1
Reyna
“There’s another village full of the dead.” Reyna stood on the crest of the snow-packed hill, the orange sunset streaking across the sky behind the smoldering buildings. Her snow owl perched on her shoulder, his long talons curling around her hoarfrost cloak. “Perhaps a few have survived the attack. We should go down and check.”
Her sister stood beside her, small and wispy but stronger than she looked. Her billowing cloak was the color of the ice blue sky and her hair as silver as steel. “No. We should tell Father.”
Reyna frowned at Glencora. “By the time we return to the castle and alert Father, any survivors will be dead. We should check the village now.”
Glencora was silent. She surveyed the wreckage of Pinehallow, her silver eyes as distant as they had been for weeks. Her mind was not in the present. Betrothed to the Air Court’s only prince, she would be leaving these lands for a safer kingdom soon enough. The Ruin would no longer be her concern.
“These attacks, if that is what they are, are becoming more frequent.” Reyna cut her eyes across the sweeping lands of the Ice Court. From the vantage point on the top of the hill, the snowy lands seemed endless. Indeed, Reyna had never stepped foot outside of her court. Too dangerous, Father always said. The great continent of Tir Na Nog had been plagued with endless war from the very day of her birth. Reyna did not know peace and could barely comprehend it. Hence, Glencora’s agreement to wed. It would cease the skirmishes between the Air and Ice Courts, and that was a start.
Glencora swore beneath her breath. “He instructed you to merely scout, to ensure the Air Court have called back their bands of fighters. And he only allowed it because he was certain of their retreat. Father will tan my hide if I let you get anywhere near the Ruin.”
She whispered her final two words, as if the very act of speaking ‘the Ruin’ aloud would bring the darkness tumbling down on top of them.
“It will not kill me,” Reyna said, though she could hardly be certain of that. No one knew what caused the Ruin, and no one understood how it left endless darkness behind it. But kill it did. Anywhere the Ruin was found, bodies would lie in its wake. Recently, entire villages had been reduced to nothing but ash. Corners of the great ancient Ice Court were covered in shadows, darkness, and soot.
Still, Reyna set off down the hill. Wingallock pushed off from her shoulder and soared just ahead, his outstretched wings pulsing against the winter air. Reyna’s leather boots crunched into the snow as thorny branches covered in tiny, translucent hoarfrost worms whispered by her ears. Sometimes, she swore she could hear them singing to her, a song that no one else could hear. When she tried telling Glencora and Eislyn about it, they always laughed, but their mockery never doused the voices that filled her head.
Now, the trees were silent, as if in mourning for the dead.
“Reyna!” Her sister quickly followed behind but did nothing to stop Reyna’s advance on the forsaken village. As they drew closer to the blackened buildings, a strange heat pulsed from the stone houses whose thatched roofs were nothing more than charred, smokey pits.
Reyna came to a sudden stop at the very edge of the village where a strange line had been dug into the snow. It stretched from right to left, encircling the buildings. The ground inside of it was black, unlike the ice that appeared untouched where Reyna stood outside of it.
“That is unusual,” Glencora said, suddenly far more interested in their findings. “What do you reckon that’s about?”
“I am certain it is nothing good.”
“And you are still pigheaded enough to look for survivors? With a mark like that on the ground?”
“It looks more like a boundary than a mark.” Reyna gave her sister a slight smile and stepped over the line. “Come along. Or I’ll tell Father you left me to search the village all by myself.”
Glencora scowled.
As always, Reyna simply ignored her. She did not have to follow Father’s strict orders as Glencora did. She was not a future queen, to be wed to a High King’s son. She was not even a princess or a lady anymore. She had shrugged off her courtly duties to fulfill the desires of her warrior heart. Appearances did not matter to her in the least.
What did matter to her were the fae of the Ice Court. She had not taken a vow to protect them, not like the other warriors had, and she never would—former princesses were never allowed to become true sworn Shieldmaidens. But she would protect them all the same.
Reyna took a deep breath and stepped across the boundary. For a moment, she stood and waited, cocking her head to listen with ears that curved into sharp points at the top. The trees were silent in the distance. Not even the ground beneath her feet pulsed with life. In the sky above, Wingallock circled the village. Through his eyes, Reyna saw no stirrings, not of darkness nor of light.
With a nod, she drew her ice dagger from the sheath she wore belted around her waist at all times. The dull light from the cloud-scudded sky glinted off the sharp blade. It had been her mother’s dagger, along with the matching ring she wore on her left hand and the black hoarfrost cloak around her shoulders, held in place by a brooch painted with the Ice Court’s sigil—a silver-blue pair of ice wings. The items gave her strength. They filled her bones with courage. Remembering her mother reminded her of why she fought so hard.
Reyna’s boots crunched as she slowly crept through the ruined village. Every building was covered in soot as if a fire had raged there for days. But Reyna knew the truth. The Ruin did not come from fire. It came from something else, something hidden in the skies.
She had once seen the Ruin take an entire village. As a small child, she had not quite understood what she’d witnessed. It was a heavy darkness that fell like a blanket, as familiar as snow. At first, the specks of black were soothing to the skin. A soft caress against the cheek. But then the darkness squeezed tight, trapping everyone in place. Their charred bones were the only thing left behind, the only sign that there had ever been life.
She shuddered and pressed forward. Casting her gaze across the blackened ground, she searched for survivors, her heartbeat thumping loud in her ears. Her palm had gone slick around the dagger’s silver hilt, and her leather tunic suddenly felt far too tight. Fighting the Ruin was her calling, but that did not mean she was immune to fear.
A soft moan drifted out from the husk of a building just before her. Her footsteps faltered as she came to a sudden stop. The building was small, its thatched roof charred from whatever magic had tormented this place. There had once been a single door, but no windows. Through a gaping hole in the side of the building, she could see a single room. Three beds had been pushed up together along one wall. Beneath those beds were three huddled forms.
And they were alive.
Reyna’s footsteps were loud as she charged into the hut. “Glencora! In here!”
She slid to her knees, her trousers ripping on the rough floor, and peered beneath the bed. Three pairs of frightened silver eyes stared back at her. The survivors were all young. Barely ten years old, if that. Reyna’s heart flickered as she reached out a hand to the nearest one. “Come. Take ahold of my hand.”
Tiny fingers slipped into her palm, and she squeezed them tightly. One by one, she pulled the frightened children out from their hiding place beneath the bed. When all three were safely in front of her, she checked for wounds.