Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,40
by my unfocused eyes. While I’ve been anxious to get on with everything—to get to Winterkill and take down the soul trade—now that it’s right in front of me, the fear I probably should have been feeling all along is sinking in. Brekken was right earlier. None of this is going to be easy.
It’ll be worth it, I remind myself, trying to breathe deep, slow my racing heart and the prickling of sweat on my palms. Worth it, if we can save even one captive Solarian. Is such a thing even possible?
Eventually, the great wolves’ fast pace starts to change. It registers deep in my bones, causing me to look up ahead before I even quite realize we’re slowing. What I see makes me draw in my breath. A towering silhouette looms in front of us. Wreathed in fog, it looks even darker against the night sky. It would hardly be visible at all, except for how it pierces the aurora and blocks out the stars. A massive maze of turrets and buttresses and walls and towers surrounds the grounds.
I keep my eyes on the estate as the wolves take us closer and it comes slowly into focus. As we approach, some of the fog seems to clear away and I realize the castle of stone and ice, rather than being dark, is actually blazing with light. It rises above a thicket of pine trees and pours light from its windows. Even at a distance, I can see other sleighs gathered up front, some pulled by wolves and some by great gray deer with white antlers. Then we plunge into the trees skirting the fortress, and the world goes dark.
It’s startlingly scary. I can’t see for crap, but I guess the wolves can, because we keep going at top speed, the sleigh turning with surety as the road twists and winds through the trees. I can feel them on either side of us, like conscious presences, and smell the sharp woodsy scent of sap and snow.
When we emerge from the trees, the world seems brighter than it did before, brighter than can be accounted for by my eyes adjusting. I realize with a jolt that we’ve emerged straight into a great, gardened courtyard, the windows of Winterkill spilling light all around us.
It’s beautiful, like an otherworldly, wintery version of the gardens at Versailles. Great trees, sort of like weeping willows but bigger and paler, march in orderly rows in all directions, draping pearly white vines over gray cobblestone paths. Bushes with glossy black leaves and round red flowers hug the sides of the castle. Ice sculptures dot the gardens—rearing bears and birds in flight and knights standing triumphantly atop slain enemies—and seem to capture and refract the starlight from above, casting the gardens in a shifting, living light. All around us, Fiordens in fine velvet gowns and fur cloaks are disembarking from sleighs.
Laughter and conversation floats through the air, both in English and the Myr language. As the partygoers filter inside through a set of open doors on the other side of the courtyard, footmen appear out of nowhere to attend to the sleighs and the animals. Great wolves shift their weight and eye the elk and reindeer that other parties have used to pull their sleighs.
Nervousness is a lump of ice lodged in my throat as Graylin swings down from our sleigh and speaks to us in a low voice.
“Remember the plan,” he says. His posture is casual, one hand resting against the sleigh side, but his eyes dart around nervously. “Don’t interact more than necessary. Don’t attract attention. Keep in touch”—he pats the walkie-talkie on his belt, hidden under his cloak—“and don’t get separated. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”
I nod in response, patting the place where my walkie-talkie is hidden to show that I have it. I argued on the way here that we should all split up—we can cover more ground that way—but Graylin wouldn’t hear of it, since I don’t speak the Myr language and don’t have much in the way of self-defense skills. I know he’s right, but I hate feeling like deadweight.
We disembark and walk toward the castle, aiming for an inconspicuous side entrance rather than the propped-open doors admitting the crowd. The feel of a party is in the air, but my limbs are heavy with anxiety.
Graylin comes up next to me. Here, he seems different from the gentle, soft-spoken soul I’ve always known. Wariness is in his eyes, and