Ilyas

The snow rabbits lagged behind me by twenty of their strides. Then fifteen. Then ten. My breath came hard and cold in my chest, and when I exhaled, it turned into fog. I dragged down the scarf. There was no point in hiding my identity any longer, and the scarf and fog hampered my sight.

I was getting better at sliding on the ice. I barely wobbled.

When the snow rabbits had closed the distance to three paces, black iron gave way to the ice walls. They weren’t so much walls as spikes of ice erupting from the frozen ground. What I called the gate was a gap between ice, without bars or doors to trap me inside. I’d have to do without the horse and victuals, but an inn lay only six hours away. I could last until then. I had to.

The creatures could have bounded around me and blocked the opening, but they seemed satisfied with snapping at my heels. Were they trying to force me from the village? Were they not guards keeping me in, but some natural phenomenon protecting the village from outsiders? In that case, I was happy to oblige.

I burst through the gates, sliding on the ice. Ocean waves roared as they struck the ice walls. How could it be this cold and the ocean hadn’t frozen over?

Empty fields of snow lay on either side of me. Our footsteps had been wiped clean with the new snowfall, but there was only one hill. I spotted a marker peeking over the hill, a tree with green needles instead of leaves.

I skidded, using the ice’s slip to turn without losing momentum, and stopped, my borrowed staff raised. The rabbits reached the gates. They were coming.

The creatures skittered to a stop.

I stared at them, and they stared at me, pacing, before they lay down. I’d been right. Natural protections.

Well, all right then. That was a treat in my favour, even though they’d left me without any supplies whatsoever.

I turned, ready to run to the evergreen and gain even more distance, but then froze like the spears of the ice gate.

While I faced the snow rabbits, the snow had again trembled and taken shape. But this new creature was no rabbit.

It had a long tail covered in spikes, and while it walked on four legs like the rabbits, its heavy maw was filled with fangs. Unlike the rabbits, it wasn’t made of snow, but glistening ice.

Despite lacking wings and being ice, it looked exactly like a painting I’d seen in ancient scrolls. A dragon. I really hoped the fact it was comprised of ice meant it didn’t breathe fire.

“You can’t escape.”

I whipped my head to the side. I was surrounded, the snow rabbits behind me, the dragon before me, and Jem in only his robe and trousers guarded the field. I was trapped, except for one path to freedom.

“How have you not frozen to death?” I demanded. Even with the chase heating my bones and sweat dotting my chest, the frigid air still froze my nostrils and stung my eyes. And Jem just stood there in his coat, no gloves or scarf, his white hair brushing his shoulders. The bastard wasn’t even shivering.

My comment seemed to amuse him, and he cracked the beginnings of a smile. “Whatever you try, however you flee, you will never escape.”

“If you say so.” The idiot who’d left the cell door unlocked, who hadn’t even posted a guard. Or so I thought. I waved at the snow creatures. “Yours, I presume?”

That seemed to amuse him more. “Yes, my demons.”

I gasped despite myself. “Demons? Demons don’t walk the earth.”

“I suppose a magicless nation like yours would never believe it.”

“We’re not magicless.” We had one magic to ourselves, more precious than fivefold the king’s treasury.

“You disobey your gods.”

I sighed, exasperated. “We’re not superstitious idiots like you.”

“This,” he waved to the snow creatures waiting upon his command, “is a gift from the Dark God. Demon energies, plucked from the Void, given form through snow and ice to do my bidding.”

“You don’t even fill my eye,” I said.

He cocked his head, about to ask what that meant.

“It means I’m not impressed. So what? You live in hovels, and I’m supposed to be impressed with your little minions?”

He looked at me in shock, then actually considered my words. “You don’t need to be impressed. You only need to know they will stop you from ever leaving.”

I laughed. Nothing would stop me from leaving. I had a younger brother to thwart and I couldn’t spend my time loafing about here, begging for table scraps.

“You’re trapped.” Jem held his hand out to me. It was bare, blue veins threading his palm, just like the whole infernal place. “Come back to the castle with me.”

I shook my head. “Oh no, I will not. You’re forgetting something very important.”

Jem scrunched his brow together.

I smirked at him and turned around. An ice dragon on my right, the snow rabbits on my left.

But a huge, empty field in front of me.

I dashed into it. Behind me, Jem made a strangled shout. Silly, silly Jem. He wasn’t even competent enough to surround me.

His snow creatures bounded after me, but Jem screamed at them to stop, for me to stop. They obeyed. I kept running. The only sound was the distant crash of waves and the crunch of snow as Jem chose to chase after me himself.

Silly, silly Jem. As if he could take me on in a one-on-one fight.

I turned my head back to mock him, to make him understand how in over his head he was. His prince regent would rue the day he’d left Jem in charge.

A crack split the air, then another, and another, and when my foot landed, the ground beneath me splintered.

Not ground. Ice. Ice covering frigid water. I plunged into it, the cold smacking me like the hand of a god. The ocean surrounding Nuriya had never been this cold, not even in the darkest of days, when the monsoons whipped the island. The water burned me. I screamed.

“ILYAS!”

My head sunk under the waves.