by Gow, Kailin
Enchanted Frost
Bitter Frost #8
of Kailin Gow’s Frost Series
kailin gow
Enchanted Frost (Frost Series #8)
Published by THE EDGE
THE EDGE is an imprint of Sparklesoup Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Kailin Gow
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Do NOT post on websites or share this book without permission from copyright holder. We take piracy seriously.
All characters and storyline is an invention from Kailin Gow. Any resemblance to people alive or dead is purely coincidence.
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First Edition.
ISBN 13: 9781597480529
DEDICATION
To all who believe in the healing power of love.
Prologue
Kian
If anyone had been looking down at me, from the peaks and heights of the Atlas Mountains that divided life from death, divided Feyland from the mysterious Fields, I know what they would have seen. A young man, his face ravaged by grief, the pale Fairy skin flushing with rage, with sorrow, with pain. A man who had lost everything.
I know what they would say. The same thing villagers and passers-by had been whispering for days, now, as I wandered – aimlessly, lonely, trying to outrun the fear and pain that buzzed like mosquitoes in my ears. I could hear nothing; I could not think. All I could do was run. Away from the pain of losing her. Away from the voices and the whispers that had dogged my steps. “There goes Prince Kian. Jilted his fiancée, don’t you know? They were so in love – I knew such things never end well! His mother would never have stood for such passion, such weakness. And she’s proved right in the end. The Winter heir has lost everything because his heart ran too hot with the blood of desire.”
It was true, after all. Love had led me to this place. Love had led me into Breena’s arms, her lightly golden skin, into the crevice at her neck that always smelled like jasmine and bergamot, where I would lay my head. Led me to her lips that tasted of sweet and tart berries. Led me to her long chestnut hair which I so loved to curl about my fingertips. Love had made me weak for her – and for a while it had made me strong, too. Together, Breena and I had determined that we would reunite Feyland – and we had! We had ended the war. We had brought Winter and Summer back together. We had fought off the Dark Hordes, the Pixies, banshees – all manner of creatures that once populated the pages of my family’s bestiary. We had restored the Twin Suns of Feyland; we had restored food to the larder of every peasant and farmer in both halves of Feyland.
And still it was not enough. That knowledge coursed through me with the agony of fire. It was not enough to make her love me as I loved her. For my love for Breena was total, all-encompassing, full of truth. I could never, would never, love anyone as I had loved her. I would never care for anyone as I had cared for her. I had never wanted a woman before I felt her hot flesh on mine; I had never wanted the rousing affections that passion stirred up in me before she inspired them. She was the only one; she was the one. And I loved her with a love that had grown savage with time, a love that had overpowered all my efforts at reason, at control. I had been sent by the Winter Court to kill her; instead she had killed me – slain the rational, cool, calm, collected Kian I had once been and transformed me in the stead of that noble prince into a wild bloodhound, no better than a Wolf, chasing after the sound of her feet and the lingering smell of her perfume.
But she did not love me the same way. That knowledge tore me apart. She loved me; she had chosen me. But what did that mean – chosen? She had deliberated over the two men who loved her. She had kissed me and then kissed him and then kissed me again, going back and forth, her heart unable to cleave to one or the other. It was difficult to be angry with her – for so long I had never been angry with her – and yet now I found involuntary rage spilling over into my consciousness. She had not meant to trick me; I could forgive her that much. She had not meant to make me suffer. But the truth had won out in the end: that Breena would never love me with the same exclusivity with which I loved her. Her choice of me had not been a wholehearted throwing of herself, body and soul, into my arms, but rather a difficult decision between me and Logan.
I couldn’t blame Logan, of course. I couldn’t blame anyone for loving Breena – and if I was honest with myself I knew that he loved her as much as I did. It was only luck – sheer luck – that had made Breena prefer me to him. By a hair, perhaps. But not by enough.
For I had made that choice – the hardest decision I had ever made. To leave Breena, to leave the woman I loved, rather than face a lifetime of jealousy and pain as I watched her wrestle with her indecision. If Logan could face a lifetime with half of her heart only, he was welcome to it, but I could not. I could not bear a life with her, knowing she loved him, too, knowing she would never fully give herself over to the power of love the way I had. If Logan could, then so be it! But I was the Winter King, the Snow Prince, the Lord of Ice. I deserved – I needed – I craved more than being Breena’s sometime first choice. I needed to be loved totally – or else to cure myself of this savage and sickening love forever. I needed to forget her.
And that is why I had embarked upon my quest, heading past the Atlas Mountains into this strange and nebulous land: to the Fields of Flowermead, where no Fey ever went, and from which no Fey had ever returned. It was not, like the Kingdom of the Dead, a place for shades who had not passed into the beyond – the creatures of Flowermead were never dead nor alive, but existed in a liminal space, the in-between space of shadows that only magic could carve out.
I paused halfway along the mountain pass, and from my satchel I pulled out a silver-framed mirror. I knew I should not, but I could not resist it; I gave myself over to the weakness of needing to know. I gazed into the mirror, and for a moment I caught a glimpse of myself. Bright blue eyes, crystallized with pain. My jaw twisted with anguish, the clean chiselled lines of my bones – once bearing the nobility and pride of my Winter lineage – seemingly vanished as misery ravaged my face.
And then the sight of my own eyes was gone, and I saw her instead. A beautiful young woman with long plaited hair, gleaming with strands of gold and strands of red, chestnut strands that tantalized me with their shimmering brightness. Caramel-colored eyes with flecks of green, hazel, and lavender blue – shining like the rarest of rare gems. Even now, as angry with her as I was, I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming rush of love and desire; against my better judgment, I began to kiss the mirror where her reflection was displayed, imagining in my misery that the cold silver of the frame was in reality her warm and cinnamon-hot skin.
And then I saw him in the frame. Walking with Breena; his arm twined around hers, patting her hand with that wolf-like love that had always characterized his devotion. I scowled as I watched him lean in, his lips poised to kiss her at the top of her forehead…
I could bear it no longer. The agony had cut too deep. In an instant I had flung the mirror into the snow, savoring the sound of the metal ringing like a bell at the blow.
“Why, Breena?” I called into the open air, into the white clouds. “Why ca
n’t I stop loving you? Why must I keep on feeling it – this pain, this jealousy, this weakness?”
I expected no response but my own echo, but to my surprise I heard not my own voice but another’s – hundreds of voices, laughing, mocking, twisting my words.
“Why? Why? Why?” The voice carried over the mountainsides. “Why – because of your weakness! Because you gave in.”
Among their voices there was one silvery melody – one voice – I recognized. I hardly dared to believe – I could not fathom it. But the voice I knew all too well.
“Mother?” I called out.
She shimmered into a view – a silvery, translucent figure – but her eyes were as stern and austere, as shining and hawk like, as ever.
I began to stammer in my confusion. “B-b-but…you’re dead. Redleaf killed you!”
“A moment of weakness,” my mother’s voice was hard and cold. “I fell victim to love – to the need to protect my daughter, who was no Heir, who had no Power. I was a fool to do it.”
“You were always such a strong ruler, Mother.” Words I had always wanted to say welled up in my throat.
“But not strong enough…” My mother’s lips twisted into a snarl. “Love made me weak. The way it has made you weak, my son, my Kian, once-Prince, now-King of Feyland.”
“What should I do, Mother?” A child’s need for comfort seized hold of me.
“You must no longer be ruled by this passion, my son, nor this love. They will only cause you to fail in your duties which you owe to Feyland.”
I thought once more of Breena. No matter what I did, what I tried to do, no matter how far I ran – could I ever really stop loving her? I wanted to stop – I wanted to free myself from this pain – but I couldn’t imagine anything ever working. Love was stronger than any magic.
“What must I do?” I asked her.
“There is a way,” my mother said. “But it is not an easy road. You must go to the Ancient Realms and seek there the magic of one White Witch. She has been known to cure the curse of love when it has afflicted Fey in the past.”
I sighed and nodded. ‘Then go there I must,” I said. Even as I spoke I knew the pain such an action would cause. But I knew, too, the risks. If I stayed in love with Breena – and yet lost her. To another, to Logan – it didn’t matter. I would go mad, as mad as Shasta went, if not worse. And as a King of Feyland, I owed it to my people, to my subjects, to be able to look upon Breena as an ally, as a friend, but nothing more.
“Onwards, my son!”
A portal appeared before me, shimmering like a mist.
“You must step forth. You must leap with faith in your heart!” My mother’s words were loud and clear.
“Forgive me, Breena,” I whispered.
I stepped through the portal.
Chapter 1
Breena
I missed him. Every fiber of my body called out for him. I woke up from dreams of him, sobbing. I gave myself over to the sweet balm of sleep, closed my eyes, and wished against all hope that he would be there next to me when I woke up, that his smooth cool skin would be lying against mine. But instead I woke up, night after night, morning after morning, dawn after dawn, in an agonizingly empty bed. The emptiness that overwhelmed me; the pain that floored me. The man I loved was gone.
And the worst part was that I couldn’t blame him. This guilt, this pain, was mine alone to bear. I had always known that one day I would push him too far, that one day I would hesitate too long. That one day I would destroy the happiness we shared. The knowledge had dominated my subconscious for too long – and now at last it was over. The pain was gone – like a Band-Aid being ripped off. Kian had left me; I deserved it; I had lost him.
The truth was – I loved him. But the truth was, too, that my feelings for Logan had never been fully resolved. The romance that Logan and I had shared was a history of missed opportunities and mistakes, of love potions that brought us together and circumstances that drove us apart. He remained for me the eternal mystery, the perpetual what if? I knew what my life was like with Kian; that at least was straightforward. But the what if had driven me to distraction; the what if had taken over. And I’d let it take my heart with it in the process. I’d let myself wonder if Kian and I were meant to be, or if I belonged with Logan, and in the process I had lost both of them.
Stupid, stupid, I told myself. Every morning when I woke up I repeated those same words to myself, over and over again, trying to stop the pain. Stupid girl – you had two men who loved you, and you lost them both because you couldn’t decide which of them you loved more. The guilt seared through me like fire. Perhaps the fairies were right to look down on love. This was, after all, what happened. People carried away by their emotions. People made selfish by yearning, single-minded by desire. People like me.
My mortal weakness.
And what would this mean for Feyland? If the wedding was off, that didn’t preclude me from having to see Kian every day. Whether we married or not, we had committed ourselves to an alliance between Winter and Summer, an alliance that we had to sustain regardless of our personal lives. Would we marry one another for political reasons, sleeping in separate bedrooms for the rest of our eternities, keeping secret the chasm that had grown up between us, dividing our souls? Or would we simply become colleagues, business partners, co-rulers, trying to keep our minds on the work ahead while my mind and heart and body all cried out for his touch, his fairy kiss, which at last had driven me mad?
The first few days were, in a sense, the easier. I was numb from the shock of Kian having left me – numb enough that it didn’t feel real. I told myself that I could fix it, that this was only temporary, that our break was just a fight…
I’d gone home to the Summer Court, to my mother and father. I’d cried like a child in their arms, resting my head on my mother’s chest while she stroked my hair and dried my tears.
“You two just need to talk,” said my mother. Mortal rules of dating, after all, were far from strange to her. “Talk out your issues. Get it out in the open. A lot of couples have pre-marriage jitters.”
“You should go to the Winter Palace,” said my father. “Follow him – discuss things with him there. Don’t let him leave you. If he breaks my little girl’s heart, by the Swords of Feyland, I’ll…”
My mother cut him off. “But he’s hurting too, isn’t he, Breena?”
I sniffled as I nodded.
“Darling, I love you – and I want the best for you. But for this marriage to work, you and Kian both have to make an effort…” She sighed. “I can’t deny that your feelings for Logan haven’t exactly been discreet.”
“I know,” I sobbed. “I’ve been trying to keep everything in check, to do the mature thing, the responsible thing, but…”
My mother stroked my hair. “Sometimes I forget you’re only eighteen,” she said. “You’ve done so much. Ruled a kingdom. Fought a war. Battled banshees and pixies. But in matters of the heart you’re still practically a little girl.” She sighed. “Are you sure this marriage is what you want, my darling?”
“Of course it is!” I cried.
“But you’re so young. In the mortal world you would never have thought about getting married this young. You could have gone to college, had time to grow up, to explore who you are…All options Feyland doesn’t give you.”
My father said nothing. He knew, after all, that my mother was right.
“It shouldn’t just be about whether or not Kian still wants to marry you,” said my mother. “But about whether you’re willing to get married, whether you’re ready to forsake all others for Kian for the rest of eternity. Divorce isn’t an option – not for a state marriage like this. You have to be sure.” She held me close. “And you need to set boundaries with Logan, too. If you choose Kian. You need to be ready to choose your husband over your friend – to let Logan find another girl whom he can love, who can love him.”
I nodded. I had to be mature, to listen to her words. But my heart
– my immature, young, heart – wouldn’t, couldn’t agree. I wanted Logan; I wanted Kian. Even now, as I missed Kian, I also felt the pain of losing Logan.
He was right to leave you, I told myself. He was right to go away. He’ll never love you now – now that you’ve let him down, disappointed him.
But I had to make it work with Kian – I had to make things right. Deep down I knew that he was my one true love, the person I was meant to be with, the person I was meant to unite my soul to forever and ever.
And so, buoyed by my mother’s words and by a sense of hope that rose up within me like a flame, I made the three-day journey to the Winter Palace. I sent away my guards; I couldn’t face them. Not now, when I stopped to sob every five minutes, the winter wind freezing my tears into snowflakes on my face. I had to do this journey alone. All along the ride I kept thinking about Kian’s face, Kian’s voice. I played the scene out in my head a hundred times, over and over again, trying to make sense of it all.
“Kian,” I would say. “Kian – I love you. It’s been hard for me to adapt to fairy ways, to the promise of settling down with one person for the rest of eternity at this age. I admit it – I’ve been foolish. I’ve let my fears about our future, and my feelings for Logan, get in the way of our love. But no more. I’m ready to commit to you – always and forever. I’m willing to give Logan up, to set boundaries between us until you feel sure that you’re the one I’ve chosen for the rest of my days. Being without you has made me realize how much I miss you; how much I need you. Please, Kian, whatever you do, whatever else you decide, just come home. To me. Because I love you, Kian, King of Winter, Emperor of Feyland. I love you the way the twin suns of Feyland love one another. You are my twin sun; you are the other half of myself.
Please forgive me.”