Frigid air smacked itself against Angel Trumpet’s face, chilling through his scales to his very heart. Tears of stress froze in place along his cheeks, salty water stopped in time. If only it could slow his heart down, too. Though his mouth was less of a cave and more of a desert, he still forced out the words.

“Vesi, I have bad news.”

The IceWing raised her head from the pillow she’d been resting it on a moment ago and put down her book. Judging just from the creases marking her forehead, she hadn’t wanted him to interrupt her, but both dragons knew it was just another necessity. Those dark gray eyes bored into his ruby ones, watery black holes in the ice of her face. “What is it this time?”

“The time to tell the public may be nearing us, Vesi.”

“No,” one word as bone-chilling as the air around the two filled the atmosphere. Vesi’s tone was as sharp as her serrated claws. “Not yet. She can’t possibly be fading that quickly! Can’t you do something?!”

Angel Trumpet felt like biting her for this, but he refrained, speaking firmly through his teeth in a voice like wind through the leaves. “I’ve been trying to prolong her life for as long as possible, but there’s only so much any doctor could do. That many tribes rolled into one body is just a ticking time bomb. I’m afraid she doesn’t have much longer.”

“I… you know this means we need to call a meeting tonight. Once she’s asleep.”

Angel Trumpet bobbed his head to Vesi’s words. Of course they would. It was protocol for all of the most important courtiers at this point. To not do it would be as neglectful of them as leaving a starving dragonet alone on a street. “Sturgeon and Moth have already set to work ensuring everyone gets the memo. I doubt we have much longer to wait before they’re done and Saturn has set up the library for the meeting.”

Vesi’s face lodged in her talons, and it occurred to Angel Trumpet that the usually cold and logical ambassador might’ve actually been crying. Her wings and back trembled like leaves, heaving with every little sob. Hastening towards her without even realizing it, he took one of her icy talons in his, sighing softly. The cold seeping into his body from all around him only served to make him feel worse, but it was a necessary sacrifice to comfort the sobbing ambassador. No words could possibly be said to make the situation better, but Angel Trumpet discovered “it’s going to be alright” tumbling from his mouth in a repetitive waterfall.

“W-what happened? Tell me. I need you to tell me.”

Angel Trumpet’s face crumbled, recalling the events. He hadn’t been there for when it began, no, but he vividly remembered hasty talons clicking against the floor and the sound of a massive body being dragged across the tiles to his infirmary. Pale lavender – Moth’s scale color – entering, followed by greenish-brown and shimmering pearl. Distressed voices tumbling into the room and clogging up his ears.

“She collapsed, I think. At least, that’s what I heard.”

Wide eyes brimming with pure unease. Moth’s frantic stammering. The Queen’s horrible coughing and the crimson that stained the clean white floors. Whipping his head back and forth to clear it, Angel Trumpet continued in torn words.

“I know she’s not a great ruler. I know the laws here are corrupt. Tyrannical, even… but she’s dying. She’s dying and I can’t do anything about it anymore. No medicine works anymore. It’s like the cosmos is begging her to be done,” apathy melted away all at once, and Angel Trumpet’s voice ripped itself. “What kind of doctor am I if I can’t prolong her life?!”

Frigid talons cupped his cheeks, sending chills reverberating down his spine. Vesi’s tone was like a wall of icy rock, yet somehow as pure and hopeful as freshly fallen snow. “You’re a damn good doctor, Angel. You’re a damn good doctor and you tried.”

A little warmth filled the bleak, frosty white room, but was crushed as soon as three raps resounded from the door. General Condor’s snout poked in, scrunching in response to the temperature inside. “Come on, you two. It’s meeting time.”