Ice and snow clung to the trees around the cabin. In the remote forest, everything around me was encased in white. The snow turned the trees into misshapen mounds like frozen ghosts. And the fact that I’d started talking to the frozen ghosts was probably a good indication that I was spending too much time by myself.
In the cabin, I kept imagining that the frozen dead surrounded me. Long icicles hung from the tree boughs like ragged spirits. They glistened in the sunlight, making the boughs bend under their weight, until a frozen gust swept through, sending an icicle crashing to the ground with a hollow thud. Every time that happened, I jumped.
There hadn’t been much time to prepare for my trip here. Moria had quickly gone on a rampage, trying to ferret out anyone who might be loyal to Torin. Now, I was stuck here, whether I liked it or not. The only way out of Faerie was with a monarch’s permission, and Queen Moria would sooner execute me than let me leave. Apparently, I was a demon lover.
A month ago, Aeron had rushed me to this remote safe house. Orla was kept in a separate location, Cleena in yet another. We were, I think “high profile” targets. Princess Cleena was once Moria’s closest friend, but she’d loathed her ever since Moria had tried to slaughter her in the arena. Funny how that can put a real damper on a friendship.
Now, the crackling fire, a single book, and my frozen spirit friends kept me company. The idea that I’d been bored before in early retirement now seemed quaint and ridiculous.
A wild howl carried on the wind, and I hugged myself, shuddering. The mournful cry of the banshee carried on the winter winds.
I swallowed hard. Someone was going to die. And if Cleena didn’t gain control of her banshee scream, it could end up being her.
Aeron hadn’t said this out loud, but I think we were supposed to know as little as possible about the others in hiding. That way, if any of us were caught, they wouldn’t be able to torture answers out of us. Whenever that disturbing thought occurred to me, I’d turn to my frozen spirit friends and ask them to kill me with their icicle hands before I was captured.
Was I losing my mind?
Yes.
The highlight of my day was sitting in front of the fire. Aeron, bless him, had supplied me with an automatic fire lighter, and while I sat in this cabin, he ferried himself among the safe houses, checking on everyone, supplying them with food as best he could. Whenever someone in town would get tarnished with the epithet “demon lover,” he’d try to bring them to safety before they were captured.
He wouldn’t tell me about the ones he couldn’t save, or what he saw going on by the castle, and that told me it was a particularly grim situation. This was, after all, a culture in which people casually said things like, Oh, Sir Durian, yes, I decapitated his son in a duel, or and then we slaughtered the human sacrifices after the party.
My teeth chattered. At first, when Moria had taken the throne, everyone had assumed that spring would come. That was the entire fucking purpose of having a queen on the throne. We waited for the warmth, for the thaw, but Moria wasn’t sitting her cute little ass down on that stone.
The thing was, like any good tyrant, Moria knew that if people were happy and comfortable, she’d lose her grip on power. She needed their rage and fear, or they might start to question her legitimacy. Hang on a minute, why are you queen…?
If people were comfortable, they might welcome Torin back again if he returned. They might forget to be angry at the demons, and she needed them desperately united against a common enemy—one only she could defeat.
Only by the constant threat of an attack by the Unseelie could she exert this control, so when people asked her why they were still freezing in their beds and why the cold gnawed at our bones, she still had her scapegoat. The demons were to blame, along with every traitor who might support them.
I turned back to the spluttering fire and knelt, rubbing my hands together and breathing on them for warmth. Aeron had brought me one other amazing treat: he’d managed to smuggle a single book out of the castle library, an eighteenth-century Gothic romance called The Cursed Monk. For something written centuries ago, it was surprisingly dirty, and I wondered if the subject matter had been on purpose. Aeron was, after all, something of a monk himself, sworn to chastity. It was hard not to think of some of the dirtier passages in the book as what might happen if he finally let that vow go.
The creak of the door turned my head, and snow swept into the room around Aeron’s fur-clad figure. The cold breeze slipping into the room stung my skin, and he turned to close the door. “I brought you back bread and cheese.”
My heart swelled at the sight of him, braving the icy temperatures just to make sure I could have a sandwich.
Aeron’s expression had become haunted, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know everything he’d seen by the castle.
“You need to be careful, Aeron. How are you getting this food without people seeing you?”
He handed me a paper-wrapped parcel, and I pulled out the frozen block of bread to warm it by the fire.
He sat down next to me on the hearth, stoking the fire with a stick, the dim firelight warming his cheeks. “It’s not just me, Shalini. There’s a small network of people who don’t trust the queen, those loyal to Torin because they loved him. Those who know she could have ended this winter a month ago. A resistance of sorts. People are starving now, and some believe her story that it’s all the demons’ fault, but she’s losing her grip on them. She’s not doing what a queen is supposed to do. And the more she’s losing her grip, the more she retaliates with force.”
I swallowed hard. “What’s she doing now?”
He stared into the fire. “She has a dragon called the Sinach, and she’s using it to hunt people. Then she burns them. She wants us to think she’s a female King Caerleon. He left piles of bodies in his wake.”
My stomach dropped. “Oh.”
He leaned back, sitting cross-legged before the guttering flames. He looked exhausted, and I wanted to wrap him up and keep him safe here. But it wasn’t in his nature to hide out in a cabin while his kingdom was being destroyed.
“This cold,” he added, “is starting to feel less like a calculated political strategy and more like revenge. I think she’s furious at us. Her sister died, and none of us really cared or noticed. We all thought Milisandia was missing, but we didn’t look into it. And then it turns out the king everyone loved so much was at fault.”
“You still don’t know what happened?”
He shook his head, staring into the flames. “Whatever his reason, I know it was a good one. I know him. Maybe she was as cracked as her sister. I don’t know. Maybe it was an accident.” He slid his gaze to me. “I know he has sent assassins into the Court of Sorrows to kill Queen Mab and the royal family as revenge for what she did. He had one of Mab’s sons killed. I know he’s not allied with them. It’s hard for me to believe he managed to survive there at all, that Queen Mab didn’t have him slaughtered immediately. But I can only imagine she’s keeping him alive just long enough to torment him as brutally as possible.”
I shuddered. “Well, Modron didn’t show us everything, did she? Just what Moria wanted.” I warmed my hands by the fire. “If they find their way back to Faerie, could Torin reclaim the throne from here?”
“He doesn’t have any magic.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Moria has stationed soldiers around his throne, preventing Torin’s loyalists from finding a way to fix it. If he returns, he won’t have any power to fight with.” He turned to look at me, his eyes glinting with firelight. “I don’t understand how they ended up in the Court of Sorrows. How well do you know Ava? Do you trust her, even though she’s Unseelie?”
“You’re all just fae to me.” I nudged him. “Are the Seelie really that much better? Because right now, we’re cowering in the frozen forest hiding from a queen who wants to light people on fire with her dragon.”
He cocked his head. “Fair point.”
A sharp longing twisted through my chest. “Aeron, do you know what I would give to take you to a dive bar in my hometown? I was so desperate to get out of there and see Faerie. Ava warned me it wouldn’t be all butterflies and rainbows, but I had to see it. Do you know what I would give to just watch a basketball game with you in a bar? With beer? I don’t even like basketball.” My voice held a ragged, hysterical edge.
His features softened. “When this is over, you can take me to your dive bar.”
“Have you ever had a chili dog?”
He stared at me like I’d started speaking in tongues. “Absolutely not.”
“Tuesday nights, they’re half-price at the Golden Shamrock. I don’t think I appreciated how exactly amazing they were until now. A hot dog with chili and melted cheese…” My mouth was already watering. “I know people criticize Americans, but who else would have come up with that genius? It is genius, Aeron.” I think I was shouting.
Outside, a roar like an avalanche rumbled over the horizon, and when I glanced out the windows, snow was shaking off the boughs. For a moment, I wondered if I’d caused it with my loud enthusiasm for chili dogs. But in the next moment, a dragon’s shriek sent a jolt of fear through my bones.
My heart fell.
I wanted to sneak under the covers and cower—because let’s face it, I had no dragon-fighting skills—but Aeron gripped me by the elbow.
“We can’t stay here. He’ll burn the cabin down.” Aeron pulled me toward the door so quickly, I nearly lost my footing. The moment I was outside, the cold stung my skin. Luckily, I never took my cloak off.
Outside in the snow, I turned to see the dragon swooping lower through the skies, its scales gleaming under the winter sun—stygian black blending to a deep maroon at the tail, the colors of soot and dried blood. It swooped above us and unleashed a gout of fire that arced into the gray sky. Heat seared the air, and icicles shot from their branches into the snow around us. As the dragon circled, Aeron pulled me north. I ran through the snow, the air smelling of dragon musk and the scent of burning oaks.
I felt as if a serpent had coiled in my chest, stealing my breath.
As Aeron urged me on, the snow melted into the thin leather of my boots and stung my toes. His grip on my wrist was iron tight, and I knew I was slowing him. But my muscles felt leaden, shaking. The panic swallowed me whole until I could no longer understand what Aeron was saying to me.
The dragon swept in an arc above us, then unleashed a stream of fire on the trees to the south. The trunks exploded into flames, a forest blazing like an army of giant torches. A wall of fire erupted before us, cutting off our access.
Aeron swerved and yanked me in the other direction. My body vibrated with fear. Dimly, under the wild panic of my thoughts, I could only hope that Aeron had a plan.
Behind us, the dragon’s wings beat the air, and it circled again, fanning the flames with its wings, the sound a thunderous rhythm that blended with the roaring in my ears, drowning out all my thoughts. Snow whirled around us, mingling with cinders.
I was too out of breath to ask where we were going and if there was a plan at all. Our feet crunched over the snow, and the dragon let out another roar.
And yet, we were still alive. The dragon could have killed us ten times over.
Why did I have the disturbing feeling that it was herding us exactly where it wanted us to go?
