I didn’t wait for anyone to realize who I was. I ran straight through the middle and rushed out the fortress’s main entrance. Guards shouted questions to each other behind me, but I kept running. If I had any chance of—
Of what?
I almost stopped and debated with myself. But instead, I hiked my dress up a few more inches and charged down the grand staircase outside. I had to put more distance between the angry king and myself. It was probably futile, considering the bond between us, but I couldn’t just wait for him to decide that I was as horrible as every fae he’d ever imagined. I didn’t know what I was hoping to accomplish, but I knew I needed more space. And fast.
The sun hadn’t climbed above the mountainous horizon yet, but pink and orange light rays skittered across the sky and reflected off the snowy surfaces, lighting the world enough that I could easily see where I was going.
More elves roamed about the courtyard at the bottom of the stairs than I’d have expected at the break of dawn. Some wore soldier gear, some looked like they were exercising horses and dogs, but some looked like normal people, just gathering early to mingle. It was a strange idea, but one I did not have time to entertain.
I ran even harder, toward the impossible bridge that spanned the lake hundreds of feet below the fortress.
No guards blocked the bridge. Strange. For people so obsessed with keeping their fortress secure, you’d think they would have soldiers checking anyone who entered the bridge.
A rush of shouts erupted behind me. The guards from the fortress entryway must have decided that I shouldn’t have raced through there moments earlier. Just before I climbed the steps up to the bridge, someone yelled my name.
“Callista!” Mylo. The one person I really had betrayed—though not deliberately. If intentions counted for anything, I’d never really lied. I glanced toward his voice, hoping to explain, but he was farther away than the group of soldiers who ran toward me. He held the reins of a huge horse who looked like he was ready to bolt at any distraction.
The group of soldiers caught my attention again, and I shook my head. I had to keep going. I climbed onto the bridge and raced for the other side. Before I was even a fourth of the way across, I stumbled on my own feet and fell to my knees.
I whipped my head behind me, terrified of the soldiers catching me before I regained my footing, butthey had all stopped at the bridge’s entrance.
“Callista.” Mylo’s voice carried on magic all the way out to the bridge. “Come back. I’m sure there’s a solution to whatever has made you run. But… you must come off the bridge.”
I shook my head slowly, and a cold wind flipped my hair in front of my face. I hadn’t noticed the cold before, but now that I was still—with my hands and knees touching a frozen bridge—it chilled my entire body. I had to keep moving, had to warm back up.
I pushed up to my feet again. The soldiers still had not followed me onto the bridge. I couldn’t explain it, but I wouldn’t argue with good fortune.
And since they weren’t making me run, I walked so I didn’t fall again. I moved slower this time, and tried to catch my breath as I walked. This bridge was five or six feet wide, but didn’t have a railing. I couldn’t tell what held it up as it spanned hundreds of feet across the chasm with the lake at the bottom, but I refused to worry about that until I was safely on the other side.
“Callista,” Mylo’s voice whispered across the wind. “Whatever this is about is not worth your life on that bridge. Please come back.”
I shook my head. He would think that. He was the king’s most loyal soldier, the one singled out to help on my first day in the fortress. And he would get in trouble for leaving me unsupervised. No, I could not go back at his insistence.
Sunlight erupted over the mountains and spilled across the bridge like a flag unfurling. The way it sparkled off the snow and erupted over the summits caught my attention, and… I slipped again.
The icy bridge did not help my poor balance.
As I hit my hands and knees this time, though, two huge eyesemerged on the bridge in front of me. A crab-shaped body crawled up from below the bridge—a crab shaped animal that was at least four feet tall.
Its eyes rose on stalks above its head and, while I watched, it unfurled an arm-like structure from its mouth that reached up and wiped dust and dirt off its eyes.
My breathing turned shallow. I wanted to rush to my feet so I could stand taller than the monster, but I was afraid that I would slip and fall—possibly off the bridge. Now that its eyes were cleared, it seemed far too intent on me.
Did giant crabs eat people? Did I look like a giant shrimp?
I backed away slowly, glad that I was on my hands and knees, even if the icy bridge was so cold it burned my skin. At least I had a firm balance.
When I’d put fifteen feet between us, I stood up, hoping to intimidate it now that I was taller.
It didn’t look intimidated.
It unfurled its strange mouth and shot a stream of fire at me.
Fire!
I threw myself to the ground as far to the right as I dared. I wrapped a hand around the edge of the bridge. Why didn’t elves put walls around their bridges?
Heat from the horrible crab’s fire rushed past me, close enough that I still felt it. I pressed my face against the bridge while the hot air worried me. Only inches away from my face, the huge drop to the lake—hundreds of feet—made me light-headed. How was I going to survive a fire-breathing crabanda mountainous fall?
