Winter Glass

by Lexa Hillyer

  She steps into her night shoes and slips into the corridor, then makes her way down the winding stairs, where torchlight plays against stone.

  The knocking grows more urgent—a powerful drumming of blunt fists against the wood. There are shouts from outside.

  Aurora reaches the receiving hall just as Isbe bursts in from the doors to the opposite wing, in a nightgown just like Aurora’s, her short-cut hair tied back in a dark tangle at the nape of her neck. Isbe collides with Prince William of Aubin—Aurora can still only think of him by his formal title, not the more intimate term “husband,” though that is what he will be to her by the time the sun sets tomorrow. The prince is wearing just a pair of loose-fitting pants, and Aurora notices the strength of his bare chest and shoulders, the gleam of his dark skin in the flickering light, the way he grasps Isbe’s arms to steady her, his hands lingering a moment more than needed.

  Servants have clustered into the hall too, and Maximilien appears, looking unusually ruffled. “What’s the meaning of the commotion?” he demands, though clearly no one knows. “Unbolt the doors.”

  Four soldiers pull open the grate.

  Aurora’s chest tightens, and her skin grows cold. What if it is an envoy of Malfleur’s, a brigade of her deadliest mercenaries?

  But into the hall stumbles a ragtag group of peasants: two men carrying an injured woman, plus one other man and woman following just behind, restrained by a pair of castle guards. Soot dusts their skin, as though they’ve been spit out by one of the great southern volcanoes Aurora has read about. One of the men is wounded in the leg—Aurora’s gaze sweeps to the bloody mud that he has tracked inside. The injured woman groans. Her taut, rounded belly rises and falls with her heaving breath.

  Aurora is suddenly reminded of Helen, one of the daughters of Greta from Sommeil, the mistress of the kitchens at Blackthorn. Helen had been just a few years older than Aurora, and with child.

  “They’ve no weapons,” a guard announces.

  “We seek conference with Aurora, crown princess of Deluce,” one of the men asserts. Oddly, she can picture him gathering hay at dawn. In Sommeil. But that’s not possible.

  All heads turn toward her, and heat rises from her neck to her face.

  “We must know your business first,” Prince William says, at the same time that Maximilien asserts, “Absolutely not.”

  The councilman and the prince look at each other for a moment, and then Aurora steps between them. It isn’t their decision to make.

  Just then, a girl pushes her way through the men. “You!” she cries out.

  Aurora swivels at the sound of the voice, and her jaw drops open in shock. She recognizes the servant girl immediately, even in her disarray: the ears ever so slightly outturned like a fox’s; skin that reminds Aurora of the sandy beach of Cape Baille, where she once traveled with her father and mother; hair blacker than Isbe’s and straight as the fall from the Delucian cliffs. The girl was a close friend of Heath’s—perhaps more than a friend, though Aurora was never sure. And now her face is arranged in an image of agony—no, anger.

  Wren.

  The girl lurches toward her. “Aurora,” she says. There’s an ugliness to her tone, as though Aurora’s name tastes sour on her tongue. “This is your fault.” There are tears streaking the mud on Wren’s face.

  Aurora is so startled she backs up nearly into William’s and Isbe’s arms.

  “Stand back,” Maximilien demands.

  A burly guard grabs Wren, pulling her away from the princess. “I told you to leave it alone, but you couldn’t, could you?” She struggles against the guard.

  “Where is it that you come from, in such haste, and at such a late hour?” William interrupts.

  Another castle guard clears his throat. “They been talking nonsense about another world—”

  Isbe scoffs, cutting off the guard. “Isn’t it obvious? There’s been a fire!”

  “We come from . . . Sommeil,” one of the men says. “Kingdom of the Night Faerie, Belcoeur.”

  “Destroyed now, because of you!” Wren says, before the guard holding her throws a thick hand around her mouth, shutting her up. She writhes against him.

  The injured woman, still held in the two men’s arms, whimpers. Aurora gestures urgently to a few of the palace servants. The woman moans again, and Aurora rushes toward her. She doesn’t just look like Helen, Aurora realizes with a silent gasp. She is Helen.

  Maximilien nods his permission. “Medical supplies.”

  Several of them hurry away down the east wing, and she hopes they’ll return quickly with bandages and salves. She’s still reeling, though. Wren. Helen. The other servants from Blackthorn, in Sommeil. They’re all here.

  “Your Highness,” one of the men says. “We need your help.”

  But . . . how? Aurora’s hands tremble.

  “I don’t understand it myself,” the man—Jack, she remembers—explains. “One moment we were fleeing the flames in Sommeil, and the next, we heard the high wail of the queen. Belcouer . . . she’s, she’s dead. And then . . .” He trails off, clearly registering what must be a look of unfathomable shock on Aurora’s face.

  Everyone else in the room is staring at her, and Isbe has her head cocked at an angle, just as puzzled as the others.

  “Are you all right, Princess?” Prince William asks, leaving Isbe’s side and striding toward her.

  I’m fine, she thinks. Just completely confused.

  “We’re as confused as you are,” Jack responds easily, as though he has heard Aurora’s thoughts.

  But that’s impossible. Aurora brings her fingers to her lips, which, she’s surprised to realize, are moving automatically with her thoughts. No one can hear me.

  Now it’s Jack’s turn to look bewildered. “Why not?”

  Because I have no . . .

  She stops.

  “What’s going on?” Isbe demands.

  Maximilien’s face is pale with suspicion.

  But exhilaration is beating through Aurora’s chest. It’s as though someone has punctured a hole through the top of the invisible coffin she’d been thrown into before, and with it pours in light, and air, and the possibility of escape.

  Everything happens in a flurry of activity then. Prince William tries to get more answers out of the newcomers, but Aurora is quick to grab Isbe’s hand and inform her that she knows these people, that she must learn more about the collapse of their world. She commands that they free Wren, and the guard, begrudgingly, lets her go.

  Wren practically collapses onto the ground from weakness, and Aurora runs to her, helping her to stand.

  Wren pushes her away. It’s not the force that startles Aurora but the coldness of Wren’s hands, the bruised feeling in her chest where the girl made contact with her. Touch.

  “Please,” Aurora mouths, testing her voice. None of the others—Isbe, William, Maximilien, or the servants—seems to notice, but Wren turns to her. “Please, Wren. I’m sorry. I want to help.”

  “We’ve had enough of your help,” she practically spits.

  The irony stings. Something has obviously happened to Sommeil—the fire there has leached into this world and freed its inhabitants—but they can still understand Aurora. It’s as though the faerie tithes on her have no effect among those from the dream world, even here. But Wren resents her, blames her, maybe even hates her. She could have been a friend, should have been, might be one of the few people with whom Aurora can freely speak. But Aurora ruined everything, allowed her home to be destroyed.

  “Please, let me talk to you. Let me understand what has happened,” she insists. She turns again to Isbe, tapping so rapidly her fingers nearly seize.

  Isbe relays her thoughts to the prince, who agrees to let Wren and Aurora speak privately. “My future wife,” he says to the rest, “must be trusted to conduct her own business. And if she trusts these people, then I do too.” The word “wife” sends an unpleasant zing through Aurora.

  Meanwhile, servants ret
urn with medical care for the injured. The men are found rooms; Helen is given a guest bedroom in the west wing and a nursemaid to tend to her. Soldiers are immediately sent out to investigate the fire in the royal forest, and Aurora has half a mind to join them, but she hangs back, eager to speak with Wren, to convince her she’s on her side.

  Back in her room, she hastily clears all the scattered wedding wreaths and garlands—they seem but the playthings of a child now—while a servant draws Wren a bath behind a folding screen.

  Once the girl has been fed and bathed and has borrowed a sleeping robe, Aurora runs her eyes over Wren, taking in her slightly shaking hands. Her bottom lip has a tiny cut, beginning to scab. Aurora can see the fear in her eyes, the emotion welling up. She looks like she hasn’t slept in days. Aurora is eager to talk to her—to talk again, period. But Wren lets out a trembling cough. She’s so frail.

  I think, Aurora starts, that you should rest. She forces herself not to touch her own lips again as she speaks, but it’s clear Wren has heard her. She gestures to her bed.

  Wren flushes. “This is your room? I couldn’t. I won’t. I’d rather sleep outside on the grass.”

  Behind the fierce stubbornness of her words, the girl is shaking. She looks so weak, but her anger burns bright.

  “I won’t sleep tonight anyway,” Aurora insists. The questions feel like they are going to burst out of her skin, tearing her flesh apart.

  “Neither will I. Who is your head of military? I must speak to him. Whoever is in charge. They have to fix this, they have to—” Here she collapses onto the bed, her face in her hands, trembling, though with tears of fear or sadness or fury Aurora isn’t sure. Maybe all three.

  Aurora sits beside Wren on the bed and puts her arm around her, feeling the way Wren vibrates with emotion. It radiates out to her, until she too feels upset and distraught. Wren doesn’t shake her off.

  Though she didn’t have a long time to get to know Wren in Sommeil, the girl had been tender and, Aurora thought, trustworthy. Where Heath had welcomed Aurora with a curious fervor—and argued with her with the same heat—Wren had been cautious, careful, and above all, kind. It made Aurora feel even worse about what she’d done . . . that kiss with Heath, raindrops still clinging to her eyelashes and the stubble along his square jaw—both of them panting, angry, yet drawn to each other. Wren had caught them in the moment, and instantly Aurora had sensed how it bothered the girl. She must have been jealous, must have wanted Heath for herself, and Aurora had been ashamed at the idea that she might have come between them.

  Now Wren pulls away from her. She curls her legs up onto the bed, tucking the borrowed robe more tightly about her thin frame, then leans against one of the tall, elegant bedposts and stares at the window.

  “Our whole world has become dust,” she says.

  Aurora follows her gaze, then rushes to close the shutters, noticing how freezing it is in her room, worried the chill will bother Wren, whose washed hair hangs wet around her shoulders, black and sleek as an otter’s back.

  “The Borderlands closed in on us,” the girl is saying as Aurora returns to her. Her voice is tremulous. “The wall fell; I couldn’t believe it. The trees, still burning, flickered and traded places until I thought I had become as unhinged as the queen.”

  Aurora sits down beside her on the bed again. Wren’s eyes flick toward her and away.

  “But then, just as suddenly, they were still. Only they weren’t the same trees—not slender and trimmed like the ones in Sommeil, but big and lush, taller than three men. That’s when I knew we were somewhere else. The fire raged on, and it was so hard to see, to breathe. And there were just so many of them. . . .”

  “So many?” Aurora asks, still warming again to the sound of her own voice, like a whisper spoken through a thin wall. She has the bizarre sense that she must stop talking in order to hear herself. It feels wrong somehow—forbidden—to speak here, in her real life, in her home. Deliciously wrong.

  “Soldiers,” Wren explains. “All with the same thorny crest on their shields.”

  “Malfleur!”

  Wren remains staring at the closed window, like it pains her to look at Aurora. She takes a deep breath. “I saw so many die. So many of us.” She stops and wipes away a streak of tears. “Those who tried to escape were rounded up on carts. Heath—”

  Aurora’s own breath hitches. “Is he . . .”

  Wren finally faces Aurora. “He went with the white-faced queen. Malfleur. She took him, and cartfuls of others too—mostly men. Back to her own kingdom.”

  “LaMorte. Recruits for her army, no doubt,” Aurora says, remembering Isabelle’s account of the evil faerie queen terrorizing peasants throughout the land, her mercenaries demanding they either join her cause or die.

  “Heath and some of the others seemed to think she was heroic, that she had saved us from Sommeil, freed us—they were chanting, rallying, but . . .” Wren’s eyes search Aurora’s face. “You told us Malfleur and Belcoeur were sisters.”

  “Yes.”

  Wren shakes her head. “No matter how evil we may have once thought Belcoeur, I can’t see myself trusting another faerie queen who’s willing to murder her own blood.”

  “No,” Aurora agrees. “Queen Malfleur is not to be trusted. She . . .” Aurora takes a breath. “She propagates lies, tithes the youth of all the women in her territories, performs strange experiments with animals—I used to think it was all just rumors, but I’ve seen evidence of her dark magic.”

  The words “dark magic” rush across her lips as she remembers the talking starling at her window, and a new idea tickles across her mind like a spring wind stirring through trees. “Now,” Aurora adds, “Malfleur is preparing to march against Deluce, and we will be at war.”

  Wren’s eyes blacken. “But Heath . . . we can’t leave him in her clutches.”

  Her memory of Heath, her longing to see him again—his grin, his mussed wild hair, his enthusiasms and despairs—leaps and gutters like a candle in wind.

  Aurora shakes her head. “I am supposed to marry the prince of Aubin. Tomorrow.”

  Wren recoils. “Marry? You can think of marrying a prince at a time like this?”

  “I have no choice!” Aurora says, surprised to find she is shouting, shaking.

  “But you were the one who opened the floodgates, you were the one who showed up and spoke of another world, who stoked the flames in Heath’s heart and made him want this, want freedom, and now look what’s happened. All our best men gone. We have no place to go. We have nothing.” Wren is staring at her with a presence so powerful Aurora feels something tightly wound inside herself come loose.

  “I didn’t know, Wren. I was only trying to help. You couldn’t have survived much longer there anyway, you know that.”

  Wren lays her hands on Aurora’s shoulders. Aurora draws in a quick breath, the rush of touch like a flock of swallows startled into flight.

  “I will hear no further argument from a spoiled, clueless princess who cares more about her wedding garments,” Wren says, with a nod to the wreaths and garlands stacked on a chair, “than the well-being of her people—or ours.”

  Though the girl is only a maid by station, she has a strength of conviction many nobles lack. She reminds Aurora of Isbe in that way. But her accusation sounds a lot like the ones Heath hurled at her in Sommeil.

  Aurora’s sick of everyone doubting her. “If that’s what you really think, fine,” she says, struggling to keep her voice steady. “I will handle things my way, and you may handle them yours.”

  She leaves Wren in her room. She walks through the darkness with no torch, feeling both the helpless clumsiness of her body in the cool, ambivalent night, and the creeping numbness, the solitude, of having just stormed away from one of the only people in the world who can communicate with her.

  She walks down the long, wide corridor that leads to Prince William’s visiting chambers, thinking of rousting him again, of seeking his help in rectifying the dir
e circumstances of the Sommeilians. But as she approaches the closed door to the guest wing, she already knows what the prince’s answer will be: Heath is a recruit of the enemy. Deluce’s duty is to defend its own citizens first.

  She makes her way outside instead, moving among the still gardens, which glisten with dew in the moonlight. Thinking. Simmering. Who will help them? How can she possibly prove to Wren that she’s wrong about Aurora, that Heath was wrong too, that they all were? That her rank doesn’t determine her role. That she can be strong too, just like Isbe.

  Aurora had been the one who drew out Queen Belcoeur, after all, the one who got her to reveal the truth at last. Belcoeur had told them that Malfleur killed Charles Blackthorn—cut off his head and sent it to her in a treasure chest along with a cruel note that said “Everyone deserves true love.” Malfleur did it because she felt betrayed that Charles had chosen her twin sister over her.

  But there is still something missing to the story, Aurora senses, something that has been troubling her ever since she put on Charles Blackthorn’s True Love crown and woke herself up. Of course she doesn’t know Malfleur beyond the stories that have become more myth than history. But still, she just can’t quite believe that Malfleur, evil as she may be, would go to such lengths to make Belcoeur suffer over the love of a man. The fae can be petty, certainly. But to get so upset, just over a man, a mere mortal? It’s only a hunch, but Aurora suspects there’s more to it than that.

  That there’s something else Malfleur was really bitter about. If Aurora had to guess what’s always been most important to the evil queen, it would be power. Magic.

  Aurora pushes back inside the palace, past the guards, who only eye her noncommittally, and remembers how she dragged that heavy ax through Blackthorn Castle in Sommeil, lifted its weight over her head, and smashed down the door to the hall of tapestries, working away at the illusion, even as her arms throbbed with exhaustion. Hacking at the wood again, and again, and again, until finally it splintered and started to give. . . .