Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,45

mixed with larger ones. Staircases of ice and archways of crusted snow hover threateningly over my head like stalactites.

It’s so quiet. So still I can hear the others’ boots echoing as they examine Winter’s handiwork. Kyn finds me first. He wanders to the center of the vast room I’ve stumbled into and runs his bare hand over the crystalline banister of a massive staircase. It climbs on and on, vanishing into the haze overhead.

“She could do so much, yeah? And yet she chooses destruction. Do you ever wonder why she is the way she is?”

“She’s cold and ice and power. A force of nature,” I say, remembering how Mars referred to himself in the same way. “Her actions do not surprise me.”

“The look on your face says otherwise, Miss Quine.” Mars and Hyla enter the room, one scowling at Winter’s artistry, the other gawking.

“You called her ugly,” I say. “Dark. Said she’d been addled by the—”

A gust of wind swoops down the massive staircase and knocks Kyn sideways. It slaps my face and pushes the words back into my mouth. I curl forward coughing.

Hyla brandishes another of her Paradyian curse words and offers Kyn a hand. Mars waits until I’m recovered before he speaks.

“I apologize, Miss Quine. She’s not vindictive. Not in the slightest.”

He turns away then, leaving me gaping at the staircase. Hyla follows, guns in each hand.

I pull myself upright, strange emotions bumping like an ice floe behind my rib cage.

I’ve only ever defended her. To be slapped like a petulant child . . .

Hot tears prick my eyes. I blink them away and look to Kyn. “How many tires did we lose?”

“Two,” he says. “Sylvi, are you all right?”

“There are spares bolted to the outside wall of the Dragon,” I say. “They’re not Paradyian, so you’d best hope Mars keeps his opinions about Winter to himself from here on out. She’s not playing anymore.”

The need to be anywhere but inside Winter’s castle is suddenly a living thing slithering in my gut. I turn away, weaving in and out of the bowing snow until, at last, I’m at the Dragon’s side once again. My ears are buzzing with cold and it takes a minute to shut out the noisy silence and focus on the conversation Hyla and Mars are having.

“Can you not melt the ice on the roadway?” Hyla asks. She kicks out at one of the flattened tires. “Remove Winter’s ammunition?”

“The roads are not paved beneath the ice,” I say, moving toward the tool compartment. “This isn’t Paradyia. The ice is the road. Beneath it lies shifting, unpredictable mountain rock and kol. That’s it.”

“You could navigate it,” Mars says.

“Flattery won’t save the tires on your trailer. Without the ice, we’re guaranteed to find every pothole on the Shiv Road. You realize we’re still a half mile from the Desolation stretch and you, our reckless leader, have become the biggest obstacle. Not Winter. You.”

Mars picks kol from a blister on his lip. “Change the tires and let’s be on our way.”

But Kyn’s already on it. He’s positioned the jack, cranking, cursing.

Mars grins. “I’m not familiar with this side of my friend, Miss Quine. Angry, moody. What did you do to him in that cave?”

I slam the tool compartment shut, a pair of wrenches in my hands. I use one of them to shove Mars out of the way.

“No, no,” he calls after me. “Don’t say a word. Some things should remain intimate.”

I flip my hood up, shutting out the world as I set to work on one of the shredded tires. I’m struggling with a lug nut when Hyla’s voice rings out.

“It is best to hurry,” she calls from the top of the trailer. “There are Rangers heading this way.”

“Of course there are,” I say, kicking the tire.

“What do you see?” Kyn calls.

“A pickup full of men and wolves. They are moving cautiously toward Winter’s”—she waves a gun at the castle—“ice house. But it won’t be long before they’re here.”

“Flux,” I hiss, searching the pass for Mars.

He emerges from Winter’s palace, his nostrils flaring.

“This is your mess,” I say. “I told you they wouldn’t forget what you did to Jymy.”

“You’re wasting time, Miss Quine. Best get those tires off.” And then a gust of wind lifts him into the sky.

I’d never require Winter to carry me around, but for the first time I wonder at the thrill it would be.

The wind is raging now and, in the ice-cold tendrils that chap my face, I feel Winter’s despair. This