Damien squinted, thinking, then the name came out slowly, “Scot?”
“Scot?” the fae repeated, stony.
Amma cringed—that didnotsound like the kind of name a fae would have.
“The Margrave of the Summer Court,” Damien clarified, nodding and clearing his throat.
“Ah, Scot.” The name was a hiss on his breath as recognition passed quickly over the fae’s face with the arching of one, thin, snowy brow and a smile that revealed quite a few pointed teeth—not that there was anything amiss about that. “Well, even a prince grows weary of his title eventually. Come, human friends of Margrave Scot, let us see how the fae king may aid you from his throne.” He parted the thick, furred cloak he wore to gesture toward the lake.
The fae stepped away from his mount, and it too disintegrated into powdery snow, swept away on a breeze that died out as quickly as it came. Damien never let him out of his sight as he passed by, and there was a warmth Amma wasn’t expecting when the fae came close, like stepping out into the sun from under a shadow.
Amma glanced over to Damien. He looked thoroughly annoyed as his violet eyes trailed the fae, but the circles under them were deepening in their darkness, skin going grey. “Come on,” she said quietly, slipping her wrist from his grasp to take his hand instead, careful not to tug on his injured arm. He relented so quickly that it confirmed everything she feared.
They followed to the lake, the fae continuing out over the frozen surface, and Amma confidently went along behind him. Damien still held onto Amma, fingers clasped, and it proved necessary when they both immediately lost their balance.
Amma’s heart shot up into her throat, arm still tightly around Kaz as she took shallow, nervous breaths. Then she tried laughing, awkward and stilted, as she looked on Damien who sardonically snorted back. They were stuck.
The fae did not look back as he traversed the slick surface with no difficulty, but he made a vague gesture, and a fall of snow appeared along the ice in a trail behind him. Grumbling, Damien tested it, and the two were able to cross, the slickness underfoot diminished but danger still lurking with every step.
The palace lay atop a wide and exhaustingly tall staircase that grew out of the ice, the steps transparent, glowing turquoise, and then shifting to stone at its apex. When they reached the peak, the remainder of Amma’s breath was stolen by the beauty of the palace’s doorless entry. The fae continued ahead of them, and though he was tall, the tunnel he entered into dwarfed even him. Carved from the ice, its walls and ceiling were jagged but reflective with colored lights. Dull yellow, rosy pink, seafoamy green all moved across the walls like ghosts of the world when it was alive, source unseen, then bleeding away into nothing.
The tunnel went on, its ceiling impossibly high, and there were thinner places to allow the starry, night sky to come through, sharp shapes of deep black twinkling with silver. Deeper in, the walls were smoother, archways layered upon one another and reflective so that the corridors leading elsewhere were dizzying. Their footsteps on this floor, no longer ice but a smooth, blue marble with a vein of silver running all through it, were too loud, just like when they crunched through the snow, the silence around elevated no matter how quiet they attempted to be.
At the far end of the grand, entry hall were more stairs that led to a dais, immaculate icy columns flanking it in varying heights, and a plush seat with a high back in its center. The lone piece of furniture in the otherwise bare room, it was covered in brilliantly white fur, a hint of softness surrounded by the harsh, slick walls. Behind the throne, a wall of icicles hung thin and glimmering as they constantly dripped in a trough that reflected more starry light.
Amma took another tentative glance around, noting no attendants, no courtiers, no one at all, including the supposed king. Winter was as empty and desolate as the rumors purported, it seemed.
The fae ascended the dais, shrugging off his heavy furs as he went. The pile turned to snow as it hit the stairs and was swept away into nothing by another unseen force. Beneath, he wore a gown of thin, powdery blue material that clung to his form, collar high and train long, covered in silver filigree. He took the throne, sinking down into the fluffy softness.
His hand opened, long, slender, maybe-extra-knuckled-but-not-quite fingers splaying out then each curling inward, and the water from the trough behind floated upward to form a crown of icicles that sat itself atop his head. “So, beg.”
Damien’s jaw clenched in the exact way Amma expected it to. “Fuck.” He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, readjusting his wounded arm.
“You stand before the King of the Winter Court, and if you would like a wish granted, I would like to hear you beg. Is this proposal offensive to you, human?” The fae king sat forward with a quickness, gripping the arms of his throne, fingers digging into the plush covering with an odd crack.
Damien only groaned, taking a deep breath as if, despite what loomed before them, he could fall asleep right there, standing up.
“Perhaps you ought to have thought of your hubris before siding with that treasonous Margrave Scot.”
“What?” Damien’s eyes opened slowly as he bobbed his head back forward. “Siding? I barely know—”
“Any friend of a pawn of the Emperor of Summer is an enemy of this court’s.”
“There’s a bloody emperor now?” he grumbled as a bit of life flared in Damien even as his shoulders drooped. “I’m fairly certain I didnotsay I was his friend.”
The fae leaned forward even farther, limbs appearing to lengthen, lips pulled back to reveal more of those curiously pointed teeth. “You did not deny it,” the king hissed. “Perhaps he has sent you as spies? Or assassins?”
Amma’s mind sparked—she had been accused of something similar before. Her eyes pinged from the drained blood mage to the incensed fae where she noticed something new, an excitement growing on his features he’d not had before.
Damien wasn’t flustered by the fae’s changing appearance though. “Look, we’ll just go if it’s a problem.”
A slam reverberated through the entry hall, a rush of freezing cold climbing up their backs. Amma spun to see the tunnel was now obscured with a thick wall of ice, disfiguring the world beyond it and run through with cracks from its quick descent. When she turned back, the fae king had settled into his fluffy throne, head held high.
“There’s no need to go flitting off,” he said as if he hadn’t just made it impossible for them to leave. When his smile returned, his teeth were not so pointed, and there was a definitive change there, no longer knowing insistence but something like desperation. “Perhaps we can still work things out.”
“With supposed assassins?” Damien tried to gesture with both hands, forgetting his injury and actually sucking in a pained breath.
“We’re not assassins.” Amma laughed, though nerves tinged her voice as she shifted Kaz to her other shoulder. “But we actually do require aid. Clearly.”
