Chapter 19: Prisoner in the Snow
Two people stood, dressed in bear furs, at the boarder of the Pure Pack.
One was nervously pacing, the other staring at the plume of smoke in the distance with a dispassionate expression, one hand holding a staff and the other resting on a sled.
Their dogs had died early in the journey.
A blizzard was just starting, swirling snow into deep drifts.
"Tony, he isn't going to like this. We should just go."
"Shut up, Kiki. Unlike you, I know what loyalty is. Besides, I won't be the one telling him."
She crossed her arms, ignoring the blowing snow.
"Well don't look at me. There's no way I'd be dumb enough to tell him."
Tony looked at her, annoyed.
Endless weeks of traveling together had gotten old.
"Of course not. Mika said in his last letter that they got twenty new soldiers. I'll just tell one of them. After all, I outrank everyone except Aaron."
Kiki snorted - "Ya, but not for long."
"Just shut up and lets go."
It wasn't long before an alarm sounded,muffled through the blizzard.
Tony and Kiki walked into the hidden palace for the first time in years, surrounded by guards, the giant iron doors screeching shut behind them, louder even than the blizzard.
Inside it was just as they remembered it - ice everywhere.
The roads were ice, all snow swept away to reveal blue ice that had ridges cut into it to make it less slippery.
Even the houses seemed made of ice and snow, both of which had swallowed the wood that built the homes.
It would look different later in the year, when all the ice melted.
It would look like a pig sty, with mud everywhere, seeping into homes and soaking boots.
But not the palace, no never the palace.
Somehow it always stayed clean.
It was a short building, only two stories high, but it stretched far off into the distance, as far as the mountains would allow.
Like the other buildings, the outer palace was made of wood, roughly cut from the mountain trees.
The inner palace was different though.
It was made with steel, polished steel in the shape of a dome, a circle cut from the top with a crystal skylight.
Snow and ice was nowhere near it, as fires were kept burning inside all the time.
That was where Aaron was, the light from the crystal skylight shining just in front of his throne.
A middle aged man came from the barracks, his cloths thrown on in a hurry.
"Tony? What are you doing here? I didn't want to believe it, but...is it bad?"
Tony hung his head, debating for a moment before he lead the captain to the dog sled they had been hauling, lifting up the aluminum tarp to reveal the shivering creature beneath.
A horrified gasp escaped the Captain's lips as he realized who it was.
He grabbed the tarp from Tony's hand to jerk it back down, hiding the Queen.
"I'll send you one of our footmen immediately. You are wise to let someone else deliver this news."
YOU ARE READING
Nothing Understood
WerewolfThe woods have always called to sixteen year-old Hanna, but how was she to know there is much more to it than that? By becoming a mythical creature. And not just any mythical creature - the last of the Pure ones, the only shifter in the world that c...
