Black Ice Burning (Pale Queen Series Book 3)

by A. R. Kahler

  “That is all very . . . touching,” comes a voice behind us. My skin grows cold, even as hot static races up my spine.

  Mab turns on her heel, spine instantly straight, as a whip forms from shadows within her hand. When I face the Pale Queen, I am filled with dread. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be allowed here. Not when we were fending off the horde. Not when we were this close to holding on.

  Not when I still can’t do anything to defend the woman I realize I’d give my life for. A thousand times over.

  The Pale Queen is not clothed for battle. She is in a pale blue dress even more ornate than the last, the whole thing layers of silk and embroidery and elegance. Her hair drapes over her shoulders—how had I never noticed how red it is? Almost as red as the lips grinning beneath her white lace mask. Almost as fiery as her smoldering eyes.

  “You should not be here,” Mab says. After years of studying her, I can hear the tell in her voice—the slight waver in her words. She is afraid. And that chills my blood more than the Pale Queen herself.

  “Oh, come now, Mab. Surely you would be happy to see me.”

  Mab’s lips grow tight.

  “How did you get in here? My kingdom has not fallen. You should not—”

  “Perhaps you should ask your daughter how I got past your defenses.” The Pale Queen smiles at me as she says it. What the hell is she talking about? Trying to make Mab turn on me or something?

  Mab doesn’t turn on me, but I feel the attention shift. We both know we aren’t facing a faerie; we both know she can lie. But that doesn’t mean I feel any less confused, or any less dread for the upcoming guilt.

  I’ve been played in the past. And I have a feeling the Pale Queen has just as strong a game as my queen.

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” I say. I try to keep my voice cold and smooth. Assured, even though I am not.

  “Oh, but you do. This kingdom is a labyrinth of magic and false corridors. No enemy could walk through unscathed. And the castle itself, well, I have known for ages just how treacherous it can be. How hard it works to protect its ruler. It’s very nearly impenetrable. Nearly. I needed a key. A way inside the beast’s brain. You, my dear Claire, divulged all of Mab’s secrets.” She holds up a hand. “Or shall I say, a little birdie told me.”

  At that, something flutters from the shadows. Something dark and delicate.

  When the metal bird alights on the Pale Queen’s hand, my stomach drops as William’s treachery strikes home.

  I don’t have time to register the shock of it. William had helped raise me. He had showed me kindness when the world seemed to house only spite. He said he wanted my freedom, but I would never have believed him capable of using me like that. Another person I thought I could trust. Another reason to trust only myself.

  The Pale Queen smiles as the bird flies off again. She holds her hand before me, the one on which my mother’s ring lies. “I had hoped that this would be enough, but I’m afraid it didn’t function. How lucky was I, to have William to craft me this.”

  I want to ask her more, but Mab steps in between us, velveteen shadows dripping from her whip.

  “Enough!” Mab yells. Her words crack through the air. “I am tired of these games. But I suppose I should have expected nothing less from you. You always were one for playing in the shadows, for letting others do your dirty work. But there is one thing you haven’t learned, and that is clearly how to finish a job.” She steps forward, until she is barely inches from the Pale Queen. I know it’s not a trick of the light or my imagination; Mab is taller. She towers over her enemy, her body radiating magic like dark heat. But that’s not what makes my pulse race.

  How the hell does Mab know her? Why does this feel like a hatred centuries in the making?

  “I would have thought you had learned your lesson, my child,” Mab continues softly, her words tinged with regret. Another coil of pain through my gut—what does she mean, my child? She had another? “I would have thought that dying once would be enough to convince you not to cross me. I see I was wrong. As I was wrong about so many things. To think you could have been something more than a mistake. To think you could amount to anything beyond shame.”

  She takes another step forward. And, despite everything, the Pale Queen actually steps back. The tension between them is thick, the only sound the screams of the Pale Queen’s minions.

  “I should have left you on the shore where I found you,” Mab says. “I had hoped you would one day become a star, but you were never fit for more than being a pretty thing in a cage. Is that why you are back? Because I have a new protégé? Because I have finally found someone worth bestowing my kingdom on.”

  “You won’t have a kingdom to give,” the Pale Queen replies, but Mab just shakes her head, her lips curling with mirth. She actually reaches out and strokes the Pale Queen’s cheek with her finger.

  “You underestimate me. As you did before. It will always be your greatest downfall. Haven’t you learned that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it? And I would have thought all those years in hell had allowed you plenty of time to . . . reminisce . . . Penelope.”

  Things click into place with chthonic clockwork. Penelope? Was that the woman Mab had mentioned, who messed with the circus contracts decades ago?

  The Pale Queen reaches up to her mask, the lace dissolving in a web of fire at her touch. Her fair skin and flushed cheeks make her look like a fifties pinup model, all pursed lips and round flesh. Which just makes the crackle of her coal-like eyes more demonic.

  “You have only yourself to blame,” the Pale Queen hisses. “You should have known it would come to this; with your schemes and your contracts, one of your slaves would rise up. And that lone rebellion would mark the beginning of your downfall.”

  “Perhaps,” Mab whispers. “But you tried that once, and here I still stand. As I shall always stand. As Winter will always stand. I had thought I taught you better. You cannot destroy the Courts, no more than you can destroy a season itself.”

  “And yet I have,” the Pale Queen replies. I can barely hear her over the hammering of my own heart. Mab clearly said the wrong thing; the Pale Queen stands taller now, and her words grow stronger. “Oberon is dead by my hand.”

  “Oberon is a pushover.” Mab turns her back and walks toward me. It makes my hackles rise, the ease with which she turns from her enemy. As though she hasn’t a care in the world for her own safety. “You will find my kingdom is not so easily toppled. As your minions are discovering right now.” Mab doesn’t look at me when she returns to my side. She turns and faces Penelope, and I want to pretend I don’t see that she is leaning against the balustrade now. That this is all a facade. Her strongest yet. “But petty revenge does not explain how you are here. You are dead, Penelope. Or, you are meant to be.”

  “I was contracted to live forever.” Penelope smiles. “In a sense, it was your magic that saved me.”

  She seems to gather herself with every word, as though she’s reminding herself who and what she is. What she’s done. It’s a dangerous game—Mab should have struck when the woman was cowering. You should have struck, I hiss at myself. But I can’t move. Literally. Mab’s faltering magic isn’t allowing it. She clearly wants me here just as a spectator. But why?

  “And it is my magic that will destroy you,” Mab says. “I give you one chance, Penelope. Cease this pointless war. End this bloodshed. If you truly cared for your people, you would show them mercy.”

  “Mercy?” she shouts. “How dare you speak of mercy? You, who used me as a prop my entire life, who never allowed me to taste freedom or love? You, who would never let me escape, even in death?”

  “You signed your contract,” Mab says, her voice utterly stoic. “You signed your own fate.”

  The Pale Queen’s fists ball tight, cracks of red light breaking across her shattering skin. Even in the cold of Winter, the heat of her hatred makes me sweat.

  “It is a pity for you that you have
no such contracts,” the Pale Queen says. She pitches her words lower, practically a growl. “Although, when I have finished with you, I will ensure that you beg for death eternal.”

  Penelope’s next movement is so fast, I don’t register it until she is standing beside Mab. Her hand curls around Mab’s throat, lifting the woman into the air. Mab doesn’t even have time to gasp.

  “And now, it is time for your final curtain to fall. You have paraded on long enough, Mab. Playing at ruling, manipulating your pawns. You dare blame me for playing in the shadows—perhaps I should take it as a compliment. After all, I learned from the best.”

  She leans in close, pulling Mab’s ear next to her lips. I struggle to move, to do something to save the woman I should be defending with my life. But her magic still prevents it. “I am done working in the shadows. As are the Fey who lovingly call me their queen. You thought it enough to use your little circus to play in the mortal world. I say, it’s time mortals remember their place in the food chain. Alas, you won’t be around to see it.”

  She tosses Mab to the side; Mab crashes against the balustrade, very nearly toppling over.

  Mab doesn’t stand up.

  The Pale Queen flings her hand out to the side, and Mab’s body flies against a wall. I try to scream out, but even my lips are bound.

  “It kills you, doesn’t it? To know that I am a stronger leader than you could ever be? To know that in a few short days, I did what you could not. I united all of Faerie. And I will bring them from the shadows. I will ensure that no changeling feels what I have felt. That no one falls prey to faerie contracts again.”

  Another arm flick, and Mab slams into the wall just beside me. I want to yell at her to fight. Her green eyes are dazed, and blood trickles from her lips. Those eyes flicker toward me. And honestly, she doesn’t look afraid. She actually looks like she wants to smile.

  “It is time for a new era. A new ruler.” The Pale Queen’s tirade continues. Flick, crash. “And that.”

  Flick.

  “Ruler.”

  Flick.

  “Is.”

  Flick.

  “Me.”

  Mab crashes at my feet, and when she does, something warm and wet splatters across my face. In that moment, the bonds holding me back release. I fall to my knees and crawl over, reach out and gingerly touch Mab’s hair. Her wet, sticky hair. She doesn’t move when I touch her, nor do her eyes open. The only sign that she is alive is that she still has her body—like all Fey, she would crumble if she were dead. I pick up her head and cradle it gently in my lap. She already feels so fragile. So light. Why did you want me here? I want to ask. What am I supposed to do?

  But Mab says nothing.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask, looking up at the Pale Queen. I barely remember the stories of Penelope, but I can’t imagine them being so bad as to warrant all of this.

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little blood,” she replies. She stands to the side of the tower, her chest heaving slightly. I can’t tell if it’s from exertion or excitement. “I would have thought better of you.”

  “You’re a monster,” I say. And holy shit, I sound like a child.

  “No truer words were ever uttered.”

  Mab gasps and chokes then, more blood spilling from her lips, flecking my face. I don’t flinch. I’m not going to leave her side. I’m not going to leave your side. And I realize, as I kneel there, that this is exactly how my mother died.

  The only difference is, right now, it’s not my blood on her lips.

  “Shh,” I whisper.

  “Save your breath,” the Pale Queen says. “Her kingdom falters. She has no more Dream. She won’t come back from this.”

  “She can’t be killed,” I say. As though to remind Mab.

  “Everything can be killed.” She doesn’t move forward, though. Doesn’t approach to make the killing blow. “You of all people should know that.”

  I look at Mab. I try to find the power, the flare of anger. But it’s not there. I want to cradle her. To hold her. And that, I know, means I have failed her. All my training, and I don’t have the will to fight. All my training, and I can’t strike when it is needed most.

  Then her eyes open and land on me, and I sense . . . something. A necessity. She isn’t looking at me pleadingly. She’s looking at me as if she knows I’ll do what must be done.

  There’s no rage inside when I gently lay Mab’s head to the side and stare up at Penelope. Only a coldness. I may die here. I have no weapons that could harm her. No magic to call my own. But I will die defending my queen. I will die with honor.

  “There she is,” Penelope says. She laughs to herself as she watches me stand. “Here, I worried I had broken more than her.”

  There are daggers in my hands before I realize I’ve unsheathed them. I have no clue what they’re enchanted against. I only know it’s not enough. And that I don’t care that it’s not enough.

  “It takes a lot more than blood to break me,” I say. Then I strike.

  I’m nowhere near as fast as her. Even with magic, I’d be hard-pressed. She flickers out of sight after my first step. The only sign she’s behind me is the punch to my lower back that nearly snaps my spine. I crumble forward. But I don’t lose my daggers.

  “I’m already tired of this,” the Pale Queen says. “At least your queen tried to fight with magic. It’s a shame, really. But perhaps it is for the best that you denied serving me.”

  She kneels down beside me. I gasp, try to push myself to my knees, if only to slash that stupid smile from her face.

  “I only allow the strongest into my court,” she says. “And it is exceedingly clear that that is not you.”

  Rather than say something like I’ll show you strong, I lash out.

  She doesn’t flinch. The blade slashes right across her face, cheek to cheek. Bad move on my part. The resulting red smile of blood and firelight makes my blood run cold. Especially as it stitches itself together.

  She runs a finger over her face, examines her blood with the mildest of interest.

  “Yes,” she says. “I think we are done playing. After all, I have worlds to rule.”

  She stands then, and when she speaks, a fire runs down my spine, sends my muscles screaming.

  My true name. The bitch is using my true name.

  “Mab and Oberon were wrong,” she says as I stand against my will. Inside, I’m screaming at myself, trying to get my limbs back under control. Even though I know it’s pointless. She knows my true name. She can control me completely. “They are Fey. No more, no less. They may have played with the forces of nature, but I see no proof that either of them were more than simple faeries with delusions of grandeur.”

  I walk over toward Mab. My fingers tighten on the daggers and I scream in my head, no, no, no!

  “But those are just delusions,” the Pale Queen says. She stands above Mab’s broken body now. Mab, who still refuses to move. To run away. From me. “They do not understand that they are not the ones manipulating the pieces on the chessboard. They are no more than rooks, being moved by forces much larger than themselves. And it was in that pride, that vanity, that their downfall was writ.”

  Her name was writ, her name was writ. Damn it, I know you’re Penelope! But what the hell is your true name?

  She gestures to Mab, like she’s unveiling a prize.

  “This woman made you kill your own mother. She took everything from you: your childhood, your humanity. And your future. I think it only fitting that you take hers.”

  I can’t stop myself from kneeling at Mab’s side. I can’t drown out the screams in my head, the horror as my hands move of their own accord. I try to hold back. Try to clench my muscles as my jaw clenches shut. As a moan rises in the back of my throat.

  “Say good-bye to mother dearest,” Penelope says.

  As my hand raises a dagger above Mab’s chest.

  As the world pauses, and Mab looks at me, and I know she is smiling, I know she
is proud, and I do not know why that is.

  I will never know.

  As, right after the pause, I bury the dagger in Mab’s fragile chest, and her gasp fills the sky like smoke.

  She doesn’t die, though. She doesn’t fall to ash. I raise my hand again, bring it back down. The dagger slides in and out, in and out, and Penelope is laughing. I can’t let go of the blade, can’t prevent Penelope’s whims from becoming my own, until I don’t know if she is using me, or if I am stabbing of my own volition.

  Until I stop, breathless, sobbing, my hand clenched around the dagger shoved awkwardly above Mab’s breast. And still, Mab hasn’t dissolved. Still, those green eyes haven’t left mine. Even though I know she has felt every thrust.

  Penelope has stopped laughing, too. She stoops beside me, staring at Mab with a look I can’t quite place. Hatred, definitely. And possibly the most profound sadness I have ever seen. Mab’s blood coats every inch of me.

  Finally, Penelope composes herself. Like an actress, readying herself for the stage.

  “I should have known you couldn’t do it,” she says. Not looking at me. And maybe not speaking to me, either. “But now, the curtain falls. Behold, the silent audience for your sins.”

  She reaches over then, and wraps her hand around mine.

  Power floods me. Fills me. I still can’t scream, but oh, does it burn behind my lips. I can’t flinch from the fire. From the agony of a thousand wailing corpses, a million burning stars. It pours through Penelope, through me, and into the dagger jutting from Mab’s chest.