Page 76 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
Outside, a string of fire crashed into the snow and into my car I hadn’t been able to move since this blasted winter started. I whimpered at the sight of my car in flames and shut my eyes tight when it exploded. Debris from my car flew everywhere, but the fae were quick to dodge it.
Nalari’s roar tore through the store, and many of the people crowded around seemed to hunch closer together.
Everly was the first to step toward the window to peer outside. Her hands hung on either side of her in trembling fists, and I dropped a hand on her rigid shoulders as we watched.
The fae were a fury of motion with their swords and shields. Archers threw arrows with almost perfect accuracy, but I kept my attention trained on Elias.
He used his magic to turn snow into lethal ice and plunged it into the birds larger than my cabin. Some more massive than the food bank. Their huge talons were lethal, and I gripped Victoria’s shoulder when one almost clawed at Elias, who rolled under it to slice his sword through its underbelly.
It was the liquid fire that leaked from some birds’ eyes that terrified me the most. While other birds seemed to aim their strikes, these birds released that molten lava everywhere.
Birds shrieked. Fae yelled. Fire continued to erupt everywhere.
Then—as if in a scene from a horror movie—mounds of snow rose and rose to form an almost humanistic creature. Icicles sprang from its head like a crown while even more icicles covered its broad body like a shield. When it opened itsmouth in a roar, rows of sharp teeth appeared. Each step this monstrous beast took, shook the ground beneath us.
Amid all the chaos, I heard Leanora’s laughter. Just as the snowy monsters formed from the ice, I saw her form. Flowing white hair with fiery red streaks. Eyes that glistened in unnatural colors until they shifted to a dull gray. A crown of icicles atop her head and what looked like moss covering her private areas.
My breath caught when she stared at me. With her eyes still on me, she pointed a finger at Elias, who fought one of the snow monsters. A shot of black streamed from her fingers, swimming around Elias like a promise of death.
I grabbed Everly’s arm while I pointed my other hand toward Leanora, but with her focus elsewhere, Everly didn’t react.
“She’s going to kill him,” I whispered.
I felt Everly’s attention turn to me.
Leanora called forth two thunderbirds and sent them toward Elias. Then one of the three-headed dragons Donnie had seen barreled toward Elias from behind. One of the three heads blew fire from its mouth, engulfing Elias in flames. He rolled away before he jumped to his feet to face it again.
“Stop,” I begged Leanora.
Her lips tilted in a cruel grin.“What will you give me to stop?”she asked, her words slithering across my mind and through the windowpane that separated us.
“Anything,” I whispered.
As Everly draped a blanket over my trembling shoulders, Leanora vanished.
She left the three-headed dragon, though, which Elias and Nalari fought together. Although the beast was strong, it wasn’t fast, and while Elias and Nalari fought it, another faestabbed her sword into the beast’s chest. Plumes of gray smoke flared from each nostril on its three heads. By the time it fell, Elias was fighting a snow monster.
“Did you see?” I asked Everly, my heart stumbling in my chest.
“He’s okay,” she reassured me.
“No.” I faced her. “The woman. Did you see her?”
Fear snaked around me when Everly looked back at me in question. She hadn’t seen Leanora. Couldn’t have seen her because she wasn’t real.
I gripped the side of my head, hating the way my mind worked. Hating the things it made up.
Not able to look at her, I turned my attention back outside, where three fae worked at cutting off a snow monster’s limbs while others hailed fiery arrows at it. It didn’t stop it. Didn’t stop the other snow monsters from forming. Only Nalari’s fire seemed to harm it until they were reduced to nothing but puddles.
While the fae and Nalari fought these otherworldly creatures, our downtown was quickly being demolished. I held my hand to my throat and watched helplessly.
One bird narrowed its green eyes toward us, but before it could shoot fire at us, Nalari swooped down and tore through the bird as if it were a plume of smoke.
“Ted,” Donnie whispered right above my right ear, “tell me you have guns here.”
I swallowed and leaned a hand against the cold windowpane. “In the back room,” I whispered back. “On the top of the yellow shelf, I have two pistols in my backpack.”
He ran to the back room quickly, and when he returned, he slipped one of the guns into my hand, which I tucked into the waistband of my pants. I wasn’t sure how smart it was for meto have a gun, considering the hallucination I’d just had, but I kept it all the same.
