Winter Cursed

by NIcki Chapelway

  Luk licked his lips, still looking wary, but finally he nodded. “Let us hope, for your sake, that you are correct.”

  Elisabeth noted his use of the word you rather than we. “You mean not to come?” Her heart faltered at the thought of entering that forest alone and she felt her facade begin to slip. She bit the inside of her lip, schooling her features before she showed Luk just how frightened she truly was.

  Luk shook his head. “As you stated, once your stepmother learns of your escape she will come for you. I can buy you more time before that happens. I'll return to the castle and inform the queen that you are dead. That I caught you trying to escape and killed you. To prove that I speak truthfully, I'll kill an animal in the barnyard, cut out its heart, and bring it to Ismena, claiming that it is yours. She'll have no need to hunt you if you are dead.”

  “But if she discovers your treachery...” Elisabeth trailed off, unable to finish that sentence. Ismena was capable of great cruelty. She hated to even imagine her loyal guard and friend at her stepmother’s mercy.

  Luk straightened. “She will not.”

  “You do not know that. Come with me--”

  Luk held up his hand. “No, princess, I cannot come. I know my duty, just as you know yours.” He glanced back toward the passage. “I must go now. All this will amount to nothing if the queen finds you missing before I can return to stop her. Go, if not for me and for all the guards who still loyally serve you, then for your people whom Ismena kills daily.”

  Elisabeth pressed her lips into a hard line, but nodded once, though it pierced her heart to do so. “I will see you again, Captain.”

  Luk placed his clenched fist over his chest in a salute. “If not here, then in the otherworlds. It has been an honor to serve you, My Princess... My Queen.” With those words he backed into the passage. The wall moved back into place with a rumbling groan and in a second he was gone, leaving her standing alone in the crumbling ruins with an impossible task weighing heavily on her heart.

  ~*~*~*~

  There was a reason that no one entered this forest.

  The wind that moments ago had been howling loudly was now deathly silent. The skeletal trees reached toward the sky, their branches bone white and bare. Their twisted roots snagged at her leather boots almost as if trying to drag her to the ground with them. Her dress kept catching on dead bushes.

  Elisabeth could not help but feel that she was surrounded by dead things. She tightened her cloak around her to stave off a shudder. She had no time for weakness, not now when she was required to be brave.

  In the shelter of the trees, the snowfall was much lighter than in the ruins of the city she had just come from. Still, she was careful to use her magic to sift the snow back over the footprints she left in the ground. Using her power on this small of a scale was easy, but she had never tried to attempt it any more than a simple task here or there. She was afraid that if she did, she might lose control. Illesya was already plunged into an eternal winter, she did not wish to make matters worse for her land.

  Something scuttled not far to her right. Elisabeth whirled, but the dark shadows of the trees blocked whatever it was from view. She wrapped her arms around herself and quickened her pace, trying not to think of what it could be. A Draugr? A Wyvern? A Giant Spider? All manners of horrible creatures could be lurking in this forest.

  As if summoned by her thoughts, an eerie howl echoed through the still night. Wolves. Elisabeth’s heart froze. Or worse.

  Legend had it that when the fae left this forest they assigned Garmrs, vicious hounds larger and more deadly than wolves, to guard their wellspring of magic.

  And if the Garmrs had caught onto her trail… they would tear her to pieces before she even had a chance to find help against her stepmother.

  Elisabeth hiked up her skirts and ran. Her feet pounded against the crusted snow.

  Behind her, she could hear snarls and paws beat against the frozen earth as whatever was behind her gave chase. These creatures were too large to be wolves. They must be Garmrs, and they were gaining on her. It wouldn't be long before they overtook her. Hastily, Elisabeth scanned the dead forest for a place to hide. Perhaps she could climb a tree that didn't look like it would topple at the slightest touch. Or… there!

  Just visible through the trees was a house.

  Elisabeth squinted, wondering if she was envisioning it, but the house remained. It was a small structure with lanterns hanging from its walls and lights shining from its windows. Like anything she would expect to find in this forest, it was in a state of disrepair, derelict and crumbling. She shouldn't go in. Someone probably lived here. But the small chimney had a wisp of smoke curling from it indicating a warm fire, and it would protect her from the Garmrs.

  Elisabeth raced toward the cottage.

  It would just have to do.

  Chapter

  Two

  “Who is the fairest now?”

  Ismena's laugh echoed through the hall as she paced past the ice statues of the guards who had remained loyal to her stepdaughter, now nothing more than blocks of frozen ice.

  “Ungrateful peasants.” Ismena straightened her fur cloak. She was the queen of the land. How dare they fight against her in favor of her stepdaughter? It was not as if Elisabeth had ever proved herself a competent ruler, but they were still willing to sacrifice themselves for the girl when Ismena had ruled them for years. And yet in that time, rather than appreciating her fair reign, all they did was complain and revolt.

  “The taxes are too high,” they lied.

  “We can't grow crops in the snow,” they whined.

  “We need warmer clothes,” they complained.

  “We're starving,” they cried.

  “Well then let them starve.” She would not melt her world of ice for them. As long as the world was blanketed in snow and ice, she had a never-ending arsenal at her command to use and control and bend to her will. Why would she change that for a few worthless peasants?

  Ismena curled her lace gloved hand into a fist. And who would make her? She was a sorceress. She wielded the otherworldly powers of the ice nymphs. And now she was once again fairest in the land.

  Ismena trailed a finger across an ice sculpture as she thought about how far she had come from the darkest moments of her life.

  When Stephan had first married Dahlia it had seemed that her life was falling to pieces around her. Then when it was discovered that they would have a daughter it became even worse. However, she was able to use the broken shards of her life to cut deeply into Stephan’s. All she had to do was bide her time until she could kill Dahlia.

  It was easy enough to fool Stephan into trusting her that night Dahlia died. She arrived with his daughter and said that she had done everything in her power to save the queen. She had needed to say nothing more. The king had been blinded by the memories of their years of courtship. He still considered her a close friend and confidant.

  Stephan needed someone to blame, so he chose Morren. Secretly, she had sent the army of wights away from Havenkeep to attack Mooraven. They may have once been his men, but only the person to give them the potion that turned them into wights could control them.

  The dark king was furious, but he should have expected such treachery from her. Both kings should have, but Stephan never once suspected her of killing Dahlia, even though he knew she worked with poisons.

  He mourned Dahlia, of course, but Ismena convinced him to marry her soon after so they could unite their kingdoms and defeat Morren. Stephan was eager for revenge against the man he blamed for his wife's death, though at the time she wondered if it wasn't also so Elisabeth didn't have to grow up without a mother. All the same she didn't argue. She had what she wanted.

  Or at least what she thought she wanted. It only took a few years for her victory to turn bitter. She despised Stephan for choosing Dahlia over her the first time. For mourning the nymph still when Ismena was his wife. Any regard she once felt for him quickly turned to hate. It was evi
dent he still pined for his dead queen, so Ismena decided to reunite them.

  Elisabeth she kept alive for some pathetic sentimental reason. The girl reminded her of Stephan. Which was both why she couldn't kill her and also why she had to banish her to the winter palace.

  Perhaps she kept her alive to torture herself. To be constantly reminded of Stephan's faithlessness and her failing to be the most beautiful.

  And so it was and she was free to rule the entirety of Illesya. Until one day when Ismena consulted her Nytheran Mirror. She had demanded it from Stephan after helping him defeat Morren. It had once been her mother’s and she had not parted with it easily. Only the promise of revenge was strong enough to sever the bonds her bloodline had on it.

  She asked it the same question she asked every day, “Who is the fairest in the land?” But instead of replying in its usual manner, that she was indeed the fairest, the mirror told her that Elisabeth had grown a thousand times fairer than she.

  Ismena had sworn to never lose the title of fairest in the land again, and to lose to Dahlia's daughter was too much. It was past time for her stepdaughter to meet her untimely, but long overdue death. That very day she left for the winter palace to deal with her stepdaughter permanently.

  Ismena smiled at the memory of the guard, who was once her stepdaughter's captain, coming to her dripping in the princess's blood and bringing news of her death. He offered Ismena Elisabeth's heart. She locked it in an ornate box that she set on the mantel of what was once the princess's room, and was now her own for the remainder of her stay in what had once been the winter palace. Back when a winter palace was necessary, before Ismena froze the world over and made it so that there was no need for a palace for every season.

  Ismena straightened her crown and looked at her beautiful reflection in the frozen face of one of her new ice sculptures.

  She was queen. She was power. She was the fairest in the land.

  ~*~*~*~

  Entering this cottage had been a mistake.

  Elisabeth turned in a small circle, taking in the swords, long knives, axes, bows, and other drastic arts of warfare hanging from the wall of the cottage.

  The cottage had only one room. On the left side was a kitchen with a long table and roaring fire. The other end appeared to be the bedroom. Well, that was if the people living here were children. Seven tiny beds laid in a row.

  No one was in the cottage at present, but seven bowls of still-hot soup lay out on the table which meant that whoever lived here hadn't been gone long and that they planned on returning.

  Elisabeth turned back to the door, prepared to take her chances with the Garmrs, but just as she placed her hand on the latch, she heard boots crunching on the snow outside and the murmur of voices through the wall.

  Someone was coming.

  She looked around wildly for a place to hide, turning in a circle in her panic. There weren’t any walls that she could duck behind and she would be too revealed if she tried to hide under the table. Outside the voices paused and the sound of scuffing filled the air. Elisabeth darted toward the nearest bed and dropped to her hands and knees. Just before she slid underneath the bed she grabbed a dagger that had been hanging from the wall, still within easy reach.

  The second she had rolled underneath the bed, the door burst open. Elisabeth yanked the remainder of her white skirts to her side hoping that nobody had seen them. She peered out from underneath the blankets as seven bearded men no taller than children stomped into the hut.

  Her eyes widened. Dwarfs. She'd never seen any before. They didn't tend to travel too far from the Skalvanian mountains. What were these dwarfs doing so far from their home, and in this forest nonetheless? She had never heard of dwarfs residing in these woods.

  “I told you I heard howling,” one of the dwarfs stated proudly.

  Two of the dwarfs who looked to be brothers- though one was dark-haired and the other blond- were carrying something between them. With a start Elisabeth realized that it was a Garmr, covered in bloodstained, matted black fur.

  These dwarfs had killed a Garmr? Impossible.

  “And so, the hunter becomes the hunted,” the dark-haired brother said with a grin.

  Whose house was she in? Elisabeth dragged herself further under the bed, but froze when a pair of well-worn boots filled her vision as a dwarf stepped up right next to the bed she was hiding beneath. She held her breath and clutched the knife so tightly that her knuckles hurt.

  A dwarf thumped to the ground in front of her and reached under the bed. Elisabeth screamed and slashed the knife at him. He easily dodged the blade and grabbed her wrists. He dragged her out from under the bed with remarkable strength, considering he was only half her height.

  The room erupted in chaos as the other dwarfs saw her, but Elisabeth’s captor didn’t say a word. She peered up at him as he glowered at her silently.

  “What do ye have there, Florian?”

  “What?!”

  “It's a girl!”

  “Nay, it's an intruder!”

  “Looks an awful lot like a girl ta me.”

  “A pretty girl, at that.”

  “We should kill her. She's obviously up ta mischief,” a dwarf with a red beard growled. He snatched the knife out of Elisabeth's hands.

  “Hey!” she cried.

  “Me knife!” the blond brother yelped.

  “Put the Garmr down before ye drop it, ye fools,” barked a dwarf with a blond beard, who looked older than the rest.

  The brothers moved over to the kitchen. Two dwarfs out of the way, five to go. If Elisabeth could only get to the door she was sure she could outrun them on their stumpy legs. She would take her chances with the Garmrs. Because surely these Garmr-slaying dwarfs were something to be feared even more than the guardians of the forest.

  A ginger-bearded dwarf who was larger than the others- he almost reached Elisabeth's shoulders- lumbered forward. “Och, she's naught but a wee bonnie lass. Do we really 'ave ta kill her?”

  “Aye,” the redhead dwarf said. He scowled at Elisabeth like she was personally responsible for every bad thing in the world.

  “Kill her,” the blond brother echoed walking back from the kitchen. “She stole me knife. She can't be trusted.”

  “I didn’t steal your knife,” Elisabeth protested. “For goodness sake it didn’t even leave the cottage.”

  “And what did ye have the knife for?” the older dwarf asked.

  Elisabeth licked her lips. “To defend myself if it came to it.”

  “Ya hear that, boys? She meant ta attack us with it!” the red-headed dwarf cried.

  “No, I didn’t!” Elisabeth squeaked, pulling against the hold of the silent dwarf. If she was murdered here then no one would ever know what had happened to her. She would simply disappear. What sort of mad folly had driven her to think that she could truly survive in these woods? “It’s only- that you can never know what to expect in these woods.”

  The older dwarf pulled at his beard. “Tis true. Which causes me ta wonder… Tell me, lass, how did ye end up in these woods?”

  She stilled. “Someone wished to kill me. The only place I would be safe from them was this forest.”

  “The only place ye could be safe was in this forest?” The dark-haired brother said with a snicker. “Ye appear to have some rotten luck.”

  She raised her chin. She hated to admit that she was beginning to think that he was right, so instead she put on her most regal air. “And moreover, I demand you release me this instance!”

  “As if that'll be happenin'.” the red-headed dwarf scoffed.

  “Don't you know who I am?” Elisabeth demanded, keeping her voice steady despite her heart fluttering in her chest like a caged bird.

  The red-headed dwarf snorted. “Aye, that I do. Ye be an intruder.”

  “Who are ye?” the older dwarf asked, ignoring the red-headed dwarf.

  “I am Princess Elisabeth of Havenkeep, and if you harm me I will be avenged.” Elisabeth didn't
know if the last part was true. Her people would mourn her, but how could they avenge her if they didn't know what had happened to her? However, the dwarfs didn’t need to know this.

  “Oh really?” a dark-haired dwarf, who looked younger than the rest, asked stepping forward. He winked at her. “And how did a lovely princess like ye end up in these parts?”

  “Ye don't really believe her do ye, Kenrick?” the blond brother asked scornfully.

  “I don't know, Alban.” The dark-haired dwarf looked her over. “She does look like a princess.”

  “Dresses like one too,” the largest dwarf added gesturing to her torn white dress.

  She was dressed rather plainly, in nothing more than her nightdress, but she wasn’t about to point that out.

  The red-headed dwarf shook his head. “Whether she be tellin’ the truth or not, which I find unlikely, she's still an intruder. Let's kill her and be done with it. Our soup’s gettin' cold.”

  The older dwarf shook his head. “Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Gabriel. Tis not wise to go an' make enemies of royalty, if that be what she is. Let the girl explain herself. Florian, let the lass up.”

  At the older dwarf’s words, the silent dwarf released her. Elisabeth struggled to her feet, dusting herself off and trying to look as regal as possible. “I am the princess of Havenkeep. When my father died, my stepmother was made regent until I came of age to rule; however, my stepmother is a wicked sorceress. I believe it was she who killed my father, and tonight she came to kill me as well. I was forced to flee into the woods for my life. I was chased by Garmrs and I entered your cottage. I don't mean any of you harm. I am telling the truth. You have to believe me.”