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the hagsfiend who had divined her.

CHAPTER SIX
The Education of Lutta
    T he inside of the ice cave danced with the light of the stars outside. They were called frost stars because their images were reflected perfectly on the ice walls as they rose in the night.
    Lutta blinked. “I overslept.” She swiveled her head, which, at this time, had taken the form and featheration of a Barn Owl. Her eyes, like black mirrors, reflected the frost stars. Even Kreeth was struck by her beauty. “They’re gone, aren’t they?” She turned to the hagsfiend, who nodded. “And tonight was to be my First Flight. Here I am, fully fledged at last. Figures!” She spat out the word with contempt.
    “Don’t you worry, dearie. I can teach you better than they ever could.” Kreeth watched her. The white face was beginning to turn tawny. Yellow suffused the black eyes. Another one of Lutta’s myriad transformations was beginning. It was in response to her rejection. On some level, she was trying to become what her foster parents hadwanted. It was triggered by the sickening feelings of shame and abandonment.
    Kreeth knew that her own task was to raise this extraordinary young creature. And Kreeth had big plans for her. Let the others fight their wars in the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms. Let them fight over territory and ice thrones and ice crowns. A new dynasty was beginning right here in this cave in the Ice Narrows. A dynasty born of the darkest and most impenetrable of charms—and Lutta would be its beginning.
    But first, Kreeth must instruct her how to control her changes. She probably had no inkling that she herself could influence the timing of the change or the species she changed into. “Lutta, I love you for what you are and what you are not.” Kreeth spoke very slowly. She fixed her dark eyes on the fading black orbs of Lutta. “What you are and are not is the sum of your whole.” Indeed, the transformation was slowing down. The yellow of the Great Horned’s eyes seemed to dim as the black of the Barn Owl’s flooded back and the face feathered white.
    It might have seemed to Lutta that Kreeth spoke in riddles. But she did feel something happening. The transformation slowed. She felt a sense of peace within her for the first time. She looked down. Her breast was white with a few light speckles. Her wings were tan with dashesof white. Kreeth was regarding her with great interest. She is understanding for the first time these differences. This is good. This is very good.
    “It stopped,” Lutta gasped in wonder.
    “You stopped it.”
    “How? How did I do it?”
    “By learning who you are, by being keenly aware of the differences. What did you feel first in your face?”
    “I felt it lengthening and narrowing toward the bottom. The top is wider than the bottom.”
    “Exactly. And what else?”
    “The whiteness of my face. I felt that. I don’t know how you can feel color, but I did.”
    “You sensed the light-reflecting qualities of white. That is all.”
    “And I could hear better, too!”
    “Yes, of course. You see, my dear, if you concentrate on the key elements that make a particular owl, you can control these changes. You can summon them or dismiss them at will. You shall control them. They shall not control you. This makes you important.”
    “It does?” she asked.
    She is completely unsuspecting. This will make it even more fun for me! Kreeth thought. “Lutta, you have power—great power. They talk of the Ember of Hoole, but you have apower to match that of the ember and that of the king who possesses it.”
    “What can I do with the power?”
    “Rule, my dear. You can become the first monarch of a new dynasty.”
    A poisonous look infused Lutta’s black Barn Owl eyes. She felt a minute stirring in her primary feathers.
    Demons of smee! Kreeth thought. Her first hagsfiends are hatching! She is too good to be true! Hagsfiends roosting in the feathers of a Barn Owl! Delightful! And she hasn’t even