I offered her a smile. “I’ll take you. When all this is over, you can come and visit, and I’ll show you around.”
Did I actually want to break the curse and open the rifts if it meant unleashing bloodsuckers into my world? Could I put my friends and family in danger, just so I could see them again? My parents would be in bits without me, but if they were given a choice, would they want me back if I brought a plague of vampires with me? Maybe it would be better for the princes to stay sleeping, and me to stay lost. Only, if I announced that I had no intention of breaking the curse, the witches would drop me. They’d done so much for me, but only because they knew what I could do for them. I was under no illusions. I’d be trapped, alone and friendless, in a world where I had no place. No home. Nothing to my name. If that was my future, I’d be better off dead.
“Mother above, would you really?” Pansy fizzed with excitement at my side, distracting me from my bleak choices. “Please don’t say you’re lying, or my heart might break. I’ve always wanted to see the human world!”
I smiled. “You might be disappointed, but yeah, of course, I’ll take you.”
“Can I have hair like yours when I come?”
I blinked in surprise. “You want colourful hair?” I pursed my lips as I eyed her dark coils. There was no hope of bleaching it light enough to reach a pastel shade, not if she still wanted hair on her head, but a darker shade could work.
“Purple,” she said at once, as though she’d been thinking about it for a lot longer than our chat warranted. “It suits me best, and it’s my favourite colour. Can I have purple hair?”
My lips curved into a smile. She’d clearly put thought into this. “Yeah, why not? I’ll do it for you.”
Pansy slipped into a fast-paced monologue of all the reasons she wanted to visit my world, and all the things she was going to do while she was there. I smiled blandly, agreeing now and again, but my thoughts were far away. Everything rested on my breaking the curse. On me being the human to survive what my countless predecessors had not. All these hopes, all these dreams. They settled on my shoulders, heavier than they should have been. The witches and I worked for a brighter future.
From where I was standing, it looked horribly bleak.
As the day went on, the shadows lengthened, and the pleasant morning warmth began to fade. The sun was still shining when I was forced to adjust my wrap, tucking it snugly into my belt to ward off the chill.
Sage, noticing my fussing, said, “We’re approaching Tir o Gaeaf. It is a land of snow and ice.”
Ice? But we were in the midst of summer. Not that anyone would believe it, judging by the growing cold.
“This might seem like a stupid question, but is it cold there?”
Sage’s lips twitched. Was that a smile?
“I have been to the human world, girl. I remember your seasons well. One after another, on an endless rotation. Things are different here.” No shit. “Tir o Gaeaf is blanketed in permanent snow.”
“Because of the curse?” I whispered.
It was the last kingdom standing against King Maelgwyn, and we all knew how he liked to deal with his problems. Kidnap and torture and death.
“No. It’s just the way of it. Each kingdom has its own climate. Gaeaf is a land of everlasting winter.”
Sure enough, the further we walked, the colder it became, until I was forced to pull my wrap over my head and retrieve my gloves from my pack. The trees we passed had fewer leaves, and then none at all, just arthritic, dark limbs tangling overhead. Even the fairies dwindled, and the few that remained glowed in shades of blue and green. My breath grew white, puffing out before me like dragon smoke. As the light failed, glittering frost coated the ground, crunching underfoot as the woodland turned to firs and evergreens. I began to think longingly of my favourite coat, stuffed in my crowded wardrobe back home, but the cold couldn’t stop me from staring around in wonder. It seemed that no matter how long I spent in this world, no matter how much magic and danger I encountered, there would always be a new surprise waiting just around the corner. I didn’t bother to question how we’d gone from midsummer to winter in just a few short hours, but when the first patches of snow appeared between the trees, I did wonder how much further we had to go.
When the trees grew sparse, with wider glimpses of the darkening sky above them, I spotted the edge of the forest. A snow-covered hill sloped away from us, leading into a wide, white valley encircled by low mountains. We paused at the treeline, and I took a moment to catch my breath and admire the ethereal beauty of Tir o Gaeaf.
In the valley basin sat a great frozen lake. It was a dull, flat shade of iron grey at that moment, but my heart swelled against my ribs at the sight of it. Beyond the lake, hundreds of glowing lights twinkled, and past those, a breathtaking structure rose, pale and ghostly, against the dark mountains. A palace. Not an ugly little castle like Nairsgarth, but a proper fairytale castle, with all the spires and towers and spikes I could have asked for. Unless I was much mistaken, it was made of ice.
“Aliza,” Sage said at my shoulder. “Welcome to Tir o Gaeaf.”
Something whistled past my head, close enough to ruffle my hair, and a thud sounded at my back.
I spun in time to see a shower of snow falling from the fir tree behind me, set loose by the arrow protruding from the trunk.
Panicked voices rose around me, but Sage held up a gloved hand, her voice rising over the din. “Quiet! Stay calm. It was only a warning.”
“A warning?” I snapped, my near-death experience getting the better of my temper. “It almost killed me!”
“Exactly.” Sage levelled a flat glare at me. “If it had been fired in earnest, there would be no almost about it.”
My mouth fell open, but a hand closed around my upper arm, gripping tight enough to hurt. Pansy stood at my side, the brown of her skin giving way to a greenish pallor. I followed her terrified gaze.
Two men approached, their eyes and loaded bows trained on us as they stomped up the snowy hill.
“Border guards,” Sage muttered, before raising both her hands into the air and stepping forward. “Friends. We come from Ymyl Cefnfor on the business of the High Priestess of Nairsgarth. We mean no harm.”
“Then drop your weapons. All of them,” barked one of the men.
They were both unnervingly handsome, tall and broad, though as they were wrapped in leather and fur, it was impossible to guess how much of their bulk was owed to muscle. Not that I was interested in that. Not beyond sizing up my newest enemy, anyway.
Sage unbuckled the short sword she carried at her hip, tossing it into the snow several feet ahead of her. The other witches hesitated before following her lead. I fumbled with my own daggers, wondering how wise this course of action was, but my numb fingers made slow work, and one of the guards fixed his attention on me.
Maybe it was something to do with all the snow and ice, but his irises were almost painfully blue.
Damn me to hell, but I couldn’t hold that beautiful gaze. I lowered my eyes hurriedly and dropped my daggers at my feet. Snow crunched, and leather boots came into view, too big to belong to any witch. I lifted my eyes. A leather breastplate, and a fancy buckle holding a fur capped cloak. I swallowed down my unease, almost choking on it, and looked up.
Even with the fae guard standing slightly further down the slope, he was taller than me. My lips parted in surprise. It was a rare thing to meet anyone, even a man, who forced me to look up. And fuck me, he was gorgeous. Rugged but pretty, his eyes threatening to skewer my soul if only he met my own, but he was, predictably, looking at my hair. My fishtail plait fell over my left shoulder, and a few strands of candy floss pink had come loose around my face.
“What are you?” the guard asked, and God damn him, I wanted to fall to my knees there and then. There was certainly nobody like this on the hookup apps back home.
“This is Aliza with an A,” Sage answered his question with a note of smug victory in her voice. “A human.”
