“No!” she shouted. “I don’t want this!”
A ghost appeared to her right. A woman with her face covered in bandages, their tails whipping in the gusts. She wrapped her hand around Ayla’s bicep and assisted the wind in pushing her toward the room. “Come with us, princess.”
“I don’t want to.” Ayla wrenched her arm free from the ghost, only to realize another was holding onto her other arm. “Let go of me!”
Another ghost shimmered to life. Miku, the beautiful woman who had claimed to be there when Ayla was born. “We didn’t want to do this, but you need to see where you came from.”
Ayla bared her teeth in a snarl. “I know where I came from. Frank and Alice, the human parents who raised me.”
“You came from the king and queen of the Air Court. Your bloodline is the most royal of all noble houses.”
She could shout to the high heavens that her family was human, but she didn’t think any of these faeries would believe her. She had fought so long to be left alone and now, she had ruined everything.
Ayla had come to the one place she never wanted to return to, and in doing so, had doomed herself.
The ghosts and wind carried her all the way to the room at the end of the hall. They shoved her in and slammed the door shut behind her with a forceful bang. As soon as their hands were no longer clutching her arms, she spun around and twisted the door handle.
Locked.
Breathing heavily, she turned with her hands raised into fists. “If you don’t let me out, I will force my way out.”
“Princess,” Miku said. “Lower your hands and see what you must see.”
The room was filled with late afternoon light. Streaks of pink and lavender turned the glass into a heavenly room full of fluffy clouds and rainbow colors reflected from the prism ceiling.
White sheets covered everything. Ghostly visages of furniture and a history long past. Miku stood next to one such covered piece in the center of the room. She waited patiently for Ayla to lower her hands before gesturing to the piece. “To take hold of your future, you must come to terms with your past.”
“I don’t need to accept who I was born to be,” she insisted. “I know who I am now.”
“And yet, you have forgotten so much.” Miku reached for the blanket and grasped it in her pale hand. She whipped the blanket away and revealed something beneath that made Ayla’s heart squeeze and her breath catch.
A crib. The sheet had covered a white crib. Carved swan legs held it aloft, while the rest was swirling gales of wind reaching up and over the basket to cradle a child.
Or hold a child long ago.
A faint memory played in her mind. A woman singing a lullaby about far-off places and princesses who fought monsters with a wave of her powerful hand.
Miku stepped away from the crib, her eyes sad and her expression melancholy. “Faeries aren’t like humans, my dear. You weren’t here for a few months before they gave you up. Years pass before a child becomes a changeling. You were so loved.”
“Loved?” Ayla wiped at the tears in her eyes. Why was she crying? “They sent me away to live with humans. They turned me into a changeling child and I was lucky to have a family who accepted me for my differences.”
“Your parents did what they had to,” Miku replied. “If you could have stayed here, with them, they would have kept you. Surely you remember that, love.”
She didn’t, though. All she could remember was a woman singing, a few glimpses of hazy memories so dull they might have been something she dreamt as a little girl.
Changelings weren’t loved. They were creatures cast aside and sent to the humans without thought of whether they would live or die. That was their life. That was her life.
“No,” she whispered, taking a step away from the crib. “I don’t want to know this history or who these people were. They gave me up.”
“They didn’t want to give you up. I was there, child. I remember the day when the king and queen sent you-”
“Stop!” Ayla cried out. Her entire body shook as she lifted her hands and pleaded with the spirit. “I never wanted to come here. I should never have returned and I see that as my mistake now. But please, please, stop telling me these things. I cannot survive it.”
Miku’s expression twisted with sadness. She took a step forward, raising her own hands as though to take Ayla’s. “My darling girl. My princess and the rightful ruler of this court. You were meant for greatness. Why can’t you accept that?”
She was so tired of people telling her the same thing. She was a princess. Ayla was meant to be chained to a throne and just accept all this responsibility and the expectations of a thousand people who wanted her to change everything. The weight on her shoulders would crush her if she let it.
“I’m happy with the humans,” she replied, dropping her hands and taking another step away from Miku. “I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want any of this.”
Miku blinked away tears. “Of all the people you forgot, I never thought it would be me. You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
Ayla didn’t remember anyone. How many times did she have to tell this woman that? “No, I don’t.”
For some strange reason, even saying the words felt crushing. Like she should have known this woman better than her own soul. But that couldn’t be real. She was just absorbing the woman’s emotions. They weren’t her feelings.
“My darling...” Miku might have finished the words if a hand hadn’t reached out and passed through her body from behind the crib.
A hand unlike any she’d ever seen.
Ayla pressed her back against the door as the blackened hand curled around the edge of the crib. Long claws tipped its fingers, each laying slowly atop the white carvings. The darkness spread up the creature’s arm all the way to its shoulders as it pulled itself up.
The creature was a woman once. Her black, scraggly hair tangled around her face in oily mats. One side of her face drooped and didn’t move, though the other side curved into a snarl. Her eyes were completely black and watched Ayla with unnatural hunger. Her elbows jutted out to the sides, and she crouched behind the crib. Her eyes watching Ayla’s every move.
This creature wasn’t like the others. She wasn’t a ghost, that much Ayla was certain of. But the power in her shaking form made Ayla hesitate.
Slow movements, she told herself. Ayla reached behind herself and closed her hand on the doorknob. Please don’t be locked.
She twisted her wrist, every movement slow and calculating as the creature stared at her. The handle turned, turned, and then caught on the lock still in place.
Shit.
One side of the woman’s face lifted in a mad smile and she launched herself over the crib. Clawed hands outstretched, she slashed at the air with an echoing scream that bounced off the ceiling.
Ayla cried out and dropped to the ground just before those wicked claws caught her throat. Blistering pain exploded between her temples. Her eardrums strained, feeling as though they might burst from the creature’s scream. Warm liquid trailed down each side of her neck.
What was this creature?
Ayla had little time to ponder the question. The creature dropped to the ground and all Ayla could do was crawl. On hands and knees, she skidded across the glass floor toward the crib. Ayla struck it hard, upending the beautiful piece onto its side where she could huddle behind it.
The creature screamed again, and this time the glass floor beneath Ayla cracked. The fissure passed right between her legs and to the wall where it traveled up to the ceiling. She held her breath, hoping the entire room didn’t cave in under the creature’s rage.
She could fly, but she didn’t know if this beast could fly as well. Did she have enough control over her magic to survive a chase from this beast?
Unlikely.
Ayla pressed her hands against her bleeding ears and huddled behind the crib. She could still hear the creature coming closer, even over the ringing in her ears, the po
unding of her heart, and the internal scream warning her to run, flee, do something other than hide like a child in her room.
“Help,” she whispered, even though she knew her voice wouldn’t carry over the creature’s scream. “Somebody please help me.”
11
Storm must face reality. He had to let her go.
But he couldn’t. Not while she was still heir to the throne he sat upon, and she had yet to explain herself. What if she wanted to start a rebellion?
The more rational side of his brain argued. As much as he was fascinated by this woman, she wasn’t a prisoner here. If she wanted to go home, then there was nothing he could say or do to stop her. She deserved to leave.
Then why did that make his entire body ache with the mere thought?
Sighing, he left the ballroom and started back toward his perfumery. At least there he could find some solace in the one place where he always felt like himself. He could gather his thoughts. Center his mind.
Except, his reflection was shifting out of the corner of his eye. Not his own reflection, really, but a dark one who followed his every footstep.
“Where are you going?” the elemental asked. “This isn’t finished. The wind will keep her here, but we must know what she wants. Don’t even think about letting her go.”
He could, and he would. “There will be no argument on this. I’m telling the winds to release their hold upon her.”
“The Air Court will find her. They will convince her to lead an uprising against us. Against you.”
Let them try. He had all the power of an elemental at his side, and a dangerous well of magic that would never run dry. They could bring an army of ten thousand air faeries and he would still kill them all.
A sad thought, that. He didn’t want the fate of becoming the last air faerie seated upon a throne of glass and ice.
“Our plan is not to destroy the courts,” the air elemental chided. “The ultimate plan is to destroy the humans who have polluted and ruined this world. Or have you forgotten our deal?”
How could he forget signing his soul away? “I have not forgotten.”
“The girl stands in the way of everything. Get rid of her.”
“I am,” he replied, bracing himself against the glass wall. “By letting her go home.”
The air elemental took a deep breath in his mind, to argue more he could only guess, before they both fell silent. The shriek of a banshee cracked through the glass palace in spiderweb thin shards.
“What has she done now?” the elemental groaned. “Perhaps she’ll kill herself before we can, but somehow, that’s less fun.”
There weren’t any banshees left in the palace. They’d all left to the human realm. No one was left in the palace except...
A tragic face flashed in his memory. Seizures and horrific black vomit spreading across the floor like blood. There was a banshee in the palace, he’d just forgotten about the shadow creature he’d created and where she might live.
Storm turned on his heel and darted down the hall. He had to find her. Save her. Stop the banshee from doing whatever it would do.
Madness ran in that creature’s blood. He knew what it was telling the banshee to do. Destroy the woman, kill her and tear her heart from her chest. The desire for pain would make the banshee do things their kind would never have done otherwise.
But it wouldn’t stop until it was killed, or it got what it wanted.
“Find her,” he ordered a passing breeze. Another violent gust pushed past him and zipped around the corner. A third gale of wind whipped by his head and went in the opposite direction. Together, the three would report back quickly. She could be anywhere in his palace. He only hoped he had started off in the right direction.
His feet carried him swift and sure through the glass halls until he heard another scream. This time, it was carried by one of the winds.
“Help me,” she whispered. “Please, please someone help me.”
The words zapped him sure as any lightning bolt. “Where is she?” he asked.
Wind pushed the small of his back and shoved him in the right direction. Together, he and the wind ran to her aid.
The corridor was one he recognized, although the mere thought of going down it filled him with dread. This was once the private quarters of the royal family.
The wind punched him once again, sending him careening toward a familiar door. When he’d known the king and queen, it had been known as the child’s room. An empty place as barren as the queen’s womb. Her hopes and dreams had been poured into that room, with the desire a child would fill it one day.
None ever had.
Or so he thought.
Another banshee scream cracked the floor outside the princess’s room. He didn’t think or hesitate. Storm set his shoulder against the door and shoved hard. The wind at his back assisted. Together, they busted through the locked door and spilled into the room.
Storm remembered this place. It had been airy, perfect for a baby girl to rest her head every night. Now, all he could see was destruction. The crib had been upended, one side broken on the other side of the room. The curtains were on the floor, shredded by a clawed and enraged creature.
Ayla huddled into a ball amidst the madness. She held her arms over her head, hands cupping the back of her neck to protect herself from the banshee who hunted her. The creature crouched on the opposite wall, her legs and muscles bunched, ready to leap upon Ayla in her weak position.
He watched it all happen as if time had slowed. The banshee hurled herself across the room, hands outstretched, claws gleaming in the dying sunlight. Ayla tucked herself tighter and outstretched her hands. Magic burned at the tips of her fingers, but not quick enough to stop the creature.
He stepped between the two of them. Just a single step, propelled forward by a great gust of wind. Storm’s magic pulsed in the blink of an eye.
A wall of ice blasted from his fingertips and rose as a shield between Ayla, himself, and the banshee. He heard the creature strike the ice hard and slip toward the floor.
But his attention wasn’t on the beast attacking them. It was on Ayla.
She uncurled from her huddled ball and stared up at him with so many layers of emotion in her eyes. Gratitude? Relief? Hope?
When only moments ago she’d been afraid of him, now she was happy to see him. Something swelled in Storm’s chest. He didn’t know how to put a name to the feeling that made him want to pull down the moon for her, but he knew he’d do anything to see this expression again.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I am now.”
The banshee scrabbled at the wall, her claws ripped and tore chunks of ice from the barrier. He could feel the madness rolling off her in waves. The darkness reached for him, trying to turn his mind against Ayla as well.
“She looks so tasty,” it whispered. “Just one bite. Tell us what it tastes like.”
Storm would not hurt her. He’d already avoided such a fate, and it didn’t matter what the voice said. He wanted to be the hero in this story, for once. And he would be.
Storm reached out a hand for her to take. “Come on, we can’t stay here.”
“I guessed that.” Ayla took his offered hand and let him pull her up to standing. “Where are we going? That thing lives in your palace.”
He should correct her. It wasn’t a thing. The creature was one of their court, someone who he’d condemned to this fate accidently. But he was embarrassed at his own failings. So instead, he said, “She won’t bother you if we leave this room.”
Ayla’s brow furrowed. “That makes little sense.”
“The madness infecting her isn’t difficult to understand. She wants a space to call her own, something to protect. She’s chosen this room.”
That wasn’t the entire truth either. From what he’d seen, those who were affected by the madness were looking for something. In this case, he suspected the banshee had been a mother, and she was, tragically, searching for her
child.
The room was designed for a baby. It made some strange sense, even if the crib was empty. If Ayla had come in and tried to touch the crib, then perhaps the banshee would have seen that as a threat to her child who didn’t exist.
Maybe it did back home, though, and all he could hope was that someone was there to watch it.
“How do we get out of the room?” Ayla asked. Her voice carried, and the banshee stopped moving.
Storm glanced at the wall of ice to make sure it was still thick enough. The banshee pressed her face against the cool ice, sliding back and forth in a shadow of darkness, searching for Ayla’s voice to speak again.
“We’ll leave through the door.” He tried his best to not sound arrogant but really, how else did she expect to leave the room?
Ayla pointed behind him with a lifted brow. “You iced over the door.”
“Ah.” So he had. That would make things a little more difficult. Though he could create ice at will, he wasn’t good at melting it. Heat had never been a strong suit of his magic, and now that the elemental controlled much of his power, he had even more of an affinity toward the cold.
Leaving through the bedroom door was no longer an option. Which meant through the window.
He looked around the room and realized there was no window.
Ayla cocked her hip out to the side and planted her fists on her hips. “You were thinking of escaping through the window next, weren’t you?”
“Mhmm.”
“But there’s no window in this room.”
“You are correct.” He wondered just what the royals had been thinking while designing this room. Who didn’t put a window in or some form of secondary escape? No wonder the king and queen were assassinated long before their times were up. They weren’t careful at all, even with their only child.
“I think I might be able to get us out of here,” Ayla said. She fiddled with a ring on her finger.
He told himself to not worry about a damn loop of metal, but Storm couldn’t focus on her words. All he could do was stare at her hands and try to make sure it wasn’t on a particular finger. Then he’d have to hunt down and kill a human man, and there wasn’t time for that.
King of the Frost Page 7