She was colder than she was the day before.
She was weaker from hunger, and the feeling of ice in her bones. Funea had been gone all morning, to answer the Queen’s questions about the otherworlders.
She wondered if the otherworlders made it to Omdrus already. Until she knew for sure, escape wasn’t possible. She knew that she had to get Funea out as well. The two of them could make a run for the south, or go farther north to get them off the otherworlders’ trail. The time needed to be right though.
Her wrists were horribly bruised from her struggles against the chains. From fighting them as she shouted insults at her sister. Her breath clouded in front of her face.
Seraphina was a tyrant. She knew that, but she couldn’t help looking back at her youth with fondness. She and Seraphina were near inseparable when their father and Aria’s mother were alive. Seraphina was good then. She had a kind heart then.
She had no real memories of her true family. Not of her parents, at the least. She remembers her father’s eyes, and her mother’s laugh, but that was it. It seemed that the memories she had revolved around Seraphina. She never thought much of her first life. It didn’t matter much to her, she’d rather appreciate the life she was living.
One of the memories she was most fond of, was from when she was a girl. So little, and so lively. From when Seraphina was just beginning to form into a young woman. There was a terrible storm and the crack of thunder frightened little Aria near to death. Seraphina was working on a tapestry, but she quit all that for her frightened sister and soothed her with a soft lullaby. The only words Seraphina ever learned in the old tongue.
She knew it to be wrong to think of Seraphina so fondly. It was a betrayal of all that was good. But of course, she didn’t see Seraphina that way anymore. She and Seraphina hadn’t been that close in decades. As of now, she despised Seraphina with every fiber of her being. Seraphina, who held her prisoner, and starved her in isolation for not being true and honest.
The dungeons opened. And shortly after, the door to her cell. She had been expecting Funea’s return, but it was not yet time.
The Cyclops’s stood before her. Cautiously, she got to her feet. They approached her and broke the chains from her wrists, only to then have them rebound with rope.
She was ushered out of the cell. She went willingly, what else was she going to do? Freeze in some damned cell. They didn’t take her to the throne room. They took her to the icy courtyard.
She stopped dead in her steps. There, Funea stood, slowly turning to ice, with her sister’s wand through her belly. Despite her pained expression, she bowed her head to Aria, who could only watch with sorrow. A sign of allegiance in her final moments.
“Get my sister on the sleigh,” Seraphina ordered. “And Kiard! We’re going north, past the Wood Of Saffron!”
She was shoved on the sleigh roughly. And she was at her sister’s feet. The sister she couldn’t bare to even glance at. The horses charged forward like an arrow set loose.
It was before the sun rose that they left. And by the time, they made it to where the hyenas cackled and howled for them, the sun had rose. Seraphina made statements she thought Aria couldn’t hear, about the end of the winter coming. But there was no sign of it where they went. Where they went, it was still an icy winter, set for eternity.
Of course, at the riverbed, was when yet another satyr was dragged before them. Aria dragged herself to her feet and rushed toward where her sister questioned the satyr.
“What is your name, traitor?” Seraphina questioned coldly.
“Cyrus,” he spoke. He bowed his head in near shame. “Forgive me, your majesty.”
“Don’t waste my time with pitiful flattery!” she snapped. “Where are the otherworlders?”
“Mind me if this sounds rude,” Cyrus began. “But I was not talking to you.”
Seraphina’s head whipped in Aria’s direction. Aria, whose face was overcome with confusion. Though Seraphina only felt fury at being overlooked by a younger sister. She approached the fox pointing her sharp, crystal wand at the satyr who sat defenseless on the ground.
“Where are the otherworlders, beast?”
Aria’s heart pounded in her chest. When Cyrus did not provide the Witch Queen with an answer, she rose her wand. But Aria jumped in front of the satyr, using her bound hands to stop her sister’s arm.
“Stop!” she shouted. “There’s no need for this violence!” Seraphina relaxed her arm as Aria let go. “The otherworlders went north. They believed that they could get back to their world if they went north from here.”
Aria turned to face the satyr whose head hung low in what appeared to be disappointment. Though, Aria had lied. She’d never reveal the truth. These whispers of spring meant that the wolf was back and that by now, the otherworlders were with him.
“Thank you, Aria,” Seraphina spoke. “It’s lovely that this... thing got to see some honesty... before its death.”
“No!” Aria yelled out in protest. But it was too late, the satyr turned to ice before her eyes. Seraphina whipped around and slapped Aria so hard that her ears rang.
“Learn your place, sister!”
But she did not. She felt only pity for the creature she failed to save. Her sister failed to the beauty that was in this world, in every creature. But Aria could never unsee it.
And she could never unsee the look on the satyr’s face as it was turned to ice.
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