Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
W inds swirl over the wide balcony, tugging at my black cloak and making my long silver hair flutter behind me. I brace my palms on the ice railing and lean forward a little so that I can look down.
The ground stares back at me from four stories up.
My stomach turns.
Shifting my gaze, I study the ice wall next to me that runs straight down to the stone ground below. Just like that ice wall that Jessina created in the hedge maze during the Atonement Trials, this one also looks to have been made by ice flames. At least in part. The wall is straight, but it’s not smooth. The ice flames must have frozen the way they hit, because the entire surface of the wall is jagged and uneven. Which means that it might be possible to climb it.
My gaze slides back to the hard stone ground again.
“It’s not that high,” I try to persuade myself, as if that would somehow make the ground come closer. “I could totally climb that.”
Another gust of wind rushes over the balcony, and I instinctively grip the railing harder. Mabona’s tits, did it really have to be windy today of all days?
I cast a glance over my shoulder. From this angle, I can only see part of the living room through the open balcony door. But the front door to Draven’s quarters remains closed and locked.
Swallowing, I shift my gaze back to the world outside. I can’t let this opportunity pass me by. Draven has taken off my collar, and he has left and will likely be gone for a while. If there was ever an opportunity to escape and seek out the human resistance, it’s now.
My eyes sweep across the city that is visible on the other side of the defensive walls that circle the Ice Palace. Sunlight shines down from a mostly clear sky to illuminate the sprawling city that spreads out across the grasslands at the foot of the mountain. Compared to the Seelie Court, it’s so big that my mind can barely comprehend its true size. Buildings made of wood and stone almost seem to gleam in the sunlight.
And somewhere in there is the human resistance and the legendary assassin known as the Red Hand.
Determination fills my heart as I gaze towards the city.
Straightening, I squeeze my hand into a fist and thump it against the ice railing while I give myself a firm nod. I have to risk it.
There looks to be a side gate set into the high defensive walls a short distance to my left, and now that I have my magic back, I should be able to get through it. All I need to do is to get down there.
My stomach turns again as I follow the uneven ice wall all the way down to the ground. I swallow once more as I try to push back the nausea. I can do this. It’s just like the Atonement Trials. Just a little higher. Well, a lot higher. But hey, who’s counting?
I draw in a deep breath to steady myself as I move towards the side of the balcony. After climbing up so that I’m sitting on the railing, I reach towards the closest chunk of ice that juts out a little from the wall.
Just like the rest of this castle, it’s not freezing the way normal ice is. Only cool. I grip the improvised handhold tightly as I twist my body and ram my foot into a small indentation. My heart slams against my ribs.
After drawing in another bracing breath, I push off from the railing and swing myself onto the wall.
A jolt of dread shoots through my whole body, making me feel lightheaded. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second while I cling to my temporary handholds so hard that my fingers ache.
Once the sense of dread and vertigo has passed, I pry my eyes open again and focus firmly on the ice wall in front of my face. As long as I only watch that, and don’t look down, I won’t know just how high up I really am right now.
There is another handhold a little farther down. I shift my hand down towards it while letting one leg drop down as well in search of another foothold. Once I find it, I slowly ease my way down.
And then I climb.
My pulse thrums in my ears as I make my way down the side of the Ice Palace. I can barely force air in and out of my lungs because my mind keeps screaming at me that this is a terrible fucking idea and that I’m going to slip and plummet to my death. But it’s too late to stop. I need to make it down now. One way or another. But preferably in the way that doesn’t leave me broken and dying on the stones below.
A gust of wind rips through the air.
I gasp as it catches in my cloak, yanking it hard to the side. It pulls me off balance, and I miss the next foothold.
My stomach lurches as I step right into the air instead.
I cry out in panic.
Air rushes in my ears as my body drops downwards. I grip the ice hard with my hands, but the sudden yank downwards when my feet can’t brace on anything rips my left hand off the chunk of ice I was holding on to.
Another wind slams into me.
Tears, from both the cold wind and the panic, sting my eyes as I scramble to get my hand back up to another handhold. My cloak whips in the wind behind me. I throw my left hand out blindly while gripping the ice hard with my right. But it’s slipping.
Panic spikes through my spine.
I just need to?—
My hand slips from the wall.
I don’t even have time to be afraid. Instead, a strange sense of breathless disappointment washes through my entire body as I plummet downwards. I’m going to die. I’m going to hit the stones below and break my legs. Shatter my spine. Crack my skull. The fall is going to?—
My feet slam into the ground after only a second.
The impact is so sudden, and so unexpected, that my knees buckle even though the force of it wasn’t particularly strong. Toppling over, I crash down on the ground.
For a few seconds, all I can do is to lie there on my side and stare at the uneven gray stone that makes up the surface beneath me. My mind is convinced that I should still be falling through the air. But the rough stone underneath my cheek says otherwise.
Dragging in a shuddering breath, I slide my hand along the cold stones.
The ground.
Which was apparently a lot closer than I thought.
Pushing myself up onto my knees, I elbow a scraggly bush out of the way and then tilt my head back to look up at the ice wall before me. The handhold I slipped from stares back at me from only a short distance above me. While I was climbing, I was so focused on the wall that I never looked down to see how far up I was. I had apparently made more progress than I realized.
I suck in another ragged breath while my mind continues spinning.
My stomach turns.
I’m not dead. I’m not lying broken and paralyzed on the stones. I’m still alive. Still unharmed.
Bracing one hand on the ice wall, I lean over the bush beside me.
And then I throw up.
Repeatedly.
Every one of my limbs shakes, and my pulse is still thrumming so fast in my ears that I can barely hear anything. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and drag in an unsteady breath.
Once my mind has finally accepted the fact that I didn’t die, I push myself up to my knees and stagger away from the wall. I don’t know if guards patrol here, so I can’t linger too long. The side gate that I spotted from the balcony is just a short distance away, so I flip the hood of my cloak up and sneak towards it.
As I draw closer, I realize that the gate is made of round metal bars rather than something solid. I study the color while I take up position in the shadows of the wall close to it. Based on the color, it looks to be made of iron.
Annoyance flits through me. Of course it’s fucking iron.
I shift my gaze to the man standing in front of it.
He is wearing silver armor, which means that he is part of Bane and Jessina’s clan rather than Draven’s. Just like all adult shifters, he looks to be somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years old, so just based on his appearance, I have no idea if he is experienced or a new recruit.
Narrowing my eyes, I study his body language. He is standing too straight to be comfortable. People who are older and more experienced usually look more relaxed, because they are confident in their abilities and their orders. I drum my fingers against my thigh. If I had to guess, I would say that he is someone who is desperate to prove himself. And I sure hope that I have guessed correctly. Because my life is about to depend on it.
After making sure that the cloak covers my pointed ears, I step out of the shadows and stride straight towards the guard with confident steps.
“Why isn’t this door already unlocked?” I bark with enough authority to surprise even myself.
The guard jumps in surprise and then hurries to straighten again as he turns to me and snaps to attention. “What?—”
“Commander Ryat sent word half an hour ago that you were to have it open and ready for me the second I appeared,” I declare, interrupting him. “Every second you waste here is another second that my mission goes unfulfilled.”
Worry and panic pulse across the guard’s face at the mention of Draven’s name, and at the sight of my black cloak.
Turning to the right, I stab a hand towards a path that I most certainly did not come from. “You should have seen me walking towards you and already have been ready.”
The moment I turn around to point, when he can no longer see my eyes, I call up my magic and shove it at the yellow spark of panic in the guard’s chest. Then I blow it into a wildfire.
“I d-didn’t—” he stammers.
Cutting off the flow of my magic, I turn back towards him again. “You have two seconds to open that gate before I report your insubordination to the commander.”
All blood drains from the guard’s face.
Metal clinks as he snatches up his ring of keys so fast that he almost drops it. Whipping around, he tries to ram the key into the lock. But his movements are so frantic that he misses it several times.
While his back is to me, I once more call up my magic. This time, I push at the bone white spark of fear in his chest. I increase it rapidly until I can see his hands shaking.
The keys rattle in his hands. But then he finally gets the door unlocked and shoves it open.
I cut off my magic right before he can turn around and see that my eyes were glowing.
“Here, I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “Please, don’t tell him.”
Stalking forward, I growl, “Make sure that this door is always open for me before I even reach it, and I’ll consider not telling him about this.”
“Thank you,” he gasps out as I stride right past him and out the gate.
As soon as I have passed him, I once again reach out with my magic and increase his fear. Metal clanks and rattles as he struggles to close and lock the door behind me.
A victorious grin spreads across my mouth.
It’s followed by a wave of relief and pure joy.
Cool fall winds whirl across the sloping mountainside and fill my lungs as I stride away from the Ice Palace a free woman. I did it. I made it out. I will never have to go back to that suffocating castle again. Never have to wear that awful iron collar again. Never have to kneel at Draven’s feet or watch the Icehearts smirk at me.
I’m free.
And now, it’s time to fight back.
A path has been cut into the mountainside, and it leads down to the city below. I follow it.
Excitement pulses through me like lightning when I reach the end of the path and the first buildings appear before me. The Atonement Trials might have been a sham, but ultimately, I achieved my goal. I made it out of the Seelie Court. And now, I have a chance to start a new life.
Buildings made of wood and stone line the wide cobblestone street that I start down once I leave the small footpath behind. It’s deserted. But the sound of voices comes from farther down. My heart patters against my ribs as I make my way towards it.
I have no idea how to find the Red Hand and the human resistance, so first, I just need to explore the city and get a feel for it.
Reaching up, I once again make sure that my hood is in place. As long as my pointed ears are covered, I can pass for a dragon shifter. Or a human.
Another burst of ridiculous excitement shoots through me.
Humans. I’m about to see real humans for the first time.
The soft chatter at the end of the street gets louder with every step.
My heart thumps in my chest.
This is it.
I turn the corner.
And walk right into a busy road.
People in all shapes and sizes bustle up and down the street in groups or pairs or alone. Trailing to a halt, I just stand there and stare for a while.
Two people with dark brown hair lug a large sack from an open doorway and towards a waiting cart. After swinging it back and forth, they heave it up onto the already half full cart. It lands with a thud, sending a small cloud of what looks like flour swirling into the air. They dust their hands off and then walk back into the dark wooden building to grab another one.
Across the street, a woman in a simple green dress is sweeping the porch in front of what looks like some kind of shop. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand before leaning the broom against the stone wall of the building. Then she disappears back inside.
More people are strolling up and down the street.
“Do you need help, dear?”
I start in surprise. Realizing that my mouth was slightly open, I snap it shut and give my head a quick shake to clear it before I turn towards the source of the voice.
A short woman with a round face and a kind smile looks at me with eyebrows raised. Her wavy blond hair ripples over her shoulders as another gust of wind swirls between the buildings.
I blink, remembering that she asked me a question.
“Uhm, no,” I manage to press out at last. Then I force a smile onto my own lips and nod. “But thank you.”
She nods back and pats me on the arm before she opens the door that I was standing right next to. Still trying to process everything, I once again give my head a quick shake and move away from the door that I was almost blocking.
Since just standing here is obviously drawing attention, I decide to just pick a direction and start walking. I choose the one that looks to be leading farther into the city.
Sunlight streams down from the blue sky and glints in the windows of the buildings that I pass. Small flowerpots that contain evergreens dot several of the porches, and a few of the wooden houses have even been painted in bright colors.
All around me, people are chatting and going about their day like normal. As if this isn’t one of the most monumental moments in my entire life.
A woman walks out of a doorway to my right and closes it behind her. Then she staggers over to a rickety wooden chair that has been placed on the porch. It creaks as she drops into it. With a sigh, she leans back and tilts her face up towards the sun.
I stop dead in the middle of the road.
My jaw practically hits the ground when I take in her face.
It’s… wrinkled.
Her cheeks are saggy and there are bags under her eyes and there are lines all over her forehead and around her eyes.
My heart is barely beating as I just stare at her in shock.
She’s old.
And she’s not just old. She looks old.
I have never seen someone look old before. It’s fascinating. While the old woman sits there and soaks up the sun, I stand a short distance away and stare at her like an absolute idiot. Stare at the way her limbs look thin and frail. The way her skin seems to hang loosely around her bones. At the wrinkles and the dark spots on her skin.
Fae don’t physically age like that. And neither do dragon shifters. So it’s the first time that I have ever seen a physically old person. It’s mind-blowing. Her entire body is a testament to the fact that she has lived . Proof of all the decades she has seen. All the things she has endured and experienced. It’s incredible. Absolutely incredible.
It isn’t until people start staring at me that I force myself to keep moving. But it doesn’t matter. Because I meet several other old people as I continue down the next street. I stare at them too, but a little more discreetly.
Once I’m several streets deep, I have finally figured out how to tell the humans and the dragon shifters apart. Since normal dragon shifters can’t perform a half-shift, no one out here has wings on display the way Draven and the Icehearts do. And there is no real difference in terms of height or physique either. Instead, the thing that sets the humans apart is something more intangible.
They all look more alive, more real, than both the dragon shifters and we fae do. Because we don’t physically age, both fae and dragon shifters have an ethereal sense of timelessness to our features. The humans don’t. Instead, they look like they have truly lived, even the young ones, in a way that we don’t.
In all the stories about humans, no one ever mentioned this strange aura that they possess that the rest of us don’t. Though I suppose the fae who were allowed to live after the dragon shifters conquered us wouldn’t have had a chance to meet a human before that, so maybe that’s why.
I study them intently as I walk. Apart from lack of that ethereal quality to their features, they look almost exactly like dragon shifters. They also have those strange eyes that only have one color instead of?—
Panic shoots through my chest.
My eyes.
I’ve been covering my ears. But my turquoise and lavender eyes are just as damning. I’m the only person here who has two colors in both eyes.
Shit . Tugging the hood of my cloak down, I cover my eyes in enough shadow that people hopefully won’t notice. The dragon shifter guard at the gate had to have noticed. But I must have manipulated his emotions enough that he truly believed that Draven had sent me even though I was fae. And I must have gotten lucky with that human woman back there on the street. Or maybe the humans don’t know about fae.
I frown as I turn a corner and disappear down a far less busy street.
Is it possible that the dragon shifters have kept our entire existence a secret? Or maybe they just don’t know about all of our physical characteristics since they have likely never seen any of us before. Just like I didn’t know that humans didn’t have the same ethereal quality to their features as we do.
Shaking my head, I continue deeper into the city. There is so much I don’t know about this world that I’m now supposed to be a part of. So I study everything intently as I walk.
Now that I know which people are humans and which are shifters, I notice something else. All the fancy shops I pass are owned by dragon shifters, and all the hard manual labor is done by humans. The shifters are also dressed better. Not in terms of style, but rather quality. The clothes that the humans wear are, in general, more worn and frayed. The humans also look more tired, though I don’t know if that’s just because they age differently.
I frown as I note the holes in a human man’s shirt as he pulls a heavy cart up the road. Maybe the shifters treat the humans like they treat us too. But why would they? Their race didn’t enslave the dragon shifters the way that all of our ancestors did.
“What the fuck are you staring at?”
My heart leaps into my throat, and I whirl towards the sound of the voice.
A small breath of relief escapes me when I realize that the comment wasn’t directed at me. Across the road, a little to my right, two male dragon shifters in silver armor have cornered a human man against a wall.
“Nothing,” the human says. He keeps his chin lowered as he shakes his head. “I wasn’t looking at you.”
“Oh really?” the black-haired shifter replies. “Then why could I see your disrespectful eyes glaring at me when you thought I didn’t notice?”
The human swallows. “I… uhm…”
They shove him up against the wall.
Anger flashes through me. After flicking my gaze up and down the road to make sure that no one is watching me, I summon my magic and push at the spark of anger in the shifter’s chest.
To my surprise, it’s not there.
I try another emotion.
The orange spark of smug superiority in his chest is so large that I actually blink in surprise. He really must think that he is better than all the humans.
Using my magic, I decrease his sense of superiority until it’s barely more than a flicker.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter.
I gasp and release my magic as he still rams his fist into the human’s stomach.
Air explodes from the man’s lungs, and he doubles over. But the second shifter just yanks him back up while his companion hits him again. Pain pulses across the human’s face as an armored fist slams into his cheek.
And all around me, people do… nothing.
They just avert their eyes and hurry away.
Fury crashes over me like a tidal wave. I am so fucking sick of these haughty idiots and their damn entitlement. They act like bullies. And for absolutely no reason. Just because their ancestors suffered millennia ago doesn’t give them the right to beat up innocent people now.
With my hood still pulled down low to hide my face, I glance around at the people hurrying away while the soldiers continue pummeling the human. Someone should do something. Someone should step in. Someone should stop this.
And then I realize that I am someone.
Before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve picked up a small pot from the windowsill next to me and thrown it at the closest dragon shifter.
The evergreen that had been planted in the pot flops back and forth in distress as the pot sails through the air.
Then it hits the dragon shifter in the back of the head.
A loud thud sounds. Followed by a crash as the pot lands on the stones behind him. His knees buckle. Then he too crashes down on the ground.
For a few seconds, the entire street is dead silent.
The human man stares at me, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. As does the remaining dragon shifter. His gaze flits down to his now unconscious partner, and then it slowly slides to me.
Logic and reason at last catch up with me.
I shouldn’t have done that.
I really shouldn’t have done that.
From where he’s still standing pressed against the wall, the human gives me a look of gratitude.
In front of him, the dragon shifter shoots me a death stare.
He takes one slow step forward.
Then he’s barreling straight towards me.
Oh shit .