Scarlet in the Snow by Sophie Masson Read Free Book Online

forced by evil sorcery into an
abartyen
shape. But it was very, very rare and extremely difficult to perform. Luel clearly could not break the spell or surely she would have done so. And I had the impression those empty picture-frames were also something over which she had no control.
    That was a scary thought. For given the fact she had no reflection, Luel was not human, but a
feya
, like Old Bony. And her magic was powerful, for a place like this is notmaintained by minor enchantment. But whoever it was who had cursed her lord in this terrible way must be even more powerful, if Luel could not break the spell herself. I didn’t want to think of what that might mean, but the feeling that the danger I was in was even greater than I’d imagined hung heavy in my belly, as if I’d swallowed a stone.

    I thought I’d never get to sleep that night but the bed was so warm and comfortable, and the room so quiet and peaceful, that I drifted off to sleep without even being aware of it. And sometime during the night I fell into a strange dream – strange due to the fact of it being so uneventful. In the dream, I was looking into a sunny walled garden where climbing white and pink roses rambled on the walls. The air was full of their scent and that of the more exotic blooms of mimosa and jasmine. Not a Ruvenyan garden, then, but rather from some southern country where such flowers grew. I could smell the flowers, which is unusual in a dream, and I could see the bees buzzing around them, and I could hear birds singing. There was a little white wrought-iron table and chair in the garden, and a young woman sat there with her back to me. She wore a pretty, lacy summer hat, her black hair in long, loose ringlets down her back, and her dress was a flurry of pale pink ribbons and snow-white tulle of the same delicate shades as the roses. She was waving at someone I couldn’t see, and it was such a vivid pictureI felt as though I could hear the tinkle of her laughter, though I could not hear anything she said. For a while, I was there, just suspended in the little scene; then it flickered out and I opened my eyes to the darkness of my room. In the dream, I had quite forgotten about what had happened to me, but now everything came flooding back and my mind kept going round and round like a mouse in a maze, trying to find a way out.
    The mirror, I thought wildly, I must learn how it works; it’s the key to my escape. But to do that I had to get Luel to take me down to the cellar again; I had to listen carefully to what she said and watch what she did and then later I would find a way to get the key from her. Later – later – that meant staying here for who knew how long, and meanwhile, tomorrow, I had to meet the
abartyen
. Cursed or not, natural shapeshifter or not, he wasn’t fully human any more. And no matter what Luel said, I was afraid of him.
    The words she’d spoken to me at dinner, about what I must do, made even less sense now and I was trembling, shaking with the thought that if I didn’t get it right, I would suffer for it. She’d said I’d not be harmed, but could I trust anything she said? Clearly, all that mattered to her was the
abartyen
. She was bound to him by some tie I hadn’t yet fathomed, and I was merely a pawn in a plan whose outline I couldn’t yet glimpse. I had no magical powers, no special distinction, no great beauty or extreme cleverness. I was an ordinary girl with a small talent in storytelling, that was all. And how could that help me now?
    And then I remembered something my mother had told me. As a very small child, when I was scared or tired or out of sorts, I could only be calmed by having a story told to me, over and over again. Now I reached back into my memory and told myself my own story, the story of the three sisters.
Three sisters sat spinning at the old tower window, watching for their mother to come home
. And as I told myself the story, I could feel my pulse slowing, my limbs stop