The ringing of falconry bells broke the evening stillness, and Noellia glanced at the norway spruce that towered over her. Its needles were frosted with snow, the scent of pine wafting over her senses. Icicles fell from the larger boughs of the trees, like crystalline ornaments dangling from the canopy.

"Oh, there you are!" Her hawk had finally returned. With a sigh of relief, she blew her whistle, gauntlet raised and garnished. Majora watched the tempting piece of rabbit haunch for a moment before tucking his wings and landing gently onto the glove. He swallowed the tidbit whole, as Noellia's mouth spread into a grin. Silly bird. He always did this, tried to eat pieces of meat that were far-too-large for him. One of these days she feared he'd choke.

They were quickly losing daylight, the orange and yellow shade of twilight dampening the sky. Dark clouds loomed on the horizon, harbingers of the lake-effect snow storm on its way. The meteorologists had been calling this the "storm of the century" for days, and Noellia's mouth quirked into a half smile. The forecast was always over-exaggerated.

December, the month of short days, was her favorite month to hunt, especially when the ground was white with snow. There was something about the stillness, the absolute silence after a storm that put her soul at peace. The crunching of her boots as they sank in the crisp layer of

These days game was scarce, however. After the severe ice storm several years ago, the rabbit population had yet to bounce back.

Although Majora had most certainly caught something while he was out of sight, if his huge crop was any indicator.

Hopefully just a vole or something, Noellia thought, and fed Majora's braided jesses through his anklets. Hopefully nothing too big, or he would be too heavy and stubborn tomorrow.

Even if he had caught something, that still didn't answer the question as to why he had taken off in the first place. With such great eyesight, he could see much further than she could, especially from a low soar like he had gone into earlier that morning. But he never strayed far, or for long.

And Noellia's telemetry- it had been on the fritz the entire time she'd searched for the bird. Something was definitely off today.

Even now, Majora seemed more high strung than usual, pausing every few seconds to survey their surroundings. His feathers sat flattened against his sleek form. Alert.

Must be the storm.

Noellia hoped it was just the storm.

Majora had never liked bad weather. Perhaps the local meteorologist was right about this one. Maybe there was a chance that this would indeed be the "storm of the century." The dark, billowing clouds were closing in with haste, the trees surrounding her heaving in the gusts.

It was time to get out before nightfall came, although a full moon was beginning to crest over the horizon, illuminating the dusty clouds of snow that were starting to fall ferociously.

She picked her way through the woods, dodging fallen ash trees and puddles underneath the thin sheets of ice. Majora danced on her glove as she strode home, nervously trying to hurl herself off of Noellia's hand. She really should have hooded the bird, but she'd left the small leather cap at the house. Hadn't expected the hunt to spiral so out of control so quickly.

It seemed like only moments before the air pressure changed, and the wind picked up, more bitter than before. Majora cried out in distress as a wall of white buffeted into them, and Noellia's world spiraled into a blinding, frozen hell.

A blanket of white, a strong squall.

Noellia was buffeted and turned, spun like a leaf caught in a gutter's current. She lost all sense of up and down, of which way was home and which way was deeper into the trees. Snow drove sideways into her face, needling her cheeks raw.

"Majora!" Her voice was swallowed whole.

She threw her free arm up to shield her eyes and stumbled, boots skidding over black ice hidden beneath the drifts. The world had gone the color of a television screen tuned to static, white on white on white, and the wind screamed through the spruce boughs with a voice that sounded almost like words.

Her foot caught on a root. She went down hard, glove first, and felt Majora's jesses rip free of her numb fingers.

"No, no, no, no!"

She scrambled up, snow packed into her collar, her sleeves, the seams of her boots, and reached blindly for the bird. Her fingers closed on empty air. When she opened her mouth to whistle for him, the wind ripped the sound away before it had even left her lips. The ground gave way beneath her next step, a slope hidden under a lip of drifted snow. She pitched forward with a cry, the world a tumble of white and dark and the distant, panicked cry of her hawk somewhere above her. Her shoulder struck something solid. Her vision sparked and dimmed.

The last thing she registered before the cold took her under was the sound of bells.

Noellia's first thought was that she had died. Her second thought, once she'd cracked her eyes open and found herself staring up at a ceiling of carved white stone laced with veins of frost that glimmered like captured starlight, was that Heaven was every bit as beautiful as she had been told. She was lying on a bed piled with furs so white they seemed to glow from within, in a chamber that stretched high above her, its walls a pale, translucent ice that let the moonlight bleed through in soft, shifting patterns. No fire burned anywhere that she could see, and yet the room was warm.

"Majora," she rasped, throat raw, and turned her head.

Her hawk sat perched on an ice-carved rail at the foot of the bed, feathers preened and settled, utterly at ease in a way he had not been all evening. He blinked at her once, slow and unbothered, as if to say she was the one being dramatic.

"You," she muttered, "are the worst hunting partner I have ever had."

A soft laugh answered her from the doorway. "He was very worried about you," said the voice. "For a bird, at least."

Noellia's head snapped toward the sound, and the breath went out of her.

The woman standing in the archway seemed to arrive in it the room without entering. She was tall, her gown some fabric that moved like water, pale blue shot through with threads of silver that caught the light and scattered it. Her hair was white, but it was swept back from a face too sharp to be aged. Her eyes were the colour of glacier ice, and when they settled on Noellia, they did not blink nearly as often as they should have.

"You're--" Noellia swallowed. "Where am I?"

"Safe," the woman said. "Which is more than I can say for where I found you. Another quarter hour in that squall and I'd have had a very pretty ice sculpture instead of a guest." She tilted her head, considering. "Your bird found me first, actually. Circled my tower three times, screaming loud enough to wake half the palace, until I sent someone out to see what the fuss was."

"This is a palace," Noellia said slowly.

"Mine," the woman said. "I am called many things by many frightened villages. You may call me Sable, if titles bore you as much as they bore me." She smiled. "Or Your Majesty, if you'd rather stand on ceremony. I find I don't much care either way."

"Your Majesty." The word tasted strange in Noellia's mouth, half question, half apology. "I don't understand. Why would you--why send anyone out for me at all?"

Sable crossed the room without seeming to walk, her feet leaving no mark on the frost-dusted floor. She stopped at the foot of the bed and looked at Majora with open, undisguised admiration.

"Because," she said, "I have needed a royal falconer for a very long time, and I do not often find one delivered to my doorstep by a storm of my own making." Her ice-pale eyes slid back to Noellia. "So. Noellia...how would you like to stay?"

Noellia's grandparents had told her legends of winter fey: cruel and regal beings who controlled the snow and lived in castles made of ice. Their favor was not given lightly, and it never came without a cost. "What if I don't accept?" she asked cautiously.

Sable flicked her wrist and the gleaming double door snapped open, revealing nothing outside but the swirling storm. Cold air washed inside, and Noellia drew her jacket in closer, trying to block it out. The icy queen closed the door up and smiled, showing no warmth. "In keeping with hospitality, you are not a prisoner here. If you chose to return home, I would allow you to leave. Of course, in this snow, no return is guaranteed. And I believe your beautiful bird would miss you terribly if you left."

Majora hopped down from his icy perch and rubbed his head against a fur-lined pillow, a happy bird-purr forming deep in his throat. "Sellout," Noellia muttered.

Maybe he was on to something. Neither of them had many friends back home. And here, in this beautiful place, there was light and food and comfort.

She thought about it for a long minute. "What do you need a falconer for, anyway? Surely you don't need to hunt for your food."

A wistful look crossed Sable's face. "I recall when falconry was a sport of knights and lords. Tell me, do you know the difference between falconry and hawking? Falconry, traditionally, is for nobility; it is done from horseback." Her icy eyes fixed on Noellia, as if she was judging what size armor she could wear. "I need a falconer to hunt, but not for food. Monsters and beasts lurk in the periphery of my kingdom, hidden in the dark places where only the sharp eyes of the hawk can find them."

Majora took that opportunity to squawk happily, like he was excited to hunt monsters. Noellia, too, felt a rush of excitement despite herself.

"I will stay," she declared.