Alexis awakens, half buried in snow, picking out wood splinters from her hair. Looking about the scene, the grain car they had been inside lies overturned as fire burns inside. Scanning the expanse of white before her she notices a dull orange shine peer from the snow. Trudging through the snow, Alexis shovels snow away from the dying light, uncovering Mary as she pulls her from the snow. “Please be alive, please be alive,” Alexis murmured to herself.

  Uncovering her head, Alexis lifts her body, placing her ear up to her chest and listening. Faint breaths huff from Mary’s chest while her heartbeat gives a soft pulse. Alexis exhales in relief, moving to fragments of the train car, a large segment of the car wall broken away with boards of wood strewn across the icy ground. Dragging a panel away, Alexis fashions two straps from a length of rope within her pack. Threading it through splits in the wood before tying a series of knots to anchor themselves in the splits and string the rope into a loop.

  “Alright, I’m gonna get you on this now. just take it easy,” Alexis says, rolling the unconscious girl onto the makeshift sled.

  Securing Mary down, Alexis molds the fresh powder around Mary. Covering her limbs and body in a cocoon of snow leaving only her face open as her hood and chin guard block the cold out. Taking the rope over her shoulder, taking the compass from Mary’s wrist before fixing it on her wrist. Aligning the needle northwards and adjusting to where they are relative to her map around her arm.

  Biting winds turn the snowflakes into tiny needles, stinging Alexis’s face as they rip across the windswept surface. Snowdrifts carved from the wind create peaks and valleys in the snow as winds are funneled down different bends in the surface. Sunlight fades as the sun peers from the horizon between land and clouds. Frost formed on her eyelashes. Alexis trudges on, checking back with Mary, who remains unbothered on the sled no matter the winds or shifting snow.

  Light fades from the horizon, and the temperature change is immediate. The cold bites at Alexis’ cheeks while the flakes quiet and winds die down. The stinging needles no longer blinded the girl as the skies opened up. Millions of stars twinkling in the sky while bands of purples and blues hold nebulas within. An ocean of the cosmos setting the pair adrift in a sea of cold. Alexis stops beside an icy outcropping. The ice was tinted blue, yet translucent; the other side had been frosted by snowdrift.

  Falling against the wall of ice, Alexis lets the ropes fall beside her. Pulling Mary over, the girl continues sleeping. Aside from the dusting of frost along her hair, it would be as if she was simply resting. Alexis opens and closes her hands, warm blood feeling like rivers of fire as they circulate her warmth through the neglected areas of her body. Stillness quieted over the world as the stars shown down. The cold cuts into Alexis’ layers as a shiver runs through her. Causing her to ball up closer as Alexis lowers her head into her coat. “I’m going to die out here, aren’t I?”

  Resentment wells up in her chest. Hands balling up while a stinging sensation burns her nose. Drying her eyes in her sleeve as she let off a long-bellowed breath from her lungs that drifted into the cold air. If only she didn’t get roped into following Mary north. If only she found someone to get her home back in Flambard. If only she had stayed and not gone off to make a quick buck with that traveling caravan in the first place, she could still be home to see her family. “If only I hadn’t gone on this stupid quest of yours, we wouldn’t be out here.”

  “I owe you an apology then, Alexis. I’m sorry.” Mary said.

  Alexis startles at hearing Mary’s voice in the stillness of the tundra. “Ah, how long have you been awake?”

  “Not long, only the last couple of minutes. I think my leg and arm’s broken, but I’m alive thanks to you.”

  Alexis flicks away frozen droplets from her cheeks. Scooting Mary over to face where she’s been looking out at as the pair sit together in the frost. “I-I really should have left you back at the train you know? Y-you're really heavy to sled around.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ll try to lose a few pounds for your sake,” Mary says, her voice soft and joking, interlaced with regret.

  “I owe you an explanation about my past, don’t I?”

  That’s a good place to start,” Alexis says as she pulls some provisions from Mary’s bag. A few blocks of cheese, some stale old bread. Teal tinted liquid in glass flasks.

  Alexis feeds Mary small blocks of cheese before setting the piece of bread onto her lips. Mary chews with slow motions, swallowing while Alexis brings the teal-tinted liquid to her lips, and she drinks. The flask tilts up and up till the final drop is drunk. Mary let out a soft sigh. “I am the lost Elven princess that’s been missing.”

  “But you’re half-elf. I thought only full-blooded elves could be in the royal family.”

  Mary stares up into the night sky. A sudden pulse of warmth wrapped the two as the biting cold disappeared from Alexis’s ears. “Let me tell you a story that’s only been told once before. It’s one of my favorites that my mother told me when I was younger.”

  Wrought iron chains bound her arms, chained together by another in front of her and one that followed. Eyes bound to darkness by black cloth, they walked. The stone corridor beneath her feet felt soothing to the sore and cracked soles battered by desert sands. Stumbling she trips over her feet as the person in front of her had stopped and she had run into their back. Her nose stinging as she catches herself on the wall as the line once again begins walking. She trips over her feet as her nose begins to run. Walking with the clinking of chains, they walk for a while longer. The air is no longer stuffy as light peeks through the spaces in the cloth and a voice booms, "Halt!”

  The line stops as the voice startles her. Chains clink as the voice echoes. “Turn to the left.”

  The line does so. Clinking as the chains spread between the persons that connect, she wipes her nose along the sleeve of her shoulder before looking forward. A multitude of footsteps can be heard approaching. Scribbling on paper can be heard some ways away, while movement can be heard elsewhere. People talk among one another in hushed tones till rhythmic footsteps catch her attention. It grew louder in tone before stopping before her. The touch of leather gloves grip her jaw as it manipulates her head. Tilting it from left to right before laying on her abdomen. Moving away the coarse clothing a draft sucks away whatever warmth was there before the hands pull away. “Open your mouth,” a male voice says as it grips her by the cheeks once more.

  Doing so, her mouth opened wide. Fingers inspect the inside as they push aside cheek, tongue, and gums before letting go. Scribbling can be heard as the voice turns, “She will have to do. But I’ll only pay one hundred and fifty crown for her.”

  “One-fifty?!” A gruff voice objects. “That’s way too little! Are you trying to short-change us?”

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  “Look at her,” the voice says as he jabs at her abdomen.

  The blow keels her over, a line of spit dangling down from her mouth onto the floor as she wipes her lip. “She’s feeble as is. Her nose runs like a river, and she’s too thin to do any work. I doubt anyone else will take her.”

  The gruff voice grumbles before relenting. “Fine, one-fifty it is,” the gruff voice agrees as he approaches her. Pulling her arm up the chains dangle before coming light, the clunk of tumblers unlocking send chains to the ground before she is tugged forward.

  Clinking metal within a bag moves past her as the chain guiding her is exchanged. “Be seeing you at our next meeting,” the voice says as they pull on the chain.

  She’s guided for a time through winding passages and into another cart as the sudden jolt of the turning wheels takes her away. It ends as the trickle of water sounds and the subtle warmth of sunlight catches her skin. Flinching at the sudden touch of fingers tugging at the black fabric covering her eyes until light fills her vision.

  Vivid green gardens are separated into rectangular sections with pillars of white marble as they arch and connect. Flowers of all varieties overgrow, flowing out of marble flower boxes and climbing along the pillars. Flower bells drape down in long vines while others sway in the breeze. Water draws down in veils cascading down into carved ducts that flow down into lower areas of the floor. “Very few get the privilege to walk in the royal gardens, although I suppose you’re not just any ordinary Altan, are you?”

  She focused her gaze on where the voice was coming from. Turning her attention to the left as her eyes fixed on the elf before her. Hair blonde with a bronze sheen bounced the light like strands of metal while the steely blue of his eyes peered at her as he stood against a pillar. A full head and a half taller, she stared up at him with no fear as he wore a cloak of silver and gold threads. She turned to him, unphased at his stature. She stared him in his eyes as she filled her breath. “Depends on who’s asking, though judging from where I am, I take it you’re the one who runs things around here?”

  “Irteyl Yvrefluesse, twelfth ruling monarch to the kingdom of Elvenguard. You are?”

  Irteyl’s voice was cold but formal. Approaching her his movement was smooth with hardly a ripple in his cloak or movement in his legs as he stops a few feet from her. She looks up at him, and his shadow shades her eyes from the glaring evening light. “Atria Reignfield, I take it the king of elves didn’t buy me on a whim because he felt like being charitable in freeing a lowly Altan like me,” Atria said as she fixed her blond hair back, emerald green eyes focused on Irteyl’s.

  “We have been keeping tabs on a person of your ability roaming Solaris to know that you have something that no one else in the lands has. It is likely that you even knew that this meeting would take place between you and I. Can you confirm that?”

  Atria glanced, considering her words for a moment while the scent of frankincense was ever so slight in the air before looking back at Irteyl. “I only knew that capture would be better than to have my friends die needlessly to hide me. But I didn’t imagine I’d have an audience with the king of elves, which begs the question. Why did you bring me here?”

  Irteyl looked away, thought concerning him as he examined a string of bluebells as his voice silences the wind, “since my grandfather’s passing; Gjalir Yvrefluesse a century ago, the state of the elves is in an uncertain state. Issues with the Bloodsworn holding territories and ritual sites. The cleansing ritual for the Scattered Lands has ceased working for decades now and has left the people concerned about putting their trust into the crown. I am requesting your abilities to see through this period and avoid this precarious moment to the elves?”

  Atria crossed her arms, noting the unchanged expression as she walks over to Irteyl. “You elves may be beautiful, but you all lie poorly. The Altans understand that there’s been a struggle between the seats and the royal family. You’re trying to secure your place at the throne, and you need me to guarantee it. I don’t have much say as to what happens to me if I don’t say yes, so what’s in it for me?”

  Irteyl nods, redirecting his attention to Atria as he looms over her. “Perhaps if all elves were as proactive as the other races, things would not be as they are now. Take a seat as one of my advisors and enjoy a quality of life few ever get to enjoy. How does that sound?”

  Atria’s eyes rose at Irteyl’s offer. It had been many centuries since the last time an Altan had taken a seat with Elves. No more having to fight to survive between cities. No more dealing with the Bloodsworn. Atria shuts her eyes for a moment, petals of white flowing down upon two figures standing within vines of endless white flowers as they lock hands. “I see a future in where you get married, in a wonderful glade of white vines. Springs well with pure water as you both consecrate yourselves to one another. Fates intertwined to one upon that day.”

  “That sounds promising,” Irteyl responds, the two walking together as Atria begins her new role within the elf king’s assembly.

  Alexis warms her hands as she takes a sip from her waterskin kept warm within her coat. “That... explains a lot. At least how your parents met. I suspect you took your mother’s name then?”

  Mary looked over at Alexis, shifting herself in an attempt to stretch her body that had been still for many hours. She winces at the dull pain in her left arm and leg as the cocoon of snow encasing her cracks apart. “That would be right. Using my father’s name would draw too much attention to me. Reignfield is much less inconspicuous, don’t you think?”

  Likely. It’s gotten you this far, but if your father knows your mom’s last name, then it’s likely the Elves are searching for anyone with it as well.”

  They may search all they like. And well, I suppose it matters not now that they’ve gotten this close. Maybe they’ll believe me dead from that explosion. Maybe I already am dead if we stay out here any longer,” Mary sighs as she cranes her head to the expanse of ice and snow. “Do you see that?”

  Hmm? Is there something out there?” Alexis asks as her eyes scan the endless white before her.

  Alexis’s vision peers into the vague dark that surrounded the two. Their eyes having long adjusted to the night all around them as the snow reflected the starlight above. Looking in Mary’s direction, a dark figure is seen against the white backdrop of the tundra. Low to the ground on all fours, two green reflections glint in the distance. “What do you think it is?” Alexis asks.

  “There e aren’t many things that can survive in the Alabaster Tundra at this time of year. Could be a roaming ungulate that got separated from its herd.”

  As Mary postulates, the figure dips down into the snow and disappears. The pair strained their eyes as if they had just seen it vanish before their eyes. “Well... Whatever it was, it’s.... I think it’s getting closer,” Mary says and tries to get up.

  The snow shifts, but Mary keels over in pain. Alexis steps forward to shield Mary as she looks out to the darkness. “It’s in the snow,” Mary strains, “I can hear it burrowing towards us.”

  Alexis feels the cold of the air rush back in as Mary draws the warmth that radiated from her bracelet. Raising both their awareness as the cold shakes the sleep away from their eyes. The scratching grew more audible by the second The pair braced as a screen of powder shrouded their vision for just a moment as something rustled from the tunnel it had burrowed. The snow settled as orange fur bristled with snow. Shaking itself of the powder its blue eyes shown like the bluest ice as the brown snout scrunched and twitched as it tried to figure out the scent of the two peculiar individuals before it. The three eyed one another till Alexis finally spoke. “It’s a red fox.”

  “Strange... Your coat’s not white, yet you live all the way up here. What are you doing up here, friend?” Mary asks as she holds herself up as best she can. Ears flaring up as the ear tips and tail the fine white of paintbrush tips that transitioned down from yellow into the reddish orange hue of its fur.

  The fox gives a small yip as it circles around itself. One circle then another before walking up the slight bowl that shielded the two girls from the elements before looking back at the pair. “You... You want us to follow you? Mary, what do you think?” Alexis looks at her partner as she settles back down.

  “Anywhere that isn’t here. I’m sorry to ask you this, Alexis, but drag me awhile longer. Wherever it needs us to be.” Mary lies back down while Alexis grasps the frozen cords of rope tied to Mary’s sled.

  “Alright then, friend, we’ll be in your care from here on. W-we're kind of desperate for shelter. If you can understand us then please, take pity on us and see us through our desperate time.” Alexis pleads as she drags Mary behind her.

  The fox simply nodded, pointing itself northward while the stars gleamed down upon them.