Chapter Five
We emerged into a field blanketed in tiny purple flowers.
The mist had fallen lower, closer to the ground until it rested on the top of the grass and swirled round my bare, frozen feet with every step.
I hadn’t spent all that much time in the forest next to my house, because Dad hadn’t liked me going wandering in there as a kid, but I was fairly certain that this place didn’t exist within it, or out the other side of it.
The land rolled gently in places, dotted with lakes, but was largely flat except for a huge hill in the centre.
With a gigantic palace on top.
Even from this distance, I could see a steep, gleaming staircase leading up to the palace, which rose into the air like pale grasping fingers—spiky and jagged, like it was made of ice. It glittered in the weak morning sun.
Without saying a word, Belial started leading me towards it.
My stomach squeezed tight with fear, and I struggled fruitlessly again to get away. To break free and sprint madly in the opposite direction, back into the forest that I could see ringing the fields like a fortress wall.
I couldn’t hear anything of the procession behind us in the forest, as though the mist had blocked all sound, but as we made our way closer to that looming palace, sudden voices and laughter made me jump. I looked back over my shoulder to see the trooping Folk emerging through the mist behind us.
“I—I don’t want to meet the Carlin,” I said to Belial in a small voice, feeling like a scared little boy. “Do I have to?”
“Yes,” he said simply, his grip on my arm firm but not painful.
My heart pounded in my chest, head still feeling foggy from whatever Belial had poisoned me with. Was this really happening? I was being taken to meet a… a fae queen? A ruler of the Folk? Even as I questioned how this could possibly be real, a part of me felt like this chain of events had been in motion ever since I was a boy. Ever since the first time I saw the Folk—that golden-skinned creature who had appeared in my garden and asked if I’d wanted to be friends. Nua.
Was he here somewhere?
“I don’t understand,” I said desperately to Belial. “Why does she want to meet me?”
“She will tell you everything she wishes,” was all he said again, making a spark of anger chase away some of the fear.
“Don’tIget a fucking say in this?” I tried to jerk my arm free again. “Why do you think you can just steal people from their homes?”
He just slid me a look and said nothing.
I stared up at the palace as it loomed above us, stumbling on the first step as Belial started leading me up them.
“D-don’t I even get to get dressed properly?” I asked, desperate for any reason to delay this. “I’m half naked. I’m not wearing shoes.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
Fuck.Fuck.What was going to happen to me when I got in there? What was she going to do?
Two guards stood in front of the monstrous double doors to the palace. They wore silver armour that gleamed with ice blue accents, and the eyes that peered at me from beneath their helmets were an unnaturally bright silver as well.
Without saying a word, they heaved those huge doors open.
My breaths were shuddering out of me as we stepped into a vast entrance hall that was just a blank white space. A huge chandelier hung above us, with another giant set of doors in front. The walls gleamed with iridescent blues and whites, and the air was even colder than outside. I shivered, the chill pricking at my bare skin.
Belial kept walking forwards until we reached that other set of doors, engraved with creeping vines, dead trees and dancing figures. Still silent, he pushed one open and led me inside.
My eyes immediately locked onto the woman on a huge throne that looked clear and shiny like ice, its backrest carved into jagged spikes like a miniature version of the palace we stood in.
The woman sitting in it was already watching me, and already smiling. She had only one eye, which was a deep cobalt blue. A nasty scar melded the other lid together, and it was sunken into the empty socket.
Her teeth were bronze. They flashed in the blue-white fire lighting the torches and chandelier hanging over her head. Her hair was pure white, her skin almost as pale, and in one long-fingered hand tipped with sharp, curving nails, she loosely held a staff made of white wood with a shimmering, rough chunk of blue crystal on top.
Despite the teeth and the scar, she should have been beautiful. Her features were delicate and pointed, her skin as clear as glass. But she wasn’t. Something about her sent revulsion shuddering through me. Her expression was too hard. Too cold, even though she was smiling.