{527 words - Summons Quest Part 1}

The island was quiet when Hvergelmir arrived, its air ever warm and windless. She'd thought of it often in the past weeks, wishing she'd had the strength to let its pull carry her away to safety. Wishing . . .

She wasn't like Ida or Babylon, she wasn't marked. There was no powerful pull to her Wonder, no sickness if she left it wanting. It was just -- Hvergelmir knew what was here. She knew why she'd failed at New Year's, why she'd spent so long trapped in that godforsaken funhouse, poked and prodded and hurt by jailers. She knew what crucial thing she'd been missing, what one little thing might've spared her so much of that. Might've led to an earlier rescue for her friends.

Eikthyrnir. A friend and partner in so many of her memories from the lost future; more than capable of saving her from something like the funhouse.

The problem was, Hvergelmir didn't have the ring she'd remembered brushing her thumb over, the one she always moved to her left hand as a precaution after powering up. The opal that summoned the great caribou to her side.

It would be here somewhere. She didn't remember where she'd found it before, but Hvergelmir couldn't imagine something like that was anywhere but on her island.

At least, for the most part, that was an easy search. The island was small.

Unfortunately, the jewelry boxes in her bedroom yielded no low-hanging fruit in this regard, like they had with her signet ring. That meant -- having familiarized herself enough with the place that she knew where not to find any stray opal rings -- there was only one place that the little ring could be.

The treasure room. Somewhere in the wall-to-wall accumulation of gifts her past self had received from the worlds she'd visited, all her little souvenirs and keepsakes. Somewhere, in the thick of all that mess, was one tiny little ring.

Well, crapola.

Crapola and then some.

It took her about four hours — guessing pretty roughly — to sift through some of the treasures carefully until she found what she was looking for. The little ring was pretty, all twisted together from rose gold worked around a luminous fire opal, filigree shapes forming the subtle suggestions of antlers. “There you are,” Hvergelmir breathed, satisfied, slipping the little trinket onto her right hand. “Sorry it took me so long.”

She reached out with her thumb, brushing it across the opal, and . . .

Nothing. Eikthyrnir didn’t appear. There was no dripping starlight, no whisper-soft sound of golden hooves touching lightly to stone. No noise issued from outside the building, either; the summoning simply hadn’t worked.

Was there something missing? Something she’d done the last time, something she didn’t remember? It should’ve worked, should’ve . . .

She tried again a few more times, but to no avail. Maybe I’ve worn out my magic for the day, Hvergelmir thought. Or maybe I just need to bring carrots. Maybe I’m just too tired to focus properly.

That was it. It had to be.

She’d try again next week. Eventually, it would work.