In the epilogue of Talons of Power, a plague is spoken of that had started three days before the current day. Evidently, a great deal of the IceWing tribe or possibly all of it except for Winter. Alba, Changbai and Ermine had also contracted it. Confirmed symptoms are coughing and fevers. Eventually, as soon as three days or sometimes less, death can occur, which is very common. These earrings cured all the IceWings of the plague because they made the wearer immune to Darkstalker's spells, and the plague was a Darkstalker spell.