by Lucy Tempest
This consideration alone made me swallow my engrained fear of the worst.
Taking his offered hand, I threw all cares and fears to the freezing wind and stepped up on the ledge and into the sleigh.
Chapter Nineteen
The moment Yulian sat down beside me, the reindeer kicked into a midair sprint.
Though he held me secure as they zoomed downwards in a spiral around the turnip-shaped tower housing his quarters, I was still frozen with fear. My heartbeats shook me too hard to savor the majesty of the crystalline structure as it glowed with magic and gleamed with myriad hues in the stark moonlight.
At one particularly sharp turn, I clutched Yulian harder through the blanket he’d secured around me, squeaking, “How are they even flying without wings?”
Yulian gathered me closer, chuckling, probably at my ridiculous question. “Magic?” Before embarrassment could register, he added, “Though most of the magical creatures who fly do have wings. Of course, when there’s more than one flying so closely together, having wings clash with every flap would only lead to disaster.”
“Sounds like you found what that was like the hard way,” I gasped as I clung to him harder.
“I did. But it wasn’t my dumb idea to line up winged creatures, it was King Theseus’s.”
“The Summer King?” I exclaimed.
I had a vivid memory of Theseus, not so much of his appearance, but of his sadistic joy at putting my group through the deadly tasks of the Equinox Games. He was another magical being who flew without wings, and he’d been hovering there as we’d barely made it to the finish line alive. The image I retained of him was when he’d floated with us in tow, to lounge gleefully on one of the four thrones, with Keenan replacing his mother on Autumn’s throne.
It was only now that I put together that the two empty ones had been Yulian’s and Etheline’s, both of whom hadn’t attended the Games.
“You’ve met him?” Yulian asked, emanating discomfort, his gaze riveted toward my feet. “How? And when?”
“It was at my arrival here in Faerie, and let me tell you, I had an unforgettable and nearly lethal welcome,” I said sarcastically as I lifted the blanket and my skirt to show him my slippers. My heels clicked together as we took another turn, the clink of glass echoing around us. “But at least, I got these.”
His mouth opened slightly, his shock evident before he composed himself, tore his gaze away from my feet. “You said they were a gift.”
“They were, for surviving the Equinox Games.”
He gave a tight nod. “When I sent them as my Court’s gift in the Games, I never thought I’d see them again.”
Forgetting my anxiety, I wiggled in my seat, barely containing my curiosity about why he sent them, and my wonder that I ended up receiving them. “You sound as if you wanted to be rid of them.”
He gripped the reins tighter. “I had them made as a wedding gift to my future bride. But when it looked like I wasn’t ever going to find someone, I found their presence irritating.”
“You could still feel irritation then?” I teased.
“Or whatever was left of my ability to feel anger or frustration.” He looked ahead, as if he was gazing into the past. “Every other emotion was still there at some deep level, but frozen, and as good as gone for all the effect they had on me.”
“I know what you mean.” I had to stop myself before I went into depth about being under Dolora’s thrall, where I retained my memories and awareness, but with everything muffled under muted feelings that never let anything really register. “You don’t feel the urgency to do anything, can’t even access the will to put a stop to a bad situation.”
“Which is a troubling state to be in when you’re responsible for the well-being of a land.”
He continued our descent over the snow-covered roofs at the outskirts of Midnight. Few people were in the snow-covered streets at this hour, all heading in the same direction.
He looked down at them with his lips twisted. “I don’t doubt that plenty of them blame my apathy for the state of the kingdom.”
“You really think it’s why you were attacked?”
“I can’t think of any other reason.”
“You don’t sound too upset about it.”
He shrugged. “I don’t blame anyone for feeling helpless and doing what it takes to find a way out—considering that’s how I spent most of my life.”
Concern rose higher at his fatalistic mood, making me rush in with some lighthearted ribbing. “It sounds like you want someone to take you out.”
He only nodded solemnly. “Until recently, I did.”
If I’d been drinking, I would have spat it all out.
“I was kidding!” I choked.
“I wasn’t. And not because I’ve lost my ability to do so. In fact, I can see the pathetic humor in all this.”
I elbowed him, anxiety of a different kind shivering through me. “There is nothing remotely funny about someone trying to kill you. Especially since they might try again.”
“I have no doubt they will.”
“And you’re not going to do anything about it?”
He turned his head, caught my gaze. “It depends.”
“On what?”
His gaze lengthened, darkened. “On whether I have the will to live by then.”
It was jarring, hearing his bluntness. The kind usually reserved for brutal insults or truthful cruelties from the rich and powerful. But here he was, both of those things, yet plainly telling me that he had become so miserable and detached he couldn’t be angry at someone who’d made an attempt on his life. A life he didn’t mind ending.
From experience, I knew why one would want to die. Until recently, I’d considered it a viable option out of my situation. But I now had a foreseeable way out, a tentative level of hope for a future. But even if it didn’t depend on him, one way or another, I couldn’t think of one without him in it. He seemed to think the same of me.
Putting my hand over his, I whispered, “You said I made you feel. How do you feel now?”
He loosened his grip on the reins as he turned to me. “It would be easier to ask me how deep the ocean is, or what dwells beneath it.”
“Confused, then.”
Yulian nodded, shaking a layer of frost off his widow’s peak. “How do you feel?”
“Right now?” I huffed, swallowing past the tightness in my throat. “I’m worried that this sleigh is falling.”
He snapped his gaze downwards. “Forgive me. I forgot I’m supposed to go up, not down.”
“I thought you wanted to show me something down there.”
“Not there, no.” He clicked his tongue and flapped the reins. “Girls, up!”
The reindeer shook their antlered heads and kicked up, rising in an arc that had me flattening against my seat, feeling my insides contract against my spine.
When I finally stopped envisioning us dropping from this height, nauseating fear subsided, allowing me to take in the sights. We’d soared high enough to see the whole castle , and seeing it from above was a hundred times as awe-striking as seeing it from ground level. It grew smaller and smaller as we continued to retreat from the mountains.
When I finally found my voice, I croaked, “The reindeer are girls?”
“Why the surprise?” His own voice carried a startled note.
“They have antlers.”
“Female reindeer have antlers, especially in winter—which is all the time now.”
“They’re also pulling a sleigh. Shouldn’t that be reserved for males?”
Humor trickled back into his eyes as he observed me with growing amusement. “You’re being flown around by a troop of flying reindeer and their gender is what you take issue with?”
I had to giggle. “You’re right. Of all the things to get hung up on in this crazy realm.” I reached out to pet the closest steed. “Do they have names?”
“The ones at the front are Roza and Fialka, in the middle we have Ka
melia and Lilia, and bringing up the rear are our biggest girls, Margarita and Romashka.”
“Flower names?”
“You understand our old dialect?”
“No, but Roza and Lilia are familiar enough, and I know Margarita means ‘daisy’ because I have a cousin with that name.”
He raised a curious eyebrow. “Is she a daisy nymph? Are there such things?”
“She’d be a finger-length pixie if she were.”
His shoulders shook as he huffed a chuckle, face darkening with a flush. The sight of color returning to his body warmed my heart, made me want to keep finding ways to make him laugh, to unearth what lay beneath the ice.
“Here’s a better question, then,” I said. “Are flying reindeer native to Midnight?”
He shook his head. “They come from the mountains of Hardreim, Simeon’s domain. But they’re not domesticated.”
“These girls seem pretty domesticated to me!”
“Only with me. I found them during a visit to Hardreim while hiking in the mountains. They followed me down to the city, and wouldn’t leave, so I flew them back here. Ever since, they’ve become my companions, and have been helping me keep a better eye on my Court.”
“If you can get more flying reindeer to work for you, you can station them across the land. They’d be endlessly helpful in trading. No one would need to wait for shipments for days or weeks.”
“I thought of that, but no reindeer would obey anyone but me. Still, I could do deliveries at certain holidays.”
Fairies had holidays? I supposed they did. When I arrived in the Autumn Court they were celebrating something, a festival or a feast, I forgot what. But it seemed they maintained the same gods as we—as humans across the ocean did. I really had to remember I wasn’t one.
Shaking the reminder away, I cocked my head at him. “You’d make deliveries yourself?”
“I might. Kings across the lands participate in celebrations in different ways. Like representing ideals or deities in costume, or distributing offerings like fruits, wine, or jewelry.”
I grinned widely at him. “What would you pass around, snowballs?”
He side-eyed me, feigning annoyance, and failing. “Perhaps I should pass out gifts like your shoes, unique to whoever receives them. It would make people look forward to the dead of winter.”
“You’ll have to stick around to realize that magnanimous plan then,” I said, nudging him with my shoulder.
He leaned into my nudge. “Ultimately, it’s not my choice where my life goes from here.”
“Because of the assassin?”
“Because of my heart.”
That made my own heartbeat slow to a petrified crawl, as suffocating memories of my mother’s final days flashed before my dry eyes, wetting them.
“Are you talking about your apathy or are you being literal?” I choked.
“Both—but the literal part is more urgent. It’s why I finally agreed to Simeon’s push to hold the Midwinter Ball.” He sighed, looking down. I followed his gaze, peering at the citizens gathering around a large bonfire, dancing in circles with extreme energy and loud cheerfulness.
“What are they doing?”
“Tiring themselves out, while keeping themselves warm,” he said with a hint of fond sadness. “The goal on nights like these is to drink and dance till they collapse, then wake only when the sky has begun to warm up. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I could never attend peasant parties.”
“I’ve only attended one, held by Keenan’s family outside their mansion. They seemed to be very familiar with their subjects. So, if you want to start engaging with yours, you could ask his family for their advice on how to do it.
“That’s a great idea …” He trailed off, frowning. “I just realized—had I attended the Equinox Games, we could have met earlier.”
That realization seemed to upset him. I didn’t know how to feel about it. It hadn’t occurred to me that things could have turned out differently if he had.
But considering we’d met earlier than he thought, and that had allowed Dolora to recapture me, maybe an even earlier meeting would have led to something even worse.
I shrugged uneasily. “We could have, but I don’t think it would have turned out like this.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, neither of us would have been there to meet people, and my opinion of fairy royals was pretty low at that point.”
His eyes darkened, growing more intent. “How would you rank your opinion of us now?”
I barely caught back a gushing one, of him specifically, but teased instead, “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On how the rest of this ride goes, if it is going anywhere. What exactly are you showing me?”
His lips twitched. “Either you’re very impatient or you dislike surprises.”
“I like to know where I’m going, and in my experience, surprises have yet to be good things.” I resettled in my seat, looking below as we left the urban area and followed the green river out into the hinterland.
Silvery forests emerged, coating the countryside as it rolled over consecutive hills that had settlements with bigger, sturdier structures, most seeming uninhabited.
People must have moved to Spring, a warmer, more habitable court, or into the city for a better quality of life, possibly keeping these homes for whatever constituted summertime here.
I could see it now, all that snow melting into steady summer rain, leaving the land wet and green, the weather overcast and just warm enough. It seemed optimal for me, where I’d never suffer another scalding summer day in my life.
Bu if he didn’t defrost, neither would this winter wonderland.
“So—your heart is freezing, isn’t it?” I said, the coldness of dread gripping my own.
He refused to meet my eyes. “I’d rather not start that depressing discussion.”
“All we’ve discussed are depressing topics, so why stop now?”
“Because I’m giving you a nice tour of the land. We need a change of pace, to see if we’re capable of fun as well as venting.”
Heart quivering inside my chest, I studied his noble profile, on the verge of persisting.
But I couldn’t push him when his refusal to broach the subject spoke volumes. Depressing ones.
Pulling the woolen blanket tighter around me, I let out a wavering, white-vapor exhalation. “Let the fun begin, then.”
At that, he pulled on the reins and our sleigh took another swoop down, like a vulture targeting its prey, making me sink all my fingers into his arm, feeling like I’d left my guts high above.
Before I could scold him, we were sliding down in a curve following the river until it merged with a lake that was strangely not frozen.
We soon closed in on a sprawling city tucked beneath the greenest area I’d seen in Winter, at the base of a purple, snow-capped mountain overrun with stocky green trees. Unlike the log cabins we’d passed earlier, the architecture here was a fusion of everything I’d seen so far, high structures of slate-grey stone intertwined with wood, while the windows, doors, and, oddly enough, the carriages were made of iridescent glass.
As Yulian brought the sleigh gliding mere dozens of feet from the ground, a group of children and teens breezed below us in sleds dragged by large, fluffy white dogs, all heading towards a section of the woods that stopped at the riverbank.
“Where are they going?” I asked. “What is this place?”
“The edge of our second-largest city, Zelenagrad. It’s evergreen because it shares a border with the Spring Court. As for where they’re going, nowhere in particular.”
I goggled at him. “Nowhere?”
“Just giving their dogs some exercise, or just out for the fun of it.”
“I can’t imagine going out without an errand to run.”
“Out of your own inclinations, or others’ dictates?”
“The latter,” I admitted sadly. “Is this green spot what
you wanted to show me?”
“No, it’s there.” He pointed in the distance as he dropped us again until we grazed the top of a ship’s sails. The sailors onboard laughed and waved at us as we passed.
Soon, we were floating over sidewalks dividing houses from the frozen, cobblestone streets, lined with sparkling, crystalline trees with white leaves and translucent fruit.
Yulian brought us by one of the trees. It was more ethereal up close, glittering and gleaming like the facets of my slippers.
Entranced, I reached out to the nearest branch and touched the glassy fruit. It was round with a stem sprouting a pair of thin, etched-crystal leaves—and looked like a massive diamond.
“Is this an ice apple?” I breathed.
“Ghost apple,” he corrected. “They’re the remnants of white apples endemic to the realm.”
“Remnants how?”
“They’re glazed with ice as they rot on the branches, and after the apple itself shrivels away, we’re left with the shells.” He reached over to pluck his own apple. “I can make these myself, but I figured seeing them on the tree would be nicer.”
I nodded vigorously. “They are incredibly pretty! I would never have thought something like this could happen. I would have figured the apples would be preserved in the ice.”
“Only if it’s beyond a livable temperature. If not, the cold just damages the insides. Just like extreme heat can either preserve something by drying it out, or just escalate its rot.” He touched his chest as he stared down at his ghost apple. “The difference is, damage done by heat is never as beautiful as that created by the cold.”
His words sparked phantom pains all over my body as my cruel mind relived my ordeals with heat and fire. Now I realized Dolora had been treating me as she believed me to be; firewood.
But I’d do anything not to meet that fate. If I ever turned into an ash tree, I knew which fate I’d prefer. That of the ghost apple tree.
But as beautiful and preservative as the cold was, leaving a work of art in its wake, it didn’t erase the damage it caused. As striking as Yulian’s appearance was, that was the stunning side-effect of the death creeping into his freezing heart. The heart I yearned to melt as fast as the shell in my palm did.