Realm III of VIII
The Frozen Citadel
Spires of living ice
In the far west a citadel of ice climbs in needles of pale blue light, ringed by snowy peaks and dark pines. Its cliffs are hollowed by waterfalls that pour in long white ribbons into the clouds.
A stone bridge of many arches leaves the citadel cliff and carries travelers east across the sea of cloud toward the World Tree.
Look closer
- The tallest spire, glowing from within
- Waterfalls streaming from the citadel cliff
- The arched bridge reaching east toward the tree
- Two fairies among the snow and the falls
Two fairies hide in this realm.
In our world
A palace of ice on the Neva
In the winter of 1739 to 1740, Empress Anna Ivanovna of Russia had a house built of ice on the frozen Neva in St. Petersburg, between the Admiralty and the Winter Palace. It was furnished in ice, down to a fireplace with ice logs, and guarded by a life size ice elephant and ice cannons that survived a test firing. By spring it had melted away.
The idea lives on. Since 1990 the Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden has been built again each winter from the ice of the Torne River, and each spring it melts back into the river.
Sources
Why deep ice glows blue
Ice absorbs the red, long wavelength end of white light and lets the blue through, and the farther light travels through it the bluer it looks. That is why the deep walls of a glacier glow blue while a thin sheet of ice looks clear. The citadel's spires are painted in that blue, deepest where the ice is thickest.
Sources