Elizabeth white's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Elizabeth White pressed the blue rose into the frozen ground and made herself a promise. She would not die a stranger on this mountain. Somewhere below her cabin, the winter-wood elves sharpened blades against the shape-shifter clans, and the war had lasted longer than her whole life. Elizabeth wanted to end it. She wanted to plant one throne of ice where both peoples could kneel. But she could not unite two peoples when she did not even know her own. She had been three years old when strangers found her crying in a village far from here. No name. No family. Only a wolf that would not leave her side. That same wolf lay near her now, white as snow, its eyes the pale blue of glacier ice. It watched the tree line while she worked her small garden of carrots and cabbage. The rose she buried was no ordinary flower. Its petals shone gold at the tips. Elizabeth had found it growing wild by the frozen waterfall, and old tales said it bloomed only for those born of the mountain's oldest blood. She did not believe the tales. She only believed she was tired of belonging to no one. The wolf stood. Its ears turned toward the great willow at the edge of the lake, the one hung with clusters of bright blue fruit. A figure waited beneath its trailing branches. Elizabeth had not heard footsteps. The stranger was old, wrapped in gray furs, leaning on a staff. An elf, by the sharp ears. But her shadow on the snow shifted like something with four legs. Both bloods, then. Impossible, everyone said. "You planted the bloom," the old woman said. "Only her child could make it root." Elizabeth's hands went still in the cold dirt. "Whose child?" "The last queen of the ice throne. She sent you away the night the war began. To keep you breathing." The old woman touched the willow's blue fruit. "I carried you to that far village myself. I have spent sixteen years finding my way back to you." Elizabeth rose slowly. The wolf pressed against her leg, calm now, as if it had known all along. "You lie. I have no family." "You have two peoples," the old woman said. "Elf and shifter both, in one girl. That is why the flower knows you. That is why the throne is yours." Elizabeth looked at the rose in the ground. Its gold sparkle had spread. New shoots pushed up through the frost, blue leaves unfurling in a ring around her boots. She had wanted a family. She had wanted love. Now she had a crown instead, and a war waiting at the foot of the mountain. She did not feel found. She felt hunted. "Then they will come for me," Elizabeth said. "They are already climbing," the old woman answered.