I narrowed my eyes and regarded that sliver on the soul of White Death Wolf Emperor.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” I said softly, and His eyes, the cold fury in them banked, slowly opened to look at me from only a handful of yards away. His nose was basically breathing slowly past me, fanning my Luan flames as He did.

“Your Imperial Majesty has borne the injury from Ice Emperor for a very long time, and has both suffered much and gained much from it. But... does Your Majesty know that the intent of Ice Emperor has been influencing you, as well? This one can feel His Will from the scar upon your soul as it crumbles. Can Your Majesty feel it breaking, as well?”

Now His eyes slowly lit up, but they were not looking at me. A growl began to arise.

“This one cannot know His plans, but at the very least, Your Imperial Majesty has been used to suppress and control Heavenly Fire Emperor. This one thinks Your Imperial Majesty rebelled against His Will enough to warn the other Emperors of Ice, but His influence has been upon you, for Your Imperial Majesty has, at times, not acted as should a Wolf, but as something more uncaring and ruthless.

“Your Imperial Majesty has acted like a Dragon.”

Cold began to build in the air again, but it was only leaking off Him, because now, that power was centered inside Himself. A rumbling growl built in His chest and slowly spilled past lips that were being curled back to display fangs harder than diamonds.

“This one can see that your knowledge of Ice has been guided by that of a Dragon, but no Wolf can know Ice as a Dragon knows Ice, and thus your Path is a Dead End.

“Your Imperial Majesty’s Pack would not have been slain were they not a threat to Ice Emperor, as all the new Tribes are to the old... even mere Humans like this one.

“It is time for Your Imperial Majesty to leave the Dragon’s Road, and return to the Way of the Wolves, and to the stars above which have guided Your Imperial Majesty for so many years.”

Now He blinked slowly, and His eyes focused on me, kneeling before him just above the ground, and Fire and Ice began to swirl about him.

“Dragons think of Fire and Ice as two separate things, but that is the perspective of an Elder who sees all the world as magic.

“A Wolf knows the world is real, beyond magic. He knows scents upon the wind, the turning of seasons, the sun in the sky, the stars and moon holding chorus, the ebb and flow of the wind and weather across a land that grows and dies.

“These are complete Truths, below and hidden by Magic, truths that existed before Dragons and Wolves, and which will be there long afterwards.

“One of those great and simple Truths is that there is no difference in Fire and Ice. They are but different points along the scale, masked by the Mana that thrives in such conditions... and whose existence is set and confirmed by Ice Emperor.

“The power of Ice... is a lie foisted upon the world by Ice Emperor. Ice is but a side effect of the symptom upon which Earth is founded... solid, crystalline matter.

“All of Earth... is but frozen stone. It merely freezes long, long before Water does. But from the perspective of Fire, we live atop a frozen world, even if there is no Ice around.”

His eyes opened wider at the thought, and I could sense more cracks running through the Will of the Ice Emperor on that scar, as His thoughts turned away from the dead-end of primal Draconic Cold, of an Element which really wasn’t, and looked at something else.

“There is no Ice and Fire. There is only heat, moving along the scale from solid to liquid to gas to plasma to particle to wave. From unmoving crystalline stone to the light that crosses the galaxies to reach us here.”

Fire and Ice magic began to move around Noble and myself. His glowing blue eyes caught the interplay, as Ice fed fire, draining heat and feeding it to the Flame, and He realized what I had done to force-feed my Flames with His Domain, and why His cold was so powerless against me.

His Cold only fed my fire, as all the heat He was trying to neutralize was simply transferred to my flames!

“Your Imperial Majesty is not a Luan, nor a Phoenix. They, too, divide the world into Fire and Ice, but they can mix them, and thus is born a power even Dragons can fear.

“But Your Imperial Majesty is a Wolf, not an Avian. Your Majesty does not need a mate to unleash the power of Your Bloodline.” I pointed at the sky, and despite Himself, He looked up at the night sky, and The Moon and Stars yet weeping down at Him.

“In that darkness out there is a terrible cold, a cold with no ice whatsoever, deeper and more terrible than any that could exist on this world. It is cold enough to freeze a Dragon’s soul, suck the magic out of them, and leave them a frozen corpse gazing at an immensity beyond their comprehension.

“But Your Imperial Majestry is of the Auroran Ice Wolves, and the Stars are in His Majesty’s Blood. Every single star is a ball of flame a thousand times larger than the world upon which we stand. The Light from one of those stars is our sun, and as long as that sun burns, this world will know life.

“Cold is the force that turns Light into Life. It slows the Light from Wave to particle, and the Auroras dance across the sky, and Lightning flares into being. It slows further, and Fire creates heat, and with it, the states of matter begin. Plasma cools to gas, and lo, Life can breathe, and the weather takes hold. It cools further, and the first liquids, molten metals and stone, burn and bubble and gather together in great solid masses, forming the hearts of worlds.

“As they cool, some solidify, and other things become liquid. The first drops of Water finally fall, cooling and solidifying the shell of the world, and the dance comes full circle. The cold darkness of the night has done its job, and now life takes power from Light, and grows.

“Your Imperial Majesty, you are an Auroran Ice Wolf, and you were born to rise to power equal to any Dragon. You draw strength from the stars and from the dark, and everything in between, to master Life.

“That is the Way of the Wolf, not the Way of a Dragon.”

The scar upon His soul fractured and scattered madly, warred upon by falling Tears, ancient memories and instincts, and new insights and realizations.

Realizations that He had been used by the thing He despised the most, as the influence of the Ice Emperor fell away slowly, subtly... but not subtly enough for White Death Wolf Emperor not to notice what it had done and what it had been doing to Him.

Something changed in His Aura, something that really hadn’t belonged there breaking and falling away. It would take time for it to be fully realized, but it was now gone...

His great head, somehow looking more noble, less primitive and savage, lowered once again onto His great paws to look at me. “LITTLE HUMAN CHILD,” He breathed at me in plumes of frost, something in His eyes and heart He had likely not felt in thousands of years. “WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS FOR ME?”

“Your Imperial Majesty, if it was not His Majesty who first directed His Tribe to ally with Humans all those many, many millennia ago, then it was one of His Majesty’s Cousins. Perhaps they are different now from the pure Wolves, but the dogs which have been the best friends of Humans since the earliest days were still of His Majesty’s Tribes once, and Humans and Canines work together as well as Humans and Avians, or Humans and Horses, if not better... and have done so for far, far longer than either.

“If this one could return that long-ago favor to His Majesty, then on behalf of Humanity, this one thanks Him.”

He sighed, long and low, streams of ice reaching out from broad nostrils and fanning my flames. “HOW IS ONE INTENDED TO BE CALLED TO THIS COUNCIL?” He finally asked.

“To His Imperial Majesty! Leave a Token of Your Will with this one, and when it is time, Your Imperial Majesty will be able to join in council from across the world, from wherever His Majesty may be.”

There was a tink as the end of one of His whiskers broke off, vibrating and spinning to land at my feet. It had shattered at an angle, almost like the end of a spear, and crunched halfway into the ice covering the frozen ground without effort.

It didn’t radiate any cold, but I could have thrown it into a blast furnace and it wouldn’t have been affected in the slightest.

Didn’t need to glue it, just breathe on it. My breath froze solid against the steelvine and the resulting ice was harder than iron, binding it tight.

I moved into a seated position, Noble across my thighs and glowing softly as The Moon and Stars came down, and they gave an old Wolf some peace.

Animal Empathy, apply Social Skills to Animals and Magical Beasts without penalty. Diplomacy Modifier, +72 ftw!

From everything I could discern, the Aurora Ice Wolves had likely been eligible to be the first of the Young Species that could become High Emperors. Ice Emperor had discerned the fact, and wiped them out for it, defending his position and ensuring the Young Species would always be inferior to the older ones, a tactic likely repeated and used by Sea and Infinite Sands Emperor in collusion with Him. After all, there were no Whales or other Aquatic Mammals who had reached High Emperor, either... and Leviathan never approached the equatorial waters anywhere near The Sea Emperor, nor did any of the Imperial Mammals of the Sea...

When I completed the spell here, something that was now much more intense than when I’d done it for Thunderbird the first time, I’d have to go off to confront Heavenly Fire Emperor, the most disliked, arrogant, and proud member of the True Emperors, a Fire Dragon who wasn’t going to be permitted to reach High Emperor by, huh, just about everyone.

That should be interesting enough. I’d have to make sure it was all outside, or something. I definitely did not want to be below-ground if He decided to get pissed at me...

Well, that was a few hours away, at the very least, and that scar left behind by a cold-hearted Ice Dragon was being shattered and slowly healing by the minute. It might not be done by the time the spell was, but two more treatments tops, and the White Death Wolf Emperor would be at full strength... and ready to advance further!

“Your Imperial Majesty, this one has a question.” The glowing blue eyes opened slightly again, just enough to look at me. “This one’s friends and allies are capable of building either a Tower or a Pyramid that can generate compressed, refined, and purified Mana suitable even for a True Emperor. If not perfect, they can be tempered and treated by Your Imperial Majesty a thousand or more times faster than simply absorbing rote Mana and Your Majesty doing all of the work.

“Your Imperial Majesty has momentous amounts of Mana to absorb to reach the heights of the High Emperors. This aid will cut Your Majesty’s time needed to reach that summit down to a thousandth of the time needed.

“Is Your Imperial Majesty interested in such a thing?”

--------

The temperature of the Lands of White Death was already slowly starting to rise. The Wolf had realized that He didn’t need the land to be buried in ice and snow for His power to rise. He could reach out to the void of space, where there was nothing but cold, and indeed, the more Mana of other sorts there were around, the greater His power would grow when He froze it all and offered Fire to the Stars.

Good enough for me.

Heavenly Fire’s name was pure ego, because His realm was anything but Heavenly. Well, maybe to a Fire Elemental.

As Ice Mana dominated the lands of White Death, so Fire held sway here, underpinned by a mighty Earthpower rooted in endless amounts of moving magma, volcanic activity, and the earthquakes caused by those things.