Chapter 7
LIGHT SWALLOWED CORIN, scattering pieces of her into fragments as fine as windblown sand. Stars exploded around her ears. Their debris peppered her skin and sank beneath to set her veins on fire. Rays broke through every particle in her body as she punctured through an ocean of bright blue.
Water filled her lungs before they turned to air. Bubbles burst from her feet and then transformed into clouds. Her limbs flailed forward, her body hurdling between ice crystals in the atmosphere. Wind whistled through her hair and whipped her face as she descended through an endless sky. A white flash ripped into her bones before she came together again, the tiny particles of her conscience clustering together to form a body landing softly in snow.
The wind slowed to a stop.
Then the world waited in silence for her.
She opened her eyes to a hole filled with light in the sky, its rims swirling in a thin coat of red. Blood slipped from the fringes and scattered into pieces. One fell in her palm like a snowflake, drying like a scab, before it dissolved. The hole closed above her, as if it had never existed at all, and the sky returned to normal as a portrait of pure white with saw-toothed trees. One branch bent beneath her weight, its wooden arms cradling her in a blanket of soft snow as if she were a newborn.
Across from her, between another tree’s limbs, someone was watching.
The stranger was different in an otherworldly way. Pearls glistened across her cheeks like teardrops and embedded her porcelain skin, dappling around her chin and forehead. Snowdrop flowers intertwined her silver hair, spilling over a pale lace dress with nightingale embroidery and beaded feathers. Her eyes looked like sea glass, narrowed and glaring, as if Corin were an intruder that she would kill with her bow.
Corin should have retreated at the sight of the weapon, but she couldn’t move. The stranger’s gaze pierced into her skin, as if she were peeling the layers underneath to look inside. Their eyes held each other for an infinite moment, the soft fall of snow blurring in the background, clumps of snowflakes catching in their lashes. The quiet gripped Corin, bit into her skin, left her feeling raw.
Because the stranger didn’t just look at her. She didn’t speak to Corin, spit at her, or even pity her, as if Corin was a ghost who had already passed.
This person saw her.
And that was the most dangerous thing of all.
Then a breeze came, and the stranger’s expression shifted into softness. Her eyebrows raised, her lips parted, as if realizing something Corin couldn’t pinpoint. She lowered the bow and tucked away the unused arrow. Her silver hair flickered in the sunlight as she fell backward, disappearing into the snow like a mirage.
Corin lunged forward and tried to peer below the branches, but the girl’s lace dress and powdered hair vanished in a blanket of white. Not even the slightest sign of footprints marred the earth. She disappeared as quickly as she’d appeared.
Corin’s eyes darted around the tree in panic. Her leg stretched to another branch as she tried to maneuver herself on to it. She hooked her arm over one of the limbs and thought she had a good grip, until the wood snapped.
She yelped when she fell, but the landing was soft and rendered her quiet. Bits of crystal fell from her hair as she turned around and scanned her new surroundings. The sun barely rose from the mountains in the distance, rays of light shining between the cracks of trees. The bright colors were too overwhelming for her senses. She rubbed her eyes before stopping from a disturbing realization.
Her hands, once shattered, were now whole.
She took off her gloves and flexed her fingers, waiting for something to crack, yet every bone remained in place. Her fingers ran through her coarse hair, nails digging for dried blood and open wounds that no longer existed.
No. This wasn’t right. Her breaths quickened, panicking. She wanted to scream that this was a trick, some trap to catch her off guard. She should have been dead, but the fact that she was alive scared her. The gentle snow of this place was more frightening than the bitter cold of Gyldan. It told her that she did not belong, because she was not suffering.
Corin jumped at a sudden movement from the corner of her vision. Behind a wide tree trunk, a fox appeared. The animal was small and wild, his pointed ears twitching upon sight of her. His tail whipped around as black, beady eyes stared into hers. A lump formed at the base of her throat. Something unsettling swirled in her stomach, a familiar burning sensation at her fingertips. Before she could make sense of it, the fox moved closer.
Corin took a step back. “What are you?” she hissed.
The fox tilted his head.
“I am breakable.” His voice was distorted, as if his lungs had been shattered. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Her hands scorched in response. She reached slowly for his fur, her fingers stroking through hearth-spun browns. Beneath his coat, she felt it: The cracks in his skin. The shards in her hands. The memory cutting into her like a knife.
Then something hit the back of her head, hard and cold. The fox ran away and disappeared behind the trees. She spun around and prepared to defend herself against the attacker until she saw the spikes of black hair and the small silhouette of a young girl. Corin’s heart stopped in her chest. Flecks of snow turned the child hair into a salt-and-pepper halo, and her dark eyes gleamed with recognition. The girl tossed a second snowball in the air, catching it expertly with her palm. A mischievous grin tugged at her lips.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Elly said.
Corin didn’t move, afraid that the slightest movement would make Elly disappear. But her sister stood in front of her, solid as the truth. Every scab and scar that lined her kneecaps and elbows, every dark freckle that stained her cheeks like stars.
“El,” Corin breathed, “what are you—”
A second snowball struck her face. This time Corin fell with her feet kicking off the ground. She shook ice out of her eyes in time to see her sister running through the trees, her laughter fading in the distance.
A strangled sound ripped out of Corin’s throat. “Stop!”
She caught up to Elly and barreled her to the ground. Their bones collided in the snow, her sister’s small frame pinned underneath Corin’s heavy chest. Corin wrapped her arms around Elly so tight their skin could have fused together.
“Don’t ever run away from me again.” Desperation cracked in Corin’s voice, stilling the small body beneath her.
In the silence, she held her sister close. The familiar smell of musk and sweat wafted under Corin’s nose as she buried her face in Elly’s hair and let the short spikes tickle her cheeks. Elly’s breath was warm against her skin, and Corin took comfort in hearing it. These were the sounds she needed to fall asleep back home: the familiar drum of Elly’s heart, the pulse of her veins. Proof that she was still alive, bright and beating.
Elly’s voice was muffled as she said, “You still need to say it.”
“Say what?”
“That I was right and you were wrong.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Elly pushed herself off Corin to stand and place her hands on her hips in indignation.
“I told you the tale of Sleeping Beauty was real. You saw her in the tower and jumped through that portal, didn’t you?”
Corin tilted her head to the sky. The portal of light had closed and disappeared with the clouds. The smell of blood and flowers had already vanished from the air.
“Her godmothers said they were going to cross over to her subconscious,” Elly said. “That must be where we are now.”
“How did you hide from them and find your way here?”
“Because I’m smarter than you, obviously.”
Corin scowled. “No, you ran away just to prove a point.”
“You still haven’t admitted I was right.”
Corin opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. She couldn’t give another explanation for what happened in the castle. She didn’t even understand how Ezran hadn’t found and killed them already. The path had closed after she jumped through. Somehow, no one else could open it again.
Elly had predicted everything. The castle buried underneath Gyldan, the sleeping princess hidden from the world, the moonflowers set to bloom. And yet, even so—
“It doesn’t matter if you were right. That was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. You could’ve died, El. That man would’ve killed you. You’re lucky you escaped, or I would’ve found you rotting in the damn ground.”
Corin tried to ignore the ache in her chest and strain in her throat. She didn’t want to picture a stiff body in the tunnels, the limp shape of her sister and her withered skin. How Corin would have had to hold her and feel the weight of her hollow stomach and stiff bones. It was easier to replace this feeling with anger instead, to yell at her sister instead of admitting the gut-wrenching fear of losing her.
Irritation simmered between them, infecting Elly as she jabbed a finger in Corin’s direction.
“If I hadn’t looked for the princess, you wouldn’t have done anything. You’d have stayed exactly where you were, and we would’ve been stuck and miserable in Gyldan. I don’t want to live a life where nothing changes.”
The pit of Corin’s stomach filled with shame. So it was true. Elly had hated her life with Corin. She hated it so much that she ran away to chase after a fairy tale.
Elly stormed off, heading toward the frozen lake. Streaks of light purple tinted the pool, a pastel color that mixed like paint from weak sunlight and pale skies. Corin ran across the ice and grabbed Elly by the wrist. On the lake’s surface, their reflections were a blur, hardly distinguishable as two silhouettes instead of one.
“Stop running off,” she snapped. “We can’t get separated again.”
Elly spun around. “Then why didn’t you stop me before?”
Cold air stung Corin’s cheeks. A crack formed in the ice, and it sounded like it came from her chest. She let go of Elly’s hand and opened her mouth to speak. Once again, nothing came out. It was becoming harder to provide answers to her sister. The last time she did, Elly ran away.
At her silence, Elly scoffed. “You were glad I was gone.”
“That’s not true.” Corin’s assertion sounded more like a plea. It was easier to pretend they had just gotten into another fight. But this was different. She remembered Elly’s last words to her, the pain that laced her sister’s throat as she said it.
I hate you.
Corin reached out for her sister until a violent gust of wind ripped her fingers from Elly’s cheek. Their feet were torn off the ground, their bodies lifted in the air, tugged like puppet strings by some invisible force. Elly’s back struck against tree bark while Corin’s body flung in the opposite direction. Wide cracks burst open in the lake like an open mouth about to swallow her. Her legs fell into freezing water, shocking the rest of her limbs. She shouted for Elly, but her sister looked dazed, as if the girl were fighting off unconsciousness.
Corin climbed over the ice with chattering teeth and frozen limbs screaming in pain. An earsplitting screech rang in the air and forced her to look up. The world peeled back branches as a winged creature tore across the sky, landing in the snow and rumbling the ground. A long neck craned around the edge of the lake before fixing upon her through slitted eyes.
Poison-green irises narrowed into knife slits. The creature charged forward, shaking the ground with each step. As fire broiled inside its mouth, Corin realized this was no ordinary monster, but a dragon about to kill them both.