Page 5 of The Yuletide Fairy's Curse
But then, she’d always been drawn to Kolfrosta—long before she knew her name.
Dalla tried to be aware of her surroundings, to map her exit as Kolfrosta’s shoes clapped against the marble floors. The effort was fruitless. Instead, Dalla’s eyes drifted to Kolfrosta’s long, silver eyelashes and the dark irises underneath. This close, the snowflakes were even more magnificent, gently flurrying under her skin.
Years ago, Dalla slept soundly in her safe room in the quiet home she shared with her sister Fonn. She recalled the door creaking. Lifting her head from the sheets, seeing swirls of mist gather on the floor, wondering if she had left the window open.
The fairy stood there in the doorway, looking like something out of another world. Dalla couldn’t breathe—she had never seen anyone so beautiful and powerful. She did not know what to do or say in the presence of this otherworldly being.
In the end, Dalla could not muster the courage to say anything. Kolfrosta said nothing, either—not a name, not a hello, and certainly not an explanation for what she’d been doing there. She nodded to Dalla and left.
Dalla fell back asleep, thinking she’d dreamed the visit from the fairy. But the next morning, both her parents were gone, and every year after that, someone disappeared again. Dalla told everyone the one behind the kidnappings was the Yuletide fairy, the counterpart to the summer fairy they worked with every year called Puck. No one knew the winter fairy’s name.
All they knew was that she kept coming back, year after year, to kidnap the current sovereign.
Kolfrosta didn’t look Dalla’s way once as they walked, nor did she say a word. Yet Dalla felt like she was under scrutiny, like she was meant to pass a trial without knowing its purpose. She was embarrassed.
Dalla had every right to be. She had dreamed about the Yuletide fairy entering her room often after their first encounter. In these dreams, sometimes, Kolfrosta would sit on her bed with a comb and brush Dalla’s hair. Sometimes, she would undress Dalla and caress her skin, and Dalla would wake with desire in her veins.
Often, the fairy would open her mouth to reveal fangs that would pierce the skin of Dalla’s neck. Blood would pool on Dalla’s blankets—a desecration of her safe place. Dalla was helpless in these nightmares, unable to scream or fight. She would wake up sweaty and afraid, and her sister Fonn would make Dalla’s favorite comfort drink: a steaming cup of chocolate with a dash of peppermint.
If only a sweet drink could solve Dalla’s problems now.
At last, the winding hallways led them to an extravagant dining hall with a small table at its center. Like the main hall, the dining hall was decorated festively: tapestries of stags pulling a sleigh and the palace in a blizzard, the same twinkling lights falling from the ceiling, tinsel and sparkles and glittering red on every surface.
Kolfrosta led Dalla to the table and pulled out a chair. Dalla started for the other side—where the only other chair was—and then realized Kolfrosta had pulled out the chair forher.
Like they were diplomats who had both chosen to be there rather than captor and captive.What a courteous host, Dalla thought drily.
She sat, and Kolfrosta took the other seat. There was nowhere else to look but forward, right into Kolfrosta’s chilly eyes and her beautiful face with its high cheekbones and full lips.
As promised, desserts were brought to them, floating into the room in the invisible servants’ hands. The desserts were various and excessive. Platters bore little circular yule cakes with nuts and icing, sweet bread with dried fruits baked into it, puddings garnished with cranberries, jams and spreads and cheeses and pastries with mouth-wateringly flaky layers.
A much finer feast than Dalla would ever have had at home. Some of the foods here she didn’t recognize, and some were out of season, like the baked cinnamon apples drizzled with honey. A bowl of hot wassail was poured, and the spices in the drink complemented the smell of the sweets all around.
Dalla cupped the bowl with her fingers, and the heat sank into her hands. Somehow, in this place that looked so cold, everything was warm and comforting.
She lifted the bowl and brought it to her lips. The delicious flavors of apple and cranberry rolled past her tongue andtraveled down her throat, warming her. She set it down, impressed.
And found Kolfrosta watching her.
The plate before Kolfrosta was piled with sweets, but they were untouched. Was the wassail poisoned? How long would it be before she keeled over, clutching her throat?
“How do you like it?” Kolfrosta asked.
“I have had my first sip,” said Dalla. “It is your turn.”
Kolfrosta raised an eyebrow—not used to being told what to do, Dalla supposed. She lifted the wassail bowl and took three large gulps, the column of her throat bobbing with each. When she set the bowl down, it was empty.
This did not comfort Dalla the way she wanted it to. Fairies were probably susceptible to different poisons than humans. But Dalla took a yule cake anyway, because if she was going to die, she was going to find out what the icing tasted like.
The idea that Dalla could die soon emboldened her. “Did you treat the rest of my family to meals like this?”
Kolfrosta tilted her head. “You must hate me,” she said. “I’ve stolen most of your bloodline away from you by now.”
Dalla licked the icing off her fingers: sweet, but tempered with the savory flavor of the nuts in the cake. “I would like to knowwhyyou are doing it,” she shot back.
“I think you know,” said Kolfrosta plainly.
Did she? Dalla had several educated guesses, but she had never dared to assign one to the fairy’s motives. She grabbed a pudding to give her some more time to think. Like everything else, it was perfect.
