elif
Elif had never seen snow before these last few months.
In her brief and sun-drenched three years of life, she had never left Solterra. Not even with the use of her wings had she ever touched a feather to the air of another court; her heart had never strayed from the golden city and neither did she.
So when it first began to fall, it was easy to think it was the end of the world. Ash would have been more likely in these wind-swept winters, but ash did not melt on your tongue, or pack and shift beneath your feet. She hadn’t been sure what to make of it, at first, but Altan, around for one of his fleeting visits, had drug her into a snowball fight in front of the palace.
It had been years since she’d had that much fun.
Most of it is gone, now, but there are still blue-shadowed drifts of it in the places where the canyon walls prevent the slanted spring sunlight. Out of the corner of her eye, it doesn’t look too different from sand - a little too cool-toned, but the shadows lay the same on its surface.
It’s next to a snowbank that she lands, radiating enough of a chill to raise a shiver as she flicks dry her wings and tucks them to her sides. From the air, this box canyon had looked indistinguishable from the many others that spread like a maze through Elatus, but Elif sees now that it is not the same at all.
The sand and dirt here has been packed tight by countless hooves, and there are grooves worn in the stone. As she walks further in, each hoof step echoing, the stench of sweat and musk becomes unmistakable, as do the stains far darker than any seam of ore. There are dusty barrels stacked beneath a shallow cavern in the canyon wall and ahead of her there is a narrow passageway, the only proof that it led anywhere a small bleed of light. Beyond, there is the faint sound of voices.
She is certain that this is the place her brother was killed.
Elif sucks in a breath that burns from the cold, and steps into that brief darkness.
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