Crown of Frost

by Isabella August

  “I think we’re closing in on Blackfrost,” Simon murmured. “It shouldn’t be long now.”

  “Let’s see if Lord Blackfrost is in a mood to entertain,” said Pallid Valentine.

  “It’s getting darker, isn’t it?” Elaine asked.

  Simon nodded quietly. “The sun never rises on Blackfrost,” he said. “Though… I’m sure you know that.” His tone was calm, but Elaine thought she detected a hint of unease now in his posture.

  “I appreciate your help, Simon,” she said. She hoped that her sincerity came through in the words. “But I understand if you need to turn back soon. I imagine that traveling too close to Blackfrost might be hard on you.”

  Pallid Valentine had grown weaker since her expenditures of magic at the Sleeping Bog. She leaned more heavily on Elaine than ever before. But she still found the strength to chuckle softly. “That’s not what he’s afraid of,” she said.

  Simon rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “I’m a bit… apprehensive,” he admitted. “Lord Blackfrost and the Lady of Briars have despised one another for an eternity, as far as I can tell. It might simply be in the nature of their realms. Whatever Lord Blackfrost may think of you personally, he could take my presence nearby as a sort of deadly insult.”

  He didn’t elaborate any further — really, he didn’t need to. Elaine had experienced the wrath of a faerie lord more than once now. It was not an experience she was eager to repeat again in her lifetime.

  “Liam wouldn’t—” Simon shot her a raised eyebrow before she could finish, and she cut herself off. The Liam she knew wouldn’t have hurt Simon. But Liam had said himself that he was changing. If his mantle took a dislike to Simon, would he have the willpower and the presence of mind to thwart it?

  “—I wouldn’t let him hurt you,” Elaine corrected herself. “If he tries, he’ll have to go through me first. And I don’t think he’s so far gone yet that he would do that.”

  Simon frowned. “I don’t particularly relish that thought either, Miss Elaine,” he said. “But I would prefer to know, at least, that you’ve made it to your destination in one piece.”

  They walked in uneasy silence after that. When Elaine next pried her attention away from the whispers of the Hedge, she realized that she was having trouble seeing the path in front of her. The only thing lighting their path at all was Simon’s little golden flame — and even that was beginning to look wan and uncertain against the hungry darkness.

  The final transition between Blackfrost and the Hedge was not subtle. The dark realm ate at the edges of the green labyrinth, gnawing it down. A clear, clean line of bitter frost cut across the plants, covering them in an unnatural white; some of them looked as though they’d been frozen solid just that day. More than that, Elaine could feel the boundless hunger of Blackfrost just before them, pressing in with impatience against the sprawled tangle of the Hedge.

  Simon stopped them a good ten meters from that line, considering it grimly. Now that they were faced with the cold reality of Blackfrost’s dark appetite, Elaine could tell that he was reconsidering his decision to lead her there.

  Her own resolve was admittedly shaken by the sight. It had been one thing to know, intellectually, that she needed to return to the realm that had stolen her warmth and flayed her mind. But now, standing directly in front of it, she was assaulted all over again by the shattered memories of her captivity.

  Stone trees, icy roses, cruel laughter, red blood on white snow—

  “...it’s not too late to turn back,” Simon told her quietly. “Though it certainly may be, as soon as you cross that line.”

  Elaine shook her head. Her entire body had begun to shake, she knew. But she couldn’t turn back.

  She forced herself to remember why it was she’d come, instead.

  A warm cloak, tucked around her shoulders. Lips on her forehead. Cold power — not hard-edged and hungry, but soft like freshly-fallen snow.

  “You’ll forget me.”

  “I won’t forget you,” Elaine whispered. “Not again.” She straightened. “I’m going in there,” she said forcefully. “For better or worse. Perhaps it’s best you put some distance between you and Blackfrost, Simon.”

  Valentine straightened slowly, forcing some strength into her frame. She flexed her fingers, forcing warmth back into them. “I need to talk to Lord Blackfrost anyway,” she said. “I’m coming wi’ you.” She tilted her head in Simon’s general direction. “That means you don’t need to stick around, Wanderer.”

  Simon’s brow knitted. Elaine saw concern on his face, warring with self-preservation. He shook his head. “No. I… I think I’ll wait here. I might do more harm than good setting foot in Blackfrost — but I can be here, at least, if you need help.” He paused, and sighed. “…either of you.”

  Elaine shot him a rueful smile. “You should come by the shop again when this is all over,” she told him. “I promise, I won’t kick you into the snow this time.”

  Simon rubbed at his face. Mud flaked off lightly beneath his hands. “I’ll consider it,” he said. “…maybe once summer comes.”

  Elaine turned, and moved toward the frost-slashed border — but stopped abruptly, stumbling in place. Something had snaked around her ankle. As she looked down toward her foot, she saw that one of the Hedge’s vines had blossomed into sudden, vibrant green growth, and entangled her feet. Another had wound its way around Pallid Valentine, who staggered and slammed to her knees, unable to catch herself.

  Confused, Elaine reached out her power to nudge it away — and hit a wall of unyielding faerie power.

  “…Simon?” she asked slowly. “Is this yours—”

  Elaine cut herself off as she saw Simon’s shocked expression. As the vines climbed further up her body, he reached out his power to forestall them, trying to pry them away. The magic he’d been given was supremely unhelpful, though — it was, after all, incapable of working against its own master.

  “Walk into Blackfrost? How truly awful. You cannot mean it.”

  A short, lithe figure blossomed into view just behind them, as though grown from the Hedge itself. The Lady of Briars considered Elaine very calmly, for all that her hair wilted and withered at the edges, this near to Blackfrost.

  “Since you will not stop this madness, Simon,” she said, “it seems that I must do it myself.”

  Chapter 13

  “You must let go of Miss Elaine,” Simon told the faerie lord.

  The Lady turned her luminous eyes upon him with a furious, inhuman look. “I trusted you to protect her, Simon!” she hissed. “And here you are, leading her into danger!” The heavy weight of her power leaned down upon them; her voice snapped like a reed in a hard breeze.

  Simon bore up beneath that gaze only with great difficulty. “She doesn’t wish to go with you,” he managed. “You should know me well enough by now to understand that I will not kidnap someone for you.”

  Elaine took advantage of the Lady’s brief distraction with her warlock to wriggle against the vines that even now continued twining up her form. She managed to tug one leg free as the Lady let her attention lapse — but the motion regained the faerie lord’s attention, and the Lady reached out her magics again, more insistent than ever. Nearby, Pallid Valentine hissed in pain as thorns crawled their way up her body, reopening wounds that had only just begun to heal.

  “I shall deal with you in a much more appropriate manner soon enough,” the Lady told Valentine coldly. She shifted her attention to Elaine, and her voice softened. “You silly girl,” she said, with a soft, reassuring smile. “Why would you walk into Blackfrost again, when you so recently escaped its clutches? You really must be enchanted by something.”

  Elaine gritted her teeth. She pressed her own magic against the Lady’s. She dug deeper, allowing the cold, hungry magic of Blackfrost to suffuse her… but the best she could manage was to slow the creeping vines. It was easier, with the Lady outside of her own realm… but while the faerie lord wasn’t quite so impossibly s
trong this time, she was old, and she was mighty, and she definitely had the advantage.

  “I don’t want to go with you and live in the Briars!” Elaine snapped. “How many times do I have to tell you that before you’ll understand it?”

  The Lady tilted her head, as though she couldn’t comprehend the words. “You are simply misguided,” she cooed softly. Her voice lowered from its anger into something more charming. “You will see. You must simply give it time. I will give you a thousand beautiful gardens of your own. All of the flowers there shall know you and love you, just as before. And Simon, you will love him too—”

  A lick of frost surged up through Elaine’s blood at that. She shattered one of the vines that held her ankles, just long enough to take one step toward the Lady. “I already love someone,” she snarled. “And I very much doubt you’ve asked Simon how he feels on the matter.”

  The Lady blinked violently. A flower blossomed, catching Elaine in the mouth. She coughed on the rest of the sentence, spitting uselessly at its petals. The Lady of Briars looked terribly stricken, as though Elaine had pierced her through the heart.

  “You are out of your right mind,” said the faerie lord, though her long fingers worried at one of the flowers in her hair. “Everything shall be fine. You shall see. Everything shall be perfect again.”

  Out of my right mind? Elaine wanted to scream. That was rich, coming from a faerie lord who’d somehow gone even more insane than usual. Still, she realized, she wasn’t going to win this confrontation by sheer strength. All she needed was one opening, one opportunity; if she could set one foot in Blackfrost, the Lady would be hard-pressed to follow her there—

  Someone else had been struck by the same thought. The Lady whirled suddenly, her jewelled eyes wide with fear. “Simon!” she cried. “What are you doing?”

  In an instant, the faerie lord’s power retreated from Elaine, rushing instead toward the warlock. But the Lady was too late: Simon had taken that last fateful step across the line of the Hedge and into Blackfrost.

  The Lady’s vines withered instantly as they tried to cross that line. Blackfrost drank their life greedily, feasting on her overextended magic.

  Simon sighed. His face was difficult to see in the darkness, but Elaine heard his voice clearly as he spoke. “Lord Blackfrost!” he called loudly. “I have… er… defiled your domain, with the power of spring! Will you let this insult pass unchallenged, or will you come to greet me yourself?”

  Elaine spat the flower from her mouth, crying out after the warlock — but a sudden and sinister silence had fallen, drowning out all sound. Lord Blackfrost’s power leaned upon the earth and sky itself, darkening what little light remained and bowing them all beneath its weight. Only the Lady of Briars stood before it without yielding; and even then, her willow-branch hair wilted a little bit more at the edges. Here in his own realm, Lord Blackfrost was a breathtakingly powerful presence… and as far as Elaine could feel, there was entirely too much of Blackfrost and entirely too little of Liam’s own power in that presence.

  She shouldn’t have been able to see him at the center of that darkness… but she did. Liam’s entire mien had transformed from the last time she had seen him. His skin, already pale, now looked more like that of a ghost than a man. The crown of shadows on his head burned like fire. The ice blue of his eyes cut through the gloom, commanding the world to its knees.

  Terror shot through Elaine as she saw him in that crown. She had underestimated the hold that Blackfrost had on his soul, she realized. Away from his realm, Liam had been given the chance to reassert his mind. Now that he’d returned, Blackfrost had taken back its ruler.

  “Another lord’s warlock in my realm, and the Lady of Briars on my very doorstep,” Liam observed coldly. His voice traveled through the silence like the calm before a storm. His icy eyes showed no hint of the man she knew was underneath. “I must not have made my feelings on visitors clear enough.”

  If Simon meant to say something in reply, his voice was swallowed up by the dread silence. Liam gestured at him with a single, long-suffering sigh. The Lady’s warlock buckled at the gesture, falling to his knees. Elaine thought he might have been screaming, but the air carried no hint of it.

  Liam! Elaine tried to call his name, but the word failed to cut through the silence. She had to stop him. She didn’t dare to think about what she’d do if Liam did something irreversible. Stop! she tried to scream. It’s not his fault! He was trying to help me! Look at me, Liam!

  She struggled against the Lady’s vines… and found that they gave way with a strange sort of ease.

  Pallid Valentine, bloody and forgotten, had withered the briars around them both.

  Her blind, black eyes stared in Elaine’s general direction. There was an odd despair behind them. A drop of the Drowned Lord’s power leaked out from her, pressing against the dreadful silence. “Just go,” Valentine whispered to her. Somehow, the words managed to carry, even against that stillness. “Run. One of us should.”

  Elaine shook her head.

  The Lady of Briars drew up to her full height. Before, she had seemed almost tiny in stature… but now, her power unfolded around her, driving against the darkness. It was like watching a titan beat its fists upon a mountain. The vines around her spiked into thorns, sweeping against the frost — somehow beating it backward inch by inch. Her green eyes blazed with inhuman fury. Elaine caught sight for just a moment of a tall crown of briars threading its way across her head.

  “Return my warlock, Lord of Ice and Shadow!” The Lady’s voice broke through the stillness in a way that neither Simon nor Elaine had been able to manage. No longer sweet and beckoning, her tone was now like the creaking of a thousand boughs in a storm, sneering in condemnation. “He is mine! You have no right!”

  Liam laughed. It was a pleasant sound. That was the worst part by far, because Elaine knew he meant nothing pleasant by it. “You send your warlock into my territory to threaten me, and now you want him back?” he asked incredulously. “What a terrible joke. Then again, I suppose I am laughing.”

  Elaine stumbled toward the border, gasping for breath. The tension on the air was awful. It took all of her power just to stay upright against the sheer gravity of it. Simon was already hurt — to what extent, she couldn’t tell. She wasn’t sure what might happen if the Lady of Briars tried to throw her full power against the realm of Blackfrost itself, but she had a suspicion that the result wouldn’t be good. And Liam…

  She wasn’t worried that Liam might get hurt. Looking at him in his full glory, the thought seemed impossible. No… his body wasn’t the problem. It was his soul in the balance now.

  I brought this to him, Elaine thought desperately. I have to stop it.

  Her body began to shiver; she gritted her teeth and shored it up, flooding her body with the power Liam had given her. But the closer she got to Liam — to Blackfrost itself — the harder it became to stay upright. Like the Lady, he had unfurled his full mantle, paying little heed to the smaller creatures that surrounded him… and he currently stood within Blackfrost itself.

  “Simon is a foolish child, playing with dangerous toys,” the Lady hissed. “I did not send him to your realm.” She reached her hand toward Liam, outstretched. Her power followed the gesture, writhing stubbornly inward toward the place that Simon had fallen… but it was clear that she was struggling to reach him.

  “Foolish children do not last long in Arcadia,” Liam replied. There was a cruel amusement in his tone. “Of all people, you should be aware that wolves are likely to eat them up.”

  Elaine staggered into frost. As cold as the world had been just outside of Blackfrost, it was nothing compared to the unforgiving plunge of temperature that hammered down upon her in that moment. She curled up, trying to hold onto what little heat she had left. The air sliced at her throat going down. Her fingers were already numb.

  The realm lunged for her mind with unmitigated glee. The scars of her previous imprisonment were there with
in reach, begging to be reopened.

  But images had begun to flood in slowly, floating their way to the top of her mind. Elaine sifted through them, clutching at each flash of blue eyes, warm arms, soft conversations in the dark. As she had crossed its threshold, Blackfrost had yielded up her lost memories at last.

  Elaine clung to those memories, drawing strength from them. She opened her Witchsight, searching her coat for seeds. Her fingers were too numb to pluck them out though, and she cast about aimlessly, looking for something, anything, to grasp at with her magic. What on earth can I find in Blackfrost? she thought desperately.

  A flash of life caught her attention, buried deep beneath the snow. Elaine clawed for it with her magic, forcing her will upon it.

  To her shock, her target didn’t just respond… it bloomed.

  A barbed rosevine of ice and stone climbed its way atop the snow, thrilled to feel the touch of its old master once again.

  How? Elaine thought, dazed. How had it survived? How had it come so far from the Lifeless Garden, all the way to the very edges of Blackfrost?

  Consciousness flooded her; as with the Hedge, she realized, she had touched a nerve system that was large, sprawling. The frost flowers had grown, spilling out of the Lifeless Garden like an eager child, permeating every corner of the realm. Born of Blackfrost’s son and Elaine’s lifegiving magic, they had managed not just to eke out an existence there, but to thrive. Liam must have done less than nothing to discourage them, for they grew wild in absolutely every nook and cranny of Blackfrost.

  A wild idea had been growing at the back of her mind. She embraced it fully now, desperate for any possible solution.

  She called in the rest of her debt.

  Cold, awful power flooded her, all at once.

  Elaine wasn’t certain whether it was fire or ice that tore through her body. The power was broad, deep, impossible — dark as the silent night and endless as the void. There were no stars to light her way through that shadow. The bleak winter of Arcadia laughed at her fragility. Mortal, mortal, what have you touched, the darkness taunted. What have you dared to claim? It was utter despair — the certainty that light would never come again.