Page 36 of A Throne of Blood and Ice

“Oh, I’m aware.”

Before she can get another word in, I aim my perfect sphere of a snowball directly at her face.

SMACK.

It hits her in the face so hard it knocks her on her back.

I rush over to my sister. My snowball sent her red woolen cap so askew, her pointed ears are poking out, no longer protected from the cold.

Regret slams against my belly as, already, a red welt swells on her forehead where I landed my blow. Her fae magic will heal her before she has the opportunity to present the evidence to our mother, but that’s not what worries me.

I’ve knocked her out cold, and definitely not on purpose.

“Zora,” I say, using the nickname I gave her before I could speak properly. I nudge her lax shoulders, hoping to rouse her gently. “Zora, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you so har—”

I lose the ability to speak as Zora shoves a handful of dirt-laden snow directly into my mouth.

It’s notlong before we bore of our snowball fight. I don’t often long for the company of our sniveling village neighbors, but even I can admit one-on-one combat is not nearly as thrilling as a full-on snowball skirmish.

We’re about to head back to the cottage when Zora reminds me Mother will put us to work if we return early.

There’s no need to take such drastic measures, but Zora and I will freeze our bottoms off if we don’t find something to do. We eventually give up, going as far as to climb the hill and stare down at the cottage, where surely a host of unpleasant chores awaits us.

Yes, trench warfare would have been much more fun than feeding the alpacas.

That’s when the idea strikes me.

I hold my hand out, stopping Zora before she inevitably tucks herself up into a ball and rolls down the hill. “How do you feel about building a contraption?”

Zora rolls her big blue eyes. “Ooh, how I love contraptions.”

I shove her, though lightly. I’m still painfully aware of the perfectly spherical welt on her forehead that has only just begun to fade.

“Fine,” she says, “I guess anything’s better than chores.”

It’snoon and our fingers are numb before we finish it—we had to take our gloves off to knot the ropes properly—but I have to say, I’m pleased with our work.

“It’s not the prettiest thing, is it?” Zora says, scrunching up her forehead as she examines our invention.

I cross my arms. “Doesn’t have to be, as long as it works. Which it will.”

Zora’s right. It doesn’t look like much. In fact, it looks like exactly what it is—a long piece of unused plank we borrowed from our parents’ barn stacked perpendicular atop a trough that my father keeps meaning to patch the holes in. We left the longer end of the plank to the right of the trough, so it rests in the snow, the shorter side sticking up into the air. Atop the section of the plank that rests in the snow sits an old kneading bowl tied to the plank with a worn rope.

I have to admit the knots look shabby, but Zora rushes through everything she does. So unless I wanted to build this on my own—which I had considered more than once—I was going to have to be okay with a less-than-pristine presentation.

That being said, I would be the one to undertake the forming of the snowballs. Not Zora.

As Zora watches, arms crossed and pretending like she’s offended I won’t let her help—even though we both know she prefers doing as little work as possible—I carefully arrange a dozen perfectly contoured snowballs within the bowl.

I dust the leftover snow from my numb fingers and grin at my sister. “You ready to see if it works?”

Looking back,Zora and I probably should have checked for strangers on the road before we launched the catapult.

But as soon as I give her the go-ahead, Zora, nimble as ever, hops atop the raised plank, slamming her feet into the wood, and sends the snowballs careening through the air.

We watch them, mouths ajar with wide-eyed wonder as they soar.

Our wonder soon sours to horror as my pristine snowballs pummel a couple passing through the Serpentine in a silver-plated carriage.

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