And we're back to excerpts from my upcoming fantasy novel Far From Mortal Realms, coming out September 15th!
As you may have guessed, Abe and Adira have, despite their trepidations, decided to take on the case of the boy who lit a torch in the Ice Realm. Now it's time for them to enter the realm and meet the boy.
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Adira hadn’t realized how grateful she had been for the return of spring, until she found herself once again plunged so deep into winter.
The portal brought them to a wilderness of bare trees stretching in every direction, their branches coated in ice to the very tips. Her father’s earlier description suggested that he had visited on a sunnier day; the ice did not glint or glimmer in what muted light came through. The air seemed dry, and yet the cold seeped into her as if borne by damp currents.
Two ice fae met them at the portal, their skin – if it was skin – resembling silvery bark. She could see nothing, amongst the lines of the bark, that looked like eyes, though the fae did have what appeared to be mouths. Not that they seemed to have anything to say to the visiting mortals. Was she imagining the hostility she felt radiating from them, some combination of disdain and aversion? She had no way to know, though she wasn’t given to pessimistic flights of fancy.
Where was their client? As soon as she asked herself that question, a boy appeared between the fae, trembling, eyes wide with panic. The fae seized and held his arms, tight enough that they must be hurting him. Still without speaking, they pivoted to the right, dragging the boy with them, and started walking, long strides covering the ground swiftly, the clusters of roots that served as their feet piercing the crust of snow. Adira and her father lurched into motion to catch up.
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And here's Tom telling Abe and Adira what happened to him.
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The two fae led them to a sort of cave, icicles hanging from its entrance and frost patterns covering its walls in an simpler semblance of tapestry, and wordlessly pointed to its interior. The three of them sat on cold stone benches at a small, roughly hewn stone table, Tom across from Abe and Adira and reaching out to clutch Adira’s hands. He could have been inspired by her undoubted attractiveness, his sweetheart notwithstanding, but from his pallor and Adira’s warm, gentle expression, it seemed more likely that he was viewing her as a sort of maternal surrogate, or at least an adopted aunt. And he was confiding in her, in a panicked babble. “I didn’t know! I was distracted, and I got lost, I couldn’t see anything I knew, there wasn’t any moon . . . and it kept getting colder, and my hands and feet were going numb . . . and then I saw a flicker of light and thought it was from someone’s window, or even my pa coming out to look for me . . . .” He choked back a sob.
A light, on a moonless night in the realm of the ice fae. What might explain it? Some ceremony or revel of which Abe was ignorant?
Or a light kindled for Tom’s benefit, as a lure?
“So I went toward it, and I thought everything would be all right, and then it just – disappeared. And I was left in the dark, still lost. And then I stumbled over a branch, and I remembered that I had matches with me, and I could maybe make a torch to see where I was. I figured the weight of ice must’ve brought it down, though there wasn’t any ice left on it.” He let out something between a sob and a laugh. “I thought I was lucky to find it, that fortune was being kind to me.”
Neither fortune nor fate may have set it in his path.
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