Malicine’s cape spun in the wind as they stepped to the edge of the cliff. Their arms gestured toward an endless stretch of white, where infinite rows of saw-toothed trees surrounded chalky mountains in the distance.
“Because this is the dreamworld, where your subconscious desires come to life.”
A snowflake drifted to their face. They held up their finger, the sharp tip of their nail barely grazing the crystal before the jewel in their staff glowed. The crystal froze in mid-motion. Even the snow falling around them stopped, suspended in the air. Birds stilled in the sky like puppets dangling from invisible strings. Then, in a fraction of a second, the snowflakes hardened into floating icicles. Malicine pointed their finger, sending shards to Corin and Elly’s faces like flying daggers.
Corin covered Elly with her back and flinched. But a moment passed, and she didn’t feel the cold stab through flesh. She looked up and sucked in a breath, refusing to blink. The crystals hung inthe air, a width of a needle away from pricking her eyes.
“Now it’s my turn for questions,” Malicine said. “Who are you and what hole did you crawl out of?”
Corin still held her breath, afraid that if her head moved forward, she would slice an eyeball against the ice. She hissed her answer through gritted teeth.
“I’m Corin. This is Elly. We come from the kingdom of Gyldan.”
Malicine cocked an eyebrow, as if she’d misspoken. The crystals melted and hit Corin’s face with freezing water. She reeled back, spitting out ice.
“You came from the most prosperous kingdom in the human world, and you look like that?”
Annoyance slipped through Corin’s chattering teeth. “It’s not prosperous. It’s a rotten place filled with soldiers who’d kill any child if it meant claiming a piece of land.”
“That’s not the Gyldan that I remember.”
“Well, whatever you remember, that’s not where we’re from.”
Despite the bitterness in Corin’s response, Malicine’s expression shifted into contemplation. They stroked their jaw in thought before their gaze locked onto Elly like a target.
“You, child. Tell me the truth.”
Elly froze in place, paling under Malicine’s stare. She opened her mouth to speak until Corin jutted her arm between the two. “Stay away from—”
Sharp nails carved into Corin’s throat as Malicine hoisted her body up like a rag doll. She choked under their grip, boots dangling in the air. Impatience made the green of Malicine’s eyes bubble like acid.
“I wasn’t talking to you. You have a liar’s spirit. I can see it in you. But children do not lie.” They looked down at Elly. “You, little one, may be the closest thing your sister has to honesty.”
Elly’s throat bobbed, but she did not tremble. Instead, she straightened her back, lifting her chin as she looked Malicine in the eye.
“Let Corin go, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Malicine tossed Corin into the snow as easily as swatting a fly. She gasped for air, kneeling over the ice while Elly rushed to her side to hold her.
“Aw. What a protective pair of sisters you are.” Malicine hardly sounded touched. “I’ll take your deal, child. You’ll come with me to my castle and explain how you arrived from Gyldan. Then I’ll decide what to do with you.”
Elly agreed at the same time Corin said no. Malicine smiled, as if catching Corin in a lie.
Corin hissed to her sister, “That monster’s going to kill us.”
“Trust me,” Malicine said, “if I wanted to kill you, you would have been dead the second you landed here.”
Elly didn’t look at either of them. Instead, her gaze drifted to the mountains, the fresh fall of snow, the bright-red cardinals that chirped from white-coated trees. A quiet solitude that brought peace, unlike the hollow cold of Gyldan that strangled its people with frost. She glanced down at her worn-out shoes, the dirtied rubber soles nearly falling off, how out of place they looked in the clean sheets of white.
“Is it much of a life if it feels like we’re already dead?”
An answer lodged in Corin’s throat. She wanted to say yes, that there was more to their lives beyond this, that they had suffered for a reason. But nothing came from her lips. They both knew it would have been a lie. The truth, one that she’d learned time and time again, was that sometimes people suffered and died and there was no good reason for any of it.
Jaw tight, Corin nodded while silently cursing the illusion of choice. Malicine waved her staff to take them away. Above, cardinals scattered across the blue sky, wings beating with freedom once denied to them in another world.
CHAPTER 10
122 YEARS AGO
