Guardians of Ga'Hoole 11 - To Be a King

tore through the night. “The ember, Lutta! Get the ember, or I shall curse you forever!”
    A wolf, one Duncan MacDuncan, leaped high into the sky where a gnarled and screeching hagsfiend and her half-hags had begun to go yeep in the fierce blades of thegreen light. The lone wolf yanked her to the ground, ripped out her eyes, which were pulsing a dim yellow, and sank his fangs into the hagsfiend’s neck.
    A huge cheer rose from the armies of Hoole. “To the Ice Palace!” Hundreds of owls surged over the last ridges, followed by still more wolves. Then Hoole caught sight of Theo’s battle claws shining under the moon, summoning him. “King Hoole!”
    Hoole forgot Emerilla and in a quick flip reversed his direction and flew toward the crumbling palace, leading the divisions of his armies; below the wolves clambered up the ice-sheathed ramparts.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Ice Palace
    “ E merilla?” Hoole blinked at the owl who perched beside Theo in the dripping walls of the throne room. This owl looked like Emerilla but even more so. How could that be?
    “You know me?” the Spotted Owl asked. She was confused. Why was this owl, the king, studying her so?
    “Of course I know you,” his voice was soft and intimate. “I was concerned that something had happened to you when you came through the Ice Narrows.”
    “Ice Narrows?” Emerilla was confounded. “I was never in the Ice Narrows.”
    “But I did fly through the Ice Narrows.” The voice came from behind him. A silence fell on the crowd of owls and wolves. Only the drip…drip…drip of the rotting ice could be heard. Another Spotted Owl stood in a puddle of melted ice.
    “Emerilla?” Hoole turned around and saw an owl almost identical to the one he had just spoken to. Shelooked exactly like Emerilla. No…no…not quite exactly. The tips of her tawny wings were beginning to turn black. Lutta was changing before his very eyes. The owl he thought he knew as Emerilla was dissolving into a dark crowlike thing that was now flying directly toward him. He felt himself suddenly skid across the ice and slam into the melting throne. His eyes closed momentarily, and when he opened them, he saw Strix Strumajen hovering over a strange heap of black and brown feathers. The puddle of water was turning red with blood. Little gnatlike creatures floated dead on its surface.
    “Half-hags!” the two words swept through the throne room.
    “I had to kill her,” Strix Strumajen said. “She pretended to be my Emerilla. I knew from the start that something was not right about her. A blood deception she was—a hagsfiend.”
    “No!” a whispery voice rose from the pile of feathers. Hoole flew over to her.
    “What are you?” he asked, peering down at the dying creature.
    “I am nothing, and yet I loved…”
    The vial of the ember dangled from Hoole’s neck. She lifted a talon.
    She wants the ember! Hoole thought.
    “No, it is not the ember I wanted.” Lutta whispered, and died.
    From the pile of feathers a foggy shape rose, like a shadow made of mist. It rose and then dissolved as the spirit of Lutta passed away.
    “To hagsmire,” muttered Strix Strumajen. She turned to the real Emerilla. “Oh, daughter,” she sighed and folded her into her wings.
    Hoole gazed at Emerilla. Her spots shimmered like a galaxy of stars. It was as if glaumora had come down to earth.
    At last, thought Hoole. And his own gizzard quaked with something warm and genuine and new.
    There was a sudden quietness in the throne hollow. “Nothing is dripping,” Theo whispered with excitement.
    “The melting has stopped,” Phineas said.
    “Look at the throne!” The Snow Rose lofted herself into the air and flew over the ice throne.
    “To the throne, Your Majesty. To the throne!”
    So Hoole took his rightful place, and the moment he perched on the throne of that noble family of the N’yrthghar, the throne stopped melting and began to glow with new ice. Hoole felt the warmth of the ember against his chest. And he knew that although the ember’s magic could not win a war it could restore a kingdom with arighteous ruler. This was the lesson of the ember. He flew to the highest ice spindle on the throne. He held the vial with the ember that now glowed an iridescent, mysterious green. “Just as the stars do not hold our destinies, this ember holds not our fate. We are masters of our own fate, dear friends. The days to come will be ones of hope and glory.” A great cheer rose up. Yes,