The Ice Queen

  But the shadows were not there.

  “Does your Queen know you are here?”

  A sound much like a neigh dropped from the centauress’s tongue. “No.”

  Her brow twitched. “Then why have you come?”

  A jet of arctic air whistled through the heavens, blasting between them. The touch of it soothed Luminesa’s cold soul, but the creature trembled. Her flanks twitched with a powerful spasm.

  “I came to find you, Queen.”

  “To render aid?” she asked, knowing already that if this centaur had dared to seek her out, it could be for no other reason.

  She nodded once, stamping her front hoof in agitation.

  “Why?”

  The female looked off into the distance, her lips tugged down into a tight scowl. “My brother was stolen. Thrust into a land of ice which I cannot reach.”

  Her fingers curled into a tight fist, and Luminesa knew that if the centaur could, she’d have had an arrow notched into the bow resting upon her back and aimed directly at Luminesa’s heart. Though centaurs were honorable, they weren’t known for being very trusting. It was why they preferred to stick to their kind almost exclusively, only stepping outside of their herd during times of absolute necessity.

  To see this centauress here, now, and alone...something very grave had happened indeed.

  She lifted a brow. “And you think I’ve done this?”

  Scowling fiercely, the centaur looked her head on and grunted, “Aye, I do.”

  Had she been less discombobulated by the events of the day, Luminesa might have caused a wind to roll by, pick her up, and toss her unceremoniously down the side of a cliff. But there was something about this female Luminesa liked. Her straightforwardness, her fearlessness—possibly even recklessness—in seeking her out herself even knowing the consequences that could incur.

  “I did not do it to him,” she finally said.

  “Then who has!” The centauress demanded, again kicking out her hoof.

  There’d been something about the man’s gait earlier that’d seemed strange to Luminesa. It’d been hard to tell what he truly was because of the white out conditions he and the children had walked through, but it wasn’t hard to imagine that it was very possible he was only partly human.

  Damn that Under Goblin, hadn’t he said as much himself? If the centaurs believed that Luminesa had broken the treaty there could be war on her lands, unnecessary bloodshed and violence.

  They’d never win.

  But the losses would be great on both sides.

  Even if she’d never agreed to his little game, he’d ensured she’d not have walked away from him unscathed. The detestable male was a ruthless and calculating strategist; she’d give him that.

  “Have you lost children too?” she asked quietly.

  The centauress frowned deeply; her wide blunt teeth—very reminiscent of a horse’s—were in sharp detail as her upper lip curled back with disdain.

  “No. Why do you ask me this?”

  Sighing, Luminesa stared up at the heavens. So it was likely a centaur male, and two human children. She hated the Under Goblin, loathed the male with every fiber of her being.

  One of the many reasons why Luminesa had rarely had issue with the centaurs was their own disdain for the human race. Though half-human themselves, they had a tendency to view their kind as a superior breed that was set apart.

  The male, whoever he was, would likely only tend to those children a while longer before he decided they served no purpose other than to fill the ache in his belly.

  She wasn’t sure whether centaur’s viewed humans as food, but without a doubt they ate meat, unlike their gentler, more docile cousins.

  “Because I believe I know what has happened to your brother.”

  “Alador,” she snapped.

  Luminesa shrugged. “Alador then.”

  “And that is?” The female barked, clearly growing frustrated by Luminesa’s continued lack of sharing.

  “Tell me, centauress”—Luminesa ignored her—“why come to me and not your Queen?”

  Those unearthly malachite colored eyes flared, and for a brief moment Luminesa caught a spark of fire dancing within them.

  “I did.”

  There was a finality to her tone that Luminesa picked up on quite clearly. “Ah. I see. The Queen does not care about the fate of one lone centaur male? Not as valuable as a female. Why would you think I would feel any differently then?”

  That same quicksilver spark of fire continued to dance through the woman’s eyes.

  “Because...because Alador isn’t like the rest of us. He’s different.”

  “How so?”

  Centaurs were a matriarchal species. The consequence of losing a lone male was tolerable in the grand scheme of things. Especially if it meant preventing war and the deaths of the more valuable females of the herd.

  “He has a peculiar type of kindness to him, one little understood by my kind. But he is my brother and I would do anything to see him safe.”

  Kindness to him. Luminesa almost scoffed at that.

  Fiery. Intelligent. Brave...all adjectives she’d use to describe the centaurs. But kind wasn’t generally a word she thought of when she thought of them.

  They were hard, antisocial, and standoffish when it came to dealing with anyone outside of the herd.

  “I’m sure you’re aware that coming to me as you are wouldn’t be looked upon favorably by your peers. Seeking outside help such as mine.”

  Her jaw thrust out. “Only you control the ice, mistress. Believe me, if I could bring him back on my own, I would. But that land is sealed off to me.”

  “All for one brother?”

  This centauress might not own to it, but her coming to Luminesa was also very different. Just what kind of creature was this centaur male that his sister would brave the wrath of her own kind this way?

  Clenching her teeth, she glanced down at her hooves but gave one hard shake of her head.

  “You would risk your standing within your herd for him?”

  Nostrils flaring, she glared up at Luminesa. “I would do anything for him, even walk through a bed of burning coals and glass. He is my brother, can you not understand that?”

  The passion in her voice and the barely checked tears had Luminesa trembling. It’d been so long since she’d felt much emotion, but she felt it burning off this centauress in great waves.

  Baatha cried his terrible cry, the one that shriveled up human souls to hear it. It was a cry to battle, a cry of war. His talons dug into Luminesa’s flesh, gouging and ripping through, causing her blood to well. But she did not flinch back from him. She felt his nerves, his fear for her.

  The centauress glanced at him, smiling almost softly at her snow falcon.

  “I mean your mistress no harm, falcon,” the female said.

  And though Luminesa knew the creature was still furious over her perceived wrong, her words for Baatha were sincere. The falcon heard it too and tipped his head in acknowledgement.

  The lashing winds gentled, and became still, the air became pregnant with fat flakes of snow instead.

  “What is your name female?”

  She blinked long black lashes back at Luminesa. “Why?”

  Why indeed? Luminesa had no idea what she was doing right now, but names were power, names were truth.

  Luminesa held her tongue, waiting the centauress out.

  None of them needed to know that she’d entered a high stakes game with the Under Goblin and that Alador was an unfortunate casualty of it. Luminesa would bring him back, but not for this woman, this clan, or even for Alador himself.

  She would bring him back because she refused to lose.

  Period.

  “Haxion,” the female finally whispered, “my name is Haxion.”

  “Well then, Haxion,” Luminesa said slowly, “I shall do as you bid. I will find your brother, and I will return him safely to you.”

  “And in exchange I will owe you
what?” Hatred burned like a beacon in Haxion’s eyes.

  Her lips tipped up into a half sort of smile. “Payment shall be determined later.”

  There would be no offers of hope, or pointless platitudes, Luminesa would give none. Instead she turned on her heel, and walked back into her ice palace.

  The doors slammed thunderously behind her.

  ~*~

  An hour later Luminesa stood over that sliver of glass once again, watching the trio as they trekked aimlessly through the snow.

  She had to do something.

  Though it terrified her to her core, she knew she would never be able to live with herself if something happened to those children.

  But that resolve didn’t help solve the problem of just how she was supposed to go about it.

  She’d already closed her eyes many times, willing herself to them. As a conjurer of ice and snow she controlled all the elements and everything that lived within her realm.

  But this “enchanted” place was set apart from her.

  She couldn’t go to them.

  Baatha cried out, asking her a question and very clearly irritated by how ruffled his feathers had become.

  “Then go to bed,” she muttered without looking up at him, “I’m not the one keeping you here.”

  He whistled his crankiness at her through his beak holes.

  She almost smiled at that. Baatha was such a bear when he didn’t get his rest.

  Reaching over to him, she idly stroked her fingers along the soft down of his feather between his eyes when she froze with an idea.

  Heretofore she’d not touched the glass.

  “What if—” she whispered, and then reached down with her other hand, barely scraping her pinky finger along its smooth surface.

  Fire suddenly erupted through that touch. Jumping from that mirror, through her body, down her spine, and up to her brain.

  She screamed as the world whirled around her, bleeding through with colors as she was tossed head over foot toward an unknown place. And because she’d been touching Baatha, he came too.

  His talons dug into her forearm as he trembled tightly into her form.

  Luminesa held him close...and then...she landed in a pile of snow softer than a pillow.

  Sitting up, she coughed snow out of her mouth. Baatha was screeching and flapping his wings in fury, and a cold, dead weight of emotion took anchor in her heart as she gazed upon their bleak surroundings.

  Recognizing it almost immediately as the world the three now roamed.

  Standing, Luminesa turned her hand over, only just now realizing that she held onto the mirror. And that now it no longer burned with magick.

  She shook her head and murmured, “Dear Gods, this can’t be good.”

  Chapter 4

  Alador

  The blinding ice and snow wasn’t the only problem Alador and the children faced. It was the fact that after hours of walking they’d yet to find a place suitable to shelter in.

  Built as he was to handle the cold, even he felt the sharp sting of it burn against whatever flesh was exposed. He’d long since shifted out of his centaur form into that of a human male.

  When he’d come upon the children as a centaur they’d looked upon him with fear, scuttling out of his reach as best they could. No doubt terrified out of their wits by the unfamiliarity of him.

  Alador knew only a little of what’d happened to him, and clearly the children knew no more than him. He’d fought like the devil when the Under Goblin had magically snatched him from the safety of his herd.

  Even a creature as powerful as the Under Goblin was no physical match for the prowess of a fully-grown centaur male, but where Alador bested the goblin in strength, he was no match against magic.

  The only magic inherent to his kind was the ability to shift from centaur to man and back again.

  There’d been no warning, no words of taunting, no boasting whatsoever. The Under Goblin had merely sneered at Alador as he’d wiped at the blood on his lips and thrust him inside this maze of ice and snow.

  Not that Alador had expected a full explanation, but something might have been nice. Now they walked blind through a storm that seemed hell bent on their destruction with no reason or knowledge of why.

  The Ice Queen was in a fury, of that he was certain.

  For miles he’d walked, sure he was alone in this nightmare, only to discover the children a few hours later.

  They were all tired, all aching from the journey that seemed to lead nowhere. Even breathing was becoming more and more difficult in these conditions. His chest ached, no doubt due to the struggle with the Goblin, but keeping on his feet for so long wasn’t helping.

  The howling winds were shrieks of wrath as they shook the ice and snow from off frozen pine branches. Teeth chattering, he looked down at the children, their footsteps had turned slow and plodding. Their already pale skin was now a ghostly shade of white.

  Only a few hours in, but already he sensed death’s kiss lingering upon their doorstep. If they didn’t find shelter soon, they wouldn’t last another day.

  Only problem was everywhere they turned was nothing but towering, skeletal trees, and valleys of white. There were no caves, no dips or grooves in the ground to build a temporary lean to from. There was just nothing.

  He looked down up the children once again, his insides aching with the futility of their situation.

  There was a little girl, Gerda, and a boy, Kai. They spoke with accents from the Northern parts of Kingdom—melodious, but with a slight lisp to it.

  Why were they here?

  What had they done to the Goblin? Not that Alador believed the children had out and out done anything, but surely the goblin had to have had a reason for choosing those two over say, children from the Eastern lands.

  Why them?

  And for that matter, why him?

  Trembling, Alador fought the natural inclination of his body to freeze up, and gathered the children tighter to him, tossing the long edges of his cloak over them, covering them completely.

  In his valley it rarely blizzarded, he was eternally grateful that today of all days he’d reached for his cloak.

  Without it, he’d have had no buffer for the children.

  Though his herd lived in close proximity to the Ice Queen she’d never taken her rage out of them. They too lived in a world of ice, but it teemed with life. With animals, and plants, and a constant harvest of winter grains. Here there were dead trees and nothing but white upon white.

  But he was also developing a niggling suspicion that this wasn’t an eternal land, rather that somehow they were trapped in a loop of time that kept them permanently rooted in a certain circumference of time. He wasn’t sure of the dimensions, but he did know that the rock they were walking toward now bore the same slash marks he’d carved into it a few hours back when they’d passed it.

  His heart sank. This place was enchanted, a trap, they’d not been meant to escape.

  Pragmatic to the core, as all centaurs were, he refused to give into false hope or even offer those assurances to the children. Wherever they were, and for whatever reason the Under Goblin had thrust them there, they’d never stood a chance of getting out.

  Clenching his back molars, he knew the next logical step to take was to stop walking in endless circles, and build some form of shelter. No doubt Haxion would try to figure out a way to get to him. Their sibling bond was such that she already knew the peril he faced.

  Shelter, and water. That’s what they needed most. With those two things they could at least buy her a few days to try and figure a way out for them.

  Since there didn’t seem to be any natural buffer zones against the wind and snow, Alador decided to do the next best thing and dig a snow cave out of the ice itself. It would still be cold, but without the wind bearing down on them, it would feel a little warmer at least.

  And if the children were comfortable enough with him now, he could transform back to centaur and throw off more he
at in that form. It wouldn’t be nearly as nice as a warm bed, but it would be a million times better than what they had now.

  He was about to yank the cloak off his shoulders and wrap it tightly around the children while he went in search of timber to build a fire with, when the shrill cry of a bird pierced the deafening chaos of winter’s storm.

  That was the first sign of true life he’d heard in this place. Earlier he’d sworn there’d been the voice of a woman speaking to them, but the voice had faded away, convincing him what he thought he’d heard had been nothing more than the howling of wind echoing through this strange, cursed land.

  The falcon, covered in thick, white plumage landed on the gnarled tip of a branch, blinking golden, beady eyes down at them.

  Alador frowned; he’d seen that bird before. Speckled with black spots along its hind and tail, but it was its beak that’d trigger the memory in him. Its beak was the rich blue of an ice vein.

  “To me, Baatha.”

  The woman’s voice was shocking to hear even as the tonal quality of it was a velvety caress to his ears.

  The children tucked beneath his cloak shifted, peeked out as he too turned to look at her.

  The Ice Queen.

  The woman of myth, legend, and undeniable beauty.

  Seemingly carved from out of the very ice she called home. Her skin was a glasswork image of feminine curves and graceful lines. Slashing cheekbones, a softly rounded jaw, and a delicate nose. Piercing arctic-blue eyes raked him, making his own flesh tremble.

  Her hair was a cascade of shimmering strands of silvery-white that flowed halfway down her legs in supple waves. Around her head she wore a crown of ice and buzzing through that crown were the languid, fat little bodies of snow bees.

  Dressed in a gown of purest white interspersed with strands of glittering gems dangling like winking ice-crystals in the sun. On her shoulders were silver epaulettes that seemed spun from liquid mercury and should have looked strangely out of place on the ethereal beauty but instead they only heightened her exotic appeal.

  With an ear-splitting cry, Baatha flew to her, landing heavily on one of them.

  But the Queen did not even flinch. Her gaze hadn’t once strayed from his.