Frosty Flash Fiction

I just entered the following bit of flash fiction in a contest at the Author Transformation Alliance. Click the link to vote for my story, and to check out all the other submissions! Click here.

The rules were to write 500 words or less about the picture below.

The cold bite of snow against my cheeks, reddened and frozen by the sub-zero temperatures, was like needles piercing my skin. The lower part of my mouth was covered with the wool of the scarf my grandmother had knitted for me last solstice—the only thing that kept me from inhaling the fine, frosted powder that rose up around the dogs like magic. Ice coated everything, dripping from the barren branches of the trees, encasing red berries frozen in time.

I felt sympathy for them. It was as if my own life had stopped, surrounded the stunning wintery beauty whose icy touch was death. I hauled back on the reigns in my hands, a sharp twitch that signaled the dogs to slow as we took the downward side of a sloping hill, covered in untouched snow. I should be back home, snuggled warm near the hearth, enjoying the warm spiced chocolate my grandmother made, rolling my eyes at the stories my brothers told of their many adventures. But that was all behind me now.

I craned my neck back, looking upward at the towering spires that came into view as we descended the slope. I would be frozen in terror, if I wasn’t already frozen from the long journey by myself, over snow-covered wilderness. Darkness was coming. The last of the tired sun was fading from the sky, lighting up the far hill and one side of the fortress with the illusion of warmth. I pulled the dogs to a halt in front of the towering stone edifice, made from silver-gray stone what winked with sparkling veins could as easily be ice as shimmering quartz. I thought of the warmth of my home. The love of my family.

The color of their blood against the new fallen snow.

A sound split the air, like nothing I had ever heard. It was a grating scream, like stones and flint, sharp as the crack of an icefall on a still winter day. The ground shook. Drifts of snow sifted down from the tall ramparts of the fortress. I stepped from my dogsled. I had not arrived on a dashing steed. My armor was made of wool and cotton, rather than shiny steel. But I was as deadly as any daring knight, in my own, secret way.

I threw back my hood and ripped my scarf from my face, feeling the magic of the place rise up through the frozen ground, filling me with the tang of ice and snow.

“Demon!” I shouted to the heavens. “My family lies dying because of your cursed hide. Come and meet your death!”

The creature slithered along the ramparts, nearly invisible as the last remaining rays of sun glinted off his iridescent scales and leathery wings. Talons longer than I gouged the sparkling rock as the thing screamed again.

It twisted and flowed, sinuous and deadly, down the side of the fortress. “Happy solstice, beast,” I said, smiling. My magic swelled. “It will be your last.”