In a palace in an exotic country far to the south of the main continent, there was a palace. It was set in elaborate gardens, surrounded by fountains and statues. There was wealth and opulence there while the rest of the city was steeped in poverty and famine. The palace had balconies front and back and the chambers of the Samraat boasted the largest balconies of them all as well as a glass dome ceiling above his bedchamber.

Within his chamber a woman sat on a bench, dressed in blood red and rich gold, her hands bound and resting in her lap. Before her the Samraat, who had been determined not to become engrossed in her story, was sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning on his knees, watching her face intensely.

Beads of sweat trickled down Scheherazade’s forehead and she blinked them away, never faltering in her story telling, well aware that her life was at stake.

“When the villagers from Falst heard the fire they did not know what it was at first and hid in their homes. By the time Aubrst had returned to the family he had begun while he was married to Jé Maya, the noise had dimmed and the forest had settled back down into a kind of voided silence, as though every living creature was holding its breath.

He managed to coax his living wife and his full human blood children outside where they looked around fearfully.

“There is nothing here.” He said emptily with far less conviction than what they needed to be reassured with.

“Papa! Look!”

All the villagers turned and saw a girl exit the forest. She was dressed in black, her almost white shoulders bare and her arms hanging down by her side. Her hair was pale gold and hung straight down her back and her cheeks were void of colour. Wisps of smoke seemed to burst out from every step she took, darkening the snow white ground in her wake.

Aubrst stared at her. “Meredith?”

She looked up and in her face he saw remnants of his daughter and nothing of himself. It was as though she had shaken off his parentage and become wholly elf. He shivered, the hollow light in her eyes giving him reason to hesitate.

“Merry?” He asked again almost fearfully. “Are you…well?”

“Am I well?” Her voice sounded as though it came from afar. “You kill my mother with your…adultery…and obliterate my world with your flawed humanity and you ask if I am well?”

Aubrst could hear the villagers running but he was too frightened to move. “Meredith, I am sorry. What must I do to prove to you I am sorry?”

“Die.”

His face constricted and his living wife gave a cry. She was hanging at the edge of the clearing with a child in her arms, the rest of her children clinging to her side.

Aubrst shuddered. “Will my children and wife live?”

“If they run…fast.”

“Muriet…go.”

“Aubrst…”

“I said go.” He urged kindly and heard them flee into the forest. He couldn’t take his eyes from Meredith who advanced on him. “I loved your mother.”

“But not enough. Not with your whole heart.”

“I swear I did not enter into our marriage bonds with any intention of straying. But I was away for days, weeks at a time and I missed your mother…”

“So you slept with her!” A fireball erupted from Meredith’s hand and exploded into a building, incinerating it despite the snow doing its best to dampen its impact.

“I did not think it would hurt your mother.”

“You fool!” Meredith released another fireball, this one blazing past his shoulder so close that it singed his clothing. “Do you know nothing of the elves? Did you not realise that an elf cannot love with just their body? That their heart, every part of them is invested in that love! And when you betray that trust…she died!”

Aubrst was weeping now. “Please…please forgive me.”

“She was abandoned by her own kind because of you! Because of her love for a flawed, weak, pathetic human!” Meredith screamed, her eyes starting to fill with black and her hair darkening from the roots all the way down to the tips. Her nails grew long and sharpened and her skin became lined with the dark blood in her veins. “You deserve no such forgiveness!”

“I beg of you!”

I do not forgive!

Aubrst could not tear his eyes away as his daughter, the remnant of Jé Maya, transformed before his eyes into a beast of darkness and horror. Wings burst out of her back, her skin became scaled and hard, enormous clawed feet emerged and a long, razor sharp pointed tail whipped into the air.

The dragon’s roar woke hibernating animals and sent birds scurrying for safety and it blasted the village with liquid fire and showered the surrounding forest with cinders. Black smoke billowed up from the burnt clearing where the village had been.

And when it had cleared Meredith stood in the aftermath, clinging to a few scraps of clothing that remained, surrounded by charred wood beams and ash. She was shaking, from exhilaration or fear or any number of emotions that were rippling through her body. Eventually she forced her feet to work and walked into the forest. For days she walked and the snow melted before her and around her. At long last she emerged from the forest and found a village where she could steal clothes and food. When she was dressed for a journey she set out, naturally heading towards a mountain of fire.

She spoke to no one and no one spoke to her.

The journey took weeks, possibly months but she did not count the days as she had an eternity now in which to live. One day was a drop in an ocean and she cared not that she used up many of them simply travelling. Finally she walked a village and scavenged some food. With her hawk-like vision she could see a dark pointed shape rising above the heavy fog that surrounded a mountain.

“It’s a castle,” an old woman said, her back bowed with two water caskets hanging off a rod that was stretched across her shoulders, “on the edge of a volcano. It was built many hundreds of years ago when it was just a mountain.”

Meredith continued to eat her apple, her eyes never leaving the castle.

“Then the mountain caved in on itself and gave birth to the red hot blood that had been hidden in its core. Only the castle remained. Some say a dragon used to live there, guarding a princess but nothing lives there anymore.” She looked at Meredith, her yellow and black teeth crooked in her withered face. “Steer clear of it. That castle is abandoned.”

Once she had shuffled away Meredith gave a small smile. “Not for much longer.”

It took over a day to climb up the jagged slopes, half blinded by the steam that hissed from cracks in the ground that led to the surging lava below. Meredith continued stubbornly, determined to see this castle for she was certain that it was exactly what she was looking for.

The castle had been built on a rare plateau of the mountain before it had become a volcano. What colour it had been originally was lost in the past as the stone had all been tainted black when the mountain peak had caved in, creating a rim that circled the entire circumference of the mountain except for the plateau that the castle was built upon. Most of the castle remained, though some of it had fallen into the crater. Dozens of metres down below surged a red hot lake that bubbled and roared with the voice of the earth. The heat was excruciating. Meredith thought it was marvellous.

The wooden double doors that had been three times her height were mostly charred and one had fallen and hung at an angle. Meredith slipped herself beneath the gap it created and found herself in the main hall. It had been built with enormous arched windows, four down each side but the glass had long since shattered and been swept away by the hot wind. The roof that had undoubtedly been made of wood and thatch had been burned up and nothing of it remained. A few pieces of broken furniture lay abandoned in corners of the hall but it was mostly empty…except for a stone throne at the very end that faced the entrance.

Meredith walked through the castle, noting the different rooms that remained intact and avoiding several sections of floor that were close to giving way. She found a staircase that led to the only tower of the castle that had not crumbled into dangerous disrepair and climbed to the top. The room at the tower had a door that was surprisingly in good condition…comparatively. Inside was a bed with holey drapes layered over it. The bed and room were void of life…which was perfect to bait the trap with.

Meredith blew onto the lanterns that hung in the tower and they burst into life and burned brightly. Once she was sure that the tower now stood out like a star against a night’s sky and went to the window, which had a lost a little structure and made for an excellent door to the hot, thick air beyond…and leapt off.

As she dove down she began to rapidly change until a roaring dragon screamed up out of the crater and blew fire into the sky, turning the low lying clouds red and hot. Then it flew over the village, several villages in fact, set a few hay stacks alight and consumed a cow before returning to the castle. It hit the outside wall of the main chamber, dug its claws in and clambered up and over the windowless gaps in the wall to settle on the ground. Then it shook, ridding itself of its beastly form and as it walked towards the throne, dragging its diminishing wings behind it, it became Meredith.

Then she turned and sat on her throne, her hair permanently black and her eyes rimmed with shadows.

“Now…” She said and her voice echoed off the stone. “…we wait.””

“Dawn is coming.” The Samraat interrupted and Scheherazade blinked, snapped out of her storytelling trance. “If you think I will postpone your execution in order to hear your story, you are mistaken.”

“Fear not, all knowing and illustrious Samraat, the end is near.” Scheherazade promised.

““Meredith did not have to wait long. Word quickly spread that there was a dragon in the castle and the rumour of a princess held prisoner in the only tower drew the first prince to attempt a rescue within a month. The valiant prince on his great white stead approached the entrance to the castle, clad in his armour and with a shining sword in his hand.

“Foul beast from the pits of hell, I challenge you!” He yelled into the ruin.

Meredith looked up from her throne, a dark smile on her pale face, the veins beneath her skin creating an almost web like pattern. She stood up and walked to the middle of the hall and waited. The prince clopped into the hall on his stead and he lowered his sword at her.

“I have come to challenge the beast that holds the princess captive.” He declared in a very noble voice.

“What will you do with her afterwards?” Meredith asked, her hands hooked at her side. “Woo her, love her, marry her?”

“Until death do us part.” The prince replied firmly.

Meredith’s eyes filled with black and she hissed. If you survive the fire, you will be proved worthy! Now face me!

The prince barely had a chance to block the first fireball that came flying at him. His horse reared and barely held its ground. The prince jumped off the saddle and dove to one side, rolling and coming up only to see the dragon barely three inches from his face.

You are not even trying.

The prince leapt to one side and swiped at the dragon’s underbelly. He missed but it wasn’t a bad try. The dragon’s body threaded itself through the hall, in and out of the windows and the prince jumped and stabbed, ducked and wove as best he could. But there was just too much dragon and not enough damage being done.

I am growing bored.

The dragon climbed up onto the top of the remaining walls and glared down. It breathed in deep, a glow bright enough to be seen through its underbelly heralding the imminent fire it was about to release. The prince dived for cover as flames of an unearthly intensity ripped past him, causing the stone to glow red. He yelled, gritting his teeth together then leapt out of his hiding place…to face the dragon front on. The prince swung his sword at it and the dragon clamped its jagged teeth down on it and snapped the blade in two. The prince looked up in horror, staggering backwards as the dragon came closer.

Too bad.

His broken armour was thrown into a back room and his horse made a hearty meal. There was no need to dispose of his body for it was little more than ash and blew away with the hot winds. And though her face was streaked with the grey smudges of the remains of the prince, the dark she-elf Meredith sat cold and merciless on her throne…waiting for the next fool to arrive.

And they did. One after another…for years. Decades…for the better part of a century Meredith laid waste to every prince, knight and nobleman that was foolish enough to venture past the threshold of her castle.” Jé Kinah explained then paused. It was quiet now, in the hush before dawn and though the tale had stretched on through the night, Emperor Shahryar had not moved from his silk cushion recline, his eyes ever fixated on her face.

“What a creature of darkness is she…” He whispered. “No good can come of this.”

“But good did come, Emperor.” Jé Kinah added. “One day a young man entered the castle that was not like the others.”

“An Emperor perhaps?” Shahryar hinted.

“Far from it. A humble farmer’s son, simple and good. There was not a drop of malice in his heart or doubt in his step. Because he did not profess love for the supposed princess in the tower or declare war on the dragon, he did not irritate her. So she let him stay…and he was her undoing. Through simple acts of kindness, through his honesty and steadfast nature…he reached her charred, neglected heart and caused it to beat again.” Jé Kinah swallowed, the memory, though decades old, still resonated strongly within her. “Because she was an elf, she might never die and so she set out to undo the damage she had done as a dragon, determined to right the wrongs of her dark existence and help bring about happily ever afters.””

Scheherazade looked at the Samraat. “And Jé Kinah continued to tell many stories to the Emperor, of all the people she helped find love, all the disasters she was able to avert.

She told him of Snow White and how her stepmother had despised her and had tried to kill her several times over. She told him of Marjellan’s love for Snow White that woke her when the kiss of a prince failed to do so.

She told him of an old man that had made a deal with a demon to be granted eternal youth in the form of a werewolf. She told him of how the wolf took over the man’s mind and had an entire village complying with his demands.

She told him of a man from the earth and a woman from the ocean falling in love against all the odds and how the conflict of their two worlds nearly tore them apart. She told him how they were determined to work for their happily ever after and to never take it for granted.

She told him of a woman sleeping high in a castle and a prince imprisoned down below and of over one hundred years lost in waiting. She told him of how the cruelty of man had kept them apart but nothing had daunted their love.

She told him of giants planning war high in the clouds, scheming to use the blood of a boy called Jack in order to plant dozens of beanstalks that would allow them to invade the earth. She told him how no people group could be judged according to one or even many foolish members and that there was restraint and reason and even compromise to be discovered.

She told him of a girl that refused to play a part and a prince that refused to be a prince. She told him that despite all their rebellions, true love could not be thwarted and that they had discovered each other and created their own story to be told.

She told him of a beast and a witch, a hunter and a beauty. She told him of foolish mistakes and evil intentions, of love without words and that appearances can be deceiving.

She even included the times when she felt she had done more harm than good, wanting all things to be laid out before him, as if she needed someone to finally understand her…and forgive her.”

The Samraat snorted but Scheherazade did not give him the chance to comment but continued with her story.

“When Jé Kinah finished her tale the Emperor’s head was whirling with images and emotions. He looked at her, the truth of Meredith’s identity beginning to dawn. “And this she-elf that had begun to turn into a dragon, told all before the Emperor?” The Emperor asked.

“She did. All that she could remember and everything that she felt.” Jé Kinah admitted.

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she heard that you were a wise man. That you are kind and firm and have sat in judgment over countless debates and ruled with compassion. Because in one hand you hold condemnation and in the other you hold forgiveness.” Jé Kinah knelt before the Emperor and prostrated herself. “Do as you will to me. I put myself wholly in your power and await your judgment.””

The Samraat huffed. “She does not truly expect the Emperor to forgive her? How can she even think that way?”

“Perhaps she hopes that all the good she has done…”

“Worthless!” The Samraat roared, kicking a statue over. “Anything good she professed to have done is filthy rags compared to the unforgiveable crimes she has committed. How many did she kill? How many?”

“Fifteen.” Scheherazade gasped.

“More than enough to warrant her immediate execution!”

“She was betrayed!”

“It matters not! I would not hand her over to the Queen! I would condemn her for what she is, a creature without a soul and with no mercy in her heart.”

“But the Emperor did have compassion…” Scheherazade was slapped hard and she fell to the ground, her eyes smarting as the Samraat stood over her.

“He should have killed her where she stood! He should have taken up one of his guards weapons and put an end to her heart! That is what I would do!”

Scheherazade looked up fearfully but with fire in her eyes. “Then by your own words you have condemned yourself.” The Samraat looked at her in astonishment as she got to her feet, her hands still bound. Her eye had already begun to swell but she forced herself to keep his gaze. “You were betrayed by your first wife and so you killed her. But the hurt she inflicted on you was so great that you tainted every woman with the same indiscretion. Virgin after virgin you married and bride after bride you executed without a second thought! You are the villain in this story! You are the creature that crawls before the Emperor who holds forgiveness in one hand and condemnation in the other.” Scheherazade pointed her finger at the Samraat who was backing away from this little woman that resonated power from every pore of her body. “You showed no mercy so now you will receive none!”

“No!” The Samraat’s eyes became wide with fright. “No! I will never be judged! I am beyond the law!”

“You are not beyond God!”

The Samraat looked up through the glass dome as though fearful the face of God was looking down on him…and screamed. “No! Not your judgment! Leave me be! Do not condemn me, the Samraat, your servant!”

Scheherazade looked up through the glass but could see nothing. When she turned back she saw her husband had run to the balcony and spun around to face her.

“It is a trick, is it not? You are just trying to manipulate me! Guards! Guards!”

Scheherazade was standing far from the Samraat when the guards entered and saw him point to the rooftop and screeched out a blood curdling cry.

“It comes! It comes!” He howled, moving backwards and tipped over the edge of the balcony.

The guards and Scheherazade ran to the balcony and looked over. The broken, smashed body of the Samraat could be seen in the dull blue light just before dawn. And while the guards scrambled to retrieve the body and look for the assassin, Scheherazade twisted and looked up to the roof.

There was nothing there.

The funeral of the Samraat was a four day ritual at the end of which Scheherazade was crowned the Samrajni. There had been an inquiry into the death of the Samraat but what with a dozen guards in the room who saw the Samraat lose control of his mind and throw himself from the balcony all testifying to the fact that Scheherazade had been far from him and still bound at the wrists, she had been cleared of any treachery. The country welcomed her as their leader and any protestations that might have been made at a woman leading without a husband were silenced as Scheherazade opened the gates of the palace and began to feed the famine stricken people as she had longed to do.

There were so many ceremonies and festivals that for over a week, Scheherazade could not sneak away into the abandoned wing of the palace. It dawned on her one day that she was the Samrajni and simply ordered the guards to escort her to the stairs of the wing and no further. She picked up her skirts and climbed up into the bed chamber and stopped at the doorway.

“Open sesame.” She called softly.

Had the prisoner fled? Was it still here? What had really happened that night? Did she truly want the answers that she so anxiously sought?

A shadow broke away from the rest and came to stand before her, obscured by the tattered silks.

“Enter Samrajni.”

Scheherazade did so but stayed within her circle of safety. She heard the scrape of chains across the ground and waited, unsure how to begin.

“I understand condolences and congratulations are in order,” the shadow tilted its head at her, “or perhaps just congratulations?”

“My conscience will not allow me to rejoice in the death of a man.” Scheherazade said firmly then faltered. “But perhaps I am…relieved. Does that make me a hypocrite?”

The shadow gave a low huff, possibly a dull laugh. “No. Just human.”

“I had hoped that the stories would change his heart, help him to become a man of integrity and compassion…but I failed.”

“His death is on no one’s shoulders but his own.” The chains clinked closer but the prisoner remained obscured. “Did he hurt you?”

Scheherazade instinctively touched her face where the swelling had all but gone down and careful makeup had hidden any lingering marks. “Not really. No. In fact, his violence is what spurred on my final assault. Up until that moment I had not suffered physical pain from him and had been lured into an illusion of security…but his hand against my skin woke me up. I realised that I was going to die and that if that was the case, I would not go silently. I was determined to finish the story.”

“You are a brave woman indeed.”

Scheherazade frowned. “How did you know I was injured?”

“Your father.”

“He has visited?”

“Just the once. To inform me that you had not perished and that I was not doomed to the same fate.”

The Samrajni cringed slightly. “He told me of his meeting with you, the day I was condemned. I apologise…”

“I hold no grudge against him. He acted as a father who fears for the life of the daughter that he loves.” The shadow turned away. “I blame him not. It looked to me as though he had finally had a good night’s sleep.”

“I do not think he has slept well since I married the Samraat...over three years ago…thirty three months…two hundred and thirty one weeks…”

“One thousand and one nights…”

Scheherazade looked around the chamber, aware that the prisoner had worked steadily to clean it over the past few months. Though it was far from worthy to be included in the palace once more, it had become live-able…and a great deal better than the cell in which she had first laid eyes on the bound prisoner.

Her father had started relaying stories of remarkable fiction, the like of which Scheherazade had never heard of before. It had taken quite a bit of pestering to have him admit where the stories were coming from. A prisoner held deep in the palace dungeons, a deformed freak that had to be kept away from the eyes of the people. Scheherazade had her father accompany her down into the dungeons, past the upper levels where there were windows with light pouring through them, past the middle dungeons for the more dangerous enemies of the Samraat, down, down, down...

...to where the only light was the from the lit torch in the guard’s hand. Where the passages linking the cells were so narrow they threatened to squeeze the life out of her lungs. Where there was foul smelling water in puddles had to be dodged as they came upon a door only large enough for a small child to use comfortably.

Inside this cell had been the prisoner. Not enough room to stand, barely enough to lie down she huddled in a far corner in damp straw, hunched over and shaking from the cold. When the door was closed, there wouldn’t have been a drop of light to be seen and the walls were so thick she wouldn’t have been able to hear any sound of life beyond her own voice. Her imprisonment would have been an endless night without the hope of release.

Scheherazade realised in that moment that she did not care about her crime. Whatever reason she had been imprisoned could not justify this cruelty. She had taken a big risk in moving her but Scheherazade had become accustomed to her life being held in the balance.

It seemed a lifetime ago...

“Perhaps you should simply say what it is that you have come to say.”

She blushed a little, feeling the observant eyes of the prisoner on her face.

“I suppose I have come to ask…are the stories true?”

The shadow snorted and sat down on the ground heavily, chains clanging together. “They are just stories.”

“No, they were stories when my father attempted to relay them from you to me. They were stories without life or emotion. When I heard you tell them, that is when I heard their life, their meaning and purpose…”

“I did what I did to stay alive. Threatened with deportation, lifelong imprisonment or execution, I simply saw an opportunity for the lesser of all three and made stories up.”

“But why?” Scheherazade insisted asking. “Why help me? Why hear my father’s lament that he was running low on stories and offer up your own?”

“I helped myself. It had nothing to do with you.”

The Samrajni’s lips pressed together. “I do not know the charges my father has held you with. I do not know why you were sought out and captured. I can only guess that either my father has a higher allegiance to the Queen beyond the mirror…or that you actually wanted to be caught.”

“Wanted to be caught? That is a fanciful story. What person goes willingly into the den of the lion? What person throws themselves into a bevy of guards and practically begs to be captured?”

“What person takes the place of a girl that was destined to be consumed by a wolf? What person takes on an army of giants in order to save a single boy? What person suffers the cloying advances of confident princes just to see if there was a chance of a happily ever after?”

“A fictional one.”

“I think you are lying.”

The prisoner stood up and Scheherazade felt her body instinctively flinch but held firm. “I am a prisoner, possibly a thief, a murderer, an adulterer and a creature of darkness…of course I lie.”

Scheherazade shook her head. “No. I do not believe you.”

The prisoner paused, affronted by her steadfast statement.

“I notice that you do not ask your father these questions. He would at least give you a straight answer and you could trust him.”

The Samrajni lowered her eyes. “Could I?” She looked up. “If the stories are not true then I would sleep easier at night. But if they are true…if my father received orders from the Queen and chose to fulfil them over the authority of the Samraat…if she is truly planning a war on this earth…”

The shadow watched the inner torment inside the young woman who had barely scraped past her twentieth year and felt compassion.

“What good would it do to know?” The prisoner remarked kindly.

“Because, as much as the truth can be bitter at times, I prefer it to honey dipped lies.” The Samrajni drew a small metal object out of the silk folds of her dupatta. It was a key. “This key will unlock your shackles.” She stepped forward and set it down just outside of the circle of safety but within the light. “Either you need the key and must step forward in order to take it to gain your freedom…or you do not need it at all and I shall never see you clearly. Whatever you decide will answer my ultimate question.”

The shadow’s head looked down at the key and Scheherazade wondered if her gamble would work. After a painfully long, empty moment, the prisoner stepped into the light. First her bare feet that were unremarkable in anyway then her legs that were dressed in the pants from a salwar made from pale green cotton with a faded print on them. Then the rest of her body came into view. She had a slender frame with shoulders that were bending under the weight of the wings on her back. Though they were mostly folded up, Scheherazade could see that they were bat-like and they quivered as though desperately wanting to expand and stretch out. Then her head came into view and lifted up. Her upper torso was wrapped in several layers of silk, exposing quite a bit of flesh. A layer of scales covered her shoulders, dipped down a little onto her covered breasts and travelled up the sides of her neck, up the sides of her face and curved into the crown of her head. Her hair was nearly white and the edges looked singed as though they had been dipped in fire. Her eyes were pale green and they gazed at Scheherazade with strength…and hidden fear.

Scheherazade was astonished that such a fearsome creature should fear her. She could not possibly fear physical punishment or rebuke. But then she saw the prisoner look away, as though she was embarrassed by Scheherazade’s gaze.

Then the Samrajni started.

She was not afraid! She was ashamed! Ashamed of her form, ashamed of what it stood for…ashamed because…the stories were true…and not just the good ones.

“It is good to see you at last, Jé Kinah,” the prisoner winced at the words, “or perhaps is it Meredith?”

“No. I am wholly Jé Kinah.” She answered.

“I thought…” Scheherazade swallowed. “I thought you were there that night, the night the Samraat died. I thought you were on the roof…that you frightened him into falling to his death…but I see now that you are still a prisoner here.”

Jé Kinah closed her eyes and breathed out, then drew her hands forward, the shackles at her wrists pulling the chains into view…and the heavy solid rings that had been attached to the walls still with chunks of plaster attached.

Scheherazade couldn’t take her eyes off the broken shackles as they dragged heavily across the mats. Jé Kinah swallowed.

“I am sorry. I only wanted to make sure you were safe. I did not mean to…”

“Frighten the Samraat to death?” Jé Kinah nodded. “So you were there that night.” Jé Kinah nodded again. “Then there is something I do not understand.”

“What is that?”

“You have clearly freed yourself from this prison. Why are you still here? You could have been so far gone from this place that had I sent out search parties, I would never have found a whisper of a hint of your whereabouts.”

Jé Kinah shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Well for one thing, your shackles are far harder to remove than your walls.” She said, eyeing the key.

“And the real reason?”

Jé Kinah looked up, caught Scheherazade’s gaze and looked away. “If the stories are true…”

“And from your appearance I would say that they are.”

“Then perhaps I have been searching for someone to judge me, someone who has demonstrated that they are wise, compassionate, firm and fully aware of the facts of my life.”

“Is that why you came? To be judged?”

“No. But it is why I stayed.”

Scheherazade sat on the stone bench and gazed down at her clasped hands in her lap. Inwardly she was very conflicted. Jé Kinah had been very blunt in her retelling of her sad story. She had not kept anything hidden. If she had, the stories would have been empty of life. But because they resonated with the aching sorrow that the she-elf carried around in her heart, Scheherazade knew now that everything she had said was true…even to the point of killing innocent princes and knights that tried to rescue a nonexistent princess from her tower prison and unleashing a terrible revenge upon her unfaithful father.

Fifteen had been the number of virgins the Samraat had murdered after marrying them and so when he had asked her for a figure that is the one she had given. But she suspected the amount of deaths on Jé Kinah’s head was far higher.

Scheherazade felt justified in the Samraat’s death for his cold hearted murder of innocents.

Now she stood in judgment over one who had done even more terrible things.

Should she be pardoned because of the service she provided Scheherazade? Was that morally right? Was it fair? Why had Jé Kinah asked her to pass judgement?

“There is one thing I should like you to answer before I give you my judgment.”

“To you I am an open book.”

“The young man that visited your castle, who softened your heart and convicted you… You barely mentioned him. You did not even tell his story.”

Jé Kinah’s jaw trembled. “I am still enough of an elf for the sorrow to kill me outright.”

Scheherazade nodded. “Then, would you tell me his name?”

Her hand reached up and grasped the only adornment she wore, a vial on a leather cord hung around her neck. She held it so tight her knuckles turned white and she swallowed with difficulty. “Luka.” She whispered, tears immediately streaming down her face. “His name was Luka.”

Scheherazade felt her pain acutely. She saw the ache inside Jé Kinah that she had carried around in her heart for decades. She could not escape from the sorrow and the Samrajni suspected that it was now like a companion to her, a guide and a conscience.

She stood up. “I forgive you Jé Kinah.” The she-elf beast looked up in shock. “Your crimes are many but you have born punishment too. You are not insensible to the pain you have wrought and you put yourself now in harm’s way as penance so that others may have their happily ever after. You owe no penalty to me.” She bowed with her hands pressed together. “Go in peace Jé Kinah.”

Jé Kinah was stunned, almost too stunned to show emotion but Scheherazade thought she saw a flash of regret drowned in a wash of relief.

“I will ask my father to have your belongings brought to you.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you require anything else for your journey?”

“No. Just my satchel. All I require is in there.”

Scheherazade did not know what else to say so she left. Knowing her father as she did, she suspected he kept Jé Kinah’s satchel in his personal chambers to ensure that the guards did not steal and sell of whatever was inside. She left her contingent of guards outside as she entered her father’s chambers.

“Father?” She called but he was not there. The satchel was hanging up in the cupboard in her old room. Along with it was a bow and a quiver of arrows which she guessed was also Jé Kinah’s for her father had no aptitude for physical prowess. She took these things and handed them to her chief guard.

“Take these to the abandoned wing of the palace. Leave them at the threshold of the bedchamber and go no further in if you value your life.”

“Yes Samrajni.” The guard bowed and left. Scheherazade looked around the main room that she had grown up in and noticed very little in the way of change. Perhaps there were more books but that was all. There was a large mirror hanging up in an alcove above an ornate table that was new. It seemed strange as her father was as adverse to vanity as he was to physical exertion. On the table was a polished black wood case covered in gold filigree, its lid fastened shut.

She approached the mirror’s gilded frame and highly polished surface and noticed with a chill that it did not reflect the room before it. Instead it was like a window looking out onto a frozen wasteland. Scheherazade’s breath touched the surface and it fogged up like a mirror should and yet her warm features and rich robes were unseen in the ice and snow. She thought she could see the shape of a castle through the icy haze. Transfixed by the unnatural sight Scheherazade watched as the imagery rippled and changed to beyond the vague outline of the castle to what appeared to be a frozen lake over shadowed by arches of ice. Kneeling in the middle of the lake was a boy. His straw blonde hair was blown about by the wind and his brown eyes gazed in concentration at something he was doing on the ground.

Not realising she was a hairs breadth from the mirror, Scheherazade strained to see what it was that he was trying to accomplish.

“If you do not fulfil your promise…I will kill him…”

Scheherazade screamed as a blast of icy wind ripped out of the mirror and she dropped to the ground, wiping the snow from her eyes. She had never felt such coldness and when she looked up she saw the room was coated in white crystals and the ground was slick with ice. She stood up as the guards rushed in, falling over themselves on the unnatural surface. One of them knocked the polished black wood case towards her, its lid having fallen broken off to one side revealing an empty interior…but with the imprint that only a knife could leave…

“Father,” Scheherazade whispered, “what have you done?”

Another blast of cold issued forth from the mirror but Scheherazade moved to one side. She reached up, grabbed the mirror’s gilded surface and pulled it down with all her might. The glass shattered on the ground, still reflecting the wasteland but in dozens of pieces like a broken jigsaw. Scheherazade stood over it and looked down. A face appeared in the mirror shards, twisted and snarling and its blue eyes, broken up across multiple surfaces, stared at her with malicious intent.

“I will kill him…”

Scheherazade ran from the room, skidding on the ice until she finally reached the passage outside. She sprinted down a hall, pushing past servants and losing her dupatta in her haste. As she passed a mirror that hung as mere decoration on the wall she saw the boy kneeling in the middle of the frozen lake again.

“I will kill him…”

Every mirror she passed reflected the same image and Scheherazade had to squint to keep from seeing him there as the voice chased her down the passage.

“…kill him!”

“…kill him!”

“I will kill him!”

“Jé Kinah!” Scheherazade cried as she entered the abandoned wing. “Jé Kinah!”

“Samrajni…” A big burly guard stepped in her way.

“Step aside!” She ordered.

“Forgive me Samrajni but the grand vizier has ordered that no one shall enter this wing.”

“What? Why?”

“There is an escaped prisoner in the former bedchamber of the first wife. The grand vizier has gone to capture it with a dozen guards.”

“Oh no…” Scheherazade gasped. “They will be killed! She will kill them!”

“I think a dozen guards can handle one…” He was cut off by the sound of furniture smashing and a guard screaming.

Scheherazade was nearly beside herself. “I order you to stand aside!” She commanded, reaching deep inside herself and finding the voice of a leader of a nation. The guard hesitated then bowed to her supreme authority. Scheherazade picked up her skirts and ran up the stairs. “Jé Kinah!”

She could hear the sounds of a mighty battle in the bedchamber and threw herself to one side as a guard came flying out over the threshold and crashed into a wall. A terrible shadow play of a battle beyond the layers of silks was occurring but Scheherazade knew what separated friend from foe.

“Jé Kinah!” Scheherazade stopped and yelled. “Open sesame!”

And in that instant, the fighting stopped. Scheherazade’s chest heaved, frightened to go further until she knew permission had been granted.

“Call them off.” Jé Kinah’s voice was strained.

“Guards, your Samrajni orders you to stand down and remove yourself from this wing of the palace at once!”

There was a pause before the guards began to limp and struggle out of the bedchamber, several limbs out of place and one guard being held up by his colleagues. No one was seriously injured but they had the look of terror on their faces.

“Samrajni…” One guard stopped before her. “The grand vizier…”

“I know. Go and do not return until it is I who commands you.”

“The creature is a vile demon. You cannot reason…”

“I said go!”

When Scheherazade was sure he had left with the others she stepped forward from her circle of safety and pushed past the length of silks hanging from the ceiling to emerge at the edge of the bedchamber. The wall had mostly broken away, leaving a jagged opening in place of the original balcony. Standing with her back to the hole was Jé Kinah. In her hand was a dagger as white as ice, its hilt set with a blue stone and its blade at her father’s throat. His dastar had fallen in the struggle and he looked wildly at his daughter, pinned in Jé Kinah’s grip.

“Scheherazade!” He cried. “Run! Save yourself!”

Jé Kinah’s eyes were grim and her mouth was firm. “You father has been lying to you Scheherazade.”

“Do not listen to her!”

“He has been serving a higher authority than the Samraat and now you.”

“Lies! Call back the guards Scheherazade!” He gulped as the blade pinched his throat.

“He is in league with the Queen!”

“I know.” Her father and Jé Kinah both held their breath as Scheherazade stepped forward. “I know.”

“No, my daughter. No.”

“I found the mirror father. I found the case that held the knife which Jé Kinah wields.” She saw his eyes wince. “Why else would you have imprisoned Jé Kinah in the first place?”

“She is a freak! An abomination!”

“Hardly reason to condemn her.”

“But I let her live!”

“Because you needed her stories,” Scheherazade stepped forward again and was becoming dangerously close to the edge, “in order that I would live. But you made a vow to the Queen and she has demanded that you fulfil it.”

Harisha squirmed in Jé Kinah’s unrelenting grip. “You do not know her power! You do not know what she can do! She will sweep across this land without mercy and only by aligning ourselves with her, indebting her to us, will we survive!”

“That is my decision to make father.” Scheherazade said with finality. “As for you…you are stripped of the title of grand vizier and are confined to your chambers and your books for the rest of your life.”

Harisha gasped. “But…I am your father!”

“Yes you are. And you always will be.” Scheherazade held out her hand. “The knife Jé Kinah.”

Jé Kinah did not hesitate. She flipped the dagger over so that she was holding the blade and held it out to Scheherazade. Harisha snarled and bit down on her arm where there was skin and not scales. As Jé Kinah cried out, releasing him from her hold, he lunged forward to grab the knife. Scheherazade managed to get there first and kicked the blade out of the opening in the wall. But Harisha could not stop his motion and he slammed into Scheherazade and she toppled over the edge and disappeared from view.

“Scheherazade!” He yelled as Jé Kinah threw herself down after the falling Samrajni.

She caught up with her just as the ground rushed to meet them and with a powerful pump of her wings she pulled them both up before they were laid waste on the paved courtyard below where the dagger had shattered. Scheherazade looked down in terror as Jé Kinah climbed higher and higher into the sky so that she could twist among the clouds, a light sprinkle of moisture touching their faces before soaring down into the blue sky. Jé Kinah stretched her wings wide and their descent slowed so that Scheherazade’s feet landed gently on the balcony of her chamber. Jé Kinah alighted on the balcony’s edge like an enormous gargoyle as Scheherazade staggered backwards.

“Your father is right.” Jé Kinah said before she could speak. “You need to choose your allegiances. You could deliver me to the Queen…make amends…”

“You must go there, no matter what I decide.” Scheherazade swallowed. “She has a prisoner, a child.”

Jé Kinah stiffened. “A child?”

“I think it is a boy and from his colouring I would say he is from the north. She said she would kill him if you did not come. I think it would matter not to her if you were bound and gagged or came of your own volition.”

The she-elf’s face constricted and she closed her eyes. “I had hoped to avoid her. Clearly she has taken matters into her own hands.”

“What will you do?”

“What she knew I would.” Jé Kinah opened her eyes and looked at the Samrajni. “Save the boy.”

“What can I do?”

“Rule your country with wisdom and love,” Jé Kinah frowned slightly, “and do not trust your father.”

“I will be careful.” Scheherazade vowed and watched as the enormous wings of stretched sinew, leather and hollow bone pumped hard, raising Jé Kinah into the air until she was a mere speck in the sky. Scheherazade did not look away until she vanished among the clouds.

The wind whistled around her ears as the gusts became more powerful than they would be felt on earth and Jé Kinah climbed higher and higher, finally finding a place where she could soar but that didn’t leave her gasping for air. Her wings were slightly encumbered by her satchel and her bow was over one arm and her quiver over the other. She considered dropping them as she doubted she would need them where she was going…but then she didn’t know where they would land and it was possible they would hit someone. Possible…but not likely…and she wasn’t willing to risk it.

Every now and then there was a break in the clouds as her instincts kept her going north, watching the land change from warm and rugged to a more sloping, green landscape with acres upon acres of forest. Her body tired before her wings did, the way they attached themselves to her shoulder blades putting a great deal of strain on her body so she folded her wings slightly and dipped down towards the earth, seeking out hot updrafts that could keep her buoyed.

And there were moments, few scant moments when she actually quite enjoyed the sensation of flying, when she could forget how deformed she had become and simply let the wind wash over her, whipping her hair back from her face. It was almost cathartic…but then the idea that a small boy was being used as leverage over her crept back into her mind and suddenly any pleasure she had was torn away. She kept flying far longer than her body would have liked and when she rested it was far shorter than her body needed. But she was driven, further and further into the north, returning to a land she had run from decades ago.

She could see it, in the distance, a mountain range that hemmed in the edge of the great continent, keeping the ocean at bay lest it burst its banks and consume the land. All the mountains were capped with snow but a single mountain that sat in the middle of the range was covered in it. The enormous formation might have completely dwarfed its neighbours if it weren’t for the lack of a peak. Where the other mountains tried to touch the sky with their fingertips, this mountain almost seemed to be punching up, its reach stunted into a round jagged edge. And glistening at the top was blue ice, blinking in the sunlight.

Jé Kinah’s jaw became firm and a muscle tweaked in her cheek. She lowered her eyes into a predatory expression and pushed forward through the sky towards it. She saw a small grey cloud hovering above the blue ice and as she watched the cloud grew, filling up, surging as it stretched and billowed, going from a single, non threatening cloud into a massive grey storm cloud, opaque and angry with green lightning rippling through it rolling towards her at a speed that defied the laws of earth and sky. Thunder pealed and lightning ripped around and through it in hues of green and purple. The wind picked up, blasting her from one side to hitting her on the other and as the cloud swallowed her up, she was immediately covered in water that was as cold as ice.

Jé Kinah immediately twisted and plummeted, tearing through the clouds so that they emptied their contents down on her as she made for the earth. Fully transformed a storm like this would have no affect on her but she was still part elf and while she might have been a little more tolerant of slight temperature changes than humans, this one was extreme. By the time she landed there was already a thin layer of snow on the ground that was thickening quickly. Relieved she hadn’t thrown her satchel away she dug out her oiled leather cloak and cape and every spare item of clothing she could still get on around her wings. She had a red wool hooded cape that she wrapped around her neck and she tugged her gloves up firmly.

“Right,” She looked up, her breath immediately fogging up in the bleak atmosphere, “the last stretch.”

It took three days of hard trekking through freshly fallen snow, beaten about on all sides by the constant winds and sleet that the storm unleashed on her before she reached the base of the mountain. There was no relief, no break in the onslaught. Jé Kinah had slept in the lee of large trees or beneath large overhanging rocks whenever she could, though never for very long. Every minute she wasted in slumber, the little boy on the frozen lake grew closer to his doom.

It was possible he was already dead but Jé Kinah couldn’t take that chance and so, after a fitful hour’s sleep hunkered down by a large, flat rock, she took up her satchel and continued to trudge up the mountain. The landscape had been utterly transformed and it was difficult to pry familiar landmarks from the uniform white everything was coated in.

The moment she had an inkling that she was on the last stretch was, as she moved out beyond the thin line of trees that marked that last stand of the flora on the mountain, the lack of wind. One moment there was wind, the next, none. There was no whistling, no screaming and no bellowing in her ears. It was calm. Jé Kinah looked up. There was crystal clear blue sky above. It was beautiful and even though there was no sun to be seen, reflected light bounced off the glittering snow like millions of diamonds, each one carefully picked, polished and set in place on the mountainside.

Her breath became the only thing she could hear apart from the crunch of snow beneath her feet and it was strange at how it filled her senses, numbing her to anything else.

“Hey you!”

She stopped and looked up. A blunt nosed goblin was glaring down at her from a safe perch on a rock. His skin looked blistered, black and peeling though that was simply its natural appearance. Goblins were not overly large creatures and she was a little surprised that it had called attention to itself with only a chipped sword in its hand…when two big black noses could be seen sniffing towards her from behind the Goblin. Wolves. Big wolves.

Not as big as one that kept a village in a prison of fear for ten years but that was a werewolf and a highly intelligent, dangerous one at that.

These wolves had only instinct in their eyes and they waited for their goblin master to instruct them.

“Reptilian or flyer?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Hear her! Beg yer pardon!” The goblin snorted into laughter which was a highly unpleasant sound. “The only one yer need manners fer is the Queen. Reptilian or flyer?”

Jé Kinah hesitated. “Flyer.”

“Past the cow shed on yer right. If yer reach the Minotaur, yer gone too far.”

Jé Kinah nodded and walked past cautiously, hand itching for her blade. As she climbed higher she passed through a village that had been abandoned a long time ago and had fallen into disrepair. Within the village, grouped together by type, was the largest army Jé Kinah had ever seen…and it consisted of all the creatures that were mythical, that no longer existed or were vanishingly rare…some were all three.

There was a regiment of ogres standing in line at a rudimentary blacksmiths. A team of fiendish little beasties that Jé Kinah recognised from the forest battle where she had stood with the dwarves were working the smithy. Their eyes were stitched over and she noted that they looked as though they’d been sewn together from several types of creature, not one of them being the same as any other. When they chattered to each other they showed a row of uneven, pointed teeth and a black forked tongue. They seemed to be the labourers, the pawns on the chessboard. For the ogres they were beating breastplates into shape and assigning helmets and weapons. Further back from the blacksmiths was a legion of ogres being drilled by a particularly nasty looking ogre captain that roared and beat his soldiers for setting even one foot out of place. Considering that ogres were notoriously clumsy, the captain did a lot of yelling and beating.

To the left of the ogres were trolls. There were only a dozen or so of them and the way they were sitting around in a circle made them look like a rocky outcrop. But they were notoriously difficult to kill and very effective killers. If it hadn’t been that they were hard to motivate the elves would have sent a legion of their best warriors to wipe them out at the dawn of time. However the saying ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ could easily be applied to the trolls. More of the eye stitched beasties were wheeling barrel loads of debris to the trolls who stuck their hand in and munched on whatever they happened to pick up. Jé Kinah saw one accidentally grab one of the nasty beasties and chomped his arm off. The beastie screamed more out of indignation than pain, ripped his arm out of the troll’s mouth and stomped off, possibly to have it sewed back on.

Further up was the goblin party. They were the gamblers, obsessed with money and prepared to slit any throat for a price. They were clever and nasty and their beady black eyes flittered over each other’s hand in the games they were playing. There was a great deal of snarling and hand slapping and the beasties brought them wine that had soured. The stench made Jé Kinah’s eyes water.

As she reached the cow shed she threw herself under its shelter as a troupe of Minotaur stomped past. Though they had the stance and stature of a man, their heads were that of a bull with thick, curling horns and iron rings through their noses. Their hides were a blend of dark brown to black hair and they wielded doubled headed axes that Jé Kinah was fairly certain she would not be able to lift. They stunk of manure, sweat and mead and she made sure they were well and truly past before moving up a little further.

She heard something growling within the cow shed and turned to peer in through a knot hole. In the dim she could see shapes moving about. She could smell rotted flesh and damp fur…the scent of wild dog…or wolf. Eyes glinted in the darkness as though they were lit with an unholy fire and their enormous paws padded on the ground as they paced their enclosure, waiting for the cover of night. Jé Kinah shuddered and moved on.

That is when she saw the harpies. They were in the regiment of the flyers and though there were only three of them, they were a force to be reckoned with. Harpies had two forms. One was the body of a beautiful woman with eyes as soft as morning dew and hair that never seemed to settle as though it was floating in water. Their wings were soft and downy and as white as a swan’s and they were praised to be angels…though that was far from the truth. She was a trap, a beautiful, intoxicating trap for the moment a poor soul fell for her loveliness, it vanished in an instant and a withered, snarling, dark eyed witch took its place with tattered black wings and dragged its prisoner to its lair where, Jé Kinah shuddered to think, they fed on it.

With her head down she hurried past, frightened at how well her scaly body and bat wings seemed to blend in with the soldiers of this varied army. She found the mountain trail that had been turned into an icy staircase and began to climb. Soon the clanging sounds of the army disappeared into a single breeze that whipped around and around the mountain, almost like a banner in constant, fluidic motion. Jé Kinah could feel an inner tremble that became stronger and stronger as she climbed higher and higher. When she stepped out onto the plateau before the castle door, her heart was hammering so hard so thought her chest would break.

The Queen had rebuilt the castle out of blocks of ice, snow and even more ice. Very little of the original castle and its dark stone remained. It had been consumed in white and the coldest blue. Filigree ice gates sat in giant arcs within a wall of opaque white. On either side of the gates were two chimera carved out of giant blocks of ice. Jé Kinah’s reflection distorted in their surface as she walked up the gates and put her hands to them. They swung inwards and she stepped into the main hall. The Queen had kept the original shape, a long wide hall with four arched windows down each side.

Jé Kinah knew there had been no windows when she arrived the first time and almost certainly no walls by the time she left so everything that had been built was made of ice and snow. The Queen had created ice so thin and clear the outside world could be seen with ease. These diamond shaped panels were set in opaque white frames so that it was a stained glass window effect without harsh black lines. The walls only went up two metres, the windows arcing up far above them and then arches were used to join up in the centre, at least five metres above Jé Kinah’s head. Where they met the Queen had created chandeliers of ice that looked like crystal.

At the end of the hall was a beautiful throne in place of the broken, black throne. If Jé Kinah squinted she could just make out some of the original dark stone hiding beneath its refurbished exterior. On either side of the throne were two unicorn statues, both rearing, twisting as they did so, turning away from the throne.

The throne itself was empty and as Jé Kinah passed by the right hand corner, she shuddered and grasped the vial around her neck. Quickly she moved on.

The Queen had rebuilt both towers for they had both fallen by the time Jé Kinah had left. The she-elf checked both, climbing gingerly up the narrow, curved staircases that led to each room at the top. The ice was so clear on the towers that it was unnerving to look down and see beyond her feet on the stair. The rooms were empty. In fact the entire castle was empty.

No one stopped her, questioned or even spotted her and scurried away to report her presence. It was eerily quiet and the unrest in Jé Kinah’s heart was stretching her nerves, threatening to snap them.

Finally she exited the castle at the back which is something she never could have done, not as an elf anyway. There shouldn’t be land beneath her feet. There certainly shouldn’t be ice and snow and yet there it was, covering the plateau of the mountain where once there had been a deep crater. The plateau was littered with sharp, jagged sheets of ice sticking straight up in the air, creating a sort of loose maze that Jé Kinah picked her way through. Most mazes had a prize or a way out in the centre. Jé Kinah hoped that this one was no different.

When she reached the centre, surrounded by a circle of tall ice sheets, she saw a mirror like the one that had been in the fortress of the giant’s cloud prison. This one showed nothing, reflecting only her wary expression…that and a round puzzle set into the ice as though it was part of the ground. Jé Kinah stepped around it. Hundreds of slightly curved blocks of ice slotted together and she could see how they could be moved, one up, one right, one down and so on until the puzzle was put together…

…only someone had beaten her to it for in the centre of the circle, spelled out in dark grey stone against the chilly ice, was the word ETERNITY.

Suddenly someone spoke. Jé Kinah looked up, her hand immediately going for her knife but leaving it sheathed as the Queen stepped around a sheet of ice into the inner circle. She was a rare beauty, dark, almost black curls pinned up with snowflakes in her hair, a thick lock of it draped over one bare shoulder. Her dress was white and her skin was lightly dusted with feather soft snow. She wore ice slippers on her feet and a tiara made of ice in her hair. Her face was round and her cheeks were rosy. Her lips were in a smile and this smile reflected in her crystal clear, unnaturally blue eyes.

She looked like a queen. And Jé Kinah looked like she belonged with the riff raff down below.

“I said he isn’t here.” The Queen spoke again, clearly unafraid of Jé Kinah as she walked closer, yet avoided the circle puzzle.

“Where…”

“Rescued,” the Queen gave a slightly mocking smile, “and not by any great warrior or noble beast…but by a girl. His childhood friend that refused to give him up for dead. That would be my luck entirely. Choose any random child as bait and it turns out to be one that has a true love.” She had a voice that sounded like it belonged in summer, not winter. It was almost light and girly as though she might laugh at any moment. Jé Kinah backed away as she faced her at the top of the circle, the mirror looking over their strange reunion. “If I had been here I might have taken her too but I was busy with my army and missed their escape entirely.”

Jé Kinah tried to swallow but her throat had closed over tightly. “Why should I believe you?”

The Queen raised her chin and her eyes glinted with irony. “I am not the one who has broken her word.” Her mask slipped slightly and Jé Kinah saw the anger that hid beneath for only a split second before it was back up. “Do you see the word ETERNITY in the puzzle?” Jé Kinah nodded. “That was his release. If he could solve the puzzle and spell the word, he was free to go. I can only assume that she helped him for when I left him to his task, he wasn’t making much headway.”

It was such polite conversation that the next question seemed entirely appropriate.

“How are you Jé? Or doesn’t anyone call you that anymore?” Jé Kinah’s eyes flickered despite her keen desire to keep her emotions hidden. “I see…so someone does call you that.” A muscle in her jaw made the Queen raise her eyebrows. “At least…he did…”

Jé Kinah hated being read so clearly. “And how are you Merry?”

Now it was time for the Queen to wince but she covered up her unease beautifully, stepping closer while Jé Kinah stepped back, keeping the distance between them always equal.

“I am well. Can you not tell?”

“You have been busy.”

The Queen reached out and stroked a sheet of ice. “It is a work in progress. I must say it was challenging recreating your precious castle out of what remained but I persevered. How did I do?”

“The main hall is a little high.”

Now a muscle in the Queen’s cheek twitched and her smile disappeared from her eyes though not from her lips. “Always finding fault, aren’t you? Always making sure you are one up on me.”

Jé Kinah could almost hear the ice crack in protest and blurted. “You have a fine army down below.”

Suddenly the Queen brightened and the ice relaxed. “It is isn’t it? While you have been off pretending to be a hero, I was in places that only exist in nightmares recruiting the beasts of mythology to my cause.” She ushered Jé Kinah to the lip of the crater plateau and looked down over the sprawling, semi organized mass of beasts that had gathered to do her will. “Minotaur, ogres, goblins, hobgoblins, several giants that couldn’t be convinced that humans weren’t delicious, trolls…harpies…Beautiful…”

“What do you intend to do with it?” Jé Kinah asked quietly but the Queen continued as if she hadn’t heard her.

“But though I looked in the hellish nooks and crannies of this world, I could not find a dragon,” she looked at Jé Kinah, “which is why I needed you to return.”

“And in order to do that you kidnapped an innocent child?” Jé Kinah was hard pressed to keep the bite out of her voice. If the Queen heard its remnant she didn’t seem to mind.

“I was never going to keep him. Why would I?” Before Jé Kinah could ask what she meant by that the Queen looked her over. “You do look as though you belong here. Those wings…those scales…” She circled around Jé Kinah. “If this is just a hint of your transformation…”

“I will not change.”

Now the Queen looked surprised and even a little injured. “Into a dragon or back into an elf?”

“Into a dragon.” Jé Kinah’s eyes flickered downwards. “I cannot change back.”

The Queen held out her hand, her milk coloured palm upwards, her fingernails polished into an opalescent shine. “Give me your hand.” Jé Kinah hesitated and the injured look reappeared into her eyes. “Please…”

Jé Kinah pulled her glove off her left hand, exposing the deformed fingers, the scaly skin and the blackened, thick nails. It was no small mental feat for her to reach out and lay her hand into the Queen’s. Instead of seeing revulsion in her eyes, Jé Kinah saw tenderness and even some sympathy.

“What have you done to yourself?” She asked without needing an answer then blew cold breath on Jé Kinah’s skin. Jé Kinah yanked her hand away as the icy touch burned all the way up from her fingertips to her shoulder. The scales fell away, her skin became creamy and unblemished and her fingernails were smooth, a gentle pink colour and short. Astonished she held her hand up and gazed at it. “Much better.”

Jé Kinah swallowed and put her arm down. She eyed the Queen with difficulty. “What do you want from me?”

“Business already?” The Queen gave a girly smile. “Can we not talk?”

“About what?”

“Oh everything! Anything!” The Queen stretched out her hand and caused a throne of ice to rise up from the ground and plonked herself in it with all the grace of a young child hoping to hear a story. “You remember Jé Kinah, like we used to.”

Jé Kinah frowned. “We never talked.”

The Queen sighed as though Jé Kinah was a very foolish person. “Oh so you’ve forgotten the war between us, the wrestle we had. You’ve forgotten the way you would want one thing and I would want another, you were sure I couldn’t climb to the top of a tree and I was positive I could…”

“If I remember, you fell and broke your wrist.” Jé Kinah remarked and again the mask slipped slightly from the Queen’s face.

“Again, fault…as though everything is always my fault.” She stood up, going from child to a royal adult in a heartbeat. “I begin to understand why humans hate elves.” She strode back into the maze of ice sheets and Jé Kinah, though right behind her, lost her almost immediately. She could hear her voice though and in the reflections of the ice she saw expressions of the Queen surrounding her. “You are so superior. So self righteous in your own perfection…” The word perfection was spat out. “And in your benevolence you choose not to help the humans in their darkest hour. Instead you were cowards and fled the earth.”

“I was left behind.” Jé Kinah argued. “Do you not remember? I was left behind.”

“No!” The Queen’s face turned and glared at her from a dozen different angles. “I was left behind. Do you remember? You left me!”

Jé Kinah felt a prickle of doubt run down her spine and bit her bottom lip. “Is that what this is about? The fact that I left you. That I did not keep you with me? You have carried that resentment for how long?”

“Oh forever…it has been my guiding light.” She swept through the reflections, and Jé Kinah could see snowflakes blooming around her, created in her wake. “My passion…my whip. At first it just kept me alive but then I began to see the truth…” Some of her reflections turned to glare at her while others looked beyond in wonderment. “That all men must perish. Everything that cannot withstand the cold must die.”

She gave an insane giggle. “I made a deal myself…lying in the snow, thrown aside like a piece of rotted filth…you are not the only one who was chosen to be the bearer of unlimited power.”

“It was wrong of me to leave you behind. But I was not thinking…”

“Every life I held back from their happily ever after gave me power! Every fair maid I made sleep, every union I prolonged like an eternal winter fed ice into my veins!”

“You made them suffer!”

“And you made me Jé Kinah!” Her voice reached a high pitch and the sheets of ice rang out a piercing tone and quivered. “You cannot deny it…you made me!”

“Merry...if I could make it up to you...”

“Ha! You only want to do that so you can be at peace.”

Jé Kinah turned around, completely lost in the maze and as a cold wind began to blow, gusts of snow struck her body, pushing her this way and that.

“I want you to put this hurt and anger behind you. I want you to be happy again.”

“I am happy! I am happy because I have done what no one else has done in the history of the earth! I have brought all the mythical and fanciful, demon and vile creatures together in one place! I have unified chaos upon this mountain and now I will unleash it upon the world! Nothing will stand in our way!”

“You have to let it go Merry! Please!”

Jé Kinah rounded a corner and came face to face with the Queen in the centre of the maze. “Don’t call me Merry! My father called me that. You have no right!”

“I have every right! He was my father!” Jé Kinah argued.

“No!” The Queen snapped and suddenly her expression cracked like a pane of glass, a split running from her forehead down to her chin. “He was MY father! And you killed him!”

“Then why amass an army to unleash on mankind?” Jé Kinah demanded. “Why kill mankind when you clearly loved our father?”

“You are mistaken Jé Kinah. I do not remember our father with love.” The Queen turned and strode away towards the mirror. “But just because I do not love him…I hate you…and everyone you have fought for.” She stood on the steps that led to the mirror and turned around, her tiara growing in height into a deadly spiked crown, her dress turning into gown with a long train yet with icy armour over her chest. In her hand a sword of ice formed and a heavy mist rose up from the plateau and obscured everything lower than knee height. “You vowed to destroy princes and ruin their happily ever afters! You broke your vow!”

“The vow was wrong!” Jé Kinah exclaimed. “It was made in anger and I bore its burden and dark purpose for too long!”

“You should have born it for all eternity!” She swung her sword at her and shards of ice ripped through the mist, embedding themselves in the ground as Jé Kinah dove for cover. “It was given to you and you rejected it! If it had only asked me…”

“But it did not, did it?” Jé Kinah eyes widened. “And that is what you truly resent. That it chose me and you were rejected.” She heard the Queen hiss and knew her words had hit home. “You have done all this in order to prove your own value.”

“And now I am priceless!”

“So is the smallest, most humble baby ever born.” Jé Kinah came out from behind the ice sheet. The Queen’s eyes were alight with blue fire and she glared at her as the deformed she-elf approached her with slow, even steps. “You are valuable Merry, not because of what you have become but because you simply are.” She came closer again and the Queen took a step back as she reached the steps of the mirror. “You stand upon the tip of a knife. One move and you have committed yourself to a life of warfare and death.” She reached out her hand and came up the first step. “Take my hand and step back.”

The Queen reached out and took her hand and they stood for a moment in calm, warm union.

“Like we once were?” She said with a smile on her face that stripped away the hardness and regained her childlike wonder and sweetness.

Jé Kinah’s smile was stretched across her face. She nodded. “Like we were.”

Then the Queen’s grip turned to ice and she pulled with a strength that her slim form was naturally incapable of. Jé Kinah was dragged to the top of the stairs, her back to the mirror and the sword so quickly at her throat that she was stunned at the ferocity.

“Your opportunity for including me in your life was over a long time ago.” The Queen snarled, her tenderness consumed in her anger. “Now it is my turn and you can decide. Join me in wiping out humanity from the earth so that the mystical and mythical creatures can finally roam free and dominate. Be the beast that will inevitably consume you.”

“No.” Jé Kinah gasped. “I will not let it control me.”

“It will not if you recommit to the vow you made.” The Queen hissed. “If you make peace with it, you will control the transformations.”

“Only as long as I kill men.” But in Jé Kinah’s mind she could only see one. One man she knew that she would eventually kill if she did as the Queen commanded. One face…in a blur of millions…

“The creature within thirsts and if you only…”

“No!” Jé Kinah’s voice rang out and several ice shattered at the sound, splintering to the frozen ground. “Never again!”

The Queen paused, hurt appearing in her eyes again with a sheen of tears but all too quickly the tears froze and her face became as hard as stone.

“I will kill them all.”

“And I will stand in your way. That is my vow. As I have done for years now I will continue to do. If I made you then I will stand against you.”

“You cannot defeat me. My power is as great as yours. I have sealed up the volcano beneath a layer of ice and snow. I control the skies and the storm. I will pour out snow and sleet and hail onto the earth until it is frozen to the core. Your only hope is for you to transform…and allow the fire within you to obliterate me.”

Jé Kinah faltered. “But I would not…”

“Change back?” The Queen smiled and it was not pleasant. “You understand your dilemma at last. In order to destroy me, you must become that which you fear the most…and then you will do what I failed to do and wipe out humanity for you can exist without me but I, the weaker and flawed side of the coin, cannot exist without you so…I will not order your execution.”

Tears began to run down Jé Kinah’s face as the truth of her reality was spelled out before her.

“You will win…no matter what I do.”

The Queen made a cooing noise and her fingertips touched Jé Kinah’s face where the scales disrupted the skin. “There, there…do not cry. There is a way you can stand between mankind and me. I will give it to you.”

“How?” Jé Kinah trembled. The Queen gestured to the mirror and its surface rippled and began fluidic.

“Step into your prison cell. Frozen in time, never changing, always the same…”

“And the power you exert to keep this place from melting into the volcano…”

“Will drain some of my power. I will be unable to unleash the full measure of my power onto the earth while you remain here.” The Queen smiled. “So you see, it is perfect. If I choose to neglect this place and it falls into the volcano, you will die and so will I. But while you remain imprisoned, you have me on a leash.”

Jé Kinah hesitated. “Why would you do this?”

“Because I have no wish to see you weep.” The Queen raised the sword, the point of it pressing against Jé Kinah’s throat. “Now change…or step back.”

Jé Kinah removed her satchel and her cloaks. She pulled off her remaining glove and looked up. “Merry, I know that somewhere within you is the child that hoped and dreamed and loved. Please…have mercy.”

“You are my mercy.” The Queen said simply. “But inevitably, the human race will fall to me. All you are doing is prolonging their torment.” She leaned on the sword and Jé Kinah stepped back, feeling the cold wash of the mirror fold over her.

“You may be surprised.” Jé Kinah said quietly, feeling a cold, dark slumber ripple around her. “They are more resilient than I first thought.”

“Eventually everything freezes…” The Queen said and stepped back.

Jé Kinah’s last vision was of the Queen standing before her, a cloud of darkness creeping in across her eyes until the slender, cold form blurred into oblivion. She could feel her wings shudder and stretch out, repelled by the cold but unable to escape it. As her thoughts began to slow down and her mind become numb, she remembered a face. A warm, innocent, smiling face that had made her believe that all things were possible…

…and then there was silence…

The Queen stepped back and gave her prison a quick once over. The heat that burned within the she-elf’s body was hotter than she had initially thought but it was of little consequence. She simply lent more power to the prison and it held. It would hold indefinitely. Spread out before the prison was the puzzle for the word eternity. The Queen flicked her hand and the puzzle pieces clattered and shifted, splitting the word so that it was lost from view.

Having reset the lock she spun on her heel and strode away, sweeping into the castle, feeling a trail of snowflakes burst and flutter in her wake. She walked past the chimera at the front gates and clicked her fingers. The outer shell burst away and the lion headed, goat body, dragon tailed beasts shook off the snow and roared, colour returning to the fur as they trotted after the Queen.

The moment she stepped to the edge of the plateau a Minotaur approached her and knelt.

“My Queen.” He said in a voice that resonated with the earth.

“Speak.”

“The army readies itself. We are prepared for war.”

“And war it shall have.” The Queen’s gaze reached out across the land. “We will not rest until humanity is dust and memories.”

“Yes my Queen.”

“Inform the captains. We march at dawn.”

The Minotaur bowed and thundered away.

The Queen allowed a smile to cross her icy features as she thought about the next day…and the next and all the days after it…

She was going to enjoy watching mankind fall.