Queen of swords

His teeth chattered. The frigid air felt like the breath of ghosts.

He wrapped his arms across his body and gripped his elbows tightly as his eyes adjusted to the moonlight. An army of tall, sentinel-like, wintry trees were standing all around him. Their white branches made him think of stripped, bleached bones. The ground beneath them glittered with fresh, pristine snow, and the roots of the trees crawled through it like ashy snakes.

And then he saw her, sheathed in a white dress that sailed softly on the breeze. Her hair fell to the ground like ribbons of jet-black silk and her face was pale, small and perfect. She regarded him with steady, unwavering black eyes. Her hand, as white and elegant as a porcelain doll's, rested on the hilt of a sword that was easily as tall as a ten-year-old child.

As his eyes dropped to the reflection of the moon that flashed in the sword's blade, he realised that he had forgotten to breathe.

Pearl