Sneaking into Whitewail

Dear Diary,
 
Revenge, they say, is a dish best served aflame. But today, it tasted like frost and missed opportunities.
 
Whitewail rose from the frozen waste like a dagger of night. Black stone sheathed in ice, its gates yawning wide as a predator’s grin. Fey flit in and out, their forms shimmering with otherworldly grace, as though the cold itself dare not cling to them. Liliana stood beside me, her breath frosting the air as she spoke of the labyrinth beneath: palaces and keeps knitted together by tunnels, a hive of frost and shadow where Vivienne holds court. “The portal we seek,” she said, “lies deep in the belly of it. Further behind the mountain lies the harbor. There is a passage hidden under miles of stone.”
 
Her voice was steady, but I saw the way her fingers tightened around her sword. Five years of servitude here, five years of footsteps echoing in those ice-locked halls. I wonder if she hears them still.
 
The plan is simple, if suicidal: sneak in disguised as fey, sprint through Vivienne’s domain to the portal, and pray it spits us out at Ulther’s castle before the yetis tear our throats out. Liliana swears she knows the quickest path. “Winter wolves guard the paths,” she warned, “Eladrin and more patrol the streets. They’ll scent your fear if you let them.” Alistan nodded, but even he looked pale beneath his stubble.
 
We’d have marched straight in then and there, if not for the exhaustion. Gods, the Feywild gnaws at the soul. My magic flickers in my veins like a guttering candle. My friends looked equally spent from our fight with the strange birds. Gael said nothing, but his hair had bleached to winter-white, blending with the tundra around us. A fitting omen.
 
So we camped in the lee of a frozen ridge. I wove a small humble dome of fire to keep the cold at bay. Most of us huddled close, keeping ourselves within the confines of the dome. Liliana sat slightly apart, sharpening her blade. The ice-light caught her face, and for a moment, she looked as ancient as the realm that once owned her.
 
The Feywild’s nights are not meant for mortal eyes. Four stars fell from the sky during my watch—no, not stars. Eyes. Winter wolves, their pupils blazing like twin sapphires forged in the heart of a glacier. They prowled the tundra, breaths frosting the air into daggers. We froze, huddled in my meager dome of warmth, praying the spell would hold.
 
One wolf paused, nostrils flaring. It caught a whiff of us, or maybe just of our fear. Gael whispered a plan before I could even rouse the others. He slipped into the dark like shadow given legs, luring the beasts deeper into the wastes with a trail of enchanted frost. Clever. Infuriatingly so. Why must Gael make heroism look so effortless?
 
The rest of the night passed in shivers and silent gratitude. Dawn came grudgingly, the sun finally obeying its proper course, a small mercy in a realm allergic to them. We cloaked ourselves in glamours, our mortal edges softened into fey ambiguity.
 
Whitewail’s gates loomed, their icy spikes dripping malice. We slipped in among a procession of Eladrin, their hair like frozen starlight, their eyes cutting through us like shards of glass. The guards barely glanced our way. Success or so I hoped.
 
Inside, the city was a paradox: beautiful and deranged. Streets coiled like serpents, defying logic, architecture a cacophony of spires and hovels, all sheathed in ice. Colors? Only winter’s palette: blues so cold they ached, whites that blinded, silvers that whispered of betrayal. Fey thronged the boulevards, bartering trinkets that probably stole years from your life. Stalls offered “delicacies”: fruits with heartbeat-pulses, meats that still twitched, wines that wept when poured. Hayley stared with hunger in her eyes, but even she took the wise decision to stay away.
 
Hayley broke the silence with her trademark subtlety: “Liliana, it’s all up to you now!” Liliana didn’t flinch. She led us with the grim familiarity of a prisoner retracing old steps, her breath misting the air like a ghost of resolve, and led us toward a frozen lake—a vast, glassy wound in the tundra, snow clinging to its surface like a burial shroud. A hill ahead loomed, crowned by a watchtower that pierced the sky like a frozen thorn. “Careful,” Liliana murmured. “They see everything.”
 
Dadroz vanished into the white, a shadow against the snow, and returned with grim news: a hundred-foot keep, tracks crisscrossing the path, no blind spots. A ten-foot-wide gauntlet of ice and stone, guarded by gods-know-what. Alistan gripped his shield, muttering a prayer to justice. Gael nocked an arrow, his hair now the gray of storm clouds. And me? I flexed my fingers, itching for a spark. But fire here would be a death knell.
 
Our plan? A fragile ballet of fog and folly. Hayley wove the mist—thick, silent, swallowing sound and sigh. We clasped hands like children in a nightmare, shuffling forward.
 
The tower’s shadow fell over us, its presence a weight, a held breath. Somewhere above, boots crunched snow. A guard’s laugh, sharp as icicles. The fog trembled. Hold, hold. And we slipped through, hearts pounding in unison. For once, luck (or Hayley’s flawless magic) held. The cave mouth with the portal inside yawned ahead, dark and welcoming as a grave.
 
The cave exhaled frost like a slumbering leviathan, its breath biting through our glamours. Ahead, shadows loomed: yetis, their fur matted with ice, and winter wolves with eyes like frozen coals. A colossal yeti snored in the corner, its snores rattling the icicles above. Liliana strode forward, fearless, her voice steady as she parlayed in Sylvan. The beasts grumbled, their words a guttural avalanche, until the giant one stirred. It loomed over us, breath reeking of old blood, and barked a challenge.
 
“We bring urgent word for King Ulther,” Liliana declared, her tone sharper than her blade. The yeti’s gaze narrowed, suspicion icing its features. My fingers twitched with a held-back fireball as the large creature considered Liliana’s words. Miraculously, it stepped aside, gesturing to a crevice slick with black ice. “Hasten,” it growled, as if bored by our mortality.
 
We slipped past, hearts lodged in throats. The cave deepened, its walls closing in like a glacier’s ribs. Then, a door. Ironbound and frosted shut, flanked by twin golems of shimmering ice. Liliana froze. “These weren’t here before,” she whispered. Ulther’s handiwork, no doubt. A welcome gift for our upcoming apology.
 
Gael nodded, already stringing his bow. “I can silence them,” he murmured, and the plan unfolded: his magic would smother sound, mine would melt our problems. (Fire. Finally.) Hayley grinned, no doubt envisioning the explosion. Alistan tightened his grip on his shield, muttering, “Quietly. For once.”
 
Gael’s spell webbed itself over the room, as Liliana and Alistan soundless ran forward. The golems lunged, their icy fists crashing down on Liliana with a sound like shattering bones. My blood roared, not in fear, but in fury. Firewall. The spell tore from my hands, a serpent of heat and spite, coiling around the frost-born abominations. They writhed, hissing into puddles, their frozen hearts dissolving into steam. With our magical and physical onslaught, the golems soon melted into nothingness. After they were down, Liliana rose again with the help of a bit of magical healing, battered but unbroken, her smile determined.
 
The corridor beyond was a gauntlet of ice and locked gates. But with Dadroz’ skill we soon found ourselves standing before the last door to the portal. Dadroz bent to its lock, an artist at work; until it detonated in his face. Through the smoke strode Vivienne, her presence a blizzard given form. Hair like frozen starlight, eyes like the void between stars. The air crackled, her magic a tempest howling for our blood. Five years ago, she took Liliana from us. Today? Today, I wanted to burn her.
 
But Dadroz, that glorious fool, lunged headfirst into the portal. The rest of us were forced to follow, Vivienne’s storm clawing at our heels. I lingered, just a breath, fire dancing at my fingertips. One spark. One moment of defiance. But then I caught a cold glimpse in my sister’s eyes and the determination on Alistan’s face. Not here. Not yet.
 
The portal swallowed us, its cold a slap. I’ll never forget Vivienne’s smirk as we left. Was she pleased that we had bested her somehow? Or did she revel in the thought that we were likely heading into our certain deaths at the hands of High King Ulther?