Shadows on Snow: A Flipped Fairy Tale (Flipped Fairy Tales) by Starla Huchton

deeper. How else might I uncover his elusive room? As I finished my food, I decided my first step would be to explore tunnels in the walls I’d not yet ventured into. As the sun went down and the castle fell into slumber, my night was only beginning.

    Somewhere around the time the watch cried two, I decided to give up the search. I’d crawled through more passages and kicked more rats in one evening than I had the entire six months I’d been employed at the castle, which was saying a good deal, given that I worked in the stables for the most part. Emerging from a servants’ exit on the far western side of the palace, I took a deep gulp of the cold night air. With a yawn and a stretch, I resumed my travels, creeping through the bordering woods as cover.
    I was about to cut back east, to return to the stables on the south end, when a strange sensation came over me. It oozed over my skin, raising every hair on my head and twisting a feeling of nausea in my stomach. Knowing it for what it was, I pushed past the manufactured fear and stepped closer to the source of the discomfort. Within five feet, I was certain of it. Someone had set a magical ward on the place. Hope sprang at last, giving me the courage to push through my body’s ever-growing certainty that I should not be there. Deeper into the woods I went, fighting my instincts with my rational mind. That was the spell’s function. If a person stumbled onto the place without familiarity with wards, they would flee the spot for certain, claiming spirits chased them away. I choked back the bile rising in my throat and forced my feet to run toward the source. The ward was a powerful one, but I’d been through far worse courtesy of my sister, Farah.
    When I broke through the unseen barrier, all feelings of discomfort evaporated, and I found myself standing in front of a dense copse of trees, each trunk thicker than three men could encircle with joined arms. Magic oozed from every wrinkle in the bark and odd stillness of the leaves. There was a glamour in place, sure as the sky was blue, but how to get through it?
    A grinding noise came from the tree nearest me, and I dashed around the far right side of the copse to avoid being seen. Peeking around, I looked in time to see a cloaked man emerge from the largest of the trees and turn back to the portal he’d come through.
    “Blasted knot,” he mumbled to himself, and when he spoke, I recognized King Alder’s voice. “I can never find it the first try.”
    His gloved hand slid down the bark of the tree, paused, then pressed on a spot in the wood. The grinding noise returned, followed by a heavy clunk as the door slid back into place.
    “ Aomara ,” he whispered.
    I smiled to myself. That one word gave away more about him than fifty of his speeches at court.
    Slowly easing back from the edge of my hiding place, I listened for the sounds of his retreating footsteps as he hurried through the forest, returning to the castle. Once he’d gone, I checked again, grinning triumphantly when the area appeared clear. Still, I waited several minutes, lest he return to retrieve something he’d forgotten. When I felt relatively secure that he’d not be coming back, I crept towards the door.
    Standing as he had, I leaned into the tree.
    “ Aomara ,” I whispered to it. There was no sound, but a distinct wavering passed over the bark. Lifting my hand, I felt around in the location he’d searched for the knot, finding the telltale bump of stone within moments. I pressed it, and the door slid open before me, revealing a dark tunnel of steps spiraling away into the earth. With a shaky breath, I looked around, confirmed I was alone, and proceeded into the hidden chamber.
    In the dark, I felt my way down thirty curving stairs before a dim light showed the end of the passage. It opened into a room, but I paused. Shadows of dark magic hung everywhere, nearly as suffocating as smoke in a burning building, but the greatest concentration of