The Glass Palace by Kathryn Trattner

Author:Kathryn Trattner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kathryn Trattner

The glacier had melted and broken apart. Huge chunks of ice remained, large boulders scattered among the frozen lumps, the creatures inside gone. Free. Astrid moved carefully, slowly, careful not to make too much noise, worried they would return. Chinook rode on her shoulder, swaying with each step she took, looking around curiously. Astrid was able to follow the path, patches of it visible, circling around huge chunks of ice.

Ahead she could see the clearing where the sleigh had sat, the Dark Forest surrounding it, and in the middle sat a giant wolf. She stopped, stunned, unable to take another step. Fear—a solid, heavy thing, sat in her gut.

“Come forward,” the creature said.

She went, her legs moving on their own, feet stumbling over ice and stone.

What are you doing? Chinook hissed. Are you crazy?

Astrid shook her head, clenching her jaw, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. She had no control over her legs, over the movements of her body. It called. She went. Haltingly, clumsy, and stumbling, she came to stand in the soft unmarked snow of the clearing.

The wolf walked toward them deliberately, one giant paw in front of the other, head down. Astrid stood frozen in place—heart rioting in her chest—as Chinook burrowed into the scarf around her neck.

The creature was huge, bigger than any wolf she’d ever seen, bigger than the elephant she’d seen at the circus as a child. In the darkness, there was only the absence of the stars where he stood, the constellations blocked by the fuzzy outline of his body. In his face—long and sharp—a pair of glowing blue-white eyes pierced the night, penetrating her soul. His snout, the fur around his face, was illuminated, the snow beneath him, around them, reflecting the glimmer.

“You smell,” the wolf sniffed, bright, glowing eyes focused intently, hungrily on her, “like magic.”

Astrid began to tremble, fighting to keep control, tempted to run—bolt like a hare into the forest. But she knew how that would go. Maybe, if she stood her ground here, it would not end with her blood all over the snow.

“Are you with the Enchantress?” the wolf asked.

“No,” she whispered, fear choking out her voice.

The wolf towered over her now, staring down the length of his snout, eyes shining into her—through her. They stood together, one poised to run, the other to pounce and devour. She wanted to look away; she wanted to try to make herself small.

Chinook was a trembling tickle against her neck, his terror radiating through her skin. She tried to set herself apart from it, distance his fear from her own. She could not give up on Tyhr now. She could not let herself be stopped here, the journey over before they’d even begun. They hadn’t even managed to leave the Black Forest behind.

“She took something from me,” Astrid said, voice coming out stronger than she felt, loud and a little angry. She wouldn’t be stopped here, not yet.

“Are you going to take it back?”

The wolf considered her, head coming up a little—the predator stance relaxing.

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