Wings of Starlight

11

M inutes before sunset, Clarion stood at the border, draped in her new coat. She stared hard at the other side: the dwindling light glittering on the snow, the shadows pooled beneath the firs, the dense swirl of flurries. Her fingers trembled as she did up the delicate buttons of her coat, and she couldn’t entirely tell if it was excitement or nerves that had her so rattled.

“A very practical solution you’ve found.”

Clarion startled at the sound of Milori’s voice. The snowshoes slung over her shoulder clattered together at the sudden movement. “Please don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Milori landed on the bridge with the faintest glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “My apologies,” he said, although he really didn’t sound all that sorry.

She was beginning to suspect he really did appear with the wind. She laid a hand over her chest and confirmed that her heart was indeed still beating. “It’s all right.”

In truth, she found it rather difficult to muster a glare when he was looking at her like this. The mirth had faded from his expression, and he studied her now with a curious mixture of hope and trepidation. A gust of wind brushed the loose snowfall from the branches and swept his white hair over his shoulder. “Are you ready?”

Was she ready?

The prospect of crossing frightened her more than she cared to admit. The sensible part of her, smothered as it was beneath her excitement and determination, worried about the dangers. She trusted Petra, but not even she could make a coat impervious to things like tears or water. One careless mistake could cost Clarion her wings. But deeper down, she worried what it would feel like to finally cross the border. Would Winter still hold its allure once she set foot in it?

“Just a moment.” Clarion hastily tugged on her boots and mittens, then strapped on her snowshoes. When she finished, Milori took a step back to give her clearance. She stared down at the border, where the very tips of her boots grazed the lacy line of frost. She willed herself to cross, and yet, she felt rooted to the spot.

“I can’t do it with you staring,” she blurted out.

“Would you like me to turn around?”

She scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

She closed her eyes and did her best to ignore him. She stood close enough to the border that the faintest sensation of cold washed over the tip of her nose. All she had to do was take a single step forward. She would be fine. Clarion drew a deep breath and sighed it out—then realized a moment too late that she probably looked extraordinarily foolish. When she opened her eyes, Milori was watching her with another one of those curiously teasing looks.

“What?” she demanded.

“Nothing at all.” His eyes glittered, and her treasonous heart fluttered at the sight of his smile. “Do you need help?”

“No, sir.” She tried her best not to sound offended. “I do not need your help.”

“Perhaps a pull is the better word?”

That did not sound any better, but she refrained from comment. Milori extended a hand to her. Clarion could do nothing but stare at it for a few moments. “What is this?”

He held her gaze. “Just trust me.”

Very tentatively, she took it—and was surprised to find that his skin was pleasantly cool. She didn’t know what she was expecting. That he would be carved from ice, too? That his very touch would freeze her, even through her mittens? No, he was just like her: flesh and bone. Both of them lingered, their hands a bridge between worlds.

Then, with a gentle tug, he guided her through.

As Clarion passed through the veil of snow, she bit down a gasp; the temperature plummeted as Winter enfolded her. When she opened her eyes again, she had left everything she knew behind. Despite herself, she let out a breathless laugh and looked up at Milori. This close, she was struck by the true color of his eyes: a stormy gray, with the faintest touch of glacial blue. She could see his expression softening as he gazed back at her, and—

She was still holding his hand.

Heat flooded her face. Clarion all but snatched her hand back. “Sorry—and, um…thank you?”

“It’s not worth mentioning.” He flexed his fingers as if working out a cramp, then took a single step back from her. The snow crunched beneath his weight.

Snow. She was really in the Winter Woods.

Some of her embarrassment forgotten, Clarion tipped her head back to the sky and spun in a slow circle. Clouds drifted overhead in a thick gray sheet, limned by the fiery light of sunset. She opened her mouth to catch the falling snowflakes, and they melted on her tongue almost instantly. She was so strangely delighted with it all; she didn’t know that she’d ever felt so…giddy.

“Is it what you expected?” There was a touch of surprise in his voice.

Her breath plumed in the air, and even that was wondrous. “It’s beautiful.”

For a moment, he did not reply. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he looked almost flustered. “There’s a lot more to see. Follow me.”

“All right,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too eager.

And with that, he led her into the forest.

Only the crunch of their footsteps and the soft rustle of wind-stirred branches filled the silence. Clarion found she didn’t mind it. The quiet here wasn’t eerie but almost cozy, as though all the world were asleep. She had expected desolate landscapes and swathes of monochrome, lifeless earth. But everything was spectacular, from the intricate pattern of frost on the leaves to the sunlit icicles hanging from the trees. Here, everything sparkled, as magical as pixie dust.

Soon, the terrain grew rockier—and steep. Her breaths came heavier, puffing out of her in little white clouds. Wind rushed down the mountainside, sending the tails of her coat whipping behind her. The fur lining of her hood tickled her cold-stung face. She was certain she was bright red. Milori, meanwhile, remained as pale as the snow-covered earth; he flushed neither from exertion or the chill. Even as they ascended, he did not fly but insisted on walking alongside her.

Stubbornly chivalrous, she noted.

After what felt like hours, they crested the peak of one of the mountains. What she saw stole her breath away. From here, she could see all the Winter Woods sprawled out before them. It was a land of brilliant white and deepest green, with rivers and lakes clearer and bluer than she’d ever thought possible. In the distance, she could see the winter fairies’ homes carved from ice and molded from snow, gleaming in the moonlight and glowing softly from within.

How had anyone thought this place so terrible?

“Here it is,” he said softly.

She could hear the reverence in his voice so plainly—one she felt, too. What was there to say, really? She’d never seen anything quite like it.

After a moment, he added, “Our destination is the Hall of Winter. You can see its glow from here.”

He pointed, and Clarion squinted to see a faint aura of blue gilding a distant mountainside. “That’s a long way to walk.”

He flashed her a small smile. “There’s a faster way to travel.”

“If you suggest carrying me—”

“Certainly not.” He looked almost insulted, which made her grin. “I take it you don’t have sledding in the warm seasons.”

“Sledding,” she echoed.

“Mm.” He approached the base of a fir, where a few wooden planks carved into circles leaned against its trunk. He dusted the snow off two of them and carried them over to her.

Clarion did her best not to look utterly perplexed. “What are those?”

He plopped them down on the ground at her feet. “Sleds.”

“I see,” she said, but she did not see at all. “And what do we do with these?”

“We ride them down the mountain.”

“We…” Clarion gawped at him. “What? That’s absurd.”

He shrugged and climbed onto one of them. “We’ll see. It’s been a very long time since I’ve done this.”

“You’re serious, then,” she said disbelievingly. All she could think about was just how high they’d climbed—and just how slick the hard-packed snow beneath her feet was. Forget Nightmares. This would surely be the end of her. She couldn’t deny that the obvious foolishness of the prospect made it more enticing. When was the last time she’d gone on a real adventure? “This is a common pastime among winter fairies?”

“During happier times, yes.” He looked up at her through his eyelashes. “Of course, if you’d prefer, we can walk…”

“No! No need.” Clarion did indeed feel ridiculous as she perched on the other sled. There were rough-spun ropes looped into holes drilled onto each side—what Milori informed her were meant to pass for handholds. “And now what?”

“We go.”

“What does—hey!”

He did not wait. With a smirk —one she very much resented, given how it made her stomach twist into an impressive knot—he pushed off the ground. His sled edged closer to the slope of the mountain and then careened down. Well, there was nothing else to do but follow him. Determined not to think about how dangerous this was, Clarion went after him. The terror—and the rush —was immediate.

She had never flown this fast in her life.

The forest rushed by in streaks of green and white, and the snow hissed below her. Her stomach bottomed out as the sled skipped over the snowbanks and slick ice, threatening to overturn midair, but she kept a steady course. The wind whipped at her face and tore her hair from its braided coronet. It came loose around her shoulders, fluttering wildly around her. Snow, knocked from the branches overhead, crashed to the ground.

At the bottom of the slope, Milori was climbing out of his sled—too slowly. Clarion was going to crash headlong into him.

“Look out!” she shouted.

He glanced up. Without hesitation, he took flight, neatly avoiding her. She whizzed by him—only to strike an embankment. The sled soared into the air, then hit the ground hard. The force of the impact threw Clarion from her seat. With a cry of surprise, she went tumbling out of the sled and landed directly into a cushion of deep snow.

“Clarion!”

For a moment, she lay there, staring dazedly up at the sky. “I’m alive.”

“That’s good.” Milori’s face soon eclipsed her view. “And you’re all right?”

“I think so.”

When her senses returned to her, she crawled out of the Clarion-shaped hole she’d left in the ground. He offered a hand to her. This time, she took it without hesitation and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Snow caked her wild hair and clung to her eyelashes. His expression was so full of concern, she couldn’t help laughing. How exhilarating that had been. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such pure, silly fun. For just one minute, she was not the soon-to-be Queen of Pixie Hollow. She was just a fairy playing in the snow.

Milori stared at her with a peculiar expression.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said hastily. He reached for a loose strand of her hair, and she stopped breathing entirely. For a moment, she thought he meant to tuck it behind her ear or brush off the ice that clung to it. But he must have thought better of it, for his arm dropped back to his side. She reminded herself sharply not to be disappointed. “It’s just…you seem different here. It suits you.”

“Oh?” Clarion took a step closer to him and injected a challenge into her voice, if only to conceal that thwarted spark of yearning. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Ah,” he said. “There you are.”

She glared up at him, but he did not back away from her. If anything, the space between them seemed to shrink as he considered her.

“I only mean to say that you seem happy here.” His tone turned almost gentle. “It’s nice.”

How could she not be? In the gathering dark, with someone who saw through her, this seemed to her a place she almost belonged. An entire world made of starlight, glittering and silver. It occurred to her that no one had ever said that about her before. Was she unhappy in the warm seasons?

“Thank you.” She tucked the wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Shall we keep going?”

Side by side, they set off for the Hall of Winter. Moonlight filtered through the bare branches of the trees and cast Milori with a silver glow. He had a preoccupied frown notched in his brow, as though searching for a way to break her pensive silence. At last, he said, “I must ask. How did you enjoy sledding?”

It surprised her enough that she let out a soft laugh. How serious he made it sound. “I loved it.”

“Despite your crash landing?”

“Maybe even because of it. It made me feel more alive than I have in a long time. I confess, I…” She trailed off. If she finished that sentence, he would almost certainly mock her for it—or at the very least think her ignorant. But she supposed he’d chipped away enough at her armor tonight. “I didn’t think Winter would be so much…fun?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What, did you think we stood around like ice sculptures?”

“It’s a reasonable assumption.” She tried and failed to keep the indignation out of her voice. “We’ve only seen you during seasonal transitions. And at a distance. I’ll have you know we thought you all to be rather standoffish.”

He let out a soft huff of laughter. “The feeling is mutual, rest assured.”

She smiled despite herself. “I asked the queen what she knew of the Winter Woods, and she told me it was a place crawling with monsters.”

Just then, another gust of wind lifted the fresh snowfall from the ground. It enshrouded them in white—and pierced her through with cold. Clarion shivered, half from the chill, half from the knowledge that in full dark, Nightmares could emerge from the shadows at any moment.

“Crawling with monsters,” Milori echoed with some wonderment in his tone. “So why did you agree to come here with me if that’s what you thought? You could have been attacked. Or I could have spirited you away.”

“Could you have?” Clarion asked, unable to keep her own amusement out of her voice. “I mean no offense, but you’re not very frightening.”

“No?” He tilted his head at her, and his eyes were practically aglow with something like mischief. “How do you find me, then?”

Her face burned, and her heart fluttered. How infuriating, she thought, that a single look from him was all it took to fluster her. “Impertinent, for one.”

Milori seemed quite delighted, judging by the tiny smirk he was clearly trying to keep off his face. “My apologies, Your Highness.”

“You’re forgiven,” she said primly, with a cant of her chin. After a moment, she dropped the act and sighed. “Truthfully, I’ve always wanted to come here. I can see this very mountain from my room. Every night, I look out at it, and I’ve always thought…I don’t know. It must seem silly to you, but I thought it looked sad. I’m glad to know that it’s not.”

“It’s very much not.”

Indeed, this close to the village, the twinkling sound of laughter and work songs reached her. Clarion drank it in eagerly. Through the trees, she spied flashes of a river frozen solid. Here and there, she could see fairies dancing across its surface with…knives attached to their feet? It was all too puzzling—and entirely magical. “What are they doing?”

Milori steered her away from them by the shoulders. “Another time, perhaps. You’ve fallen enough today.”

The trees gradually thinned, then gave way to a clearing at the foot of the mountain. Clarion stopped dead at the tree line. A massive door, made entirely of ice, loomed before them. It was carved with a snowflake insignia and washed blue in the ethereal light emanating from behind it.

“This,” Milori said, “is the Hall of Winter.”

“Wow,” she breathed.

He guided her toward the door. Great pillars of ice rose from the earth and towered over them, marking the walkway from the woods to the entrance. When they stood before it, Clarion reached out to touch the pane of ice. Milori grabbed her wrist and stopped her. Before she could protest, he said, “Before we go in, I should warn you about the Keeper.”

Clarion stilled. He’d mentioned the Keeper once before, in a tone that suggested he commanded respect—and maybe a healthy dose of awe.

He paused for a moment. Then, he settled on his warning: “He’s eccentric.”

That was…not what she expected. That could mean anything , but she supposed it was not worth pressing the matter. She would see for herself soon enough.

“Right,” she said. “Understood.”

Satisfied, Milori laid his hands against the massive doors. The intricate carvings responded to his touch; they lit up, so bright it bathed his face in blue. With a groan, they opened. Clarion tried not to gasp as they passed through the threshold. It was a palace made entirely of ice. The ceiling towered above them, supported by columns of ice and dripping with wickedly gleaming icicles. Sculptures of snowflakes hung suspended above them, emitting that same eerie blue glow. Even the floor was solid ice. It took a moment for her to find her balance and not go sprawling with every step. All around her, the walls were lined with shelves of dark wood. Each one was filled to bursting with books and scrolls and tablets.

“This is incredible.”

Milori was surprised, clearly, for he smiled a little. “It is.”

His voice, quiet as it was, resonated through the hall, deep and rich. The light played across his face. Clarion had to avert her gaze to keep herself from staring at him.

Just then, a long shadow fell across the floor. A terrible sound tore through the silence: a growl. Then, the sound of claws dragging viciously across the ice.

A Nightmare.