A Court of Ice and Stars

Chapter 1

Calla lay in the snowdrift and let the winter flurry settle in a thin coat on her back, tickling her long ears and eyelashes as she trained her ice bow on the snow leopard. The fae beast was nearly invisible, a ghost amongst the foothills and evergreens of the mountainous border separating the Winter and Autumn Courts. It made no sound as it slinked along the massive tree limb yards away, eyes locked on its prey: an elk out on the endless frozen lake.

The elk wouldn't run, of course; it wasn't real. She'd spun it from ice and snow, light and illusion. She hoped the distraction would be enough to land her shot. Once the leopard realized her trick, it would be hard to pin.

Squinting against the biting cold, Calla searched that feline face again, marking the scar that bisected its eye and curved along its cheek, courtesy of one of the Winter fairies. This snow leopard was a child killer, stalking her court's young despite the abundance of prey along the border lands. It had failed the first time it had attacked, but the last time... the last time it had been too late and the child had been lost.

The grief had been terrible. The loss of any fae child was terrible, but even more so when the slaughter of Winter's children under Amarantha's reign was only a few decades ago. Still fresh, still painful in the minds of the immortal fae.

The snow leopard was marked for death, and she would end it.

The beast's haunches bunched, ready for the spring. Calla let out a frigid breath in response, freezing her strung ice arrow the palest of blues-almost clear. It would be nearly invisible in the low light: a ghost to kill a ghost.

The leopard pounced, and she released the shot.

Too wide. It had struck its back thigh-a wound, but not a killing shot. She cursed, leaping up as the snow leopard regained its footing, snarling as it stood within the shattered remains of her elk illusion.

Calla strung another arrow, pacing a circle around it. Cauldron, it was huge. Easily 160 pounds and five feet in length-the largest snow leopard she'd ever seen.

It bared its fangs, watching her with those luminous eyes. The light was fading fast now, the sun cresting the mountain peaks. Soon the only light would be from the distant stars above. There would be no moon tonight.

Calla shifted her weight as she came to a stop, her back to the ice. She gripped her magic, the deathly cold, the wind and snow. Her inheritance. She would not falter; she would not flinch. She would be as the snow: silent, unseen. Deadly.

The leopard leaped for her.

She couldn't help but gasp as she shot for its chest, even as she stepped back onto that dark ice, its power resonating up her legs to her very core. The ice bolt hit the leopard's chest with a thump, but still the beast did not stop. It was going to hit her, sink its claws into her, but then-she vanished, winnowing several yards away, farther out on the ice.

Ice shards sticking out from its leg and chest, the snow leopard barely stopped, barely faltered as it changed its direction and charged her.

She hadn't accounted for that speed, that grace.

Before she could breathe, before she could call upon the ice beneath her feet, it landed on top of her, snapping her bow and pushing her down, down, its claws tearing the light armor at her shoulders and sinking in. She screamed.

There was red-blood, so much of it, but she couldn't know whose it was anymore, and she couldn't bring herself to care.

The snow leopard was going for her throat.