Book Two, Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Justin’s heart felt like it was exploding with joy as he took to the air for the second time that day. Below him, Laetitia soon became nothing more than a brightly colored speck in the center of Val Luminara’s vast green forests. Up above, the portal’s light painted him and his friends in a swirling, chaotic, yet beautiful kaleidoscope of colors.

Soon, they were several thousand feet above the ground, and rapidly approaching the portal. The icy wasteland that was the North Pole loomed on the other side, and Justin had to fight off the wave of disorientation that came from seeing ground both above and below him. It passed quickly, but was replaced by something even worse.

Fear.

What are you doing? his instincts screamed at him as he sped closer and closer to the portal. Don’t you remember what happened last time? Stop! Turn around before it’s too late!

Eleven months had passed since then, but he could still remember the pain he’d felt with haunting clarity. Like being stabbed by a hundred icicles at the same time. Unable to move, to breathe, to even think. All he could do was surrender to the cold and pass into darkness…

The badge on his chest seemed to pulse, sending warmth rippling through his body, and Justin felt his doubts melt away. For a moment, he felt ashamed—but then that, too, vanished, leaving nothing but the joy of flight and a fierce sense of determination. Santa was speaking to him through his badge, and the message was clear.

I’m with you.

And so, Justin soared onward and upward without fear or hesitation. He felt the moment they passed the border between Val Luminara and Earth. The cold was suddenly all around him, but it didn’t touch him. The badge radiated a sort of shield around him made of heat, banishing the cold and leaving him feeling like he was lying next to a cozy fire. He could feel the savage arctic winds doing their best to batter him, throw him off course, but while they crashed against Santa’s magic they never once touched him.

“Justin!” he heard Lena shout above the roaring winds. “Pull up!”

“What? Why?” he asked.

His Rider let go of one of his antlers for a split second to point to his right, and he saw Vixen in her chair. The seatbelt was doing its job in keeping her in place, and while she was too proud to complain, the white knuckled grip she had on the armrests made it clear she was anything but comfortable. With a gasp, Justin realized what was happening. The ground was above them, the sky below. While that meant little to a reindeer who could fly, to someone who couldn’t—and was, in fact, confined to a chair—it must have felt like being tied down while making an insane nosedive from thousands of feet in the air.

Lena pulled back on his antlers, and Justin curved out of his meteoric descent. Although he didn’t say a word, Willow matched his movements perfectly, and together they arced upwards, rotating Vixen until she was sitting upright again. Then, with the ground still seventy feet below them, they rocketed forward, the frozen landscape becoming a blur beneath them as they gathered speed. Santa’s magic continued to protect them from the deadly cold, but Justin still couldn’t wait to leave this dead, dark, depressing place be—

“Jólakötturinn!” Vixen suddenly yelled. “Bank right!”

Lena jerked Justin’s antlers to the right, and he obeyed without thinking, swerving sharply in that direction just as a massive black shape appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Forty feet long, it shot past them like a piece of the night itself had come alive, missing them so narrowly that Justin had to fight to keep from being swept off course by the wind its passing created. It landed neatly behind them, its enormous paws not making so much as a footprint in the snow, and spun around to yowl indignantly at them.

The Yule Cat had come to play.

“Lucas, Tanraak!” Vixen commanded. “Divert it!”

To Justin’s surprise, the dark furred buck turned and his Rider shot back toward the giant cat without a moment’s hesitation. Justin watched with wide, horrified eyes as his friend shifted into his four-legged form for the extra speed it would give him. The Yule Cat’s beastly yellow eyes immediately locked onto him, and its mouth opened to reveal a set of gleaming white fangs and a bright pink tongue.

“Wait!” Justin yelled. “We can’t just leave—”

“They only have to distract it until we get out of its territory,” Vixen interrupted him.

“Lucas is one of our unit’s best fliers,” Willow added. “And Tanraak knows how to handle him. As long as they stay in the air, it won’t give them any trouble!”

Still, Justin couldn’t help but shoot a nervous look over his shoulder. Lucas was, indeed, flying rings around the monstrous feline. It swatted at him with claws the size of swords. All it would take was one lucky hit, and Lucas would be cut into ribbons. The urge to turn back and help his friend was almost overwhelming. The only thing keeping him from doing exactly that was Vixen—specifically, that he would have to leave Willow to carry their flight leader all by herself.

Behind him, Lucas swooped down, flying between the Yule Cat’s legs. The cat yowled in anger, doing an undignified somersault as it tried to catch the infuriatingly elusive reindeer. The maneuver left the cat lying on its back, and its paw lashed out, claws glistening in the faint light. Justin felt his gut clench as they arced toward his friend, missing him by scant inches.

Rolling back to its paws, the Yule Cat yowled again, then gathered itself to pounce. Like a living shadow, nearly invisible in the night except for its eyes and teeth, it launched itself into the air right behind Lucas.

“No!” Justin yelled.

Vixen’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm, as if she were afraid he would abandon her. “Stay the course! Just a little longer!”

Lucas and Tanraak pulled up, shooting straight into the air. Again, the Yule Cat narrowly missed them. Lucas made a graceful arc, flying upside down just a hairsbreadth above the pitch black fur on the Yule Cat’s back before dodging around its tail and flipping rightside up again.

Justin’s heart was racing in his chest. Yes, Lucas was a gifted flier. Yes, Tanraak probably knew him even better than Justin did. But skill could only get you so far when you were so drastically outmatched. All it would take was one mistake, and the Yule Cat would be feasting on his best friend. He turned to Vixen to beg her one more time to let him—

Vixen’s antlers lit up with a bright emerald light. She leaned her head back until she was staring up at the night sky, and the light traveled down through her skull and across her snout until it burst from the tip of her nose. Justin watched in awe as it streaked away as a pillar of green light so bright it hurt to look at.

Abruptly, the light vanished, both from the sky and from Vixen, and she faced forward again. Justin craned his neck to look behind them again, and breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he saw Lucas streaking toward them, flying so fast even the Yule Cat couldn’t keep up.

They had made it.

“Just so you know, I expect some kind of medal for that,” Lucas said when he caught up a minute later, morphing back into his two-legged form. He fingered the badge Mrs. Claus had given him. “Preferably a gold one this time.”

Vixen ignored him, instead pointing out into the distance. Justin could only see an endless field of white, topped with a starry black sky, but he trusted Vixen’s sense of direction. She had, after all, made this trip more times than anyone other than Santa himself.

“Fly fast and fly hard,” she said. “We have a long way to go, and only a short time to do it!”