“Now,” the female says, peering down at me with icy blue eyes. “Take a moment to catch your breath, then I’d love to hear your name.”
I swallow, but when I fidget, the guard only sinks his fingers into my arms more tightly. The female must not notice, because she doesn’t look like the type of person to tolerate hurting a kid. Her cheeks are white as fresh-fallen snow and not at all rosy, but there’s a softness to her expression despite her icy eyes.
She looks older than most fae I’m used to seeing. Not as old as the elderly humans I sometimes meet when Father takes me along to trade with him. Her hair isn’t gray and her face isn’t eaten up with wrinkles, but they’re starting to creep into the corners of her eyes, her colorless lips.
“I’m Nox,” I say once I catch my breath. My heart is still thumping against my chest, but more from sprinting up the hill, not as much from dread anymore.
Though remnants of my snowball still coat the woman’s shoulders, there’s no irritation in her expression, nor in that of the male who sits beside her.
“Nox.” The female smiles, and I find that I like the way my name sounds in her soothing voice. It sings with approval. “And how old are you?”
My lips prepare to say “thirteen,” but then I remember the last time I lied. The pain that had struck my chest when my throat closed up. That happens to fae children when they reach a certain age. Because of an age-old curse, we’re punished if we lie. When we’re adults, the curse can turn deadly, though Father says it becomes less potent with each generation, whatever that means.
“Eleven,” I say, though the truth is much less satisfying to say.
I miss being able to lie. To make things up.
“Eleven?” The female’s barely visible eyebrows lift, gazing beyond the guard and me toward where the catapult sits abandoned. “Eleven years old, and already operating such a menacing weapon?”
My cheeks warm with pride, and I straighten. “Not only operate, missus. I built it.”
Her icy eyes shine with what I think might be amusement.
“Built it? That?” the male next to her asks, though he sounds equally amused.
I nod, noting how the air still courses freely through my open throat. The nice thing about the curse is that it doesn’t punish the fae for omitting information. Information such as Zora’s aid in making the catapult.
Not that she was much assistance at all, except for helping me tug the cumbersome trough out of the barn.
“Now what does an eleven-year-old have need of a catapult for?” the female asks, wrinkling her brow in feigned suspicion.
I shrug. “Regular snowball fights are boring.”
“Now that you’re eleven?” she asks.
I confirm her assessment with a nod.
The male next to her chuckles, his heavy fur coat shaking at the shoulders.
“You seem to have quite the imagination,” the female says, and since she seems to like that about me, I decide not to correct her by telling her I didn’t make the catapult for my imagination at all, but to launch real snowballs at real people.
“Can I tell you a secret, Nox?” the female asks, and though my heart races with excitement, the question raises the hairs on the back of my head. It reminds me of something my mother always warns me. I’m not allowed to keep adults’ secrets.
But I suppose that doesn’t mean I can’t listen to them.
“Of course,” I say, though I instantly remember what else my mother tells me; I’m not to speak to strangers on the road.
But I can’t very well help it with a guard holding me still, now can I?
“My name is Abra,” the female says.
My jaw drops. “Abra? As in Queen Abra?”
I decide then that, had my mother known the Queen of Mystral would be passing by our property, she wouldn’t have kissed my head and told me not to speak to strangers.
Or at least, she would have offered the Queen of Mystral as an exception.
The queen smiles and nods.
I turn to the male sitting next to her, noting for the first time his stately posture. “That must make you the king, then.”
“How astute of you,” the guard behind me whispers, but the queen shoots him an icy glare, and he goes deathly still.
I think I like our queen.
Apparently, so does Zora, because she leaps out from behind a nearby boulder and comes hurtling at us. “YOU’RE THE QUEEN AND KING?”
I curdle in embarrassment, my cheeks going hot, but Zora doesn’t seem to notice. Her blond hair is a tangled mess, matted with soiled snow, but my sister has little awareness of her appearance as she bounces over to the royal carriage.
“I’m Zora, and this is Nox,” she says, though neither of them asked. She drops into a curtsy so low her nose grazes the snow, and when she bounces back up, condensation drips from her nose.
If the guard didn’t have my arms contained to my side, I’d bury my face in my hands.
The queen bounces her gaze between the two of us. “Zora and Nox,” she says. “Dawn and Night. The two of you even look it.”
It’s true. While Zora’s features are warm—her hair golden and her skin prone to glowing as long as she gets enough sunshine—I’m the opposite. My hair is as black as the night sky, my skin as pale as the moon.
Zora nods, as encouraged by the queen’s assessment as I am mortified. “We’re twins, but I was born in the day, and Nox was born in the night.”
