Ilyas

As soon as Jem’s footsteps abated, I grinned. Oh, too easy. A pretty people indeed, but dim in the head.

I quickly dressed, slipping my arms back into the robe sleeves and pulling the collar tight over my chest. I yanked on the knee-length coat, buttoned it from knee to chin, wound the scarves around my neck and raised the hood. Covered so well, only a slice of my dark skin and violet eyes distinguished me from any of the shabby peasants outside. The perfect disguise.

Then I stepped up to the door and pushed it open with my forefinger. The hinges protested with a squeal, as if they knew its prisoner was escaping, but the iron door swung open.

Silly, silly Jem. He’d been so befuddled when he’d fled, he hadn’t shut it tight enough for the lock to slip into place.

Oh well, I should give him a commendation for even managing this well, even though he wouldn’t know what commendation meant. Still, he should have at least left a guard.

I sauntered down the empty corridor towards the stairs we’d arrived through. Jem had fled the other way, probably further into this tomb. But I didn’t want to go further inside. I wanted to get back to the port, and hire a ship to Nuriya for my triumphant return.

There must be someone in this godforsaken place — excuse me, Dark-Godforsaken place — with horses for hire. I was not walking all the way back to the port. Jem hadn’t bothered with a horse or an ass, but then knowing the extent of Jem’s capabilities, it’s amazing we even survived the trek.

The prince regent must have a few horses, even if his citizens were too poor to keep any themselves. I’d steal one and some real food, and I’d make it halfway back to the port before Jem even noticed I was missing.

I shoved open the door to the courtyard. Arctic air rushed over me, scraping at my cheeks and freezing my dripping nostrils as if the scarves were figments of my imagination.

Dark-Godforsaken place indeed.

I gritted my teeth to keep them from chattering. Despite its initially befuddling appearance of huddled black buildings and a labyrinth of bridges crossing over the streets, the town was laid out in a straight line from the hovel they graciously called a castle down to the sheer ice gates. Jem hadn’t even bothered to cover my eyes and take me down a few unnecessary turns to confuse me.

Oh no, he’d let me see everything. That was the difference between us.

I entered the courtyard, my feet crunching on fresh snow. Banks of the wretched stuff were piled against the stone walls. I sneered at it. If this were my palace, I would have had it all hauled outside the gates.

But then, not even the prince regent Hami or Hemi or whatever approached Nuriyite standards. In Nuriya, we had saplings in the audience chamber and private gardens planted with rare flowers brought back from kingdoms across the ocean. In this place, they had snow and rock and more snow. Hemi might have had an ounce of political acumen, convincing the peasants he saved the throne for the legitimate heir instead of biding his time before strangling the brat, but that didn’t prove much.

He didn’t even have guards posted outside his castle. Look, I was about to leave the palace yard, and there was no one to stop me!

Oh Mehdi, Mehdi, Mehdi. He’d made an extremely unfortunate alliance. He must have been so desperate. Desperate enough to risk what I’d do to him when I returned. I had those happy thoughts to warm me while I made the long trek back.

Now where did the prince regent keep his stables?

The snow bank against the courtyard wall rumbled. I stopped, staring at it, but it remained still. Of course it did. It was snow. Snow didn’t rumble, did it? I’d seen acres and acres of it, more than I’d ever wanted to in an entire lifetime — in fifty lifetimes — and it had never rumbled.

I started to turn away, peering around me for a likely path to the stables, but out of the corner of my eye, the snow shook, sending a dusting of flakes into the air.

“What the…”

Then it burst out of the snow bank.

My eyes bulged, my heart clenched in my chest, as it landed. Long, powerful legs, beady eyes, and ears as long as its legs. I’d seen such a creature once near the Sentei port, scurrying across the snowbanks as a gaggle of children and four adults chased after it.

A rabbit, Jem had called it.

But this was no tiny creature. When it sat on its hind legs, our eyes were level. Nor was it made of flesh and blood and fur, but infernal. Fucking. Snow.

It leered at me. It leered! What in the seven infernos was it?

No time to ponder. It hopped and snapped its buck teeth at me.

I was not waiting to see if a rabbit made of snow was carnivorous. I bounded through the open gate, and the thing bounded after me, still snapping its flat teeth. Finding the stables was out of the question. If I didn’t escape then, I’d end up painting the snow with my blood.

My feet pummelled the snow and hit a patch of ice. I wobbled to the right, but although I’d been too hazy to manage before, I’d still been able to watch Jem. I righted myself. Using Jem’s trick of sliding more than stepping, I hurried down the street. The dirty peasants peeked out of their homes, but none offered to help me, none tried to quell the snow rabbit. Those on the street pulled each other to the side, watching me race by with the rabbit on my heels.

So not a wild animal they cared to quell, then.

And me, without a weapon of any kind.

The street opened into the market square. I raced to the black obelisk. Just me looking at it had broken through Jem’s calmness. Well then, Jem was in for a treat.

My feet skidded on the ice. Snow limbs creaked. I looked over my shoulder. The snow rabbit bunched its legs to leap and bring me down before I touched the stupid tombstone. The skin between my shoulder blades crawled with nerves as the snow rabbit flew through the air, aiming directly for my back.

I jumped to the side, out of its path. The snow rabbit slammed into the monument. Not a single crack appeared on the monolith, but the rabbit broke into chunks.

I laughed at it. Was that it?

I surveyed the peasants lined up around the square, huddling under coats and shawls, clutching empty baskets to their chests. A poor excuse for a market. There only seemed to be one store out of all the buildings, and no stalls at all. I couldn’t blame them for the latter. Who in their right mind would stand out in the cold? The peasants avoided me, staring at the bare snow or each other. If they’d looked, they’d be staring at their oh so precious obelisk.

In Nuriya, we knew better.

I almost jeered at them about astronomy and natural philosophy and Nuriyite gods, the true mechanics of the world. But a prince, never mind prince heir, didn’t mock people when they truly weren’t capable of understanding solar eclipses or why tsunamis happened or why the snowbanks trembled—

Wait, snowbanks trembled? I sucked in a deep breath as two snowbanks on the far side of the square shook and trembled, just like the bank at the palace.

The peasants hushed. Shouldn’t they be screaming? Shouldn’t they be running into their houses and blocking the doors?

But the peasants didn’t think them wild animals. They were afraid, but not afraid for their lives. The rabbits were guards?

Two rabbits burst from the snowbanks, their eyes gleaming red. How were their eyes gleaming red when they were made of nothing but white snow? How?

I scrambled to the side of the monument, pressing my back into it so they couldn’t sneak up behind me. The rabbits bounded at me, but stopped at the hollow their fellow snow creature had jumped from. They prowled, more predators than the prey animal Jem had indicated rabbits were, but came no closer to the monument.

So even snow rabbit monsters were afraid of the obelisk. They looked at it, the obelisk reflecting in their red eyes, but they refused to approach any closer.

I glanced down at the remains of their brethren, and kicked at the largest chunk. It crumbled, just like it had when thrown against the obelisk. Fearsome they might appear, but they were as weak as the snow they were created from.

I smirked. All I needed was a weapon, or even a long implement. Even if I hadn’t had much time for training in the past few weeks, what with the sedatives and my hands being tied behind my back, I was a strong man, more than capable of breaking these creatures.

Satisfied the creatures wouldn’t come any closer while I had the obelisk, I glanced at the people. Surely someone would carry a tool or a cane.

Ah, there. An elderly man, white hair wisping out from under his hood, leaned heavily on a wooden staff as tall as I was. Plain, of course, without so much as a single carving for ornamentation, just like everything else, but it would do.

I judged the rabbits, judged their mental capabilities. If they were anything like the people, I could easily outwit them.

I feinted to the left. Both of the snow rabbits bounded to that side, while I skidded the other way.

People scattered with pained cries as I raced towards them, but the old man only shuffled. He’d barely made it three feet before I fell upon him and snatched the staff out of his grasp. He struggled to hold onto it, but a sharp tug broke his grip. I grabbed his arm and lowered him to the ground. Another bundle of scarfs and fabric hurried back to help the old man. He’d be fine. The snow rabbits weren’t trying to eat him.

But still, I’d skip the part about me stealing a cane when reciting my tale to the poets.

The rabbits had recovered from the feint, and bounded towards me, their muscles, despite being comprised entirely of snow, as sleek as real flesh.

I darted at them to surprise the rabbits and keep them away from the old man just in case I was wrong. The first one leapt, and I cracked it soundly on the nose with the staff. Its face buckled, the snow split and the rabbit broke into pieces.

The second one dodged and circled me. I whirled like I’d been taught all my life, my feet slipping only an inch on the ice, and brought the staff into the rabbit’s side with a cracking sound. It, too, tumbled to the ground in pieces.

“Ha!” I yelled to the peasants. “Ha!”

All right, that wasn’t going in the poem either. I’d make up something far more clever to say on the way back, or have the poets do it.

Three more snowbanks trembled. No time to plan my heroic poem. I ran for the gates, and managed to make it to the street before I heard the crunch of more snow rabbits dashing after me.

Once I reached the gates, I’d lose them. They couldn’t chase me the whole way to the port, could they?