The Lord Of The Ice Garden, book 1 [EN] - part 14

The Smartling Challenge is on!
The young prince continues to reminisce on his childhood and the most important lesson, consisting of challenge to rule magically-enhanced creatures - smartlings - on the isolated islands.
The smartling substory is one of my favourites from this storyline, and since it's pretty isolated could be also consumed as a standalone story.
Original: "Pan Lodowego Ogrodu", Jarosław Grzędowicz, published by Fabryka Słów, 2005
(image in the start of the video from 2021 edition)
Translation, voice, pictures (ofc apart from the book cover): Midora
Background audio track: open source license by Pixabay ("chinese-oriental-tune-01-12061").
The full book one available already on my website!
polishfantasy[dot]wordpress[dot]com/fantasy/jaroslaw-grzedowicz-lord-of-the-ice-garden-book-1/
Thanks a lot for your support!