Chapter 1

Luminesa

Luminesa walked barefoot upon a thick patch of pristine snow that glittered like frozen fragments of iridescent mother of pearl.

Her silvery gown—made up of snowflakes and ice crystals—trailed in a sweeping undulation behind her. She felt the eyes on her; the owls and the mice hidden within the shadows of skeletal trees watching her movements with hawk-like curiosity.

She’d not left her ice palace in years, used as she was to her isolation. But a star had fallen from the sky into her snowy realm and it was a matter that required investigation.

Snow bees danced about her shoulders, their gentle buzzing a soothing melody to her curious mind.

Just then a sharp cry pierced the air—the call of her only friend, Baatha the Snow Falcon. Luminesa paused and stared up as he circled the bluish-gray tinted sky once, twice, and a third time before he finally lowered toward her and sank his talons upon the shoulder plate of her ice armor.

“Baatha,” she said in a voice grown rough and scratchy from long years of disuse. “What news?”

The white falcon blinked tawny eyes back at her. Before cocking his head and ruffling his beak along the inside of his foot, at the leather pouch Luminesa had attached there.

“What have you there, friend?” She gently shoved his beak away and undid the leather thong.

A strange silver shard winked back at her.

She was just about to reach for it when a pulsing wave of dark magick breached her palm.

Hissing, she snatched her hand back. Curling her fingers into a fist and hugged it tight to her chest. Threads of steam hissed through the air as the heat of that darkness mixed with the ice of her flesh. Heart racing she turned her gaze toward Baatha’s and quickly retied the thong.

Luminesa knew this sort of darkness. She’d beheld it once before. Many moons ago. This level of darkness could only come from the wicked heart of the forest witch—Baba Yaga.

But there was a trace on the mirror, in the waves of that magic that tasted faintly of sulfur too. It was that sulfur that led her to the true culprit behind this object of power.

“Where did you find this? It bears the stench of the Under Goblin.”

With an ear-splitting shriek Baatha took to the air, his powerful wings slicing through the sky, moving slow enough so that she could follow.

Luminesa was the Queen of Ice. She could shape her body to be more than mere flesh. If she so chose, she could turn to a pillar of swirling snowflakes.

But the falling star had awoken her from her slumber and for the first time in ages she found her curiosity piqued.

Wishing to retain her human form for a while longer, Luminesa followed Baatha’s trail, and as she did so she looked at the landscape she’d crafted when she’d first come to this realm a hundred years past.

Then it’d been green and lively. Full of warmth and heat. She’d not set out to turn her surroundings bleak and cold. Though in truth she found none of this bleak or cold, there was beauty in the ice. In the simple flake of a snow. The uniqueness of it. How in all of creation there would only ever be one of its type.

All the more beautiful because of its fragility; each flake was a gift and once gone, never to be seen again.

But soon another flash of silver intruded in on her musings. Baatha circled the small object, before landing and tucking his wings against his breast, giving her a sharp cry to come.

Luminesa studied the stark landscape, looking for any signs of tracks. Anything that could give her a hint as to where the Under Goblin had gone.

But the hills and valleys were smooth and clean. Snow drifted gently on the breeze. It would have taken at least an hour to wipe away any tracks made by an intruder.

“Do you smell him, Baatha?”

The falcon merely blinked at her. She cocked her head, eyes narrowing as she thought of something else.

“Was this the falling star?”

The falcon’s stare never wavered.

So what she’d seen hadn’t been a star at all. But a fragment of mirror. She stared at the leather pouch tied to Baatha’s foot. Why had a mirror fallen from the heavens?

“To me, Baatha.” She held out her arm.

Her companion heeded her command, landing swiftly and heavily on her forearm, sinking his thick claws into the ice of her skin. Her form was so frozen though that she felt no pain.

Untying the thong from his foot, she hefted the pouch in her palm, testing its weight. If she’d not seen the sliver for herself, or felt the waves of its power, she’d not have thought there to be anything inside. The fragment felt like little more than air.

Baatha grunted.

“No. You cannot have it back.” With a twirl of her finger she encased the leather in ice before tucking it into the bodice of her gown. “Have you seen the demon lately?”

With a graceful nod the bird took powerfully to the air. He traveled quickly, necessitating her change back to snowy mist.

This was her home. She’d made sure when she’d come here a century ago to plant herself in a place isolated and separate from the rest of the world.

If he dared, if even anyone dared to try and take her home, there would be death.