Elizabeth white's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The staff lit the black stones purple, but the trail fought back. Thorned vines crowded the path. Their barbs snagged Elizabeth's sleeves. Frost walked ahead, sure-footed, his ice skin catching the light. His red cat picked between the stones. Then the ground changed. Loose scree slid under Elizabeth's boots. Below the path fell away into black nothing. One wrong step, and the curse would take her. "It moves," Frost said. He did not turn. "The trail hates the living. Keep your eyes on my boots." Elizabeth tried. But the vines pulled tighter, and the stones shifted like water. Her foot slipped. She grabbed a thorned branch. Barbs bit her palm. Blood dripped onto the rock, and the trail seemed to drink it. The path narrowed further. She could not go up. She could not go back. "Frost," she said. "I'm stuck." He stopped. He looked at the cracked stones, then at the staff in her free hand. "You hold the answer," he said. "The staff cut this road once. It knows royal blood. Command it." "I don't know how." "Neither did the old queen, the first time." A dry pause. "She was still alive after." Elizabeth pulled her bleeding hand from the thorns. She gripped the staff with both fists. The diamond glowed cold and white. She thought of a solid road, a road that would hold her weight. "Still," she said. "Hold still." The diamond flared. Ice spread from its head, down the shaft, out across the loose scree. The shifting stones froze together. The thorned vines stiffened and cracked. A smooth, hard path formed under her boots, step by step, climbing toward the castle above. The black nothing below went quiet. Elizabeth breathed. Her hand shook, but the ice held. A voice called from below, sharp and low. "Don't move." Ember climbed into the staff's light, fox ears flat, breathing hard. He was the young shifter who had guided her from her lost cabin, the one who owed her mother a debt. He had warned her away from this very trail. His nose worked the air. "I smelled your blood halfway up," he said. "So did something else." "Something else?" Elizabeth asked. "The hunter." Ember's jaw tightened. He said no more. Frost's red eyes narrowed. "Then we climb fast." He set a hand on the frozen path and pushed upward. Elizabeth followed, staff first. The ice road carried her up the last curve. At the top stood a wide doorway of blue stone. Beyond it waited a hall of ice. A throne rose over long tables. Figures sat frozen at those tables, still as glass, caught mid-feast a lifetime ago. Elizabeth stepped inside. She had her room now, and the staff that made it. But her blood had left a trail up the mountain. And somewhere below, the hunter had caught the scent.