Dark Queen

xxv.

     Zora was trapped in a blizzard. Snow flurries whirled around her, obscuring her vision. Her teeth clacked together, and she wrapped her arms around herself to keep in the warmth. Her lips, fingers, and toes were all frozen.

     Then a fire appeared. She dropped to her knees, not caring if the snow soaked her trousers. But being by the fire wasn't enough. Her limbs trembling from cold, Zora threw herself into the flames.

     The flames were warm, and they didn't burn like she'd expected them to. She snuggled in closer to the burning logs, relishing the heat they gave off.

     The fire let out a low laugh.

     Zora's eyes flew open. She was encompassed in a warm cocoon. A cocoon that was breathing.

     With a shriek, she shoved herself away. "Wh-what the hell are you doing?" she gaped. Jurauk smirked from his position on the ground.

     "You should be thanking me. How did you think sleeping in a snowbank would be good for your health?"

     "You didn't need to hug- to do that!" Zora was flustered, wringing her hands. "You also tried to eat me!"

     Jurauk scowled, sitting upright in the sleeping bag. "I thought we made a promise." He jerked his chin at her arm. Zora had forgotten about the magical bond they now shared. Experimentally, she tried swiping away the black marks with melted snow, but they stubbornly remained.

     "You Nefari sure have dramatic flairs."

     "I supposed that's one of the amazing things about me."

      "Ugh. That wasn't meant to be a compliment."

     They kept off the main road, walking for nearly another two days. Zora's legs and feet were so sore, and she relished it when night fell and sleep came. As a princess, she'd never needed to walk so much. Along the way, she'd needed to stop nearly every mile to massage calves and to rewrap the popped blisters beneath her feet.

     If Jurauk was annoyed by their pace, he didn't show it, and Zora was grateful. Finally, the woods got too dense to travel through, so they were forced to move to the dirt road. The pair didn't run into anybody other than the occasional merchant.

     Zora studied the tracks. It had just rained, but the only tracks on the road were theirs, meaning no one else had come through.

     "It's so empty," Zora mused through the crying of her feet. "We aren't the largest country, but we aren't small either. I wonder where everyone is."

     "Next town over, we can ask around," Jurauk suggested. He adjusted the strap of his bag. "While we're at it, we'd better buy you an eyepatch."

     Zora self-consciously touched her scars, before letting her hand fall. "Yeah," she said. "Can't let the scary princess frighten the menfolk. At least having one eye is more than enough to stop people from wanting to buy me." Speaking this, she ripped a long line of cloth from the hem of her pants to fashion a false bandage.