When the rope ladder finally dropped down the wall before us, I let out a breath I’d seemed to be holding since the minute Dash disappeared. I didn’t hesitate as I started the climb up it. My body was tired from trekking up the mountain, but I ignored the aches and pains as I continued upward.
Jack was right behind me as we climbed, but I tried not to look down once I’d gone up more than a few rungs. From the moment I started climbing, I was in pain. The rope rubbed brutally against my hands, and the ladder kept swaying precariously in the breeze. It didn’t help that my fingers were numb from the cold and struggled to wrap securely around the rope. My heart was in my mouth as I climbed, and my stomach felt as though it remained somewhere on the ground below me. Each step up the ladder was precarious, and at the slow rate I was going, the climb seemed like it would continue forever.
I was constantly pounded by snow and wind, and the rope turned increasingly stiff and icy as I rose higher. Because of the storm, I couldn’t see the long drop below me, but it also meant I couldn’t see the top of the wall either. It was probably a blessing I couldn’t see the ground; I wasn’t sure my nerves could handle seeing how high we’d climbed.
I was beginning to lose hope I’d ever make it to the top when a warm hand grasped onto my arm. I glanced up and felt a rush of relief as I saw Dash peering down at me. He was back in human form and wearing a foreign black armor. I couldn’t get off the ladder fast enough, and I gladly took hold of the hand he offered to me as he helped me over the top of the wall.
Once I was safely on solid ground again, I noticed the krampus guard who lay unconscious at Dash’s feet. He had been stripped of his armor, so I immediately knew where Dash had gotten his disguise.
“Never make me climb like that again,” I said to Dash, as I gingerly rubbed my hands together, trying to warm them up.
“I’m sure it will be easier on the way down,” he replied. The thought of climbing back down the other side of the wall was enough to make me want to cry.
“We could probably find some stairs to get down this side,” I suggested.
He shook his head though. “It’s not worth the risk. The wall is crawling with soldiers, and I’d rather not fight them if it can be avoided.” Dash moved to start pulling up the rope ladder as Jack made it to the top and came to stand with us. He’d barely taken hold of it when I heard shouts, and an arrow shot by us, narrowly missing my head.
I ducked down as I saw several guards running toward us.
“We’ve been found!” I shouted.
Dash glanced over his shoulder as another arrow came our way. I instinctively threw my hands forward, and magic burst from my palms. It swirled in front of us as a shield of ice started to expand out of the palm of my hand. It was almost identical to the one Jack had created in the North Pole and continued to grow outward until it was blocking the walkway completely, separating us from the guards who moved toward us. The arrow that was hurtling in our direction crashed into the ice and fell to the floor.
I stared at the icy barrier in shock. I wasn’t sure where it had come from. I had reacted so quickly I hadn’t been concentrating on what I wanted to summon, and the magic seemed to draw on something from within me. It was like my desperate need to protect Dash had taken over and I’d created the frozen shield without thinking.
My body felt weaker than it normally would after a simple summoning. The powers I’d used had felt strange and unusual, just like they had when I’d summoned Roan’s cure. When the shield had appeared, it wasn’t fully formed either. It had grown and expanded as my power flowed out of me. It definitely wasn’t a summoning, but I didn’t have a chance to consider exactly what I’d done.
“Come on,” Dash said, pulling me back from the shield. I looked away from the guards who were now pelting my frozen barrier with fire. It wouldn’t be long before they broke through.
Jack jumped up on the parapet of the wall and raised his hands as magic flowed out of them. Ice began to form on the lip of the wall, and Jack began to create another one of his slides. It disappeared into the snowstorm that hovered over the South Pole, and he was waving us onto it within seconds. I wasn’t entirely convinced he’d had time to finish the slide all the way to the bottom.
“Let’s go,” Jack called.
A cracking noise sounded, and I looked over to see a large fracture had appeared in the middle of my ice shield. We were moments away from having to fight off the guards. Jack leaped onto the slide and plunged into the snowy darkness, and I followed him.
We took off down the slide, and the frost’s magic continued to swirl before us. His blue power lit up the night, and I could see he was continuing to form the slide as we plummeted. Snow was blinding me as the wind blew it across my face, and I was terrified of what would happen should Jack run out of power before we reached the ground or if the guards managed to reach the top of the slide while we were still on it. I knew Dash was right behind me, so at least we were all together.
I could just make out the shouts of the guards behind us, but they weren’t our only problem. The three of us were too close together, and Jack was spreading his magic too thin. I could feel large cracks beginning to form as we passed over fragile portions of ice, and each splinter sent a shot of fear into my heart. My stomach churned with anxiety, and I wanted nothing more than to be firmly on the ground. When we started to fly past the roofs of townhouses, my heart skipped a beat, and I clenched my eyes shut, knowing we were getting closer to the bottom.
The ground suddenly came into view ahead, and I screamed at Jack. We were going too fast.
“Jack, how do we stop?”
“On it,” he called back.
A beam of magic burst from his hands, and a heap of light fluffy snow billowed out in front of him and settled in a heap on the ground ahead of us. The slide abruptly came to an end, and all three of us tumbled into the powdery snowdrift. It was like landing on a cloud, but the cold covered me instantly, and I scrambled to get to my feet.
Jack was already standing, and he spun around as he faced the slide once more. Power still crackled at his fingertips, and he hurled it at the slide the moment Dash was safely off it. The ice splintered into a million tiny shards, and they fell to the ground as the slide shattered completely. I heard terrified shouts in the distance, and I suspected that some of the guards had attempted to come after us. The snowstorm was too dense to see what had happened though.
“What was that up there?” Dash asked.
I turned away from the empty air where the slide had been moments ago and faced him. His eyes were focused on me, so apparently, I was the one he was questioning.
“What was what?” I asked with a quick glance up at the house we’d landed next to. We’d arrived in someone’s backyard, and there was a soft glow cast across the ground from one of the windows upstairs. Thankfully, no one appeared to have noticed our arrival.
“That wall you made to stop the guards,” Dash said. “That wasn’t something you summoned. It was like you formed it from magic, just like Jack does when he uses his powers.”
“Formed…” Jack murmured. “Sounds like another word for created.”
I shook my head at the two of them. “I don’t really know what I did back there.”
Dash seemed just as confused as me, but the look on Jack’s face was smug. “I think you do…”
“We can worry about my magic later,” I protested, trying to change the subject. “Someone might have seen us arriving on our magic ice slide. We need to get moving.”
Dash still had a suspicious look on his face, but he nodded in agreement. The three of us quickly made our way around the side of the house and into a narrow alley. We had to slow to a stop when we reached the next intersection though because the street was filled to the brim with dark beings.
I was surprised to find that the place was so peaceful. Glittering lights hung in garlands down the street, and there were dark beings everywhere, moving from shop to shop. I could hear child
ren laughing in the distance, and there were no signs of fighting like there had been in the North Pole when we left.
“I don’t understand,” I said, lowering my voice so only Dash and Jack could hear me. “How can the South Pole be like this when we’re at war?”
“It’s probably because we’re the only light beings to have seen this place in a long time,” Dash replied. “They’re bringing the war to us, not the other way around.”
“It’s more than that,” Jack replied. “Most dark beings don’t want to be at war with light beings, and since the creatures here seem to be going about their normal lives, it appears Belsnickel’s powers haven’t grown strong enough for his persuasion to extend this far yet. Most of the creatures that are attacking the North Pole must already be loyal to Belsnickel. He’s had beings like that flittering through the human world for many, many years.”
“Beings like Crow?” I asked. The krampus had been the one to destroy the first Christmas star, so it made sense he had been loyal to Belsnickel.
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know who that is, but if you saw him fighting in the North Pole, you can almost guarantee he’s one of Belsnickel’s minions. I saw many of them coming and going from Incarceror over the years, and they weren’t always dark. There were a few light beings who supported him too.”
“Why would anyone follow him voluntarily?” I asked.
“No idea, but it probably helps he’s a god who can see the future. He can be very persuasive because of that power,” Jack replied.
Jack was right. I too had been sucked in by Belsnickel’s prophetic powers. I hadn’t intended to help him, but I’d gone and done exactly what he wanted.
We made our way into the crowd, moving at a leisurely pace so we didn’t bring attention to ourselves. I felt tense as we walked and tried to remain calm, but it was difficult when the three of us stood out so easily. Dash was unnaturally large, and Jack’s unusual looks were attracting curious glances. Many of the krampuses we passed were dressed in leather and dark clothing like they did in the Human Realm, so it probably didn’t help that I was wearing jeans and a heavy jacket while Jack was still wearing the old, faded blue suit he’d been in since Incarceror. Dash might have been wearing krampus body armor, but I felt like we clearly didn’t belong, and I wanted to get off the busy strip we walked down as quickly as possible.
The street started to slant upward, and I hoped that meant we were going in the right direction. The blizzard was still raging above us, and heavy snow was still falling. I couldn’t see the castle, but I knew it was perched up high in the center of the town, so we continued on in the same direction.
The crowd parted up ahead, and my gaze lifted as some of the cloud that shrouded the mountain above us dispersed. My steps faltered as I took in the sheer rock face that rose up from the center of the town. It was the peak of the mountain, and it almost seemed to erupt out of the city before spiraling into the sky high above.
It was not just a natural formation I was looking at though. As I focused on the peak, I realized that the South Pole castle had been carved into the mountainside. Windows and balconies were dotted across the entire summit of the mountain, and at the very pinnacle, I could see the royal flag flapping forcefully in the breeze. If it weren’t for the lights that could be seen glinting from windows up and down the cliffs, I might not have realized I was looking at a castle at all.
There was no defensive wall around the castle, but I guessed there didn’t have to be when there was such a large one surrounding the city. As I focused on the base of the fortress, I saw there was a large entrance to the mountain at the end of the street we were on. The gates were open, and dark beings seemed to be flowing freely in and out of the castle. I couldn’t see more than a few guards manning the entrance, and they didn’t appear to be stopping any of the beings that passed by.
“Do you think we can just walk in there?” I asked.
“Looks like it,” Jack replied.
“And if not, I guess we’re about to find out,” Dash added.
The two guys started forward, heading confidently toward the castle that reared up before us.
“Here goes nothing,” I murmured before following them.
I hoped getting into the castle would be as simple as it looked. The problem in our world was: things were rarely that easy, and I felt certain we were headed for more trouble.
Chapter Seven
There were five guards standing by the rocky entrance to the castle. Torchlight lit the opening, casting long shadows across the way ahead, and the lack of light only made me more anxious. The dark beings were in their element in the dark, and the krampus guards appeared vigilant. Their eyes meticulously watched each being that passed by, and a flutter of nerves tingled in my stomach as we approached.
A small crowd of krampuses were entering the castle ahead of us, and Dash, Jack, and I stayed close to the group as we walked past the guards. I kept my eyes focused on the krampus ahead of me and held my breath until we were safely beyond the guards, but even then, my body remained tense. We seemed to have made it through the entrance undetected, but that was only the first obstacle we had to overcome.
The passage we’d entered tunneled deep into the mountain. The walls were all formed of jagged rocks, and only the occasional oil lamp dimly lit the way. Dark beings might not have needed much light to see by, but I was struggling not to stumble as we made our way deeper into the shadowy tunnel. After a particularly bad trip over uneven ground, I decided to stick close to Dash, as his eyesight was much better than mine in the darkness.
The tunnel eventually opened into an enormous cavern, and the three of us stopped, our eyes growing wide as we took it in. The walls of the vast cave all glittered with dark fairy dust, and deep purple vines crept along the floor. A ball of magic radiated from the center of the cavern’s ceiling, and the rays of soft light shone down on the middle of the cave, where there was some kind of natural spring that children were playing in.
There were dark magical beings everywhere I looked, and they all appeared relaxed as they chatted easily among one another. It seemed like we’d arrived at some kind of meeting place for the town, but I wasn’t sure where we needed to go next. I could see more tunnels leading from the cavern, but I had no idea which one would take us to the dark royals.
Now that we were here, I grew more concerned about how we were going to find a way to meet the queen. If Jack was allowed to take charge, he would probably start turning everyone in the realm into a frozen statue, but I also wasn’t sure how Dash expected us to skulk us around the castle until we bumped into her.
“So, what now?” I asked them. “How are we going to get to the queen?”
Dash shook his head as he gazed around the cavern with confusion. The place looked like the beginning of a maze, and realization was dawning in his eyes that finding the dark queen might be more difficult than he first thought. “Perhaps we should make our presence known to the guards,” he said. “We’ve come this far, and if we demand to see the queen, that might be the best way to get a message to her.”
“Actually, that’s the best way to end up in the dungeon,” Jack replied.
I also didn’t like the idea of giving ourselves up to the guards. They’d already tried to kill us on the wall, and I wasn’t keen to find out what they would do to us if they found us in the castle. Our people were at war, and I had a bad feeling they would assume the worst if they found light beings in their midst.
“Why don’t we split up,” I suggested. “We can wander the cavern and talk or listen to the beings gathered here. We might learn something about the castle that will help us find the queen.”
Dash tilted his head as though he was unsure, but Jack wasn’t even looking at me. His gaze was focused somewhere over my shoulder, and I worried he hadn’t bothered listening to my suggestion.
“Jack?” I prompted.
“I don’t think we need to do all that much searching…” He pointed past me to a
group of women who were watching some of the children playing in the water. I frowned as I looked at them. The women were all wearing light gauze dresses and had very similar features. Each of them had long brown hair that reached their waist, pale skin, and blue eyes. It wasn’t until my gaze fell upon an uncannily familiar face in the middle of the group that I began to understand what Jack was talking about.
The girl had long brown hair and beautiful blue eyes, just like the women around her, only her features were identical to Queen Ciana’s. I could have sworn I was staring at the queen of the Northern Realm herself, but the girl before me was a teenager and appeared far more innocent. She didn’t have the same troubled expression I’d often witnessed in my short experiences with our queen, and she was smiling brightly as she talked.
“You think that’s the dark queen?” I whispered.
Jack nodded. “The light queens have always been identical.”
“They have?” I gasped.
“From what I’ve seen,” he replied. “Ciana looks exactly the same as her grandmother did. Maybe the dark queens all look the same too. Belsnickel often mimicked what his brother did with his creations. His krampuses are just like clauses, and his dark elves are almost the same as light. It seems he also mimicked Bethalial’s light queens, making them identical to his brother’s.”
I shook my head with disbelief. The royals had always been so elusive, and I’d never known much about them growing up, but it was a shock to discover that all the light queens had looked the same.
“Even if that is the queen, what’s she doing here?” I asked. Queen Ciana always kept apart from the people of the Northern Realm. It was strange to think that the dark queen would mingle among the commoners.
“Why don’t we find out?” Jack said with a grin. He started off toward the girl, and Dash and I rushed to catch up with him.
I didn’t like the idea of going straight up to her and asking if she was the queen of the realm, but it felt like we didn’t have much of a choice. As soon as we got close to the girl though, the women who were with her quickly gathered together in a circle, surrounding her and blocking us off. They turned on us with their hands cocked at their sides like they were ready to draw on their magic and attack if they needed to.
Christmas Curse (Christmas Magic Book 3) Page 6
