Page 19 of Royally Hacked Belle & Flame
DAEMON
“Have I mentioned that I fucking hate snow?” I grumble, more to myself than my friends.
No one replies, but I know I’m not alone.
Fox, Jett, and Kastian look as miserable as I am, and the silence is tense as we walk through the woods. The crunch of our boots grows increasingly muffled as the wind picks up and the snow thickens on the forest floor. Long shadows stretch between the darkening pines until it grows difficult to see.
The forest that runs alongside Storia is massive. I know it must end somewhere—the border of Thermia is to the north, and if you walked far enough east, you’d eventually hit the desertof Solistine, but I couldn’t begin to fucking guess how long that would take.
I try not to think about it, reminding myself that two kids couldn’t have gone that far…hopefully.
Still, my stomach knots tighter with each passing hour. We haven’t found a single shred of evidence that Archer or Gwen was ever here and the temperature’s dropping fast.
If they were human children, I’d be certain we would never find them alive. A human would have frozen to death by now, but Fae children can’t die from cold. They can still fucking feel it, though, and there are so many other ways to die in these woods.
The sound of chewing makes me stop short and turn around. “What the fuck is that?”
Jett freezes with his hand halfway to his mouth, what looks like half a biscuit clutched in his fist. He swallows and holds the biscuit out to me. “What, you want some?”
“No. Where the hell did you get that?”
“Brought it with me.” He shrugs as he takes another bite and crumbs tumble to the ground. Glancing back at the snowy ground behind us, he’s made quite a trail of crumbs.
I roll my eyes and turn my back on him, grumbling under my breath. “You’re going to attract fucking animals dropping food everywhere. We’re supposed to be focused on looking for the kids.”
“Wolves don’t eat bread, asshole,” Jett says through another full mouth, “and I can look and eat at the same time.”
“I’m more worried about wolves eating the kids,” Kastian comments, putting an abrupt end to me and Jett snapping at each other.
“There are no wolves nearby,” Fox says flatly.
I look sideways at him. “How could you know that?”
Predictably he doesn’t answer, just trudges purposefully onward.
Another hour passes and the snow only gets worse.
I hold my hand in front of my face and see nothing but a shadow. The trees have vanished, replaced by looming gray shapes that materialize and disappear with each gust of wind. My eyelashes clump with ice, and every breath scrapes my throat raw. It’s like being back in Dyaspora.
“We should go back to the manor,” Kastian yells.
He can’t be more than a few yards to my right, but his voice still gets lost in the wind.
“Not yet!” I yell back.
“How are we supposed to find anything when we can’t fucking see?”
Before I can respond, something catches my eye in the distance. I squint through the snow and my heart leaps. There’s a tiny spot of light ahead. A fire maybe or a house? “There’s something over there! Let’s check that out before we go back.”
If they answer me I can’t hear it, but it doesn’t matter. My legs feel like they’ve turned to stone, but the light is enough to drag me forward.
We stumble out of the trees and into a little clearing. Up a drifted path that’s more crater than walkway, is a cottage. The windows are glazed with frost, but the inside glows like a bonfire.
Kastian gets to the porch first and peers through the frosted window. “You think anyone’s home?”
As if in answer, the door swings open and I have to raise a hand to shield my eyes from the sudden bright light.
“Who’s there?” A quavering female voice calls into the wind.
