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If it weren’t for the fact that a mysterious darkness was approaching and the whole world was spiraling towards an end, the expedition could have been mistaken for a giant camping trip. The road was deserted, the sun was shining bright. And although it was unusually cold for the season, the friends were actually having a fine time as they climbed to the base of the peaks.
Stories swapped back and forth as they passed the long hours—distracting each other from the grueling hike, shooting down passing bits of game, snacking on whatever they couldn’t carry to keep up their strength. In a way, it was a bizarrely adolescent way to spend the afternoon.
It was also a brand new dynamic—what with the addition of the fae and the witch. At first, Evie wasn’t certain how they’d fit in with the rest of them, but after a while it became clear that fresh blood was exactly what their little consortium needed to keep itself in stride.
Cosette was quieter, more serious than the friends remembered, a forced condition that had developed over a decade of time. But there was a lightness to her as well. A sparkling radiance that crept out every now and then in tinkling bursts of laughter, lighting up the woods around her and bringing secret smiles to her cousins’ eyes. Ellanden was reborn around her, that perpetual guilt of breaking his promise having finally gone away. But she wasn’t the only child to have been left behind.
On the surface, there could be no greater contrast between the witch and the fae.
One was cool and collected, the other was scattered and disorganized. One spent each night carefully polishing her bow whilst the other hummed nonsense songs around the fire, stringing what might well have been poisonous flowers into her hair. If it hadn’t been for the shared quest of finding the others, there was every likelihood they would have simply passed each other by.
But time had broken through those initial barriers and the girls had bonded stronger than most. The witch brought whimsy and levity to the table, something that was desperately needed to balance such a dire adventure. But there was a dangerous side to her as well. A powder-keg of deadly magic hidden beneath that perpetually sunny smile.
It wasn’t long before the five friends melted into a seamless unit. Falling effortlessly into newfound roles. Always ready to step in and pick up the slack, while banding together to mercilessly tease whoever might have fallen behind.
In a strange way, it reminded Evie of the stories her mother used to tell. When their parents were younger and travelling together in the woods—fulfilling a prophecy of their own.
But the friends were young and untested. They would have to wait and see.
“So how is it that you don’t know if another winter storm is coming?” Freya asked suddenly, skipping ahead to fall in pace beside Ellanden. “Aren’t your kind supposed to be in tune with that sort of thing? Cosette’s always prattling on about your bloody nature spirits...”
Evie and Asher shared a quick grin.
Rather fitting, considering Ellanden was always prattling on about the same thing himself.
The fae probably would have shot down the question coming from anyone else, but he gave the witch an indulgent smile. “It’s not some kind of long term forecast, it’s more just a sense of what’s coming.” He chuckled at her dubious expression. “I’ll know before you, how’s that?”
She absorbed this slowly, nodding all the while, then turned back with sudden excitement.
“What about all the other fae stuff? Like how your father resurrected your dead mother on a rooftop? Or how your aunt opened the heavens during the Battle of the Dunes to put out the fires?”
Ellanden glanced down in surprise and she shrugged dismissively.
“Cosette told me.” She looked him at him appraisingly, that endless excitement still dancing in her eyes. “So how about it? Can you do things like that?”
The fae looked a little unbalanced as his friends laughed behind him.
“Me, uh...no. Not yet. That’s an ancient kind of magic,” he added almost defensively. “I’m only a couple decades old.”
Freya nodded obliviously, kicking at stray pebbles as they made their way down the trail. It was quiet for a little while, but true to form, the young witch couldn’t let things rest.
“Well what about shape-shifting, like your mom?” she asked eagerly. “Aren’t you technically some kind of Kreo priest? Can you do any of that stuff?”
Evie glanced up at them in surprise. The prince had aligned so completely with the world of the fae, she sometimes forgot he had claim to the highest seat on the Kreo council.
Ellanden shrugged dismissively, almost as if he’d forgotten himself. “No, that’s—” He caught himself suddenly, remembering, perhaps, that he was talking to a witch. “That’s a different kind of magic.”
One he wanted no part of.
It was a deliberate snub to an entire half of his heritage, but it wasn’t like the Kreo exactly made it easy. The second time he went to his mother’s kingdom and was conscripted into a rain dance before being painted head to toe in henna by a coven of witches, he decided never to go back.
“I still think you’d look good in one of those crowns,” Asher said with a sly grin. “The kind that anchors into your hair with all those little bones.”
“Do the vampires have crowns?” Ellanden answered casually. “Or do they just go around eating people? I always forget.”
“Boys, that’s enough,” Evie interjected.
“...you remembered the blood, right?”
For the last few hours the woodland trail had increased to a steady climb, one that assumedly ended at the base of the peaks. Trees were becoming sparse and brittle, the air growing colder as the terrain became unbearably steep. For the first time Evie glanced around with a hint of trepidation, understanding the true magnitude of what they were about to undertake.
What if Ellanden was right—what if the trail was blocked and there was no way to get across the frozen plains? What if there was a storm? What if things went wrong far too late to turn back?
“Having second thoughts?” Asher asked quietly, falling back to her side.
She ignored his question and asked one of her own. “How do you always do that? It’s like you can read my mind.”
He shrugged with a little grin. “We vampires are known for our intuition.”
No, not really.
“You’re also known for your ability to invade a person’s mind after just the faintest taste of their blood.” Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Have you been feeding on me in the night?”
“Yes,” Asher answered matter-of-factly. But his face sobered a moment later. “Actually, I’ve been a bit worried about you at night. I’ve never known you to be so restless. Always tossing and turning, muttering in your sleep. Are you...are you having nightmares?”
The princess caught her breath, fixing her eyes on the rugged trail. She hadn’t yet told the others about the dreams she’d been having. She hadn’t yet decided what to make of them herself.
Dreams are just dreams, right? Nothing more to them than that.
Again, she deflected with a question. “Why were you watching me sleep?”
The vampire froze guiltily, as if he’d said something he shouldn’t. But before he could try to answer Ellanden whirled around to face them, pointing an accusatory finger at the princess’ chest.
“Why were you watching me sleep?” he countered, raising his voice in an awful impersonation to echo her earlier words. “‘I just stood outside your window...’”
The tension was broken with a burst of laughter from the others. One that only intensified as the princess flushed a thousand shades of scarlet, averting her eyes.
“I was bringing you the bloody prophecy. I wasn’t just standing there.”
He raised his eyebrows slowly, shaking his head. “You’re a creep.”
This time, the princess couldn’t help but join in with the others as they left the last of the trees behind them and headed up the final stretch to the peak.
By now, their breath was clouding in little gusts in front of them. The air was getting so thin, it was already hard to breathe. Evie couldn’t imagine how much more extreme things could possibly get. They weren’t technically on the ‘alpine trail’ and she was already shivering with the cold.
“So how long do you think it will take us to cross?” she asked softly, slipping her chilly fingers into the pockets of Ellanden’s cloak. “I mean, we’ll have to camp up here a while, right?”
The fae lifted his eyes, staring up at the snow-covered peaks before nodding silently. “Could be a few days, could be a few weeks. It all depends on how bad things are when we get up there.” He gave her a quick look before lowering his voice. “It’s better than the tunnel.”
Yes. It was certainly better than the tunnel.
With a determined nod the princess picked up her pace, leading the others as they clambered up the rocks and over the muddy trail. It was a miracle that no one happened to fall—especially considering they were each laden down with as heavy a pack as they could carry. That part would only get easier. Then again, lighter packs meant they’d be running low on food.
“I’m sure it’s not so bad,” Freya said confidently, reading the mood of the others before trying to inject her signature cheer. “There looks to be a lot of snow at the very top, but we’re not going to the very top—we’re sticking to the trail.”
...a trail that winds around the very top...
“It’ll be fine,” she concluded soundly. “We’ll be on the other side before you even...”
The friends came to a sudden stop.
“...know it.”
There was snow, and then there was snow.
This was the latter.
Ever since fleeing from the royal caravan, they’d wondered what the conditions might be when they arrived. Each one of them had grown up with stories from their parents about the horrors of snow-travel and the avalanche that had almost killed them in Clever’s Pass. Deep down, each of the friends believed they could do it better. Call it a healthy dose of inborn confidence. Call it the arrogance of youth. But the princess realized now that they had been fooling themselves.
The sight before them worse than they could have ever imagined.
As soon as they cleared the last of the trees, they found themselves faced with a frozen wasteland. An endless stretch of snow and ice as far as the eye could see. It had been hidden from the trail, a cruel twist of geography to lure unsuspecting travelers inside. There were no landmarks, no footholds, no random outcroppings of rocks where they might eventually make camp. Nothing but a blanket of sparkling, blinding white, laid out from one horizon to the next.
Well...crap.
The princess lifted a hand to her mouth, then dropped it back to her side. She didn’t see how they could do it. She honestly didn’t see a way. But she wasn’t the only one having problems.
“Seven hells.”
Asher cupped a hand over his eyes, then gave up and simply turned away. Vampires had a natural sensitivity to light, and the tundra was nothing more than a giant mirror beneath the sun.
When Evie touched his shoulder, he actually staggered back a step.
“I don’t think I can do this,” he murmured, fingers still curled protectively over his dark eyes. “I can’t...I can’t see anything.”
Ellanden glanced back with a look of alarm before coming to stand right in front of him, blocking the icy plain from sight. “Yes, you can. Just give yourself a moment to adjust.”
The vampire did as he asked, breathing quickly as he stared at the distant line of trees. But the second he turned back, the reaction was even worse than before. This time he actually let out a small gasp, clutching his face as if he’d been burned.
“No—I can’t.” He staggered another step backwards. “You’ll have to just...you’ll have to just go without me. I’ll head through the tunnel. Meet you on the other side.”
Freya and Cosette shared an anxious look, but the others remained deliberately calm.
“We’re not splitting up,” Ellanden said quietly. “That’s just not going to happen. Your eyes can adjust to this, Ash—even if it’s painful. We’ll just stay here until they do.”
His voice was steady, confident. The problem was, no one knew if it was actually true. There was a reason vampires tended to stay away from colder weather. While they could probably handle the temperature better than most, it was the terrible brightness that was the problem.
“Here,” Evie said softly, “take this.”
With quick hands she unwrapped a scarf from around her neck and tied it gently around his head, covering his eyes like a blindfold. His lips parted in surprise as he lifted his fingers to touch it.
“...what’s this?”
“You can still see through it, right?” she asked, already shivering in the cold. “That one’s from the castle, it’s just silk. With any luck, it can block out the worst of the sun.”
For a moment, it looked like he was going to protest. But instead he took a step forward, lifting his chin tentatively towards the sun. His body stiffened. His hand lifted a few inches, but then fell back to his side. He took a few steps more, peering over the barren landscape in front of him.
“It’s...manageable,” he finally answered, lifting his fingers to touch it again.
It was a truly bizarre sight. Four shivering companions and one blindfolded vampire wandering into the snow. Asher must have thought so, too. He flashed a quick smile, touching it compulsively as his dark hair came loose and fell around the sides.
“When we tell this story later, we’ll have to leave this part out.”
The others shared a grin, bouncing from foot to foot to keep warm.
“Oh, there’s not much chance of that,” Evie said lightly.
“Don’t be silly,” Ellanden added, “this changes nothing. We might try to trip you a few times, but that’s nothing we wouldn’t have done before.”
The vampire took a swipe at him, but missed. His fingers lifted again to the silk before he lowered his chin to stare at the ground. “I can’t really gauge distances.”
Cosette patted him on the back, leading the way into the snow. “That’s for the best. It’s a long ways off...”
* * *
AS EVIE QUICKLY DISCOVERED, the worst part about walking through snow was that time itself literally froze to a stop. They could have been at it for minutes or hours. They could have spanned an entire mountain, or ended up no further than a mile from where they’d begun. There was simply no way to tell. All the normal markers they used to measure their progress were gone.
Then there was the psychological component.
When Evie was nine or ten, she’d gone on a camping trip with her father. The little girl had been thrilled beyond belief—gnawing on pieces of jerky, riding on his shoulders, screaming with delight every time he pretended to shift. It wasn’t until the sun went down and the two were lying beneath a sky full of stars that she registered the temperature for the first time.
Then had come the crying. And the demands that they immediately go home.
Dylan had only chuckled, pulling her out of her blanket and tucking her under his. The cold was a mental game, he’d explained. Yes, there were warning signs to watch out for, but they were nowhere close. Instead, she had to focus on the little things. Things she was able to control.
Her breathing. The curl of her fingers. The rhythmic tapping of her toes.
At first she’d cursed him for spewing nonsense, vowing to tell her mother the dragon the second they got back. But the longer they stayed there, staring up at the moon, the more she saw the quiet wisdom in his words. She lay against his chest, counting the steady beats of his heart, snuggling into the warm embrace of his arms, until at long last the little princess finally fell asleep.
The little things. Focus on the little things.
The princess wrapped her arms tighter around her, trying to count her breaths. It wasn’t easy; each one burned her nostrils before vanishing in a frosty cloud, one that was quickly dissipated by the wind. She gave up quickly and tried wiggling her toes instead.
Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t. There was no feeling below her waist.
Okay—your fingers. Flex then unflex your fingers. Surely you can manage that.
In a perfect world, yes. But the second the princess crunched the tiny bones into submission, she let out a profanity the likes of which her friends had never heard.
“What happened?” Ellanden demanded, abandoning his position in the front to swoop back to her side. “Are you all right?”
Valiant words, especially considering the fae was clearly not doing well himself.
By now, there was no difference in color between his skin and the snow around him. His ivory hair didn’t help. If it weren’t for his dark eyes staring down at her in concern, he could have passed for a lovely corpse. The prince had also set himself at a distinct disadvantage. The second the wind started up, he’d wrapped the blanket in his pack around Cosette’s tiny shoulders. When the last of the sun vanished and a fresh chill swept over the desolate plain, he’d given his spare cloak to Freya. As it stood, he was dressed as if they were still on the valley floor—freezing to the point of disorientation, trying hard to ignore the constant trembling in his fingers.
“I’m fine,” Evie gasped, bowing her head against the wind. “I just...snapped my fingers.”
The fae glanced down at her hands, but said nothing. It would have been foolish to take off the heavy gloves, and there was nothing he’d be able to do anyway. Instead he gazed blindly into the distance, unable to see anything but miles of snow across the darkened plain.
“We can’t keep this up much longer,” he said quietly. “We’ll need to set up the tent.”
Evie started to nod, but some fearful instinct made her hesitate. Right now, their forward momentum was the friends’ only defense against the cold. If they stopped moving, even to set up the tent, who knew how much worse things would get?
“Are you all right?” Asher moved out of the darkness, standing between them. “What’s going on—why did you stop?”
The blindfold had been removed the moment the sun set. The scarf was wrapped around the bottom half of his face now, making him look like a hypothermic bandit.
“...nice hair.” Even half-frozen, the princess still couldn’t resist the joke.
The vampire’s inky blank hair had been thoroughly coated by the flurries stirred up by the wind, making it look as though he’d abruptly aged a hundred years.
It was hard to tell, given that she could only see his dark eyes, but it looked like he smiled.
“It’s my best impersonation of a fae. I’m still working on the ego to match.”
For once in his life, Ellanden had no reply. He simply grabbed Cosette and Freya by the cloaks, pulling them into the little circle. “What do you say we make camp?”
It was impossible to tell if they nodded, or if they were simply shaking that hard. Either way, the others took it as a resounding yes. In a flash, they pulled the tent from Asher’s pack and set it up right where they stood. There was no point in looking for shelter. Every square inch of space on the frozen tundra was exactly the same. Vulnerable to the wind, blanketed in snow.
Evie tightened the ropes as best she could—crunching her frozen fingers into submission, trying not to think how she would have given anything for her father to be there right now.
The second the tent was standing, the five friends poured inside. There was no difference in temperature. The tough canvas walls were barely enough to keep out the wind. It wasn’t until they were lying together, huddled under the blankets, that Evie felt even the slightest bit of relief.
“Seven hells—your fingers are freezing,” Ellanden muttered, flinching away as she pressed them shamelessly into his side. “Torture someone else, princess. I’m done.”
But even as he said the words he lifted his arm, allowing her to huddle inside. Both Cosette and Freya were already tucked tightly under the other. Asher lay down quickly by her side.
“It isn’t w-working,” stammered the witch, teeth chattering so hard she was barely able to speak. “I th-think I’m freezing to d-death.”
“Just give it a moment,” Ellanden said soothingly. “I promise you’ll be fine.”
Freya shot him a caustic look, a blanket covering all but her eyes. “Isn’t it a little s-soon for you to be making promises?”
Cosette laughed weakly, burying her face in his chest. “Isn’t it a little soon for you to be making that joke?”
Evie left them to it, turning to the vampire instead. Normally she’d be curled under his arm, not Ellanden’s. But vampires tended to run a bit cold. He would be no help tonight.
“Did it work?” she asked quietly. “The scarf, I mean.”
“It worked perfectly. It actually—” He cut himself off, shaking his head with a grin. “It was actually a little distracting. It smelled like your hair.”
She twisted her head for a discreet sniff as he handed it back to her. “...is that a bad thing?”
He blushed ever so faintly, shaking his head. “Not at all.”
Evie stared at him a long moment, but could think of nothing to say.
The two of them had grown up together. From the nursery, to the classroom, to the training ring. Their dynamic had been long since established. But lately...things had started to change.
The boy she knew like the back of her hand was starting to surprise here. Since embarking upon their grand adventure there had been a series of lingering looks, secret smiles. The kind of moments she never had with Ellanden. And then there was her dream...
She remembered it so clearly.
They had been standing in the ballroom of the palace in Belaria, waiting for a partner to dance. The boys had been swept away before she could ask them, twirling across the marble floor. She remembered staring after them—wishing she could escape the throng of men clustered around her and dance with one of them instead. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had been staring at one man in particular. The same man staring back at her right now.
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly.
She opened her mouth to reply, blushed, then changed course. “...I was thinking about my dad.”
It was true. Technically speaking, she had been thinking about her father.
Asher smiled sadly, dark hair spilling across his face. “You wish he was here?”
She laughed shortly, pulling the blanket around her cheeks. “He’d kill us—that’s the first thing he’d do. But after that he’d make a fire, fix the tent, pull out some whiskey, and everything would be okay again.”
There was a faint stirring behind her as Ellanden laughed under his breath. “Your dad would never give us whiskey. Trust me—I’ve asked.”
Asher smiled rather wistfully, a thoughtful expression in his eyes. “I was actually thinking about your dad today, too,” he said quietly. “About that time we went skating on the pond near Sequora. When he pulled me out of the ice.”
The princess shivered involuntarily, remembering the day all too well.
It had been a spur of the moment decision, brought on by the first winter’s snow. The adults had cautioned that the ice wouldn’t be thick enough, but they’d snuck off anyway—strapping blades to their shoes and flying across the frozen water in delight. They couldn’t have been more than five or six. Asher was right in the center when he suddenly fell through.
It was too fast for him to scream. Too fast for the princess to cry for help. Just a blur of dark hair, then he was gone. The ice floated back to the surface, like the whole thing never happened.
It wasn’t until that very moment that Evie realized how fast the world could change. One second everything was perfect. The next...it felt like a piece had been ripped from her heart.
But then her father came.
The idea to check on the kids had also been a spur of the moment decision. Dylan had just made his way into the snow, when he heard a distant splash. His eyes shot through the trees in a split second of terror. There were only two children on the ice. There should have been three.
A moment later he was on the move—flying across the snow as if he had wings, taking only a moment to throw the other children to safety before racing straight to the center of the pond and diving beneath the ice. For the second time the princess felt her heart stop. But he emerged a moment later, holding the lifeless vampire in his arms.
“I thought I was going to die,” Asher said softly. “I couldn’t feel anything; I couldn’t even tell if I was moving. I just remember thinking...I’m about to die.”
It was quiet for a moment before Ellanden cocked his head towards the screaming storm with an innocent smile. “And what made you think of that?”
The others laughed quietly, but the humor faded quickly from Asher’s eyes. He reached out beneath the blankets, taking Evie’s hands.
“He saved us then. But we can save ourselves now.” His eyes glowed with intensity as they locked on to hers. “I know it feels hopeless...but we will make through these mountains.”
The princess stared at him for a long moment, then smiled. “And whatever else comes next after that.”
His eyes twinkled as he gave her fingers a squeeze. “That’s the spirit.”
The most desolate of days ended on an unexpectedly hopeful note.
With murmured words of goodnight the five friends curled into one another, eyes closing, limbs intertwining, thinking of all that was yet to come. For the first time in ages, they felt as though they were able to breathe. For the first time in ages, they felt a kind of peace.
That’s when they heard a shrieking growl echoing across the frozen plains...
