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This article contains plot and/or ending details.

The shudder came first. Then ice cracking, the sound as high and piercing as the shriek of a kestrel. Then the eruption. The entire ice block shattered, shards and chunks exploding out. Everyone ran, ducked, covered their heads with their hands.

The gigantic Polar Bear lifted her paws and roared.

–Book Quote from Chapter 10: Frozen[1]


Fire and Ice is the fourth book in the first series, written by Shannon Hale. From left to right, Rollan, Suka the Polar Bear, Essix the Falcon are depicted on the cover.

Official Summary[]

CRACKS IN THE ICE

The adventure continues in this fourth book in the New York Times bestselling series.

Strange things are happening at the frozen edge of the world. Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan have crisscrossed Erdas in their quest to stop the ruthless Conquerors. Only the four of them, supported by the gifts of their legendary spirit animals, have the power to defeat an evil takeover.

While chasing down a lead in the cold north, the heroes arrive at a quiet village where not everything is as it seems. Rooting the truth out of this deceptively beautiful place won’t be easy—and the team is already out of time.

The Conquerors are right behind them.

Plot[]

The story starts with the viewpoint of Gerathon the Serpent. She has escaped from her prison and proceeds to eat a man and control a Niloan woman, leading her to fall off a cliff.

Meanwhile, the team, Conor, Abeke, Meilin, Rollan, Tarik, and Maya reach Samis, a remote town in the north of Eura. On the trip, Rollan was trying to cheer Meilin up after her father, General Teng was killed by General Gar. They stop at a river near a minstrel troupe and Maya shows the skills with fire her spirit animal, Tini, gives her. She can conjure a ball of fire in her palms and typically uses this ability to start fires. Tarik tries and fails to convince Rollan that walruses are real.

They hear a skirmish nearby and Tarik, Meilin, and Rollan go to check it out. Somebody’s been robbed of their money. Rollan, with his enhanced intuition, correctly picks out the culprit from the crowd. The man, Jarack, is banned from his trading group forever, but he runs at Rollan with a knife when he thinks nobody is watching. Meilin saves him, and Rollan thanks her with sincerity from the heart. He explains that he finally has friends that he can trust, and then he reaches out and holds Meilin’s hand.

Conor asks Tarik for permission to talk to the caribou herders outside Samis. Tarik gives permission but Rollan makes a harsh remark about Conor giving away the Iron Boar talisman. While Conor talks to the awkward shepherds, a wolf pack attacks the herders’ caribou. Conor calls out Briggan, and the leader of the wolf pack submits to the great wolf, to Conor’s surprise. They are let into the village of Samis because of Briggan’s act, and they bring metal and information. Meilin notices that there are no dates on the graves, which she finds strange.

They see villagers that are all around the same, youthful age, smiling, and look comparatively to dolls. The age range was around teenager to early adulthood, which the team finds strange.

Then, they meet Pia, the mayor of the village, who reluctantly shows them a pond that Suka the Polar Bear used to visit. Abeke figures out that the pond gives everlasting life to those who drink from it, explaining the strange gravestones and lack of elderly people in the village. Pia then tells them that they may stay the night then leave.

Soon after, Shane and a band of Conquerors breaks a hole in Samis’s wall. Meilin punches Shane in the nose. Rollan is reunited with his mother, Aidana, and her spirit animal, a raven named Wikerus. She explains to him why she had to abandon him and about her troubled bond with Wikerus. Rollan walks away and receives a compass that Pia promises will lead to Suka, despite telling them that she did not know the polar bear’s whereabouts. The next morning, Rollan wakes up and gathers the team, and they set off for Arctica.

They ride over to an Ardu settlement in a canoe. They are gifted with provisions and gear for their journey before they head off to find Suka. They run into a polar bear. Meilin falls into a crevasse in the ice, but Abeke puts on the Slate Elephant of Dinesh, and Meilin is rescued by a gigantic Uraza. Her pack, which contained a third of their food, falls into the crevasse. They debate on turning back but decide to press on.

Whilst traveling, the team makes up a game called “Best Meal Ever,” where they imagine delicious dishes to pass the time. Rollan falls into a crevasse, but they manage to get him back up. That night, Rollan thinks about his mother but is soon distracted by the northern lights. He smiles. And the sky danced.

On the fifth day in Arctica, Abeke discovers that she has frostbite in her toes. Conor and Tarik help to get the blood flowing, to her slight humiliation. They began their ascent up a mountain. The next day, Abeke and Rollan fall down the mountainside, and they all use the Granite Ram to go down the rest of the mountain. The further they travel, the more the compass Pia gave them seemed to shake. When the lid finally pops open, there’s a letter inside that reads I’m sorry, signifying that Pia was lying. Conor has the idea to listen to the directions that are in a song about Suka and an Ice City, and it leads them to an Ardu settlement. They’re welcomed into the camp and go hunting with them the next day, and Tarik falls into the water. An Ardu’s seal spirit animal helps him up and onto the ice.

Abeke wakes up in the night and goes to find the Ice City. Meilin suspects her, so she follows her. They discover that it’s underground and find Suka inside of an Ice Palace, encased in a block of clear, solid ice. Abeke stays behind with Suka while Meilin goes and gets Conor, Rollan, Maya, and Tarik. Maya begins to try and make a hole in the ice to get the Crystal Polar Bear, but Suka breaks out and begins to destroy the palace. They get out through a hole in the ceiling, and Rollan narrowly escapes, being carried by a Slate Elephant-enhanced Essix.

They get to the surface, but Suka follows them up. Maya attempts to ward Suka off with a brief wall of fire but ends up with a broken leg instead. Rollan searches for Meilin in hopes that Jhi can calm Suka. He finds her helping the Ardu escape that lived in the Ice City, and she reluctantly agrees to send Jhi out to calm the wild polar bear. Meilin is scared for Jhi’s safety, but Rollan takes her gloved hand and gives her a reassuring smile to comfort her.

Luckily, Jhi manages to calm Suka enough to shake her from her maddened state. The Great Polar Bear confesses that she encased herself in ice out of fear and regrets not joining the Four in battle, then hands over her talisman. They find out what the talisman’s power is and let Suka depart to find food.

The Ardu aren’t pleased to see them, so they leave immediately. When they return to Eura, they discover that Shane, Aidana, and the “imposter kids” (Tahlia and Ana) are waiting for them. They are then ambushed by the Conquerors after Shane says that he wants to make a trade; the Iron Boar for the Crystal Polar Bear. Conor feels protective over Abeke and slams into her and Shane. After Tahlia threatens Uraza instead, the attack begins. Meilin is hit by a salvo of arrows, only able to fend them off with the Crystal Polar Bear’s help. Conor hops astride Briggan, and they head for Meilin. Aidana helps to get Rollan away from the fight before Maya unleashes an inferno on the Conquerors so fierce that it’s able to completely disintegrate the man fighting Abeke.

Meanwhile, Rollan gets caught up with his mother, finding out the Bile made her possessed by Gerathon and that there is a spy for the Conquerors hiding in the Greencloaks’s ranks. She tells him to run before she is controlled by Gerathon. Rollan barely escapes, only able to free himself of the neck hold Aidana has him in with Essix’s help. They run for the boat, but Wikerus slices the cord of the Crystal Polar Bear, sending it tumbling into the ocean’s depths. Rollan, who has already fallen in, dives down and retrieves it, only to have a Conqueror’s walrus spirit animal take it away. This causes Rollan to have great hatred towards walruses. Essix then finally goes into dormant state as a tattoo on Rollan’s heart.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. Fire and Ice, page 115

Navigation[]

List of Books in the Spirit Animals series
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Spirit Animals (Series 1)

Fall of the Beasts (Series 2)

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