Check held up his hand. "Your Highness, please, allow us to go first."
I stood back as he and his men went through, vanishing in a sudden crackle of sparkling lights. A moment passed, then another as we stood silent, waiting. Then Check peeked back through and motioned to us.
Wrath and Lainule took the forefront, followed by Grieve and me, and then by the others. Chatter and Rhiannon brought up the rear. As we crossed through the portal, it felt vastly different from the doorway to Summer. The basic impulse was the same, but a steady wind howled past, echoing as we shifted and flickered, and while I couldn't pinpoint exactly what made it so strange, there was a difference about it that felt colder, older, and harsh.
As we came out into the woodland, I gasped. I'd expected to just see the Golden Wood through winter, much like Myst had brought with her. But this…this was nowhere near anything I'd imagined.
The trees were coated with ice, and within the ice sparkled lights—radiant purple and blue and palest pink. They reminded me of Christmas trees, of ornaments that shimmered in the reflection of candlelight, and yet it was daylight here, like it was back in the Golden Wood.
The sky was overcast, a pale silver, and a faint dusting of snow lazily brushed our shoulders. The undergrowth peeked through mounds of snow, dark green against the stark white, and when I turned, the holly trees were also shrouded in show, their crimson berries brilliant against the blanket of endless winter.
A path stretched before us, but it was cloaked in a sheen of ice, shimmering with an internal light. Ahead, the trees thinned out, but the grove in which we found ourselves was silent, under a deep, unending layer of snow.
Up ahead, a barrow mound, similar to the Summer Palace, rose on stilts about fifteen feet above the ground. The support pillars barely showed beneath the cloak of snow, and the Barrow was swathed in white, and silent. Several of the guards were positioned around it, and a contingent of workers silently went about whatever they were doing: fixing doorways, patching holes that had been gouged into the side, all sorts of repair work.
As I stood there, it began to hit home that here, the snow never left. Here, it was always winter. Here, the trees never saw spring, summer, or fall.
"When you take up court here, Cicely and Grieve, the winter will truly return." Lainule smiled at me, her expression unreadable.
I must have gasped, for both she and Wrath turned.
"What is it?" Wrath inhaled deeply, then let out a loud cough.
The air was sharp, piercing my lungs with a clarity I'd never before felt, but it hurt like hell and I was grateful for the warm cloak that covered me from neck to toe. I'd need gloves, too, and a scarf and hat.
"The air is practically crackling with the cold. It feels like it could shatter my lungs if I breathed deep enough. And you say that winter will return here?" I turned around, looking in all directions. To the right, I saw a group of Ice Elementals passing by, and they paused, looked directly at me, and stopped. "Uh-oh…are they dangerous?"
Lainule shook her head. "No, they sense you are their Queen-to-be. Even now, before the initiation, you reverberate with the energy of winter, Cicely. You are already transforming, but you do not realize it.
Wrath let out a slow breath. "As to the winter, here it has faded, just as summer is fading in Rhiannon's realm. Ever since Tabera died, it has been so. Myst may claim the winter for her own, but she is not the Queen of Snow and Ice, and so there has been no rule here for quite some time. When you take the throne, the winter shall once again hold sway here."
That scared me. If this was moderate weather for the area, what the hell was it going to be like living here in real winter? I moved closer to Grieve, who wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed my forehead.
"It will be all right," he murmured. "We will adapt."
I glanced up at him, and the sparkling lights of his eyes mirrored the flashing lights in the trees. My love, he was born for the Summer but had been transformed and reborn a winter king. He leaned down, brushing my lips with his own, his kiss so soft I could barely feel it in the numbing cold.
"As long as we are together, it will be okay," I whispered.
Wrath led us to the Barrow palace, and there stopped to talk briefly with the guards. After they were finished, he turned. "The palace has been restored. There was a lot of damage, but everything is ready now. Come, Cicely, Grieve. Enter your new home. As Summer's palace is called the Marburry Barrow, so this is the Eldburry Barrow."
Silently, in a single line, we approached the entrance. As each of us stepped through, a shimmering light flashed pale blue.
I was prepared for a dark, musty place—it seemed that the palace of Winter would be such. Summer was rustic but elegant and warm, and even the air smelled like roses there. What I encountered was nothing like I'd expected.
The central common court was spacious. I could barely see the ends, and the floor reminded me of polished marble, but yet, when I looked closer, I saw that it was a pattern of stones inlaid in the dirt. Lapis and creamy white quartz, clear quartz and sodalite and amethyst, all smooth pebbles inlaid into the floor, like cobblestones, but they were firmly rooted in the compacted dirt. Overhead, the ceiling shimmered like black onyx, with stars embedded in the tiles, in an overreaching arc that mirrored the night sky.
The furnishings were minimal but had clean lines. It seemed that as comfortable and cozy as the Marburry Barrow was, so the Eldburry Barrow was cool and minimalistic and clear.
I ran my hand along one of the nearby benches. They were carved from slate and highly polished, and several smaller tables looked to be the same. The chairs around them were made from some sort of hardwood.
My father saw me staring. "Yew. The wood in this barrow is yew, with accents of elder and holly. Back at Marburry, in the realm of Summer, it's mostly oak, with some willow and apple."
That made sense, when I thought about it. The trees of summer. The trees of winter. As I slowly walked through the room, my hand trailing along the smooth surface of one of the tables, I closed my eyes. The room emanated age and antiquity and history. The Marburry Barrow was bustling with life once again, now that Lainule had retaken control. I tried to imagine what it would be like here, with the Winter Court full. Images of the Shadow Hunters kept flashing through my mind and I kept pushing them away, fighting off the panic that rose when I thought of ruling this realm.
I whirled to face my father. "You promise, you absolutely promise that Myst is not a true Queen of Winter?"
He gave me a solemn nod. "I do. She has never held the throne, nor been through the initiation, and without the proper rites, the abilities that make the Queen the Queen…they are not there. She is not—and never will be—the Queen of Winter. Her jealousy over that fact was what drove her in the beginning."