The tunnel was labyrinthine and long, and as Grieve and I followed the twisting passages, accompanied by Check and Fearless, I thought back to the days of my life, less than two months ago, and how different my world had been.
My name is Cicely Waters, and I’m a Wind Witch. And now I’m the Queen of Snow and Ice and the Fae Queen of Winter.
My journey down this road began at birth, though of course, I didn’t know it then. My cousin Rhiannon and I were born on the same day—the summer solstice. Rhia was born in the morning, during the waxing half of the year, and I was born during twilight, after the tide had turned and the year had begun to wane. We called ourselves twin cousins.
Aunt Heather—Rhiannon’s mother—called us fire and ice, amber and jet, for Rhiannon was born tall and willowy with curling red hair, and I was born short and pale, with long, smooth, black hair. Our eyes had been different then. When she took the throne of Summer, Rhiannon’s eye color changed from hazel to gold. And as I ascended to the helm of Winter, mine changed from emerald to the frozen blue of northern ice.
When we were five, my cousin and I met Grieve and Chatter out in the woods, and they taught us how to tap into our magic. The magical Fae prince and his friend became our mentors, and by the next year, when Krystal, my drunken and drug-addicted mother, dragged me off on a journey that would last the next nineteen years of my life, I was prepared for the ordeal to come. Grieve had bound Ulean to me by then, and with her help, I was able to survive the cruel underbelly of the cities through which we traveled.
We’d never stopped long in one place, hitchhiking most of our way up and down the west coast. I explored the seedy streets as my mother sold her body to vamps and to men. I’d learned quickly that she wasn’t cut out for survival. Krystal was on a one-way path to self-destruction, and I didn’t want to go down with her. Even at six years old, I knew that if we were to stay alive, I’d have to figure out how to keep us going.
So Ulean warned me when danger was near. She told me when to run, when to hide. I’d played hide-and-seek with rapists and thieves; I’d hustled Krystal out of the dives we lived in too many times when the landlord was on his way down the hall carrying a baseball bat, looking for his money.
When we were first on the streets, I’d met Uncle Brody, an old black man with a heart a mile wide. He’d taken one look at my situation and done his best to teach me how to survive. I learned a lot of street smarts from the man, and would be forever in his debt. Uncle Brody’s Rules he called the set of guidelines he’d taught me. By the time Krystal dragged me out of that city—wherever it was, I could never keep them clear in my mind, one place was just the same as the next—I was older than I ever should have been at that age. But I was ready to play the game.
So we ran, from city to city, from man to man, as Krystal sought to escape the visions in her head. She was one of the magic-born, and she hated her ability to read thoughts. So she steeped herself in booze and drugs to escape. But there was no real way to leave it behind. If you have the power, that’s it. She refused to accept my abilities, too, and so I kept quiet and used them on the sly. Meanwhile, Krystal sank so deep that no one could reach her. Not even me, her daughter.
By the time she died in an alley, drained by some vamp, I was staying with her out of a sense of responsibility. Love? What’s love when you have to take over your own mothering? When you have to mother the woman who gave you birth because she fucked herself up so bad?
The day I found her, sprawled there, throat ripped out, I realized that any love I thought I had left was curiously absent. I felt sorry for her, like I would any stranger, but she was just some poor hooker who had lost the game. I fished through her pockets, took her wallet and anything that might identify her, then I walked away. When I was long gone, I called in an anonymous tip to the cops. I never looked back.
I took to the road on my own, winning a car in a game of street craps. And from there I restlessly prowled, always wanting to return home for good but never getting up the nerve to ask.
Two years later, my aunt Heather sent a message on the wind. She needed me. As a teen, I’d been allowed to take a few trips back to see my cousin and aunt. Each time I’d wanted to stay, but the knowledge that Krystal wouldn’t survive without me haunted me and I always went back to her.
But now, Heather was frantic. Something was wrong at the Veil House, and would I please come home. Feeling happy for the first time in years, I rushed back to New Forest, only to find my aunt had been abducted by Myst in a war waging between ancient forces.
That was about two months ago. And now, here I was, a thousand miles away from the night I was pulled back into New Forest, Washington. I’d parked my car in the lot of a hotel, and walked into a life I’d never expected to live.
Reunited with my cousin, and now married to Grieve, I was a woman instead of a child. A woman fighting a desperate battle against the Vampiric Queen of the Indigo Court. And I wasn’t all that sure we were going to win.
The tunnels through the Barrow grew narrower and darker. They were infrequently used, and few dared to come this far. The shamans of the Cambyra Courts had a frightening reputation, and they scared the hell out of people, which was just as well, because it meant they didn’t get overwhelmed by curious members of the Court.
The walls glistened, and I realized that we were in a series of ice tunnels—glacial passages leading out of the actual Barrow into the depths of the ice field that spread out as far as the eye could see. We were still within the magical boundaries of my Court, that much I knew, but here the ice was illuminated from within, glowing with soft white and violet sparkles. The lights flickered, as if emanating from some cold flame deep inside the core of the ice sheet, and when I looked down at my feet, I realized the surface of the floor was the same smooth glass. But we glided over it as if it were a faint mist.
My transformation into the Queen of Winter had changed me into a creature of the snow and ice, and the elements were now my blood and soul. I belonged to Winter as sure as the flakes that blanketed the land.
Grieve moved in silence, his face set in a stony expression. Once we had married and he had taken the position of King, he had changed subtly, grown older in a way. His feral nature would never be tamed, but once he accepted the responsibility for our people, his stature had shifted. He had become regal, and to a degree, stern.
I glanced back at Check and Fearless, who walked a few steps behind us. While they were also suspect, we’d had to bring them with us. I couldn’t go wandering around without protection, and to order them to stay behind would only put everyone on alert.
But Grieve and I kept our eyes open, and with Ulean following, she could warn me before they moved more than an inch to attack. Ulean had my back, and she always would.
The tunnels ran deep, a labyrinth spiraling toward the shamans’ lair, and as we continued, it grew progressively colder. I watched the puffs of air hang in front of my face, freezing and then exploding into a fine powder. The decreasing temperatures told me we were reaching the outskirts of the Barrow, which meant from here on out, the wild would encroach, and even though we were still within the boundaries of the Court, we would do well to be wary.