The sun beat down. Sweat gathered along my forehead. I wiped my brow on my sleeve. For an arctic world, it was so hot.
As much as my body screamed to turn around, I spotted a shadowy alcove ahead, and I needed some shade before making that hellish trip back.
Blisters rubbing against the heel of my boot, I hobbled along the trail.
The alcove was bigger than I’d thought, a glistening hideaway carved into the side of the mountain, sheets of translucent ice creeping over the stone.
A cauldron sat in the middle. I peeked inside, relieved to find it empty.
Sticks, leaves, bits of hay and flower petals scattered the floor—remnants of a bed. I kicked an apple core, the bittersweet stench of rot tickling my nose.
Who or what had been living here?
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The quiet, the stillness—it was too staged, as if someone was watching. Assessing.
As I spun around, a pair of glacial eyes greeted me from the wall. I sucked in a breath.
In a few short strides I was standing in front of them, gaze tracing the curious drawing: the sweep of their lashes, the smudged outer corners, the lines drawn in ash and paint—the same turquoise as the ice that crept over the sides and the ceiling of the cave.
I reached for the surface.
The second my skin touched the rock, those blue eyes whipped through my mind. They sat deep within the folds of an aged, wrinkled face, one I did not know, crinkled in manic delight.
I jumped back, my heart ramming against my rib cage.
A sadistic cackle ripped through the space, a harsh echo in my skull. A gust nipped at my clothes like fingers; the eyes pierced me as if they saw into my soul.
Without a second thought, I sprinted down the trail, not stopping or slowing when I slipped on the frosted gravel, not once looking back.
That creepy laugh intertwined with the howl of the wind, seeming to follow me all the way down. I paused at a lower elevation, before the path dropped nearly vertical to the base of the mountain.
The elven kingdom sparkled in the distance. That mysterious cloud still hovered above the runout zone; in the short time I’d been away, more misty plumes had drifted up the cliffside. Tendrils of them slithered into the compact snow. Fissures broke through the white surface, the outer layer of powder trickling down the slope.
Horror hit me like a bone-chilling cold. The evil magic threaded in the strange fog was going to trigger another avalanche.
I glanced at the glacier. The elves were still nowhere near done clearing the first one, and if I peered closely… the sage satin robes, the fur-lined mantle, the silver armor flocking—the queen was right in its path.
There was a bustle of movement next to her, much too animated for a guard or one of her dreadfully old court members, paired with a flash of pink hair. Freyja. No doubt Gunnar stood next to her, and Eva and Siebel and Fritz. Another person hustled towards them, her raven curls bouncing. Olivia.
Loud booms, like thundercracks, rattled the air.
The escarpment shuddered. Fragments of rock broke off the crags, tumbling towards the messy pile below.
Projecting my voice, I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Get back!”
It was no use.
Those eerie, arctic eyes from the cave zapped across my mind. A mass of ice and snow and shadow separated from the mountain and sped towards the fortress.
Towards my friends.
That witchy cackle that’d been bouncing off the pass, echoing in my mind, roared in the debris. Between one blink and the next, the second avalanche was already halfway to the bottom.
Colorful specks skittered in the distance, aiming for the castle—people had finally caught notice and started running, but it was too late.
The snow was moving like it was ravenous, too fast, too deadly.
It shot by me, spraying me with a violent wave of rubble. The ground shook beneath me, splitting the path, knocking me to the ground.
