Page 124 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

And there was another joke.

I smiled, whispering to myself, “You’re alright. You’re alright.”

Standing up, I tugged at his shirt to look at his wound. Still bruised, an angry red and desperately needing some proper attention, but it was fine. “Why did it feel so real?”

Pushing off the sofa, I unbolted the door and went outside. Just as I had thought, the same creature staring at us through the window in my dream stood by the edge of the abandoned village, blurred by the thick morning snow that was coating everything with a fresh layer of white. Stepping into the street, I took a couple steps where I remembered the other creatures standing and kneeled down, brushing my hand over the new and soft snowflakes, separating the fresh fallen snow on the ground from the permanent snowpack to reveal footsteps of all sizes and shapes embedded in it.

“What’s this?” he asked, following me outside.

“It was not a dream, but it somehow was. I saw Lilith. Something is happening.” I spun to him. “Why are you up?”

“I’m alive.”

“Yes. Yes, you are.”

“And it is tomorrow.”

“It is,” I agreed.

The smallest smile rose on his lips. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

Something rumbled in the distance, dragging our attention away from what was about to come next. A wall of ice quickly rose from between us, trapping him on the other side of it.

“Malik?”

“Here, sweetheart,” he shouted, putting a palm against the ice wall.

“Dark Craft?”

“Don’t think so. I can scent it in the air, but this one isn’t a Crafter’s doing. Can’t you take this down? I can’t risk fading or doing any magic without being scented by a Crafter. Or dying.”

I tried. But it wouldn’t go down no matter how many tethers of control I attached to the ice, it just wouldn’t take my command. Resting my hands on it, I tried again. It had been a while since I’d gone to the basics of my magic, but this was not the rest of the realm, this was Isea, the most preserved ancient land of what our realm had once been.

“Damn it!” Pushing from the wall, my tethers reached out to merge with the snow and ice to create my creatures, but nothing. Nothing was happening. No magic. “There is something wrong,” I breathed, looking down at my palms, at my skin and the blue veins below, wondering how I had ever looked so human and never noticed.

He put a palm to the wall. “Let’s walk around it.”

“I can’t see an end.”

Unsheathing a dagger, we walked along the wall, his hand against mine. Despite the thick wall of ice between us, it felt as if his skin was grazing mine.

“Talk to me,” he said. “I can literally feel your unease in my stomach.”

“Is that all you feel?” I asked, then saw his blurred shadow stop for a moment. Though I couldn’t make out any features through the wall, somehow, I knew he had a grin on. “If we go this slow, we won’t ever find an end.”

“This pessimistic nonsense is really worrying me, little bird. We have to get you in the sun more.”

“Not funny at all.”

“Then stop smiling or I’m going to take this the wrong way.”

Night had swallowed day before we’d even taken notice. There had barely been a sunset. Nothing to indicate that light would leave us stranded with miles of a wall still separating us.

Malik had leaned against the wall of ice even though I knew he was probably freezing at the contact. He was more sensitive than most to the cold, a thought that made me giggle considering the sheer size and greatness of him, the famed Eldritch Commander.

“Go under a tree or find a tall rock so it braces against the cold,” I said. “Or you’re going to freeze.”