by Melissa Marr
Aislinn grabbed both of Beira’s arms to stop her from stabbing Keenan again.
Then—thinking hot—Aislinn blew into Keenan’s face.
Not only did her breath warm Keenan, but her skin grew hotter until Beira’s arms were smoking, steam pouring off of her until the room was cloudy with it.
Keenan blinked several times; then he grabbed Beira’s face in his hands. “You’re right, Mother. It will never work with both of us still breathing.”
With Aislinn still holding Beira’s arms, Keenan leaned closer, until his lips were almost touching Beira’s mouth. Then he just breathed. Sunlight poured onto her like some viscous fluid. She struggled to turn her head and couldn’t. She was held in place by Keenan’s glowing hands, as she choked on sunlight. The heat burned through Beira’s throat, and steam hissed from the wound in her neck.
When finally she was limp in their hands, Keenan stepped away, and Aislinn lowered Beira’s body to the floor.
He stroked a finger over Aislinn’s cheek and murmured, “You are far worthier than I could’ve asked.”
Keenan stepped over his mother’s empty shell. He’d once hoped that they’d not come to this place, that they’d find a way to coexist. They hadn’t, but he didn’t regret it.
The hags stood quietly, murmuring among themselves. They’d disobeyed Beira, but she wasn’t there to discipline them.
Her face pale with shock and worry, Aislinn crouched on the soaking floor trying to rouse Seth.
One of the hags held out a length of cloth, and Aislinn mutely bound Seth’s bleeding ribs. He didn’t look good, but the rowan-men had arrived and already summoned healers—both fey and mortal.
Keenan went over to Donia’s still motionless body. Healers wouldn’t help her.
He cradled her in his arms and wept.
Donia opened her eyes to find Keenan holding her. For the first time in far too long, she was in his arms.
She had to cough before she could speak. “Beira dead?”
He smiled then, looking like every dream she’d denied having. “She is.”
“Seth?” It hurt to talk, her throat raw from the jagged pieces of ice she’d swallowed and thrown back up.
“Injured, but not dead.” He stroked her face, gently, as if she were something delicate and precious. Tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto her face, melting the ice that still clung to her. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought we were too late.”
“Doesn’t matter. You have your queen.” Despite her words, she pressed her face closer into his hand, feeling more at peace than she had in decades.
“It’s not like that with us.” He blew on her face, melting the last traces of Beira’s ice that had clumped in her hair.
“She’s keeping Seth, calls this a job”—he laughed then, a small sound, but a laugh nonetheless—“ruling beside me, but not mine. When you get well—”
One of the hags knelt beside them, interrupting him.
“My queen,” she rasped. “Your staff.”
The hag held out the Winter Queen’s staff, the repository of Winter’s weight.
Keenan’s eyes widened. “No.”
The hag smiled her nearly toothless smile and reiterated, “My queen. Not yours, Summer King. This one”—she gestured silently—“carries the winter’s chill. It grows.”
Keenan snarled at the hags, looking far from human. “You knew.”
“Beira’s time had passed.” The hags exchanged calm looks. “She knew the terms Irial’d set, should’ve known what would happen if she interfered: her choice, her failure.”
The same one spoke again, “Donia will be a strong queen. We waited until one survived winter’s kiss. She”—the hag looked at Donia with something like awe in her eyes—“is ours now.”
They all bowed, looking graceful despite their haggard bodies, and said, “We serve the Winter Queen. It is the order of things.”
Donia struggled to sit up. She lifted a hand, her fingertips brushing Keenan’s face. To spend eternity with Keenan—this was a fantasy she’d kept silent for decades.
He held her gaze. “No, Don…There’s another way. The healers will be here and…”
“This doesn’t need healing. The Winter Court is mine. I feel it; the winter fey, I feel them.”
“The hags can do something…I don’t care what. Stay with me, Don. Please.” He held her tighter, scowling up at the hags and the lupine fey that had come into the room. Behind them, several of the hawthorn people waited.
Healers from both the Winter Court and Summer Court stepped forward. Some were tending to Seth under Aislinn’s careful watch.
Briefly Donia glanced at Aislinn, and the Summer Queen stood. She, at least, understood the inevitability of what needed to happen.
“Keenan.” Donia reached up to him and pulled his face closer to her. “The chill is already in me. If I fight it, it’ll take longer to grow, but it won’t change.”
Aside from the overwhelming urge to wipe away the horror in Keenan’s eyes, Donia wasn’t upset. She’d expected to die today. Ruling was far from a bad trade-off.
Before it was too late, she wrapped her arms around Keenan and let herself glory in the sort of kiss they hadn’t been able to share in far too long.
When she pulled away, Keenan wept, his tears like warm rain hissing as they fell on her face.
Then Aislinn pulled Keenan away and held on to him as the hags helped Donia over to Beira’s body.
Black clouds gathered and ripped open, drenching them all, as Keenan’s emotions grew more volatile.
Grasping the staff, Donia pressed her mouth to Beira’s still body and inhaled. The rest of the Winter Queen’s cold flowed into her, rolling through her like an icy wave, churning until it suddenly stopped and lay quiet—a fathomless frozen pool surrounded by ice-laden trees and unmarred white fields.
The words came to her from the white world, sliding through her lips like a winter wind, “I am the Winter Queen. As those before me, I will carry the wind and ice.”
And she was healed, stronger than she’d ever been. Unlike Beira, Donia did not trail icy shards in her path as she went over to Keenan.
His sun-kissed tears shimmered as they fell into the puddles on the floor.
She reached up to pull him to her, careful to keep her chill contained, thrilled that she could do so now. Then she whispered, “I love you. I have always loved you. This doesn’t change that.”
Eyes wide, he stared at her, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t repeat the words.
Then Donia lifted Beira in her arms, and with the hags trailing behind her, went to the door. Pausing on the threshold, she caught Aislinn’s gaze and said, “We will speak soon.”
After a quick glance at the still-speechless Keenan, Aislinn nodded.
Then—eager to be out of their brightness—Donia wrapped her fingers around the staff and walked away from the Summer King and Queen.
EPILOGUE
FIRST SNOW
Clutching the silk-smooth wood of the Winter Queen’s staff—my staff—Donia walked out of her cottage and into the shadow of the barren trees.
Outside, her fey waited; Keenan’s guards were gone—all but Evan, who’d stayed on as the head of her new guard. There were grumblings over that one—a summer fey heading the new Winter Queen’s guard—but it wasn’t anyone’s right to challenge her choices.
Not anymore.
She wound her way toward the riverside, trailed by six of the guards Evan had chosen from among the winter fey as the most trustworthy. They didn’t speak. The winter fey weren’t a chattering lot, not like the insipid Summer Girls.
As if she had always done so, Donia tapped the staff as she walked the earth, sending freezing fingers into the soil, the first taste of the winter that would soon follow. Beside her, Sasha loped.
Silently Donia stepped onto the now-frozen surface of the river. Looking up at the steel bridge that crossed the river—no longer poisonous, not to the Winter Queen—she tilt
ed her face to the gray sky and opened her mouth. Winds shrieked from her lips; icicles gathered on the metal of the bridge.
On the bank of the river, Aislinn stood, wrapped in a long cloak. She was already changed, looking more like what she now was every time Donia saw her. The Summer Queen lifted a hand in greeting. “Keenan would be here if he could…He was worried about how you were feeling about all of this.” She gestured at the ice.
“I’m fine.” Donia slid across the frozen water, graceful as she’d never been as the Winter Girl. “It’s familiar, but not.”
She didn’t add that she was still lonely: that wasn’t something to share with Keenan’s queen.
They stood quietly, snowflakes hissing as they landed on Aislinn’s cheeks. She pulled a fur-trimmed hood up, hiding her newly gold-streaked hair. “He’s not all bad, you know?”
“I do.” Donia held out her hand, catching snowflakes like a handful of white stars. “I couldn’t tell you that, though, could I?”
Aislinn shivered. “We’re learning to work together. Most of the time.” She rubbed her arms, finally wearing out under the cold. “Sorry. I can still go out, but I guess I can’t stay too long near both you and the ice.”
“Another time perhaps.” Donia turned away.
But then Aislinn said the last thing that Donia could imagine the Summer Queen, could imagine anyone, saying: “He loves you, you know.”
Silently Donia stared at her, the faery who shared the throne with Keenan.
“I don’t know….” Donia stopped herself, trying to quell the confusion inside. Maybe he did, but if so, why hadn’t he answered her when she told him that she still loved him? That was a conversation she wasn’t ready to have with Aislinn.
Donia had no true understanding of how much Keenan had changed when Aislinn freed him, how connected they were, how much she truly knew of him; most days, she didn’t want to know. Their court was not her concern, not now.
She had enough trouble sorting out her own court. They might not be a loquacious group, but they still grumbled—over her former mortality, over her insistence that order be restored, over her curtailing their cavorting with the dark fey.
That’s a trouble I’m not eager to face. The king of the Dark Court was pushing already, testing the boundaries, tempting her fey. Irial had been too long aligned with Beira to back away gracefully. Donia shook her head. Snow fell around her face, an almost-electric touch as the flakes landed on her skin. Focus on the good. There would be time enough to deal with Irial, with Keenan, with her fey.
Tonight was hers.
As quietly as the snow falling around her, Donia turned back to the frozen night and skated across the river, spilling her handful of snow like glitter on the ice.
SOLSTICE
Aislinn and Seth stood in the common room of Seth’s train with Keenan while he struggled to recover from the brief excursion in the cold.
“Go on.” Seth nudged her toward Keenan. “I need to get a few things.”
Aislinn sat beside the Summer King, strangely comfortable. “Keenan?”
He opened his eyes. “I’m fine, Aislinn. Give me a moment.”
She took his hand in hers and concentrated, letting the warmth of summer roll through her. It had become surprisingly easy already, as if it had always been in her. She felt it, a tiny sun blazing inside her, and she leaned over and blew gently in his face. Warm wind poured over him.
She kissed both his cheeks. She didn’t know why, any more than she understood why she’d done it that night in the alley. It simply seemed right. That was the first thing she had understood about her changes—listening to her instincts.
Keenan stared at her. “I didn’t ask—”
“Shhh.” She brushed his copper hair off his forehead and pressed one more kiss there. “Friends help each other.”
Keenan felt almost fine when Seth came back into the room.
Seth dropped a lighter and a corkscrew on the table. “There’s candles on the shelf. Some food I got from Niall. Some of your summer wine, and a bottle of winter wine.”
“Winter wine? Why?”
Seth laughed. “Niall said you owe him for getting that.” Despite a daunting look from Aislinn, he winked and added, “It’s all good.”
Then Aislinn stood up and slipped her arm around Seth’s waist. “I’ll keep my cell on. Tavish knows I’m on tap if there are any problems.”
“You’re both leaving?” Keenan sat up. He trusted his queen, but this was growing stranger and stranger. “I’m to be trapped here then?”
Aislinn and Seth exchanged another curious look. Then Seth pulled his jacket on.
“I’m out.” He grinned at Keenan, not with the lingering tension that the mortal seemed to be wrestling with since Aislinn’s ascension, but with genuine amusement. “See you in a few days.”
After Aislinn shut the door behind him, she smiled gently at Keenan. “Happy Solstice. It’s safe. We even had Tavish check on it for us.”
She hugged him briefly, and then she slipped away, leaving him alone and confused.
Trapped. She trapped me. He paced to the window and watched his queen leave with her mortal lover. Now what do I do?
Donia let herself in with the key Seth had given her. She heard Keenan pacing, heavy footsteps as he moved angrily, like a caged thing. It didn’t frighten her, that temper, that dangerous energy. For the first time, they’d meet with equal strength, equal power, equal passion.
I hope.
She slipped off her boots, folded her wrap, and uncorked two of the bottles of wine. She’d just poured the first glass when he came out to the front room.
“Don?”
“Umm?” She held out the glass. When he didn’t take it, she set it down on the counter.
“What are you…” He seemed unusually nervous, watching her warily. “Are you looking for Aislinn?”
“No.” She poured a second glass, out of her bottle. She’d need to remember to send a token to Niall for thinking to procure it.
“I’ve seen Ash.” She held up the house key, dangled the tiny skull key ring where he could see it. It felt good to have the control, the power.
I could get used to this.
Ruling the Winter Court had come easily; she could be just, fair, to her fey. But having power over Keenan—that was a dangerous thing. She wanted him to sway to her wishes as she’d done so long to his. She licked her lips and was rewarded by a flash of darkness in those summer eyes.
He moved closer, hesitantly, but the look in his eyes was hopeful. “Why are you here?”
“For you.” She sipped her drink, casually, calm as she’d never been able to be around him.
He stepped closer again. “For me?”
She set down her glass and reached back to the tie that held her skirt together.
His breath caught in his throat. Sunlight flared from his skin, glorious and brilliant. “For me.”
Snowflakes swirled around her as she reached out for his hand. “Yes.”
And he smiled, that impossible earthshaking smile that had haunted her fantasies for longer than he should ever know, than he would ever know.
Summer and Winter must clash. We’ll never be able to…but to try. She wrapped her hand around his wrist and pulled him closer.
Every bit of her body burned as if she were nothing more than an ice carving, ready to melt from the touch of the sun. Her ice rose to meet that sun, wrapping them both in a snow squall.
I love you. She didn’t say it, not this time. She stood as his equal now; she wasn’t going to risk tipping that balance in the hopes that he’d say the words that would quell the murmur of restless confusion inside.
I still love you, have always loved you. She wouldn’t say it, but she thought it over and over as the flowers blossomed in his eyes, as the flare of sunlight made her tremble.
“Mine. You’re finally mine,” he whispered. Then his lips came down on hers.
She wanted to laugh for joy, weep for the s
izzle of ice and heat as they fell into the snowbank at their feet.
This is far better than negotiating the terms of our peace.
It would sway his wishes when they did negotiate, she knew it. It’s not why I’m here. But in the whispering part of her mind, she admitted that it was reason enough to be there, that she would be a fool not to take advantage of it.
“I thought I’d never have…” Keenan was murmuring soft words, sounding lost. “My Donia, finally all mine.”
The snow melted, steamed away like vapor, as they touched.
“Shh,” she covered his lips with hers, unable to agree to his foolish words.
Aislinn stepped carefully over the icy ground. The guards she’d had follow them were waiting alongside Seth. They were still unfamiliar faces, on loan from Donia for the winter months while the summer fey were trapped inside.
“No one disturbs them.” She let her gaze drift over the guards, looking at each individually.
They waited, as quiet as winter nights.
She smiled as she added, “For any reason. If there’s any problem, call me.”
Aislinn nodded and held out a hand to Seth. “Come on. Let’s go introduce you to Grams. If she can accept this”—she gestured around them at the faeries and at herself—“she can accept you.”
He quirked his eyebrow. “You sure? Niall said I could bunk there.”
“Trust me.” She grabbed his hand.
He looked at his ripped jeans and battered jacket. “Maybe we could stop by the loft at least. I could change….”
“No.” Aislinn linked her fingers with his. “I showed her the other college apps you picked up for us. She thought we could go over them.”
His eyes lit up, and he pulled her closer. “I like the philo program at State best. They have a good poli-sci program for you too.”
She laughed. “We can relocate if we want. Keenan and Grams are both petitioning for that.”
Behind and in front of them, the winter guards spread out. None of the summer fey could come out in the blowing white drifts. Only the winter fey and dark fey played in the still night, solemn even in their revelry as she passed them—though more than a few snowballs sizzled into steam as the less easily intimidated fey saw her.