Page 127 of Beneath a Shattered Sky
“I don’t hate Winter,” Drystan replies evenly. “I hate Cedwyn’s court and my parents’ constant scheming. The land is in my blood. The people outside of Calimnel have always respected me and my position as the Lord of the Hunt.”
“The fire thing…” I trail off.
“Is a tradition passed down from the founding of the court by Mab’s son. He and his oldest friend had the same gift.”
“Fire?” I murmur.
“Hmm.”
“How does that work?” I ask, confused. “What about ice? And I thought gifts weren’t hereditary.”
“They normally aren’t,” Drystan replies unhelpfully. “There are some, like Cressida and Gryffin, who are fortunate enough to share close relatives, but it’s purely coincidence.”
“So how…?”
No answer. Is that because he doesn’t know, or because he won’t tell me?
“The first Lord of the Wild Hunt was among the first fae Danu created, and the first dullahan.”
“He was,” Mab confirms, popping into existence beside me. “The Goddess made him shortly after my Guard’s creation.”
Drystan offers her an exasperated look, and she meets it levelly. After a few seconds of this awkward standoff, he huffs and turns back to me.
“His line was charged with safely ferrying the souls of the dead to the Otherworld every year. To protect them while they did this sacred task, Danu gifted them with her own cleansing fire. Every direct descendant since then has been able to call on flames or heat to some degree, even if they don’t inherit a dullahan’s abilities… It made the Iceblyds easy to track down during the purge.”
How horrible. Cedwyn just killed everyone with fire magic? I wipe the sympathy from my face when I notice his glower.
“That explains your gift, but not the Froshtyns’.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and groans. “Cedwyn’s ancestor—Mab’s eldest son—was given the Winter Court by the Goddess after the War of Seasons.” He pauses, directing Blizzard left as we reach a cairn and checking to make sure the othersfollow before continuing. “While some under fae were well-equipped for the terrain, the majority weren’t, so his people struggled horribly during the Court’s early days. The Temple stepped in with a lot of aid, and the king and the Lord of the Wild Hunt would spend the year of downtime between hunts travelling between settlements, using their magic to help warm the winter fae by lighting huge communal hearths.”
“There were less of us then,” Mab adds. “But it wasn’t enough.”
“The priests beseeched the Goddess for an answer, and she gave them one. The king’s flames turned to ice, and from then on, every child born of the king’s direct bloodline has had the same power.”
It still doesn’t make sense to me. “Why was ice more helpful than fire?”
“You’ll understand when we reach Calimnel,” Drystan mutters.
“Cedwyn’s palace is nothing like the original homes my son’s people built,” Mab explains. “There was a time when they lived in little more than caves carved out of glaciers and in the mountainside. Ice magic helped create walls to protect them from beasts and the elements.”
Oh, I see. I wonder idly what ritual Cedwyn must have to perform when visiting the villages. If Drystan lights a lantern, does the winter king build a wall?
“Oooh! Ice statue!” Lore calls from behind us, and Mab disappears into the wind. “First one to the top gets to—mmpfh!”
Whatever he might’ve said is cut off as a snowball flies out of nowhere to smack him in the face.
“Oops, my hand slipped.” Caed’s dry tone is completely unrepentant.
Lore’s shock wears off swiftly, replaced with a huge, lethal grin that does funny things to my insides. “Oh, you’re on, Fomorian!”
And then… he disappears.
“Let’s bless the shrine before the redcap calls down an avalanche.” Jaro looks around the slopes of the mountain nervously as he approaches and offers his hand to help me down.
This is a shrine? I examine the strange ice sculpture set into the shelter of a rocky outcropping with interest. It’s a beautifully detailed statue of a Barghest, with pups suckling at her underside and a snarl curling her lips as she stares down the forest beyond. New life and the promise of death in equal measure.
I reach up, tracing the line of one fang as my Guard stands around me protectively.
