IceWing palace

The IceWing palace is located on the far northern edge of the Ice Kingdom. The palace is occupied by the IceWing queen and the aristocratic IceWings who were ranked in Second Circle or above before the ranking wall was destroyed.

Description

Also known as the gift of splendor, the IceWing palace was designed, built, and enchanted centuries ago by a pair of animus twins, with magic that ensured its wall of ice would never melt, crack, or be harmed by an outside attack. It soars miles into the air, with towers and balconies and spires that pierce the clouds. It contains a great number of rooms on many various levels. It is well-fortified.

The palace's interior has translucent walls and icy floors, and is marginally warmer than its exterior. The treasury is a guarded vault that is located near the center of the palace.

It is composed of a thousand different glittering shades of blue, with its interior walls being cool and smooth. The lights of the palace shimmer blue-green-silver, like captured starlight. The dark ocean surrounding it serves as a mirror, sending the same lights dancing in blurred mimicry around the palace's base. A galaxy of smaller lights spirals out in five curved arms from the palace, illuminating lower aristocrats' homes, the training schools that are open all night, and the shimmering ice sculpture gardens.

Courtyard

The pristine central courtyard is covered in snow, a vast space dominated by the two most important gifts in IceWing history: the gifts of light and order. The Tree of Light's frost-kissed twigs, leaves, and branches are identical to that of a normal tree. It has eternal life, and its moon globes grow year-round, with a new bud growing on the tree immediately after a moon globe has been taken. Under the Tree of Light, there is a long path to where the wall of Circle rankings was. There are many windows in the palace that overlook the courtyard. It is often silver, empty, cold, and wet, speckled with strange shadows from the gift of light.

Entrance

There is a grand entrance to the palace: a set of crystal-studded gates about halfway up the central keep. They are carved in the shapes of giant dragon wings, matching the small ice sculptures of dragons, wings, and talons that top all of the columns and finials. It is possible to fly over the palace walls into the interior courtyards, but that is considered gauche and career suicide. According to IceWing protocol, visitors wait at the gates to be admitted.

The palace also includes a vast entrance hall that leads to three arched openings leading to the central courtyard. The gift of elegance provides pale blue stars that seem to drift through the palace's otherwise bare, translucent walls. Up close, small, phosphorescent glass snowflakes are seen encased in the ice, glowing silvery blue as they fell, mimicking the weather outside.

Miscellaneous

There is a palace library containing a few old scrolls about the Diamond Trial.

Winter's room was described to have one window overlooking the central courtyard, with a shelf of ice serving as a bed, a desk, and two warm, white polar bear rugs covering the floor. Narwhal was also mentioned to have personal chambers somewhere in the palace.

Winter mentioned that the palace has a flight training tower.

The throne room is grand, with several windows and a throne in its center.

The palace has its own school that invites a few bright dragonets from the outer villages every year to compete for a chance to be admitted. If they work hard and do well, they can enter the circles.

Notable features

Queen's chambers

The queen's chambers are cluttered with miniature, unidentifiable ice sculptures, crafted by Mink. In the main chamber, a bed dominates the center of the room, a block of ice carved into whorls and drifts where a dragon body can fit perfectly. The space is also shared by a jewel cabinet, a polar bear rug by the window, and an icy bathtub in a separate room.

The Forbidden Treasury

The Forbidden Treasury is known to few, and is only spoken of in whispers. It is buried in an ice cave deep beneath the palace, and the sole way to access it is through a secret passageway from the queen's royal chambers. Only queens and princesses are sure of its existence and are allowed to enter. To access it, a space at the foot of the bed must be pressed, and the queen's bed will shift aside soundlessly, revealing a hole underneath that plunges into endless darkness. The walls glitter, and after flying down a long, dark tunnel, the floor of the cave emerges as a smooth, glassy surface. A corridor stretches toward the treasury, and the walls are composed of the blackest ice, glittering with silvery filaments and bubbles when light hits them. The passage spirals in on itself and becomes smaller like a snail shell, with alcoves cut into the ice at eye level every few steps. The first two alcoves in the chamber are empty, but the third contains the gift of strength, with words carved into the ice beneath it that read 'THE GIFT OF STRENGTH. USE CAUTIOUSLY.' The fourth alcove holds a scepter, carved from dark blue rock and embedded with small diamonds, with an inscription reading 'THE GIFT OF COMPROMISE' and other unknown text that covers half of the wall under the alcove. The fifth alcove holds the gift of vision, and the sixth is empty, with its inscription violently scratched out. The seventh alcove is an oddity; it is not spaced evenly like the others, and looks hacked out of the ice instead of beautifully carved. The item inside is an unwearable piece of mystery silver, with its scribble-scratch writing underneath reading 'PART OF THE GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING.' The eighth alcove holds the gift of stealth.

The gift of order

The gift of order was an animus-touched wall located in a central courtyard of the IceWing palace. There were seven circles of dragonet and adult rankings, and each day the queen was expected to re-order all of the dragons based on their performance in school, day-to-day life, and other considerations. After returning from Sanctuary, Queen Snowfall destroyed the wall using the gift of strength, much to the shock of Tundra and other IceWing traditionalists, after realizing that being sorted made dragons focus so much on their negative aspects that they couldn't see their positive aspects.

History

The Jade Mountain Prophecy

Winter Turning

After Hailstorm and Winter returned to the Ice Kingdom, they were admitted at the palace gates. Once let through, they obtained one moon globe each from the Tree of Light. In the central courtyard, they were assessed by Narwhal. Winter then went to sleep in his room and then attended a rankings ceremony the next morning, in which Hailstorm and Winter were given their new rankings.

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The Lost Continent Prophecy

The Dangerous Gift

Queen Snowfall visited the Forbidden Treasury when she decided that she had no choice without any other source of animus magic. She retrieved multiple powerful objects from the Treasury, including Opal's ring of vision, and gleefully thought about how she could drive the Pantalan refugees out of the kingdom with those dangerous items.

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Field Guides

A Guide to the Dragon World

The IceWing palace was featured in The Animus Gifts of the IceWings and was later mentioned in Caribou's In the Village-of-the-Plentiful-Seals.

Gallery

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  The IceWing palace from the cover of Winter Turning, by Joy Ang
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  The Icewing palace from the cover of The Dangerous Gift, by Joy Ang
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  The IceWing palace on the cover of Runaway, by Joy Ang
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  Glacier with the gift of light in the palace courtyard from A Guide to the Dragon World, by Joy Ang
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  The IceWing palace from Winter Turning (graphic novel), by Mike Holmes
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  The IceWing Palace from the map of Pyrrhia, by Mike Schley
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  The IceWing Palace from the era of Darkstalker, by Mike Schley
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  The IceWing Palace on the Ice Kingdom map from A Guide to the Dragon World, by Mike Schley

• Art by Mike Holmes, from the Wings of Fire Graphic Novels
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References

de:Eispalast fr:Palais de Glace pl:Pałac królowej Lodowiec ru:Ледяной дворец