While the group was slowly moving toward the Eglhen marsh, somewhere far away from them — so far that even an Immortal would need several centuries to reach those dead lands on their own — a demon was walking along a dusty path. A torn, predatory cloak fluttered behind him. A wide-brimmed hat covered his one eye, and a demonic essence bled in his hands. Black lumps that were actually nightmares swarmed around his feet, which were encased in simple leather boots that had been worn out a long time ago. An endless army of personified fears accompanied the Demon Prince’s Emissary on his journey. A cold, northern wind was blowing into his back, and clouds were gathering overhead.

“Calm down, old Boreas,” the demon whispered. “I came here as a messenger.”

There was a thunderclap without any lightning. It sounded like battle drums.

“Your time will soon come, wretch.”

The demon just smiled. His time had come a long time ago.

“You all lost a long time ago, Wind,” the demon lifted the collar of his cloak. Old Boreas blew with all the might of his lungs. The wind would’ve penetrated to the very depths of his soul... if he still had one. “Humble yourself and take a look, as I once looked.”

Thunder struck once again, but Boreas’ power was no longer there. The demon had reached his destination. Amidst low hills, at the intersection of four roads, in the middle of a field of millet and rye, there was a small hut. It was well made, with a nice, beautiful fence surrounding it.

The demon walked up to the gate and touched the wrought-iron handle with long, gnarled, gray fingers topped with yellow claws.

A pleasant voice sounded from inside, enveloping him in a refreshing chill:

“I remember those fingers looking quite different.”

A pretty old woman came out onto the porch of the hut. She was wiping her hands on her apron, and her still lush, but now gray hair was pulled back into a thick braid that lay over her shoulder. Even wearing a simple dress and bast shoes made from birch bark, she still didn’t look like the rustic old woman she wanted to disguise herself as. Even such an unsightly appearance couldn’t hide the fact that…

“Your Majesty,” the demon raised his hat slightly.

“Helmer,” Queen Mab, ruler of the Fae Winter Court, nodded.

The demon turned his single, scarlet eye to the fence, “I remember this fence looking quite different — old and crooked.”

“Some young general helped me out. You know him.”

“I do... He suffers from an incomprehensible desire to help all those who are in need. I wonder why you didn’t eat his heart and drink his soul, Winter... But no, I’m not surprised you didn’t. Family is more important than anything else... That’s what you told me back then, isn’t it, you old crone?”

The old lady adjusted her apron silently. A big, black cat woke up. He stretched out and, hissing at the guest, easily jumped down from his perch, slowly ambled toward the road leading to the house, and then lay down in the middle of it. Helmer looked at the animal. He ran his claw along the door handle, but didn’t dare grasp it.

“Does your loyal knight still hate me?”

“I share his prejudice, halfbreed,” the queen still didn’t move. “There’s no way he can get over the fact that you killed my sister.”

“Titania and Mab, Summer and Winter… You’ve been feuding since you were born.”

“That was before the false gods and false demons found themselves in the World River.” The queen’s human, brown eyes began to change. They gradually darkened, blackened, and icy stars seemed to light up inside them. “Why have you come here, murderer?”

“Murderer?” A smile touched the demon’s lips, revealing the many rows of his sharp fangs. “You know better than I do that Titania can’t be killed. Just like you. You are connected by your very essence to this world. As long as it exists, you will live. I’ve just-”

“Stop,” the queen interrupted him. “I’ve had enough of this small talk, demon. Tell me why you came to my kingdom, and I’ll decide whether to leave you this pathetic shell or send you to oblivion.”

Despite her threat, the smile on the demon’s face only grew wider. “You know why I came here, you old witch.” Helmer’s voice had sounded ingratiating before, but now it sounded like the hissing of an angry snake. “Do you remember how I came to you last time? How I crawled here on my knees, begging for help?”

“Back then, I told you that I couldn’t help someone who had abandoned his own path, demon,” the queen said with her head held high. “And now I would say that I don’t want to. Maybe you’ve gotten closer to your goal, Helmer. Maybe you’ve managed to deceive those flames inside the pierced mountain, but not us, the ones who came here first, who are part of this world. Even-”

“Your older brother,” Helmer interrupted her, even though among mortals and Immortals, among gods and demons, there was no one who would dare to interrupt Mab. “For thousands of epochs, he has been suffering in chains, not knowing who he is. That is my handiwork. Your younger sister has lost her light forever and has left the sky. That is my handiwork. Your twin sister, the great Summer, is now nothing more than a limp tree. That is also my handiwork.”

The cat got up on all fours. His fur stood up. His eyes flashed with anger, and he extended his claws, which shone with pure steel. The hut behind the Queen was shaking and changing. The carved wooden hut turned into innumerable ice needles. The simple shutters turned into stained-glass windows made of rock crystal, and the porch turned into a gray stone that had absorbed the cold of millions of epochs.

The field behind Helmer also shook. Instead of rye and millet, there were now soldiers. In the black sky above his head, in a chariot drawn by warhorses, stood old Boreas. His huge sword stretched along the entire horizon. His white beard flashed like lightning.

Queen Mab revealed herself. Her black hair blended with the sky, as if she wore the night itself on her head, encircled by a crown comprised of two bloody wings of steel. There was a cloak on her back. It squeezed her shoulders with the paws of a wild ice leopard, and it descended all the way to her feet in a blizzard of ice fragments. Her slender body was covered by leather armor with metal plates sewn into it. In her hands, she clutched a thick staff covered in symbols formed from the letters of an unknown alphabet. Two sky-blue eyes shone on her beautiful face. They radiated cold rage and an unstoppable will that could break the heavens themselves.

“Do you want to declare war on me, you pathetic halfbreed?” Her voice sounded like a roaring avalanche, ready to sweep away everything in its path. “YOU? A pathetic and worthless night terror? Do you want to try and succeed where your masters failed?”

She struck the ground with her staff and an army rose up behind Helmer, one that was too numerous to count. She slammed her staff down a second time, and instead of the cat, a warrior chained in winter with a sword forged from death and cold appeared on the path. She brought her staff down a third time and the heavenly knight in the chariot swung his sword. The most terrible of the northern storms roared ceaselessly in his blade.

“Do I want to declare war on you, crone?” The scarlet eye flashed. He suddenly grabbed the gate’s handle. His flesh hissed and boiled. Gray smoke stretched into the sky. But the demon seemed not to notice the pain caused by this substance that was so similar to steel but clearly wasn’t — iron was pure poison to the Fae and Spirits after all. “Back then, thousands of eons ago, when you refused me, I swore on this very spot that I would leave your heart to rot on your own grave.” With his other hand, the demon squeezed the sphere. A red mist swirled around his figure. “I’ve come to tell you, Queen Mab, that the Parade will begin soon. They are waiting for you there. It doesn’t matter whether you come or not. Your fate has already been written.”

He disappeared. Only the twisted, broken fence and the melted handle of the gate was left.

“What does this mean, granddaughter?” Thundered in the sky.

The pleasant-looking old lady came up to the fence and picked up the purring cat, cradling him in her arms. She looked at the fields of rye and millet, and then went back to her hut.

“So, it’s the third time...” She said while stroking the purring, fluffy cat. “Everything is like in the song...” Then, far more loudly, she added, “Go to Hafotis, Grandpa. Tell him to work the bellows with all his might. The time has come. Soon, we will go to war.”