sharp white fangs glisten in the sun.
Author's Note
