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“But the Dark King…”
“Had his magic taken away trying to rid this world of the real evil,” I finished. “I have to believe if someone can make that kind of sacrifice and still fight for our power, they must have some good in them.”
Atlas squeezed my hand. “Marley’s from Storm. She’s not so sure about our king yet, either.”
“But I want to be. I want more for this world than a neighbor that will not open a door out of spite. Solstice is a time of rebirth and joy. We should embrace that and try to be better, even when it’s hard.”
The boy didn’t say another word until his brown eyes landed on the sleigh and the massive black beasts pulling it.
“Whoa,” he whispered, stepping quietly to the horses, as if he might spook them.
Atlas winked before circling to the back of the sleigh, taking several minutes while the boy and his mother ran their fingers down the shiny manes of the giant horses who nickered and kicked with impatience, ready to leave as much as we were.
When Atlas returned, beaming, he held a piece of paper rolled up and tied with a string that looked an awful lot like the one that had been tying the grain sacks together. I didn’t have to wait long to figure out what he was up to.
Charles eagerly pulled the string from the rolled parchment and studied it for several seconds before handing it to his mother. “I can’t read the big words yet.”
“I struggle with those myself,” Atty said, absolutely lying through his teeth.
“This is… you cannot… Is this real?” the mother asked.
“That’s King Bastian’s signature on the bottom, isn’t it?”
In confusion, I sent a questionable glance at Atlas.
The woman grabbed the little boy’s hand, thanked us profusely, and dragged her son back down the road in a hurry, as if she had to tell the world a secret I wasn’t privy to.
I rounded on Atlas, narrowing my eyes. “What did you do?”
“Let’s just say Bash is going to kill me when he finds out I just gave away one of his horses, and it’s being picked at the Solstice celebration.”
I gasped. “You’re not serious.”
He lifted me into the sleigh and followed, squeezing his eyes shut with a heavy breath to cast his magical door before sitting. “There was a lesson to be learned there. They had a broken wagon behind their house, and you saw how he looked at the team. The horse will help that family more than any guidance I could have offered. And now, it’s a guarantee they will come to the celebration and experience something most here never have.”
I melted, leaning my head onto his shoulder. “I promise I won’t tell anyone that you’re actually a really nice person.”
“Probably for the best.”
Maybe we hadn’t changed the world or even most of the minds. But that one little boy, with all his conviction, may one day stand for the king, and that had to mean something. The River Coven was the scariest place I could be, but those moments made it worth it.
The journey became treacherous. We seemed to inch along, guiding the horses carefully through the thick frozen marsh as we tried to make our way back to the bridge leading to the Fire Coven, to carry us further northeast toward Forest.
“Was this here before?” Atlas pulled the sleigh to a complete stop at the edge of a giant, frozen pond intersecting the small bit of path we’d found.
“I think if we had to cross this before, we would have remembered.” I scooted forward, looking beyond the beasts to the icy terrain.
“We must have turned the wrong way.” Atlas looked over his shoulder. “This whole territory looks the fucking same.”
“Can we go around?”
“We’re too wide. The marsh on both sides is soft. We’re going to have to cross.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding my head with a deep breath. “Slow and steady.”
“You psyching yourself up right now, Frostbite?”
“Absolutely. We should test the ice and see how thick it is first, right?”
