3. ice

Blood dripped more furiously down the side of her forehead.

Her vision blurred, she blinked hard and reopened her eyes with hopes that what she thought she saw had only been a hallucination, but she was imbued with disappointment and pure, hot fear when she saw the creature that stood before her.

It was a woman—or so she assumed—but one not so human. Her eyes were crystals of light blue with cracks of white iciness running through them, like two spherical icebergs in her eye sockets. They seemed to glow, to encompass Nyx in their stare. The woman's hair, pulled up in an elegant style, was nearly white but not in the way an old lady's was. It looked as if it was meant to be blonde but had missed out on the golden pigment of Nyx's own hair and now nearly matched the snowy ground beneath her.

Her face looked as if it was supposed to be kind, but two pink lips above a svelte chin spread into some sort of sneer, one that threatened all kinds of deaths in its glare.

Even if her face had been kind, nothing could stop Nyx's rampant fear when her eyes locked onto the one thing that confidently assured her that the woman standing before her was not human—two large eagle-like wings, white as ice, originating from behind the woman's tall body at her back and spreading out behind her gloriously. At the very ends of the pure white wings, right at the tips of the feathers, were colors of icy blue that matched her eyes. The wings oozed power and strength, even if the woman's skin was immortally pale which, in a human sense, would mean she was frail and ill.

But this woman was nothing of the such. Silver rings, some with sapphires or light blue diamonds, sat on the fingers of her hands that were clasped at the front of her slender waist. She wore a light blue dress, silky and loose on her form, and the ends of it which faded into white fluttered around her bare feet as she stepped forward in the cold snow that, if she were human, would have given her bare toes the worst kind of frostbite.

Nyx's adrenaline pounded throughout her shuddering body at the sight of the creature walking forward, and she quickly tried to raise herself up off the ground, stumbling through the thick and endless snow as her head spun dizzily. She managed to find friction at her feet, and she used that friction to push herself up off the ground, stumbling around until she took ahold of the tree which, ironically, was the thing that caused her throbbing concussion.

The girl turned around to face the creature again, fresh blood trickling down her face and into the snow below her. She could feel it trailing down her cheek and dripping off the edge of her jaw, but she dared not make any sudden movements to wipe it off. She locked eyes with the creature who stood still and erect, her back perfectly straight and her shoulders wide with confidence and poise.

Nyx nearly jumped when she saw the woman-creature's lips break into a wide smile of pearly white teeth slightly sharpened at the ends, and the triangular geometry of her teeth made her only then realize that the woman's ears were also pointed at the ends. It was then that she noticed a sparkling crown sitting atop the woman-creature's head, one studded with diamonds and sapphires that matched her rings. The crown was delicate and beautiful, but it only confused Nyx more about the being standing in front of her.

The creature's laughter rung throughout the snowy forest, bouncing off the icy bark of the trees and right into Nyx's eardrums. It was despotic, so evil it made the girl's stomach drop all the way down to her numbed toes.

The creature finally stopped laughing, and Nyx noticed that her sparkling eyes were fixated on the bloody corner of her forehead. "And they think you aren't human," the creature finally spoke, her voice perfectly smooth and proper, as if she were royalty. "I mean, look at you. You're already bleeding out, and I haven't even laid a hand on you yet."

Yet. The word made the girl's eyes widen and more fear course throughout her veins. She backed up as far against the tree as she could, her shaking hands gripping the sides of it. "W-Who are you?" Nyx's voice trembled with fear.

The creature stepped forward again, her chin lowering and casting a dark shadow over her face. Much to Nyx's surprise, she lurched forward, the sound of wind filling her ears as the creature used a single backward pump of her large wings to propel her forward. A dreadfully icy hand took strong hold of Nyx's chin, and a flush of cold breath fanning across her face followed a grunt.

The woman's cold hand squeezed her jaw painfully, pressing her head hard against the rough tree bark as those bright eyes bore into Nyx's. The girl tried to claw at the creature, at her human-like form so deceiving, but she was mightily strong and did not move or flinch at the girl's weak attempts to push her hand away.

"You look just like him," the woman muttered, her lips curling in disgust as her eyes analyzed the girl's golden hair and honey eyes, sickened by the way her cheeks were so warm and flushed under her grip. "I should have just killed you."

Nyx tried to let out a scream, but as soon as she did, the woman lifted her head away from the tree and then slammed it against the bark, watching in delight at the way the girl let out a pathetic excuse for a scream that was more like a whine, those golden brown eyes staring at her emptily before rolling to the back of her head, her hands that tried to pull her own hand off her jaw loosening. The creature chuckled and threw the girl to the side, her smaller body plunging into the snow limply.

The girl was losing consciousness by the second, and even as her body hit the snow, she could not move. She could only lay there, attempting to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her and watching the woman saunter towards her again.

"I should have saved you from such a pitiful life when I had the chance. What's the point of even living as a human like you?" the woman-creature spoke with bitter words so sharp they seemed to cut right through Nyx's chest. "No strength, no power—such a meaningless existence."

Nyx grunted and attempted to roll over, but she couldn't, and the sight of the creature standing over her began to swirl and blur. For a moment, everything would go black as if she were asleep, then she could see again and get the imperative urge to run, only to go back to the drowsy, oblivious state. She was slipping in and out, and in the back of her mind she wished she wouldn't have been so angry with her mother. Her anger was the last thing her mother saw of her, and that fact made Nyx give up and just lay there as the woman kneeled down in front of her.

"I'll rid you of such an existential burden," the woman whispered, a wicked sneer resting on her lips as she bent over the girl. "Don't worry," she continued, voice brimmed with laughter. "It won't hurt a bit."

Nyx's droopy eyes watched as the woman brought both hands up and rested them on the girl's cheeks. In only a few seconds, Nyx began to feel a weird, foreign sensation. It was the same feeling she felt when she had fell into a frozen pond as a child—coldness seeping through her, except this time it was much worse and much more painful. The coldness surged through the blood in her veins and stormed through the marrow of her bones, and her body began to tremble at the feeling.

The creature laughed evilly, her blue-white eyes glowing through Nyx's dimming vision. "Valerie will find you as an icicle and assume that you froze to death. You know, you really made it quite easy for me, Nyx."

The girl was falling unconscious, too out of it and freezing to realize that the creature knew both her and her mother's name. All thought slipped away from Nyx's mind, and she heard a crackling sound coming from where the woman's hands gripped either side of her face, like the sound of ice forming over her skin. Snowflakes inched their way over her eyes, blinding her as she felt her once rapidly beating heart begin to slow.

Just as she was about to close her eyes as the coldness in her body ultimately froze her heart, she heard the sound of a large bird somewhere near. The creature killing her apparently did, too, for her head snapped upwards towards the sky, looking in every direction. Suddenly, catching both the woman and the unconscious Nyx off guard, a dark figure swooped in over Nyx's head, crashing into the creature and releasing the girl from her hold.

Nyx kept going in and out of consciousness, but from what she could see, the creature who had been icing her blood was now tumbling in the snow with a darker creature who also had large wings. There was the sound of grunts, the sound of punches, and the sound of backs hitting trees and cracking their trunks from the force.

Nyx could do nothing but lie there, minutes away from her slow heartbeat stopping altogether. Her eyelids closed, mouth falling open as she struggled to breathe air into her lungs. Consciousness finally slipped away from her, and Nyx prayed to God that her mother would be okay, that whatever creature had killed her would not go for her next.

♔

Wind blew softly through her hair, tickling her face. Her body felt incredibly warm, and it resembled the feeling of going inside the house after playing in the snow and sitting beside the fireplace and letting all the coldness melt away from the body. She thought that maybe she was at home, in front of the fireplace, her mother making dinner at the table. She thought perhaps that she had fallen asleep there, but the wind fanning against her told her differently.

An ache pounded through her head, and she could feel the crust of dried blood stuck to her forehead and cheek. She vaguely remembered running through the forest and tripping on a log, the sight of blood dripping from her face and staining the snowy ground.

As she began to come to as much as she could, she felt warm, strong arms holding her at the back of her head and lower back. She was being pressed against a body, one that was incredibly warm.

She finally managed to open her eyelids as much as she could, but she was too out of it to panic when she could see through her blurred vision.

She was, in fact, being pressed against a body, but she couldn't make out who it was. Her head was leaning limply at the arch of someone's neck, her cheek pressing against the incredibly soft and warm skin. She could feel their own chest press against hers and then fall away again with their steady breaths.

Though she did not have the energy to move her head, she could see a pair of eagle-like wings stemming from this person's back and flapping majestically, and it was the sight of clouds being dissipated by the flapping of those wings that would have made her scream and panic if she were not half-dead.

This creature was flying her high in the sky, right through the clouds that were turning golden and pink from the setting sun which she could tell was behind her. She could see the crescent of a moon rising through the clouds, the very start of the night's stars rising with it.

She almost thought that it was the icy creature with wings who was flying her away, but the wings that flapped majestically before her were not white with blue ends. They were a raven black with streaks of dark red, the very ends of them a burnt orange color. The feathers looked so soft that she had the urge to reach out and touch them, but she could feel herself becoming dizzy again.

Her vision began to dim, and soon enough she was unconscious again with her head pressed against the warm neck of the winged creature who was flying her somewhere unknown.