Page 3 of The Yuletide Fairy's Curse
“I will take you anyway,” the fairy confirmed. She stepped back from the bed, held her hand out as if she meant to take Hals’s place as Dalla’s escort.
Dalla stood. The rest of the room was obscured by the mist; she could no longer see or hear the many guards.
She reached for the fairy. When their hands made contact, Dalla registered with surprise the warmth of the fairy’s hand. The mist took over, and then Dalla could not see anything at all.
CHAPTER 3
In a sea of white, Dalla felt for the dagger under her cloak. Without her vision, she did not know what to expect. No one the fairy kidnapped ever made it back home, and all were presumed dead. She only hoped she would find an opening to strike before she was murdered.
The mist rolled away, cleared by an icy wind. Dalla had to catch her breath. The sight before her was not something meant for mortal eyes. Marble spires towered over a magnificent palace. Undisturbed snow shrouded every surface, and lights twinkled through tall windows inside.
Literal, pure magic. She breathed in the air—fresh, devoid of the smells of life.
Dalla was next to the fairy in a modest sleigh. Two bone-white stags were harnessed to the sleigh, eerily still.
The fairy turned to her. “Do not get comfortable,” she warned.
Could Dalla ever be comfortable, surrounded by such magic? Had her older sister Fonn died in this beautiful palace just last year?
This place was too wonderful to be a slaughterhouse.
The fairy clicked her tongue, and the stags lurched forward. Dalla clutched a handle bar in one hand, the pommel of her dagger in the other. In no time at all, they came to a graceful stop at the portcullis. With one wave of the fairy’s scepter, the portcullis raised in bone-chilling silence.
The fairy stepped out of the sleigh, and Dalla wiped her sweaty palm against her furs as she scrambled to keep up. Next to each other on solid ground, Dalla observed that the fairy had to be nearly six feet tall. Dalla had always considered herself lucky she had grown to five.
Back home, the structure they called a castle was humble compared to this, and outside the castle were buildings for the extended royal family, the servants, the guard, the livestock, the granaries. Here, a great nothingness stretched in every direction of the palace for miles, as though there was no life to support.
They arrived at two tall doors shimmering with mystical purple undertones. At another wave of the fairy’s scepter, the doors opened to reveal an empty foyer as white and cold as the winter outside.
Dalla shivered. The fairy turned and placed her hand on another door—more wooden, less magical.
Surely the fairy would not expose her back to Dalla if she could be killed with a mortal weapon? The back of the fairy’s feathery dress was open, her shoulder blades shifting as she walked. Dalla examined the open stretch of skin, so mesmerized that she didn’t immediately register the view when the doors to the main hall opened.
Opulent was too inadequate a word to describe the scene before her. Boughs of green twined the railings of two extravagant staircases that spiraled up to the left and right. In the center was the largest pine tree Dalla had ever seen indoors, stretching so tall she almost couldn’t see the top. It twinkled with baubles whose surfaces glimmered like drops of water catchingthe sun. A subtle smell of cinnamon and nutmeg wafted through the air. Glowing lights drifted down from the ceiling, twirling and trailing like snowflakes.
If only Dalla’s brother could see this. He had always liked Yuletide too, preferring it over other celebrations despite the bitter cold which accompanied that time of year.
He would someday see this, she realized, if she didn’t put a stop to it.
Her fingers found the dagger under her cloak. She turned to the fairy, who was watching her closely.
“You are impressed,” the fairy noted in her cool tone.
“Who wouldn’t be?” Dalla said. But something was off, despite the magic and the décor. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Where are all the people?” she asked. “Your servants? Other…fae folk?”
The fairy touched a pendant at her neck. Dalla noticed it with interest. It emitted a supernatural blue glow. She recognized it, in fact—the fairy of summer, who was less of a mystical entity and more of a regular visitor to her family’s castle during the half-year he ruled the warmer seasons, wore a similar pendant.
“My servants will show you to your rooms,” the fairy said.
Dalla jumped at the sensation of hands on her elbows. There was no one there—no one she could see, anyway. And yet, fingers twisted over her arms, gently but firmly holding her in place.
Herrooms. So she was to stay at least one night. This did not match the idea of the fairy’s agenda in Dalla’s head. Dalla had pictured many things happening to her siblings and parents. Her most common theory was that the fairy kidnapped them and murdered them in Faerieland so the family would never be reunited with their bodies. If that wasn’t true, what did she do with them?
Torture came to mind. Dalla swallowed. She’d been so entranced by her magical captor and surroundings, she’d likely missed her best window to strike.
“You will wash up and get ready for dinner,” the fairy ordered.
