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Chapter 1
I should have listened to old Eila.
That morning, when we'd stopped to buy supplies at the village's only shop, she'd caught my wrist with bony fingers. Her grip had been surprisingly strong for a woman well past seventy.
"Don't go into the Old Forest, girl," she'd hissed, staring directly into my eyes. "Especially when the mist is rising."
"Why?" Chloe had giggled, pawing through packages of biscuits. "Are there ghosts?"
The old woman hadn't taken her gaze off me.
"Worse," she'd said grimly. "Things that were here before ghosts. Before people. Before everything."
Chloe had rolled her eyes, and I'd smiled politely, easing my arm free. Local legends, of course. Every village had its "cursed forest" or "haunted house" to lure in tourists.
How wrong I'd been.
Now, standing at the edge of that very forest with my camera in hand, I could have given the old woman a medal for accuracy. The mist was indeed rising—thick and unnaturally white, creeping between the trees like something alive.
"Elise, are you coming or are you going to stare at that fog all day?" Chloe called from the top of the hill. Her bright pink jacket stood out against the gray-green landscape like a neon sign.
"Coming!" I called back, adjusting my camera bag's strap.
We'd arrived in this backwater last night. Chloe was here to escape London's madness and "find herself" after another painful breakup. I was here for shots for my graduation project. "Wild Scotland" was supposed to be my ticket into the world of serious photography.
Assuming I lived to graduate, of course.
The first warning signs came even before we reached the forest. The birds that had been cheerfully chirping in the bushes fell suddenly silent. Complete, dead silence. Even the wind died, as if nature itself had held its breath.
"Strange," I muttered, raising my camera.
Through the lens, the forest looked even more ominous. And when I checked the shot I'd just taken on the display, I nearly dropped the camera.
In the photo, between the trees, I could make out vague silhouettes. Tall figures, too thin to be human.
But when I looked up, there was nothing there.
"Camera's glitching," I told myself, but my voice shook.
Chloe had already disappeared around a bend in the path, and I stopped at the very edge of the forest. The air here was different—denser, saturated with the scent of moss and something sweetly cloying. Beneath the beauty of autumn colors lurked a barely perceptible smell of rot.
The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees. I shivered, pulling my jacket tighter, and checked my watch.
Half past two.
The mist thickened with every step deeper into the forest. At first it was just light wisps playfully coiling around my ankles, but soon it rose to my waist, transforming the world into a ghostly copy of itself. Trees loomed out of the milky veil like giants from nightmare tales.
"Chloe?" I called, but there was no answer.
The pink jacket had vanished into the white haze.
I stopped, listening. The usual forest sounds had dissolved into silence. My camera stopped its quiet hum—the autofocus thrashing frantically, unable to find a point to lock onto in this sea of white.
"Chloe!" I called louder.
My voice echoed back, but strangely distorted—as if my words were bouncing off invisible walls. And then… another voice.
"Elise…" Faint, distant. "Elise, where are you?"
Chloe! She was calling from the right. I bolted in that direction, pushing through the thickening fog.
"Elise!" Now the voice came from the left.
I stopped, feeling goosebumps crawl down my spine. Chloe couldn't be in two places at once.
"Elise…" Now the voice sounded directly behind me, soft and insinuating.
But it wasn't Chloe's voice. Similar, but… different. More melodious. Too perfect.
I pulled out my phone with trembling fingers. No signal, as expected. But worse—the time on the screen still showed half past two. The seconds weren't moving.
Time had stopped.
Panic began to creep in, but I forced myself to breathe steadily. Just fog. Just lost. Chloe was somewhere nearby—I needed to find her and get back to the car.
I moved at random, trying to keep a straight line. Each step fell dully on the soft earth carpeted with fallen leaves. Branches caught at my clothes with almost deliberate persistence.
Then the ground beneath my feet changed. Instead of moss and leaves—bare, black earth. And tracks.
Footprints in the mud. But not human—too long, too narrow, with marks from claws at the end of the toes.
The sensation of being watched became so strong that my skin prickled. I slowly raised my head.
And saw the tree.
It towered before me like an ancient sentinel—a massive oak with a crown that disappeared into the mist. The trunk was so wide that six grown men couldn't have circled it with their arms. And the bark…
The bark was covered in scars. Deep grooves that were definitely not natural. They formed patterns—spirals, interlacing lines, symbols that hurt to look at, though I couldn't understand their meaning.
"You shouldn't be here."
I jumped, spinning around. A figure emerged from the mist—a boy about fourteen with dark hair and eyes the color of autumn sky. He wore simple brown clothing that looked as if it had been sewn several centuries ago.
"Who are you?" I breathed. "Where did you come from?"
"That doesn't matter." His voice sounded muffled, as if coming from underwater. "What matters is that you're standing at the Summoning Tree in the hour between worlds. Leave. Now."
"Summoning Tree?" I glanced back at the oak. "It's just a tree…"
"Nothing here is 'just' anything," the boy shook his head, and pity flickered in his eyes. "Especially in the Old Forest. Especially when hungry things wake."
"Listen, I'm just lost…"
But he was already dissolving into the mist, as if made of the same milky vapor.
"Don't touch the tree," his voice drifted from the emptiness. "If you value your human soul—don't touch it…"
And I was alone.
Alone with this cursed tree and the thickening fog.
In the silence, other sounds began to emerge. Rustling. Whispers in an unfamiliar language. Music—a wordless melody, beautiful and terrible at once, that made my blood move faster.
And laughter. Silver, melodious, inhuman.
I pulled out my camera, more to calm my nerves than anything. Aimed at the trunk with its mysterious scars, pressed the shutter.
On the display, I didn't see an empty forest.
Figures surrounded the tree—tall, graceful, with faces too beautiful and too alien. Their eyes glowed in the half-light like predators'.
They were looking directly into the lens. Directly at me.
My hands shook so badly the camera nearly slipped. I looked up—nothing. Looked at the display again—the figures were closer.
Animal fear struck like lightning.
I stumbled back from the tree, tripped over a protruding root, and fell. Instinctively I threw out my hands to break the fall, and my right palm slammed hard against the oak's rough bark.
The pain was sharp—I'd scraped skin on some particularly rough protrusion. Blood welled immediately, and several drops rolled down my palm, feeding one of those ancient scars on the bark.
The world exploded with sensation.
Not light, not sound—hunger. As if something vast, ancient, and unspeakably ravenous had suddenly awakened and caught the scent of fresh blood.
The tree beneath my palm became alive. The bark pulsed like skin, drinking in the blood with the greed of a parched sponge. The scar-symbols flared with a dull red light, and waves rippled through the trunk, as if a giant heart beat beneath the bark.
The mist erupted into motion. It spun into a vortex, and through its tatters they broke through.
The Fae.
Even without knowing the word, I understood what they were. Tall, otherworldly beautiful, with sharp features and eyes where constellations swam. Their skin glowed with a pearlescent sheen, and their movements were so graceful that human locomotion would seem pathetic in comparison.
But their beauty was predatory. Too-sharp teeth flashed in their smiles, and their gazes promised things that could shatter a mind.
The music grew louder—wild melodies that made you want to dance until death. Someone laughed, someone sang in a language older than human speech.
And then one of them stepped forward.
He was taller and more beautiful than the rest. Platinum hair flowed over his shoulders, eyes blazed the color of winter sky, and his skin seemed carved from the finest marble. A crown of ice and thorns glittered on his head.
When he smiled, the temperature dropped so sharply my breath became visible.
"What an… unexpected gift," his voice was melody and menace at once. "A mortal daughter of blood has come to us of her own accord."
I couldn't move or speak. His gaze held me like a snare.
"Welcome home, Elise Thorne."
He knew my name.
His smile widened, baring sharp fangs.
"It's been so long since I hunted fresh prey. I do hope you'll run faster than the others."
Every cell in my body screamed: run. Run without looking back, run as if your life depends on it. And it probably did.
The spell of his gaze broke, and I bolted.
Branches whipped my face, roots caught at my feet, but I didn't stop. The mist parted before me and closed behind, and the music pursued me—now louder, now softer, but never silent.
Their laughter echoed in my ears, merging with the pounding of my wildly racing heart.
I ran without watching where I was going, crashing through bushes, stumbling over roots, scratching my face on branches. The forest seemed to come alive and try to stop me—the path disappeared beneath my feet, trees bent to block my way, and roots crawled from the earth like tentacles.
"Elise…" drifted from the mist behind me. "Don't run, child… We've waited so long…"
The Fae king's voice grew closer, then farther, as if he were playing cat and mouse with me. Perhaps he was.
Time flowed strangely. It seemed I'd been running for hours, but the sun hadn't moved. Or the opposite—I'd only run for a minute but had covered miles.
My lungs burned from lack of air, my side cramped, my legs buckled. But fear was stronger than exhaustion. Fear and the strange sensation that if I stopped, I would never be able to run again.
The mist began to thin. The music faded. And suddenly before me opened a familiar scene—a narrow road, a shoulder, our rented blue car.
Chloe stood beside it, leaning against the hood and concentrating on typing something into her phone. She looked completely calm—no trace of panic or searching.
"God, Chloe!" I burst from the forest, gasping and swaying. "Where were you? I looked everywhere for you! There was… there was something…"
"Elise?" She looked up, blinking in surprise. "What are you talking about? I've been waiting here for half an hour. Thought you'd decided to do a photoshoot until dark."
I stopped dead.
"Half an hour? Chloe, I was running around in there for over two hours!"
She looked at me like I'd lost my mind, then glanced at her watch.
"Elise, it's quarter to four. We split up at three twenty." Chloe frowned, looking me up and down. "And anyway, what 'there' are you talking about? You said you wanted to photograph that old oak at the edge, I went to the car. We were apart twenty minutes, tops."
"What old oak?" I whispered, turning toward the forest.
Behind me stretched an ordinary Scottish forest—young birches, rowans, shrubbery. No giant oaks. No mist. Not even traces of my mad flight visible on the flattened grass.
"That one right…" Chloe waved toward the forest but didn't finish. "Huh, strange. Where is it, actually?"
I looked at my hands. My right palm was clean—no scratches, no dried blood, no dirt. My clothes also looked as if I hadn't pushed through underbrush. Even my breathing had already recovered.
"Chloe," I began carefully, "did you see anything strange? Hear anything?"
"Like what?" She put her phone in her pocket. "If you mean that stupid fog, then yes, I saw it. Rolled in about ten minutes ago, then cleared. Probably rose from the lake."
I pulled out my camera, barely controlling the trembling in my hands. The last photos…
On the display were ordinary landscapes. Trees, grass, autumn colors. No mysterious figures, no ancient oaks with symbols on the bark. As if nothing had happened.
But when I scrolled further, my heart skipped a beat.
One frame was different. Blurred, dark, but in the very center—the silhouette of a man with platinum hair. He stood between the trees and looked directly into the lens. Directly at me.
And in his eyes, constellations swam.
"What's that?" Chloe peered over my shoulder.
"Don't know," I lied, quickly scrolling past. "Accidental shot."
"Looks like that actor from Game of Thrones," she snorted. "Let's go. It's getting dark, and I don't want to drive mountain roads after sunset."
I nodded but couldn't tear my gaze from the photograph. As the car pulled away, I looked back at the forest one last time.
And for a second—just a moment—I thought I saw a tall figure with platinum hair flash between the trees again.
But it was my imagination.
Of course.
Chapter 2
Mrs. McGill froze halfway to the sitting room, holding a tray of teacups.
I'd tossed aside the travel blanket and risen from the armchair, stretching after the long drive, when her face contorted with an expression of genuine horror. The tray slipped from her hands and crashed onto the stone floor. Porcelain shattered into fragments, and hot tea spread in dark stains.
"Merciful God," she whispered, backing toward the wall. "What… what is that?"
Chloe jumped from the sofa.
"Mrs. McGill! What's wrong?"
But the old woman couldn't take her eyes off me. Her face had paled to a deathly white, and her lips trembled.
"You… on you…" She extended a shaking hand in my direction but didn't dare come closer.
"On me what?" I looked down at myself in confusion. Ordinary clothes, slightly rumpled from the road, nothing special.
"Shadow," Mrs. McGill breathed. "Their shadow lies upon you. How… how is this possible?"
Chloe frowned.
"What shadow? What are you talking about?" She circled me, examining me closely. "I don't see anything."
"Because you don't have the Sight," the old woman pressed a hand to her heart. "But I do. And I see… Lord, what have you done, girl?"
Cold crept down my spine.
"I don't understand what you mean."
"You've been with Them," her voice dropped lower, but that only made it sound more terrifying. "Touched the world of the Elder Folk. Their mark is on you, like a brand."
"Mrs. McGill," Chloe approached the old woman and carefully took her shoulders, "you need to calm down. Elise hasn't met anyone, we've been together all day."
But the old woman continued to stare at me in horror.
"The shadow is silvery, cold. It wraps around you like a shroud." Her voice shook. "It's the mark of the Winter Court."
"What does that mean?" I whispered.
Mrs. McGill silently walked to the cupboard, pulled out a bottle of whisky, and took a long drink straight from the bottle.
"It means they're interested in you," she said finally. "And they'll come for you."
***
The rest of the evening passed in tense silence. Mrs. McGill cleaned up the shards, prepared dinner, but barely spoke at the table. Only occasionally casting frightened glances my way.
Chloe tried to lighten the mood with jokes, but even her usual optimism showed cracks.
"Maybe we should go to the pub?" she suggested when we went up to our room. "Meet some locals?"
"No," I answered, pulling my camera from my bag. "I'm tired."
But that wasn't the only reason. Something pulled me to look at those photos again. To understand what I'd really seen in the forest.
Chloe went to take a bath, and I sat on the bed and turned on the camera.
The first shots were ordinary—landscapes, hills, autumn colors. Then came the forest. Mist between trees, play of light and shadow. Everything normal, everything explainable.
And then…
***
Cold.
That was the first thing I felt. Not ordinary cold, but something alive, penetrating to the bone. The stone floor beneath my bare feet was covered with a thin layer of frost that crunched with each step.
I stood in a long corridor lit by torches with blue flames. Walls of black marble rose to a vaulted ceiling, disappearing into darkness. The air smelled of winter—snow, pine, and something else I couldn't identify.
I looked down at myself and gasped.
A white silk dress barely covered my knees. The fabric was thin, almost transparent, and offered absolutely no protection from the cold. My feet were bare. Dark hair fell in heavy waves over my shoulders and chest—I usually kept it tied back, but now it was loose, creating a stark contrast with the snow-white fabric of the dress and the paleness of my bare shoulders.
But worst of all was the wreath on my head.
I raised trembling hands and carefully touched the adornment. Flowers… but not ordinary ones. White roses with petals cold as ice. Silvery twigs with blood-colored berries. And thorns. Countless sharp thorns that pricked the skin.
"What the hell?" I whispered, trying to remove the wreath.
But the moment my fingers touched the thorns, sparks of pain shot through them. The wreath seemed to have grown into my skin. Every attempt to remove it caused unbearable agony.
Tears welled in my eyes. What was happening to me? Where was I? How did I get to this place?
I tried to remember. The inn. Chloe. Photographs. I'd been looking at photos and… fallen asleep?
"This is a dream," I said aloud, and my voice echoed off the marble walls. "Just a very vivid dream."
But the cold felt too real. The pain from the thorns—too sharp. And the smell of winter and danger made every instinct scream to flee.
The corridor stretched in both directions, disappearing into darkness. I chose a direction at random and walked along the icy floor, shivering from the cold.
My footsteps echoed hollowly. Torches with blue flames followed one after another, but between them gaped pits of absolute darkness. Sometimes I thought something moved in that darkness, but every time I turned around, there was nothing there.
The corridor forked, tripled, became a labyrinth. I walked randomly, obeying some inner compass. My feet had already gone numb from the cold, and the wreath's thorns dug into my skin with every movement.
When I tried to tilt my head, the sharp ends scratched my forehead, and a thin trickle of blood ran toward my eyebrow. I froze, wiped the blood away with trembling fingers. The wreath seemed to be warning me—attempts to remove it would end in pain.
And suddenly I heard a sound.
Music. Laughter. Voices.
I quickened my pace, almost running along the icy floor toward the source of the sounds. The corridor ended at enormous double doors of black wood, decorated with silver carvings. They were slightly ajar, and warm golden light streamed from within.
And also—sounds of merriment.
I crept to the gap between the doors and peered inside.
And forgot how to breathe.
The throne room stretched to infinity. Pillars of black ice rose to a dome where unfamiliar constellations glimmered. Between the pillars burned thousands of candles, but their flames were cold, blue.
And in the center of the hall, madness reigned.
Fae danced to music that sounded like a mixture of harp and howling wind. Their movements were too fast, too fluid for the human eye. Dresses and cloaks billowed as if woven from mist and moonlight.
But the dancers themselves were nightmares.
A woman with the lower body of a snake slithered between couples, her scales shimmering in the candlelight. A man with a deer's head whirled a lady whose face was half human, half wolf. A creature that looked like a tree with eyes danced with itself, and its branch-arms left trails of green fire in the air.
By the other walls, they feasted. At long tables sat Fae of all kinds and sizes. They ate things that moved on their plates. Drank from goblets that smoked and sparked. Their laughter was like cracking ice and tinkling bells.
And on a dais at the far end of the hall stood a throne.
A throne of black ice and… bones. Human bones, polished to a shine. And on the throne sat him.
The king with platinum hair and eyes the color of winter sky.
Even at a distance, his beauty was stunning. He sat casually, one leg thrown over the armrest, watching the revelry of his subjects. He wore a cloak of black velvet with silver embroidery, and a crown of ice and thorns shone in the candlelight.
I backed away from the door, but it was too late.
The heavy doors swung open on their own with a loud creak.
The music cut off. The dancing stopped. Every head turned toward me.
Hundreds of eyes looked at me. Human, animal, utterly inhuman. Some held curiosity, others hunger. And in some—open hostility.
I stood in the doorway in my thin dress, barefoot and shivering from cold, and felt like a mouse that had wandered into a nest of serpents.
The crowd of Fae began to part, forming a corridor from the door to the throne. Some hissed and pointed fingers at me. Others whispered in their melodious language.
"Come," someone whispered near my ear, though no one was nearby. "Come to him."
My legs moved on their own, as if someone controlled them. I walked down the corridor between the Fae, feeling their gazes like physical touches. The floor beneath my bare feet was covered with frost that crunched with each step.
Someone reached out and touched my shoulder. The fingers were icy and left a burning mark on my skin.
"Pretty," hissed a woman with cat eyes. "Can I have her bones when you're finished?"
"After me," growled a wolf-man. "My cubs need meat."
I quickened my pace, but the corridor seemed endless. And the Fae grew more curious.
"Bow!" someone shouted from the crowd. "Disrespect to the king!"
Someone's hands roughly shoved me in the back. I stumbled but at the last moment stayed on my feet, throwing out my arms for balance. Instinctive fear made me straighten and lift my chin.
A displeased hiss rippled through the Fae.
"Insolent mortal!"
"How dare she!"
"Teach her manners!"
Hands reached for me from all sides. Claws, icy fingers, tentacles—everything merged in a nightmarish dance. I cringed, bracing for pain.
"ENOUGH."
The voice rolled through the hall like thunder. All the Fae froze instantly, as if turned to statues.
The king rose from his throne.
He moved with that fluid grace that was too perfect for a human. Each step echoed in the silence of the hall. His cloak billowed though the air was still, and his crown shone with cold light.
"Don't touch her," his voice was quieter, but that only made it more menacing. "She's new. Doesn't yet understand where she is."
The Fae parted, clearing a path for him. Some bowed low, others averted their eyes. But I saw how their hands trembled with restrained fury.
The king stopped a few steps from me. Now that he was so close, I could make out the details of his inhuman beauty.
His skin was pale as first snow and seemed to glow from within with a soft silvery radiance. Cheekbones sharp as a statue's, lips perfectly defined. But his eyes… his eyes were the color of winter sky before a storm, and in them swam constellations that didn't exist in the world of humans.
"Elise," he spoke my name, and it sounded like music. "At last you've come to my house."
I opened my mouth to answer, but my voice caught in my throat. The cold of his presence filled my lungs, making each breath painful.
"Where… where am I?" I forced out.
"In the Winter Court," he extended his hand, as if inviting me to dance. "In my domain."
I didn't take his hand. Self-preservation instinct screamed that touching him would mean the end.