Chapter 2
Talvie
Ican barely ponder escape from my gilded cage to the terrifying wilderness beyond before a disturbance starts up outside.
Voices call out, barking quick orders. Reindeer snort and pull.
The carriage jerks left, then slows as huntsmen shout from the front of the caravan, one voice carrying clearly to us.
“BANDITS!”
Beron is already alert, never having dropped his guard for our tense journey, but the warning sends icy fear straight to my bones.
I jerk aside the curtain I’d pulled to hide the scary world passing us by. “What’s happening?”
My face is so close to the glass that I flinch as a blast of fire hurtles past. “What—?” My heart pounds.
First bandits. Now fireballs? How did my situation just get worse? I try to look again, but in my fear, my magic blasted out ice that now covers the window. Another bright orange flame passes, blurred and warped by the ice, but enough for me to make out shadowy figures charging from the trees.
The carriage jolts ahead a few paces as the reindeer spook, plastering me to the back wall and making Beron brace against my seat.
My knuckles turn white on the armrest as we lurch farther left and tilt toward the road’s edge before grinding to a halt that sends me flying into Beron with a wholly un-princess-like shriek.
Chaos erupts. The driver’s panicked yells mingle with the crackling of flames and the snarls of bandits, closing in fast. The clash of blades rings out.
I’m barely in my seat, my wits scattered to the waning moonlight, when the carriage door rips open. Out of reflex or some misplaced hope that Beron might still be on my side, I reach for him, my hand scrambling to clutch anything solid, anything that promises safety.
But the man I’ve trusted all my life pries my fingers loose instead of pulling me to safety. I gape at him, half in shock, half horror, as he shoves me—no, throws me—right out the door into the path of the bandits.
I tumble, landing on my back in the dirt-churned snow.
Pain jolts through my hip, but the pain isn’t the worst of it.
It’s the hollow space where my trust in him has been ripped clean out of my chest. How could he do this?
I shouldered Taynia’s cruelty all these years, but I thought I had one person who would be on my side.
Now? Now my body feels heavy enough to sink into the frozen ground, but I know I have to move.
All around me, fighting rages. Huge bandits engage with the huntsmen.
The reindeer stamp and snort, shuffling back and forth in their harnesses.
Fireballs streak across the scene, sparks trailing in their wakes, illuminating the battle at the front and the few bandits who have made it past, coming this way.
A huntsman charges at the enormous man closest to me.
He must be the one who tore open the carriage door.
Their blades meet with a clang, distracting the bandit and sending my heart slamming into my ribcage.
I scramble backward, avoiding the wild swing of a sword.
Beron steps out of the carriage brandishing his axe, his eyes reflecting the blaze of another fireball streaking over my head.
I can’t believe I thought he would protect me. Is he hoping the bandits will kill me so he doesn’t have to? The hole in my chest throbs. His betrayal cuts deeper than any blade.
What a fool I am.
When his eyes lock on me, the hardness of his gaze matches his tone. “Stop her.”
It was a command, and I know Beron has a voice like thunder, capable of leading armies. So why did his order come out quiet? Is it my hearing? Did I hit my head? His words barely reach me over the mayhem, and only the nearest two huntsmen react.
Unfortunately, two will be plenty. I have basic skills with a sword, but having been torn from my bed for this death’s journey…
surprisingly, no one thought to hand me a blade.
I summon an ice spear as a bandit yells out.
In my distraction, the spear forms barely longer than my arm, and when I swing it, it shatters to snow.
I try again, but this time it's more of a thin icicle that snaps off as a fireball sizzles past. My training never prepared me for this kind of chaos!
The bandits are gigantic men wielding clubs and swords, their faces obscured by masks and the shadowy dark. The one who came for the carriage falls back to the trees as another fireball streaks over me. I throw a shower of ice crystals over my head to protect myself from the heat.
Fire slams into the side of the carriage and bursts over it, sending the huntsmen reeling as they avert their eyes from the blaze of light.
This is my chance! I scramble to my feet, lungs tight, and bolt from the road into the cover of the forest. I dash past the bandit who retreated, and thank my stars when he doesn’t notice me.
I don’t look back. I just run, fast as I can, away from the only safety I’ve ever known. I don’t want to know whether Beron is coming after me. I don’t want to see the axe swinging toward my neck.
With any luck, he’ll be distracted fighting bandits long enough to give me a head start. Not that it will help once he’s free to hunt me down. He’s not the Head Huntsman for nothing. No one can track like Beron, and a Point Fae princess won’t exactly be the most elusive prey he’s ever stalked.
Still, I can stay here and die, or run and… probably die. But I have to take the chance.
I plunge on, catching a glimpse through the trees of the source of the fireballs. It’s a towering druid, easily the height of two men together. My brain can’t process his impossible power as he looms over the scene as if directing all the fighting before him. I don’t need to understand it to flee.
A small figure bursts up in front of me, but dashes away behind trees before I can focus on the fleeting shadow. I get a face full of snow from a swinging branch as I veer away, mind reeling. The bandits wouldn’t have a child with them, would they? No, that’s insane.
That’s when I remember that I’m in wild territory, and there are all sorts of wicked creatures and fae beasts in these woods. That could have been a goblin or gremlin, or worse. Now my pulse has a whole new reason to race, driving my legs forward.
Branches claw at my limbs as I plunge through the underbrush, stumbling over rocks, dirt, and ice.
My fine slippers are no match for the forest floor, but the pain in my feet barely registers.
I don’t stop. Even when the shouts fade and the woods are too dark to see what’s in front of me, I keep running—lungs burning, feet bleeding, hoping beyond hope that Beron’s loyalty might be divided enough to stop him hunting me down.
Cold doubt grips my thundering heart. Where do I go? Can I outrun him?
Sounds of the fighting have faded to eerie quiet.
Finally forced to slow in the darkness of thick woods closing in, I try to get my bearings.
Which way is the palace? Not that I can return there.
But I need shelter. I can’t stay in these woods.
I stumble again on feet going numb. Deeper and deeper, I push on into the forest, jumping at every snapping twig.
With a groan, I realize I’d kill for my nice, warm bed right now, but I have no idea who I can trust for help. Where can a Point Fae princess with gleaming white hair and a well-known face ever hope to hide?
Unless…
I need light. These woods are too dark, and I need to do something about my feet so I can keep going. “Lumi?”
I could feel my faithful companion following high above as we traveled. She can’t be far.
The shock of betrayal brings frantic doubts, but I shove them down. Lumi wouldn’t leave me. It’s me she bonded with, not the crown. I trust her.
Hurrying onward as well as I can, I call softly again. “Lumi.”
She’ll catch up. She will.
She has to.
Finally, the darkness shifts by degrees, heralding Lumi’s approach. It’s enough to let me see the log in my path that I scramble over, only to stumble to the forest floor on the other side. The woods are so thick here that there’s no snow to cushion my fall on the frozen ground.
“Ow.”
My hands are pale ghosts before me as I right myself. Soft moonlight bleaches the blue of my trousers and fades the dark tone of my skin until, slowly, the glow grows bright enough that I can see clearly.
“Lumi, thank the Deep.”
The small moon glides down to meet me.
“Sorry, Valkie.” She whispers the familiar endearment. My true name, Talvie, means winter, but Lumi has always called me the word for white instead, referring to my hair. Lumi is the only one who calls me that. It’s how I know she sees the real me, so the sound of that name immediately calms me.
“Lumi heard, but didn’t want to follow too closely or risk drawing attention to you when you were fleeing. You were fleeing, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good.”
“No, not good. Very, very not good.”
“Right, yes, but at least Lumi didn’t make it worse.”
I soften. “You’re right. You did well, Lumi.
I need to wrap my feet.” Digging in my cloak pocket, my hand closes around a cool shape.
The oyster handle pocket knife is smooth in my hand as I draw it out, giving me another wave of relief.
The small knife would be useless in a fight, but I’m glad I haven’t lost this too.
I can still remember the day my father bought it for me.
“Look, Is?,” I’d said, picking up the knife from a merchant stall. “Look at the colors in the white. It’s like my hair.” I’d held it up like a precious treasure, even though it was a fairly cheap trinket and the palace had superior blades.
“Will you look at that,” Is? had said with over-the-top wonder, “so it does. It's meant for you, Talvie.”
I don’t have time for sentimentality right now, so I set to cutting strips off the hem of my cloak to wrap my feet. “Lumi, can you show me?”
She knows what I’m asking. As a moon, she has reflection magic, so she can reflect images of what she observes. Scenes from the carriage ride play across her smooth surface.
Her reflections show the view from far above, so it’s a little tricky to make out exactly what I saw, but a large figure jumps in front of our procession.
The huntsmen react with force, as though an entire battalion faced them.
They draw weapons and drop into a protective formation before any more bandits have even appeared.
When another figure does emerge, I can tell it’s around where the druid stood, except he doesn’t look nearly as tall from this vantage point.
There’s the first fireball, though. It spooks the reindeer, and the carriage lurches like I remember. A third figure, small and quick, darts across the scene. Fresh anger swells as I see myself fall from the carriage door. “Wait, I missed the huge bandit who opened the door.”
“Huge bandit?” Lumi questions.
“Yeah, he was right…” There’s no one beside me in Lumi’s reflection. All I see is Beron descending, sending a stab of betrayal through me all over again. And there, what was that shadow that slipped under the carriage? “Hold on.”
Lumi pauses her reflection, but no matter how hard I stare, I can’t make it out. When it starts up again, the two huntsmen flail about, and I see myself scramble up and run. Beron swings his axe through the air, but I can’t see his opponent.
I forget all efforts to wrap my feet, engrossed and completely confused. “Where’s the explosion?”
“The small fireballs?” Lumi asks.
“No. No, that’s not right. There were huge fireballs, and one hit the carriage and exploded.”
“Lumi saw no explosion.”
“But…huh? And the bandits, they were huge.”
“Bandits? You mean that man?”
I look again where the enormously tall druid had stood, but the man I’m looking down on is strangely shaped, as though there’s something lumpy propped on his shoulders.
I wish Lumi had been lower, because it’s hard to see from her viewpoint.
Then another fireball comes out of the odd form on his shoulders, and the light from the fire reveals a small face.
Is it two people? Is one sitting on another’s shoulders? What am I seeing?
Lumi’s reflection withdraws, and the last thing I see is Beron swinging his axe like he’s fighting an invisible army.
“What. Was. That?”
“A reflection of what happened,” Lumi supplies helpfully.
“No, I know, but that’s not what happened.”
“It is.”
“I saw it with my own eyes, Lumi!”
“Valkie was very frightened, yes? Perhaps you misremember.”
“You think I imagined enormous men with clubs, a freakishly tall druid, and exploding fireballs? Get wet, Lumi.”
She dims her light. “Language.”
“Seriously? You’re worried about swearing right now? My stepmother just ordered me killed, Beron was prepared to carry it out, and I barely escaped from a whole band of drowning bandits, for Deep’s sake! If not now, when?”
She’s quiet. Then, “You might have a point.”
“Thank you,” I huff.
I hate this day. I hate everything about it. Nothing makes sense, and everything is horrible.
“What now?” the moon asks softly.
“Aside from keep running, I have no clue.” I return to wrapping my feet, because, whatever happens next, I can’t stay here.
“I did have one idea. You know how you used reflection magic to give me that beautiful whooper swan mask for the masquerade last season? Or when we use it to give me rosy cheeks and red lips?”
“Of course.”
“Can you sustain something more complex? Everyone who looks at me must see only your reflections on me.”
“Certainly.”
“Then I might have a plan.”