Song of Mist and Storm | I ✓

chapter 8

THE PINE WOODS of one of the kingdoms belonging to the Fae Folk was still not exactly to where I had wanted to be taken.

Inhabited by the great beasts of spiny pine and spires of frozen snow known only as Icen, it was difficult to tell them apart from their surroundings. One might very well be lurking behind me, and I would not know until I felt its blizzard breath on my neck.

Though even with that danger, there was a beauty in the forest. The trees grew upwards for miles —almost creating a canopy where a few mighty trunks congregated; and the powdery snow was softer and purer than the mortal world's. It shimmered in the sunshine, like fragments of silvery mirror.

There was magic in the air.

Great streaks of blue and green stretched above me, avoiding the trees and piercing the falling snow.

I was not really there —I knew that. I knew that I was only permitted to be a spectator. And as I bore witness to the magnificence of it, I drank in every detail. Noted every flake; every pine; and every chill.

It was always Winter here.

I used to wonder how the people who lived here tolerated such weather year-round for eons, but my tutors all gave me the same answer.

'They adapted to the cold.'

'They became complacent,' Magenta had added. As though being able to withstand these conditions was an achievement about which was worth bragging. Perhaps if she had spent some time here, learned the culture and studied the dynamics of Fae and nature, she would have seen differently.