Forever Frost (Bitter Frost, #2)

by Kailin Gow

  “You wish to marry me?”

  I kept my face stony – in a deadpan expression. “I've grown to fall desperately in love with you,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “I'm not an easy creature to resist, Princess,” he said, with equally withering disdain.

  “Indeed,” I said. “But I can swallow my repulsion. I want the life of the Wolf. I do not love you, nor will I ever. And I will not sign over my kingdom to your control. However – however – I wish to destroy the Winter Kingdom as much as you do. And the power of the Pixies allied to one of the Courts, rather than a threat to both, is a shrewd political move. My people have grown to hate their fairy kin in the Winter lands, far more even than they hate the Pixies who threaten their borders with border raids and banditry. A marriage to you would help me defeat the Winter Court and stop the Pixie raids on fairy people – beneficial to me. And I would bear us the strongest sons in the land.” This part sickened me. “Beneficial to you.”

  “In many ways, Princess,” he said. He was impressed; I could see it in his eyes. “But that is not why you wish to marry me, is it?”

  “It's not your beauty,” I said hotly, and I could see that beneath his regal hauteur Delano was stung. He was not monstrous, to be sure – but his face had the eerie glow of decadence, of dissipation. It was not a human face; it was too cruel for that. “I love Logan,” I said, and the moment I said it I knew it was true. I did not love him the way I loved Kian – with that mad, passionate longing that came only out of magic – but I trusted him; I felt bound to him. I had known Kian for weeks; I had loved Logan all of my life. “And I am willing to take whatever measures necessary. I ask also that you allow me to return Shasta home. We may well destroy the Winter Court yet,” I said, “but we will do so under fairy rules of honor – not pixie laws of chaos.”

  “You judge me harshly, Princess,” said Delano. “You fairies have taken the land that belongs by birthright to us pixies. We conduct border raids on you, our oppressors. We are the lone rebels of the ancient creatures who existed here before you fairies took over – with your harmony, your geometry, your laws. Our magic is not your magic. It is darker, more mysterious. We believe in love, in the arts of the bedroom – yes, Princess, I see you blush, but our pixies are fertile – and yes, in pain, in death. We feel the way you fairies do not feel.” He drew himself up and I could see pride flashing across his face, replacing his cruelty. “So do not accuse pixies of chaos. We own this land. It is ours by right! You, my dear princess, are the invader – not us!”

  I let my eyes fall to the floor. “What do I care?” I said at last, giving way to anger. “Whether this land belongs to pixies – to fairies? Summer or Winter or pixie or fairy – well, Delano, Your Highness, I don't give a damn!”

  He looked surprised.

  “I grew up as a child in the Land Beyond the Crystal River. I had a mother, and I had friends – friends like Logan, whom you have captured. I have no part in these wars. I want no part in these wars. I do not want to bear your children – or anyone else's – I'm sixteen, and where I come from that makes me a child and you a pervert! So don't you blame me for this! I don't care if you're a pixie or a fairy – I'm not kindly disposed towards anyone who wants to hurt or imprison those I care about. I just want to go home!”

  Tears stung my eyes; I tried to blink them back and act like a princess.

  But something I had said had struck Delano. I saw in his face a new expression – something I had never seen before! His anger and pride had gone; instead he only looked abashed, surprised. In his eyes I saw something not unlike compassion – something not unlike humanity.

  “Very well,” he said quietly. “I shall think this over. I will have a servant direct you to an antechamber. I need to think.”

  “Delano,” I said softly. His change in demeanor had surprised me.

  “I need to think!” he repeated, shouting louder. “Now get out of here before I decide to have you executed.”

  He took one last look at me and then stormed off to the window, staring out at the storm gathering around the castle.

  I gave him a deep curtsey, my face red with shock, before the guard escorted me out.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning, I was awakened before dawn by the crude rapping of one of the guards at my door, his fists pounding sharply against the wood. I murmured aloud softly, covering my head with a pillow. It was, despite the imprisonment, the most comfortable bed I had been given during my time in Feyland, and in the semi somnolent stirrings of morning I had forgotten where I was. I thought that I was back in Gregory, Oregon, my mother pounding on the door to remind me that I was late for school. I curled into a little ball, willing away the noise. Just five more minutes, I thought to myself – and then I'd force myself to get up, to pack my backpack. I wanted to lose myself in the dreamy oblivion of sleep for a few moments longer.

  The knock came again, louder this time. “Princess!” came a voice. “The Pixie King demands an audience with you immediately.”

  Princess. Pixie king. The words were like gunpowder blasts, sparking me into thought and action. I remembered who and where I was. Pain gripped at my heart as I rose. “One moment...” I called. “Let me get dressed!”

  I went to the wardrobe, but found that the simple fairy dress the Summer Queen had supplied me with was gone. In its place was a long gown of flowing green silk, dotted with tiny emeralds along the neckline and the helm. It was pixie craft – I recognized the unmistakable marks of cruel magic in the tightness of the seams, the flowing light in and out of the emeralds. When I put on the dress I felt the fabric suck inside itself, molding itself to the contours of my body. I looked beautiful, I thought, as I gazed upon my reflection in the mirror. But it was a cold beauty, eerie and unearthly; I was not comfortable in my own skin.

  “Princess!” The knock came a final time.

  I emerged from the bedroom.

  “I'm ready,” I said quietly.

  The guards led me down the long, glimmering corridor. I gulped as I saw the decorations – the skulls and skeletons hanging up by chains along the wet stones. If this was pixie art, I thought, I was perfectly happy in a room far less decorated. But I had to be strong, to be brave. Logan was in this castle, I thought – nearby. He could even perhaps hear my footsteps; would he be comforted by them? I concentrated on my magic and tried to connect with Logan, to use my magic to hear his voice, to see him.

  Logan, I whispered, in that sacred cloister of myself from which magic came. Please, Logan, are you there?

  In a flash, I saw him, in my mind's eye but as clear as if he were right before me. And yet I did not see him – I felt him, became as aware of him and of his surroundings as if my soul had been transported into his body; I felt his sorrow, felt his worry, felt his pain.

  I felt a howl call out from my throat, a howl of sorrow and agony.

  “I will not go,” Logan was crying out. “I will not leave her!”

  I heard his thoughts rippling beneath the surface. Breena – Breena, my love.

  I could not breathe. Vaguely I was aware that I was still being led down the corridor by the guards; I had to keep walking. And yet all my attention was fixed on Logan, in pain now, but not the physical torment the Pixies had enacted upon him earlier. No, this was the pain of love, a pain I could well understand, to which I could well relate.

  “She will not marry you!” Logan was shouting at Delano, his voice and face contorted in snarls of hatred. “I will not go! Kill me if you must! Murder me, torture me, roast me alive! She must not marry you! She does not love you!”

  Did I love Logan? I couldn't tell. My heart was so full of his love for me; our telepathic link had brought love firmly into my soul, and I could not separate out what I felt for him from what he felt for me.

  “You are being selfish,” said Delano. “You see – it is not merely your life or your happiness at stake, nor Breena's. The Princess Shasta is here – and I will allow her to go f
ree only if you consent to leave – if Breena consents to marry me. If you do anything to thwart my plans, this innocent woman's life will be forfeited.”

  I could feel Logan's raging stop, his lupine wrath restrained as his human compassion took over. No, as hurt and angry and scared as Logan was, he would never allow an innocent to suffer. He had risked his life to save Kian, who was far from innocent; he would never allow Shasta to be sacrificed.

  “Very well,” said Logan, his voice tight as a coiled spring. “But let me see her first. Breena – let me see her.”

  My heart leaped! I wanted nothing more than to see Logan again, to wrap my arms around him, to smell that familiar musk on his neck and clothes that always reminded me of the woods, of the great expanses of nature where in happier days we had been allowed to wander unrestrained and to be ourselves – free of mortal dithering and fairy politics alike. I missed those woods. I missed Logan.

  “Not until I have married her,” said Delano. “The last thing I want is for a young strapping brute like youself to sniff around the Princess, changing her mind. I cannot force her marriage. I will allow you to return to visit her, and to kiss her feet and offer your Queen thanks for your miserable life, once I have secured her promise of marriage. Halfling,” and here Delano looked down disgusted, “marriage is not like in your filthy mortal world – a mere exchange of words. Marriage is binding, here – magic of two fused into one.”

  “What will you do to me?” Logan asked, his face steely with bravery.

  “Let you go,” Delano shrugged. “I am an honorable pixie, after all. And when Breena sees you have gone, she will have no choice but to uphold her word. After all, I still have the Princess Shasta – as insurance...”

  “Honorable!” Logan spat. “Is that what you call making a woman who doesn't love you marry you?”

  “Perfectly honorable. I did not have to let you go. You are fairly our prisoner – you killed several of my men. And she is fairly agreeing to an exchange...fair's fair. But I wouldn't expect a filthy animal like you to understand justice!”

  And with that my connection with Logan was broken, as I was led into the antechamber once more.

  “Sit,” barked the guards. “Sit down, girl!”

  “Princess,” muttered another guard, wilier in the ways of diplomacy.

  “Fine, Princess then,” said the first one. And they left me to wait until at last Delano appeared from behind what seemed to be a secret passageway.

  “Come with me, Princess,” said Delano, his voice smooth and silky.

  He took my hand; I shuddered. Could I stand to let this creature touch me every night? I had to find a way out – some way out...

  “I have let your Wolf-boy go,” said Delano. “Look out the window.”

  I saw, in the distance, a troop of pixie guards escorting Logan into the snowy banks of the mountain base. When a trumpet was sounded, they threw him into the snow and marched back into formation, heading back towards the castle, leaving Logan alone – wounded, but alive. I saw him stagger up; instinctively I leaned forward, out the window, ready to shout...

  “He won't hear you,” said Delano. “Look how far away he is.”

  “And Shasta?”

  “Shasta is well. I won't release her – not yet. Not until the ceremony is finalized. It can be your first order as Pixie Queen – the order to release her.”

  “Is she being kept under good conditions? I want to see where she is being kept!”

  “In a state room like yours, Princess. Fear not. You are a good negotiator; I admire that in a woman. I will not break my word. It costs me nothing to be kind to her. Only the price of a few bolts of pixie silk. I got her a dress too, you see.” He fingered the folds of the dress he had given me. “You see, even if I am to let her go...untouched.” he sneered. “I should at least get the pleasure of looking at a woman at her best.”

  “You're digusting!” I moved away from him. “I'm sixteen!”

  “Well of age in Feyland,” said Delano. “And you're mortal – at that. You will die soon.”

  “Soon?”

  “In a hundred years you will be dead.” Delano shrugged. “Moments, for a pixie. Just moments. And every second that passes you get older, your beauty closer to fading away. I don't see the point of waiting. You, my dearest Princess, are almost dead already – in terms of how we pixies view time. You are like a delicate hothouse flower, destined to bloom only for a short while.”

  I felt sick.

  “You are beautiful – you are fertile. And your ephemeral mortality only makes you that much more desirable. I don't want to waste any time in experiencing you.”

  “That's disgusting!” I said.

  “What, sex?” He said it with a shrug. “For humans, perhaps. For fairies – certainly! They are the most prudish of all the races. But not for pixies. We are like your animals – no regret, no fear, no hesitations. We let our instincts run free. We see nothing shameful about desire.”

  He saw my cheeks blush; he stroked them lightly. “But you do.”

  “Where I come from, you'd be arrested!” I said, my voice shaking.

  “Where I come from, you'd be married already,” he said, and shrugged again. “Do not apply your human standards to me.”

  I couldn't help it; tears began trickling down my eyes. I tried to think of Logan – connect with him again – feel where he was, see what he saw...

  In my mind's eye I saw a Wolf, prowling through the snow, his eyes hot with rage and pain. And I saw a knight approaching him – a knight in the familiar garb of the Summer Court, with kind eyes and a soft smile and long, red hair that shone in the wintry breezes. I knew him – my instincts took over – he was one of my men, of my court. He was a man I had heard described many times before.

  Rodney.

  Chapter 7

  Later that day Delano summoned me to his room again. He had left out another dress for me in the wardrobe – a deep, scarlet blood-red that clung around my waist and my chest, accentuating features I had never before been aware that I had. I did not like it. I looked too old, too alluring – like a woman of twenty-five or thirty. I was only sixteen, and although I had wished plenty of times back at Gregory High School for my hair to grow lighter, my breasts to grow just a bit larger, my waist to narrow further, I now wished for all the world that I could be back in my plain T-shirts and torn jeans at Gregory High, wandering through the woods with Logan without any care more pressing than fourth period math or the potential destruction of the woods behind Gregory High School. But I allowed myself to slip the dress over my head, felt the tightening of the embroidery around me, and gazed at myself mournfully in the mirror before allowing Delano to take me away.

  He met me in the ante-chamber.

  “Not here,” said Delano. “I want to show you something.” He took hold of my hand, his icy skin causing my own to shiver, and led me through the ante-chamber into a hidden room at the back.

  It looked nothing like the chamber. While his throne room was cold and dank – a place to inspire fear and even pain in his audience – this was a room to be lived in. There was a bed in the corner – a luxurious four-poster canopy bed with heavy black silken sheets hanging down from it. The tapestries covered the cold stone of the castle, giving a sense of warmth to the room I had not seen elsewhere in my stay among the Pixies. And there was a roaring, magical fire in the fireplace – glinting yellow and red, green and black in turn – casting a warm light upon us both.

  Against myself, I sighed. I had not realized how cold I had been for the past twenty-four hours until the wonderful warmth of the fireplace lapped up against me. I forgot my decorum and my fear and rushed over to the fireplace, letting the prickling warmth of the hearth surround me.

  I looked up at Delano; he was smiling. It was a kinder smile than I had seen him sport in time past.

  “See, we Pixies are not all bad,” he said. “If you are to marry me, you will be treated kindly – like a Queen. I am not a monster.” />
  “You're not a monster,” I conceded. “But you are cruel.”

  “Perhaps,” Delano gave me a grim sigh. “But my cruelty has prevented you fairies from easily taking over my land. The fear Summer and Winter share alike of me has kept my kingdom going. And I am not averse to being cruel.” He came over to me and caressed my cheek. “But I can also be kind. And I will be kind to you, Breena.”

  I shuddered away from his touch; Delano stared at me, abashed. It had not truly occurred to him that any princess could avoid his seductions for long. Perhaps he thought me so terrified of him in his crueler state that this little kindness would make me fall for him. Instead, I was only more disgusted than ever. He wasn't being kind for the sake of it. He was trying to seduce me!

  “I would rather you be neither kind nor cruel,” I said harshly, “but only fair and practical. If I am to marry you – I won't pretend I'm in love with you. I will bear you children if and when you require it but I want my independence. I want to live in the Summer Court – or at least be permitted to visit – and to spend as much time away from you as possible.” I threw my hair back. “Don't pretend I'll love you.”

  Delano almost looked hurt. “Very well,” he said. “No pretending.”

  He took my hand and pressed it to his lips; I drew it away and slapped him. “Don't try it, Delano,” I said.

  He pressed his hand to his cheek, where a red, welt-like bruise was spreading over his pallid skin. “How dare you?” he spat. “How dare you defy me?”

  “You want to marry me,” I shouted, roused at last to full-fledged rage. “Fine! Marry me! But I won't make it easy or pleasant for you.” I looked straight into his eyes, my own flashing with anger. “Don't expect any love from me.”

  I turned around and stormed out, leaving Delano standing agape, his mouth wide with shock and hurt.

  Let him be hurt, I thought. I didn't care.

  In his rage Delano had neglected to summon the guards, or to call them to attention, so I wandered the corridors of the castle alone. It was the first time in days I had been allowed to wander where I wanted – nobody's prisoner, at least for the moment. I stormed down the sides and corridors of the castle, up and down staircases, through rooms and portrait galleries – all empty. The guards, presumably, were kept down in the courtyard; Delano liked his privacy up here.