Ice Crystal Flowers.
They needed neither streams nor fertile soil, nor even a sunny hillside.
They sent thread-thin roots into the gaps between ice and snow, drawing energy from bitter winds and frozen sunlight. At last, a hint of blue appeared among their crystal-clear petals—a blue found only in the deepest ice.
The Elves of the Snow Plains said Ice Crystal Flowers never withered.
They froze all their moisture into crystals, slowed their life processes to a minimum, and reached their roots as deep into the permafrost as they could, breathing slowly there.
It was as if time had frozen with them.
Ten years, a hundred, a thousand—no one knew how long Ice Crystal Flowers could live—
Until the warmth of "spring" arrived.
Back then, the villagers had yet to call Sunny "Old Sang," but he was already the best hunter in the village.
After inheriting the family Longbow from his late father, he lived alone in a hunter's cabin at the village's edge. Every day, he entered the forest before dawn and returned with his catch before sunset.
One day, Sunny pursued a deer he had shot deep into the Rime Forest, farther than he had ever gone before. By the time he realized it, the snow on the forest floor nearly covered his ankles.
He trudged through the wind and snow for who knew how long. His hands and feet had gone numb by the time he collapsed beneath a cliff sheltered from the wind.
When Sunny woke, he found himself lying in a cave.
A woman sat beside the campfire opposite him.
Her long silver-white hair was softer than moonlight, her skin as flawless and white as snow, and her eyes like an unfrozen lake beneath a veil of falling snow.
Sunny stayed in the cave for