Page 36 of Wings of Starlight

The forest rushed by in streaks of green and white, and the snow hissed below her. Her stomach bottomed out as the sled skipped over the snowbanks and slick ice, threatening to overturn midair, but she kept a steady course. The wind whipped at her face and tore her hair from its braided coronet. It came loose around her shoulders, fluttering wildly around her. Snow, knocked from the branches overhead, crashed to the ground.

At the bottom of the slope, Milori was climbing out of his sled—too slowly. Clarion was going to crash headlong into him.

“Look out!” she shouted.

He glanced up. Without hesitation, he took flight, neatly avoiding her. She whizzed by him—only to strike an embankment. The sled soared into the air, then hit the ground hard. The force of the impact threw Clarion from her seat. With a cry of surprise, she went tumbling out of the sled and landed directly into a cushion of deep snow.

“Clarion!”

For a moment, she lay there, staring dazedly up at the sky. “I’m alive.”

“That’s good.” Milori’s face soon eclipsed her view. “And you’re all right?”

“I think so.”

When her senses returned to her, she crawled out of the Clarion-shaped hole she’d left in the ground. He offered a hand to her. This time, she took it without hesitation and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Snow caked her wild hair and clung to her eyelashes. His expression was so full of concern, she couldn’t help laughing. Howexhilaratingthat had been. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such pure, sillyfun.For just one minute, she was not the soon-to-be Queen of Pixie Hollow. She was just a fairy playing in the snow.

Milori stared at her with a peculiar expression.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said hastily. He reached for a loose strand of her hair, and she stopped breathing entirely. For a moment, she thought he meant to tuck it behind her ear or brush off the ice that clung to it. But he must have thought better of it, for his arm dropped back to his side. She reminded herself sharply not to be disappointed. “It’s just…you seem different here. It suits you.”

“Oh?” Clarion took a step closer to him and injected a challenge into her voice, if only to conceal that thwarted spark of yearning. “What isthatsupposed to mean?”

“Ah,” he said. “There you are.”

She glared up at him, but he did not back away from her. If anything, the space between them seemed to shrink as he considered her.

“I only mean to say that you seem happy here.” His tone turned almost gentle. “It’s nice.”

How could she not be? In the gathering dark, with someone who saw through her, this seemed to her a place she almost belonged. An entire world made of starlight, glittering and silver. It occurred to her that no one had ever said that about her before.Wasshe unhappy in the warm seasons?

“Thank you.” She tucked the wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Shall we keep going?”

Side by side, they set off for the Hall of Winter. Moonlight filtered through the bare branches of the trees and cast Milori with a silver glow. He had a preoccupied frown notched in his brow, as though searching for a way to break her pensive silence. At last, he said, “I must ask. How did you enjoy sledding?”

It surprised her enough that she let out a soft laugh. How serious he made it sound. “I loved it.”

“Despite your crash landing?”

“Maybe even because of it. It made me feel more alive than I have in a long time. I confess, I…” She trailed off. If she finished that sentence, he would almost certainly mock her for it—or at the very least think her ignorant. But she supposed he’d chipped away enough at her armor tonight. “I didn’t think Winter would be so much…fun?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What, did you think we stood around like ice sculptures?”

“It’s a reasonable assumption.” She tried and failed to keep the indignation out of her voice. “We’ve only seen you during seasonal transitions. And at a distance. I’ll have you know we thought you all to be rather standoffish.”

He let out a soft huff of laughter. “The feeling is mutual, rest assured.”

She smiled despite herself. “I asked the queen what she knew of the Winter Woods, and she told me it was a place crawling with monsters.”

Just then, another gust of wind lifted the fresh snowfall from the ground. It enshrouded them in white—and pierced her through with cold. Clarion shivered, half from the chill, half from the knowledge that in full dark, Nightmares could emerge from the shadows at any moment.

“Crawling with monsters,” Milori echoed with some wonderment in his tone. “So why did you agree to come here with me if that’s what you thought? You could have been attacked. Or I could have spirited you away.”

“Could you have?” Clarion asked, unable to keep her own amusement out of her voice. “I mean no offense, but you’re not very frightening.”

“No?” He tilted his head at her, and his eyes were practically aglow with something like mischief. “How do you find me, then?”