True love simply didn’t exist in the real world.
CHAPTER 13
THE THINGS CORIN saw throughout their trek couldn’t have existed in the real world, and it solidified her acceptance that this was, indeed, a dream. Icicle lanterns sprouted from the ground along the white woods, pulsing with soft light from each passerby. Hares vanished into snowflakes, reappearing with every gust of wind to let Elly chase them. Owls with crystal wings swooped between branches and scattered shimmering frost onto Malicine’s cape. Corin learned that none of the wild animals were dangerous, yet there remained one that stopped her tracks.
The fox she’d seen earlier reappeared, as if stalking her path. He slipped between the trees like a shadow constantly shifting behind her group. Her footsteps slowed behind the others, veering toward the creature until their shadows became one under the sunlight. Seeing him again, his fur had a slick, oily texture, as if he were made of paint. She reached out to stroke his coat and confirm its familiarity. At her touch, the fox’s face turned into an old tree, orange fur dissolving into charcoal. The pads of her thumbs were left stained black.
She muttered, “I don’t understand how anything in this world works.”
“This world isn’t like yours,” Malicine replied. “It’s not a singular place. They’re fragments of our subconscious pieced together. Unlike reality, these parts aren’t finite. Cracks can form. And if someone enters, they can break apart.”
Corin thought of the jagged edges in the fox’s skin. Perhaps he wasn’t the only thing here that was breakable. The dreamworld appeared whole, yet its parts were delicate, susceptible to collapsing. She imagined the land like her father’s pottery, the way pieces shrank when they dried, creating cracks across the surface. Once, she’d knocked over his favorite bowl and shattered it by accident. She’d tried putting it back together, but there was no point. The fragile lines made her mistakes too noticeable, an ugly reminder of what she’d done.
Maybe this time, Corin would make things right. She would claim the treasure, move away from Gyldan, and start over, leaving those cracked pieces behind.
Her eyes scanned the snowy terrain in newfound determination, but the contours of the land never appeared to end. Every time they reached a new area, Corin would lose track of time, forgetting how long it took to reach their destination. She had no idea how close they were to the treasure, if it was even a linear journey to be measured at all.
“Where is the princess?” she asked, impatience growing.
Malicine simply answered, “In Springland.”
“What’s that?” Elly chimed in. She had continued ignoring Corin since they’d left the ice castle, only communicating with Malicine instead.
“Exactly what it sounds like. A land where only spring exists.”
They held out their hand, and a snowflake landed on their fingertip. The ice melted, shifted, then re-formed into a tulip.Red bled into its petals, bright like a stain, blooming in their hand despite the harshness of winter.
“I’ve forged the world with my magic and split the land into different seasons. It’s easier to organize this way, otherwise we’d be floating through clusters of chaos. Obviously, this is Winterland.”
Red drained from the tulip until it turned translucent like glass. The six petals folded in unison as they froze back into a snowflake, drifting away from Malicine’s hand.
Corin couldn’t imagine what the dreamworld would look like if Malicine hadn’t enforced physics to make sense of it. Even flying across the land or shifting the terrain made her sick and disoriented, so they’d resorted to traveling by foot. Along the way, Malicine explained why the portal shouldn’t have opened. Making an entryway wasn’t possible without blood magic composed of the original elements Malicine had used to create Amelia’s dreamworld. There needed to be a mixture of royal blood and demon blood, and the portal would close as quickly as the blood dried.
After a century of experimentation, Ezran and the godmothers discovered had the exact formula.
“What doesn’t make sense is why they haven’t made another attempt to cross over,” Malicine said. “What is stopping them from entering again?”
The question hung in the air as the group reached a path that dipped below the glaciers. At the bottom was an open mouth filled with crystals. They headed down the slope into the ice cave, and the sight drew a stunned breath from Corin’s lips. Shades of cyan coated each rock, shining like jewels. Icicles glittered like polished teeth. Ripples hung suspended over the walls, as if the ocean had nearly swallowed them whole but stopped just in time.
Their mirror selves were reflected in the crystals as they crossedinside. Malicine, with their black cape and green face, looked like sea-foam. Elly’s brown skin turned a deeper shade of blue from the light breaking through. Corin was a haze of midnight, her black eyes staring back like stars.
Then a red glow emanated from one of the walls. The icy rock illuminated as burning scarlet twisted to orange, then deep purple. The glow burst into a kaleidoscope of colors before each particle came together to form a face.
The recognition of her father froze Corin in place. The crinkles of his eyes, the strong jut of his chin. His broad, flattened nose that flared whenever he laughed. He held the hand of a little girl who looked so much like Elly that it took a moment to realize she was Corin. His fingers were big and calloused, scratching against her skin in a way that comforted her. She could actually feel it.
“What is this?” Corin whispered.
“Memories.” Malicine’s voice echoed around the cavern walls. “Dreams take from our subconscious, which means memories show up too. This cave holds our fond memories and keeps them frozen. Unlike reality, they stay this way forever.”
Visions of their lives together clung like spider silk on the ice. The low hum of her father’s voice as he worked with his pottery wheel. The smell of her mother’s turnip stew as she kneaded bread. Fragments of memory flitted past one by one like a whisper, until eventually, the entire cave glowed in warm orange. Corin stood inside sticky summer and sunlight, surrounded by her mother’s paintings, her father’s pots, her own collection of paintbrushes.
She’d been proud of her parents’ work. They’d been artists by trade, escaping to Gyldan for a better life. When they died, she didn’t know how to survive other than turn to art again. Perhaps that was why the artisans took her in. The ice morphed intocracked walls and makeshift tables, old canvases and spilled paint. Maggie’s hideous blanket stitched from different quilts. Rowan’s wool tangling around everyone’s feet. Harlow’s calloused hands opening to reveal a clay figurine of a fox.
She’d laughed at Corin’s mouth hanging open in shock, but Corin had never imagined seeing her father’s work again. It was common for soldiers to pawn other people’s belongings after raiding their homes, which meant her family’s collection might as well have been destroyed. Harlow had recognized the clay figurines that once belonged to Corin’s father, now upsold at the secondhand shop of Woodbine, a businessman with ties to several army generals. In one swift move, while Woodbine eye had been distracted by another customer, Harlow had swiped the smallest piece and put it in her pocket to take back.
Now here she stood again, this precious gift in her hands, her mouth split into that cocky smile.
Corin pictured her best friend as clearly as ink spilling across the ice caverns. The rocks surrounding her bathed in shimmering yellow like the warmth of sun in her chest. But the warmth soon turned to an unbearable heat, and the glowing tendrils that flickered across the walls turned too bright.
