align="center">White bird with an amber in the forehead
Amaranta came out of the carriage. The wheel of the carriage flew from the axis just in the middle of the bridge, perched through the abyss. By legend, moon’s elves were built it.
«If you stay here at night, we will see how they dance,» the accompanying girls whispered. «They say they will lead mortals with them if they are invited to dance. Someone is thrown into the abyss, tangling a minute with him in heaven under the stars, and someone will give immortality.»
More like a fairy tale, Amaranta decided to herself. But the bridge really made the impression of a magical structure. Its foundations protruded directly from the rocks at the bottom and folded into bizarre stone arabesques. The railing was not. For that only the bridge was held and why did it not still have fallen? The abyss under it seemed bottomless and ice. It was worth looking down and the imagination was involuntarily played. It seemed that there were tormented and hundreds of early beings were screaming. It was cold around. And the bridge itself seemed made not from the stone, but from ice.
Usually Amaranta had a common sense, but now she was drawn on fantasy. The sky looked as if the dragon was just flying, leaving a scarlet strip of fire in heaven. And according to the intricate bends of the decorations of the bridge, some white creature crawled, only remotely resembling the child. His thin white hands with gills beckoned Amaranta down. Does it want that she jumped into the abyss? And is it before the wedding itself? It seems that it is completely unkind. It is good that her companions did not notice him. The girls were too passionate about the chatters, and the men are busy with the repair of the carriage. And the coachman, and grooms, and even the footman were pronounced in the unbearable work for them. The junk wheel did not want to get back on the axis, as if it was enchanted.
«Do you want me to tell fortunes to you?» the creature already stood on the bridge. It resembled a large white spider with a face and body of an angular teenager. And the membranes and the selected eyelashes reminded of the winter. «I know how to predict the future! But you can not have it. You can right now go to this abyss. After all, your life is a threat for the well-being of our king.»
«Your king?!» Amaranta almost laughed. They also have a king! Curiously, he also lives in the abyss under the bridge. There is cold and uncomfortable. Where is there to take a whole kingdom?
The winter is approaching!» the creature was still illuminated and clung to ice claws in the hand of Amaranta. Although the girl prudently managed to hide both hands behind his back, but now the lines on her palm carefully studied whitish eyes without pupils. Eyebrows and eyelashes of a strange creature were also white as snow. He also spoke about the winter! Well, isn’t it the witchcraft?
Amaranta looked again in the abyss. The ice stretched out of it, the hell is intricate patterns, but did not reach the bridge. The ice vibrated, and she could not consider; is it in fact an ice or are the ice creatures climbing up.
The creature barely delivered his head to her shoulders, somehow climbed into the bridge, and others could not. Is he important among them? Dear rings on her fingers did not interest him at all. But the lines of her fate, which it, apparently, was read, forced him to be nervous.
«Not winter is approaching! You are approaching!» Amaranta nodded to the abyss. «You are alive, although you are made from ice.»
«We are not made. We were born in such state,» it did not even show greed, noting a massive chain of gold with the emblems of Aluar, which the king himself gave her when woven her. As a creature in such a wretched torn cape, barely covering his icy shoulders, can not be a begging or thief?
«And you crawl up, in our world,» she concluded. «You are the Ice elves, about which they say so much here. I imagined the elves of a little more beautiful creatures.»
Amaranta stopped, he was converted to thinking that it could regard such a phrase as a personal insult, but an angular ice creature did not even react to her chatter. It seems that he found a noble girl as an empty-headed coquette, whose speeches can not listen at all. All the same, nothing smart will not say.
It was rather strange that her jewel was not attracted him. Maybe he will ask for payment after the prediction.
«By the way, I do not believe in the divination by hand. Under the court in Aluar, I have already met the chiromants, and they could not even guess for whom I would marry. They predicted, what for the king, and I go out for the count.
The old king is such a prediction was very flattering, probably, therefore, the sly lets were given. Amaranta then it was very painful. She did not want to marry the king. He was old and ugly. And his kingdom was on the grain of war.
By the way, it was during the prediction of Amaranta for the first time and saw something unusual. A beautiful bird from the palace garden, flew out the window, sat on the back of her armchairs and combined:
«Do not worry so! The king in the world is not one. Suddenly you will meet one more?
Isn’t that the war who goes on us, thought Amaranth, but with a bird did not enter the debate, otherwise the courtesy would be laughed. After all, birds do not know how to speak human voices. All this is known. But the Amarante was heard in the bird shuttle, it was human speech. Probably, it was probably not worth drinking such a strong wine, which is served in the Aluar’s court. And it was not worth believing the chirromants. In order to heal in front of some influential and rich client, they are willing to utter any lie.
But the creature is from ice in itself was something magical, and many of the same creatures crawling up to the bridge seemed to be a mythical picture. From them the dark abyss was painted with white radiance.
Suddenly, the truth lives the magic. A strange ice creature in front of her knows how to foresee the future. From his touch, the fingers of Amaranta frozen and did not listen to the hostess, and it suddenly shuffled over her palm.
«Do not be afraid, Mrs. If your future spouse is making an alliance that hopes, we will not bring the eternal winter to your prosperous edge. We have to go somewhere else.»
«Who put you in the abyss? Or did you born there?» Amaranta was very much intrigued by the Ice Army than her own fate, in which so far everything was clear. «Can you get out or have any spell that releases you out? I heard some of the conversations in the villages, by which we drove.»
«Worry about us is very noble. Especially considering the fact that you will die, barely my brothers will get away,» he suddenly squeezed her palm so hard that Amaranta almost shouted.
«My palm hurts!»
«Get used to pain! You have a lot of difficult solutions ahead. If you do not go to the end of this bridge, we will never get out of the abyss. Fate gave you a chance to make a choice, stopping your carriage.»
The horses for her back piercingly rusted, probably feeling the presence of the magic creature. The grooms tried to calm them. Her maids complained of cold and demanded that the crew repaired as soon as possible. The girls could not understand how so far they had to fan from the heat, while they drove around the fields and meadows, and stopping on the bridge, they seemed to be in the ice strip of frost. It does not happen that the Earth shared on the summer and winter stripes. But here it is.
«Where did we come? «Adeline complained noisily, the most chatting maid of Amaranta. Only no one came to look back and see with whom speaks
