Fairy Queens: Books 5-7

by Amber Argyle

  “She would,” the rabbit fairy said.

  “What is it, Chriel?”

  Chriel turned to her, her eyes brighter than normal. “Do you remember what I told you? What you have learned?”

  “Which part?” Elice quirked a smile, trying to ease Chriel’s gloom. When the fairy didn’t answer, Elice sighed and then recited, “‘Everyone has light and dark inside herself. Outshine the darkness.’”

  “Promise you’ll be at the ceremony?” Chriel said. “I’ll be the one telling the history, and you need to hear it.”

  Elice perked up. Chriel usually had one of her under-fairies tell the story, even though she was the best storyteller. Something about being too busy for ceremonies. “All right. I promise. But are you sure you’re all right?”

  Chriel lighted from the chair and headed toward the door. “I will be. Soon. The Balance always has a way of righting itself.”

  “Chriel!” Elice called after her. “That wasn’t much of an answer.” But the fairy just disappeared through her little door without bothering to shut it behind her. Elice started after her but then realized she’d forgotten something. She hurried to the bust and donned the headdress made with seamless links of silver with opals hanging below her ears and the back of her head. Another opal draped her brow.

  She dashed out the door, leaving her elaborate room and entering the bland whites and grays of the Winter Palace. She rushed through the grand corridors, down the wide, curving stairs at the rear of the palace, and thundered into the kitchen, where she promptly skidded to a halt. There sat her grandfather, Otec. Steam rose from a carved wooden mug in front of him. In the kitchen, only the walls and floor were ice. Everything else had been carved by her grandfather’s rough hands—hands that had once been strong and deft, but now seemed too big for his shrunken frame.

  “Grandfather, we don’t have time for breakfast. The ceremony has already started.”

  “I can’t stand Lowl’s warmongering any more than your father could. And you’re already late. We should have something to show for your mother’s ire.”

  Elice edged toward the door. “I promised Chriel I wouldn’t miss her history.”

  Her grandfather looked over the rim of the ice glasses she’d made him. “Then you best eat fast.”

  Letting out a sigh of consternation mixed with relief, she plopped down on a chair with carved leaves and branches painted in bright colors.

  “Chriel won’t start without you,” her grandfather said.

  “It’s not Chriel I’m worried about,” Elice mumbled as she studied the bowl of porridge flavored with bacon grease—a treat her mother had brought them for the start of Winter’s End. It had congealed into a greasy, lumpy mess. Elice lifted the bowl to her mouth. The first swallow stuck in her throat, nearly making her gag. Suddenly she realized she now had another mouth to feed. After the ceremony, she’d have to sneak some food from the kitchens for Adar.

  “It would have been hot if you hadn’t been late,” her grandfather said. He turned the page in the book he was reading. “What took you so long?”

  “I had to get dressed.” Elice glanced at the title and reached for the book. “Is that one of the new ones Mother brought?”

  He pulled it away from her grasping fingers. “Yes. And you can have a turn with it when I’m done.”

  Elice had read her entire collection of books over the winter and was craving something new—specifically, the atlas in the library—but it would have to wait. “What’s it about?”

  Her grandfather eyed her. “I thought you were in a hurry.”

  Biting back a groan of frustration, Elice swallowed a couple more mouthfuls of porridge, quickly so as not to taste it. Her grandfather went back to his book. “Why were you so late to meet your mother and me this morning, anyway?”

  “It wasn’t my fault this time.” She’d had to save a drowning man.

  Her grandfather’s eyes lit up in amusement. “You always say that.”

  “But it really wasn’t. There was a hurt animal.” Adar was, technically, an animal.

  Her grandfather sighed. “You can’t save every injured creature you come across.”

  His words stung, probably far more than he intended. “As Mother so often reminds me.” Elice set the bowl down harder than she meant to and moved toward the door.

  “Elice,” her grandfather said sharply.

  She paused. He was rarely ever cross with her. “Sorry, Grandfather. It’s not you I’m angry with.”

  After a long moment of silence, he said, “Your mother was one of the most empathetic, kind people I have ever known. But becoming a Winter Queen changed her. Her emotions are locked behind a barrier of ice. Still, she fights to be the human she isn’t. Doesn’t that say enough about her character?”

  Elice had heard that excuse too many times. And it was not completely true. There had been a time when her mother was happy, like the light that filtered through Elice’s prisms, fractured but full of color. But that had been before . . .

  Elice kept her back to her grandfather so he wouldn’t see the anger building up inside her until she felt she might burst.

  When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “You best hurry along.”

  “Aren’t you coming?” she asked as she started toward the door.

  “I’m too old to sit in those thrones, and your mother knows it,” he said. “But come to my rooms after. I still have my gift to give you.”

  “You’re going to make me endure this by myself?”

  He groaned in frustration, and Elice knew she’d won. “You go ahead. I’ll be along,” he said.

  Relieved, she bypassed the fancy, silver and white dining hall and the library, where she hesitated, casting a longing look at the crates packed with straw and books. She could practically feel the velvety texture of the vellum, the whirls and edges the pen had left, dancing under her fingertips. She wondered if Adar liked to read, if she should bring him some books to keep him occupied while his shoulder healed. She might even let him look at her atlas when she was done with it.

  With a sigh, she forced herself to keep going, trudging through the white halls with wide ice windows, stray bits of sunlight catching the fine layer of frost in a dazzling display of sparkle. At the palace foyer, her feet crossed the elice blossom—her namesake—that her mother had asked her to shape in the floor using different colors of ice—white, clear, black, blue, and gray.

  To Elice’s left, the throne room doors were already closed. She had the sense of being watched before she heard the low, growling voice of a wolf fairy—Lowl, whom Elice hated almost as much as she hated the Summer Queen. Elice nearly turned around; surely the rabbit fairy would repeat the story to her later. But Elice’s mother would be angry if she didn’t show up. Perhaps angry enough to send a fairy to her cave to find her and instead discover Adar. And Elice had promised Chriel.

  Bracing herself, Elice grabbed both handles of the massive door and pulled with all her strength. She managed to crack it open just enough to peek into the second-floor balcony. She was very late. But unfortunately not late enough to have missed Lowl’s summary of the war. Wearing a pelt dress, the fairy was pacing back and forth through the air before the balcony, her tail low and her head down as if stalking prey. Her yellow fangs were bared as she recounted stories of the summer fairies’ laziness and deceit, stirring up the other fairies’ hatred for next winter.

  Elice’s gaze fell to the four chairs directly before her. Her mother sat in one, her right elbow crooked on the armrest of her throne, and a blood-red apple held delicately in her hands. Her mother loved apples above all else and always brought a bounty back from summer, even though the apple trees were barely in bloom—some kind of deal she’d made with an apple fairy.

  One chair was for Elice. The other two sat empty. One for her grandfather. The other chair . . . Elice stared at it, suddenly overcome with longing to be a little girl again, giggling as she barreled into her father’s arms. The thrill of being tos
sed into the air, hanging suspended for a moment with the whole world spread in front of her before she fell back into the safety of his arms.

  Her eyes went unfocused. Her father would never sit on his throne again. And with his death went the last of Ilyenna’s humanity. The Winter Queen had blamed Nelay, the Summer Queen, for luring her away for peace talks. She lived for one thing now—killing Nelay or making her suffer the same fate.

  A hand at Elice’s back made her start and turn around. With one eyebrow cocked in amusement, her grandfather motioned for her to enter the room. He wasn’t going to make her go alone. She shot him a relieved smile that quickly faded when she noticed the silence emanating from the throne room.

  That could only mean she’d been spotted.

  Taking a deep breath, Elice stepped through the doorway. Beyond the balcony, the room was enormous—three stories tall and just as wide. The far side was open to the air, offering the fairies, who hated enclosed spaces, a feeling of openness. Beyond the columns was a view from the east side of the palace, white ice floating on the black surface of the ocean.

  From floor to ceiling and wall to wall, the throne room was packed with fairies. And all of their small, pitiless eyes were on Elice. Lowl bowed stiffly, obviously furious with the interruption. The rest of the fairies followed suit. Elice forced her head high as she braved the silence and walked forward to sit in the chair beside her mother, who didn’t acknowledge her at all. Her grandfather sat in the chair next to Elice’s and folded his hands calmly in his lap.

  As soon as the two latecomers were seated, Lowl launched back into her speech. “It’s true, the borders of the Winter Queendom are retracting, as they do every year, but we are making the Summer Queen fight for every mountain, every stream she claims for the Summer Realm. At summer’s end, we will be ready to take back what’s ours. And this time, we will set a trap that Nelay and her spoiled band of summer fairies will never escape!”

  The fairies behind Lowl erupted in a chorus of hissing and growling. The tinny, high-pitched sound from the cold fairies that made Elice’s ears ache.

  Her mother leaned toward her, the hand with the apple falling to her lap. “You’re late, Elice,” she whispered. “I expected you to come straight from the forest.”

  Elice sighed. “I had to get dressed.”

  “You should have been dressed this morning.”

  “I found a fox this morning. He was badly hurt. I’ve been looking after him.”

  Her mother sat straight on her throne again. “Everything has its end, Elice. It is not something to be feared. Just a natural part of the Balance.”

  “You were a healer once. You taught me everything I know,” Elice said, remembering the hours she used to spend with her mother. But that was before her father died, not long after the War of the Queens had begun.

  Her mother made a sound low in her throat. “Perhaps I did.” She returned her attention to Lowl and held out a hand to stop the fairies’ commotion. “Thank you, Commander. For the battles fought and won. We nearly had Nelay twice due to your cunning.”

  Lowl bowed low, her yellow eyes flashing with pleasure at the compliment.

  “Keeper of the histories, come forward,” Elice’s mother’s voice rang out like tinkling glass.

  The fairies pulled back, creating an empty space around Chriel as she flew forward. She wore the mantle of the keeper of the histories—a cloak of white feathers with the black striations of a snow owl.

  Elice shot her a proud smile, but the fairy didn’t look her way. A little disappointed, Elice slumped in her seat. Most of the fairies were cunning and cruel. There was no humanity about them. No kindness or gentleness. They were nature incarnate. But Chriel was different . . . most of the time.

  Behind the rabbit fairy, the snow fairies called for small flakes, which danced and spun on the air currents created by the wind fairies. Elice leaned forward eagerly, wondering which story Chriel would tell. In the past, they’d heard the stories of the gruesome end of one Winter Queen, along with the rise of another. Sometimes there were stories of courage and love and loss from their former lives. Sometimes a key battle between winter and summer was recounted, with winter always ending up the winner.

  “Since the beginning,” Chriel began, “the world has needed magic to survive. Since the beginning, magic has been ruled by the Balance. And since our beginning, we fairies have risen and fallen with the rise and fall of our animals, plants, or elements.” Behind Chriel, the wind and snow formed a frozen landscape that slowly began to melt, the tundra coming to life. A field of cotton grass grew, the wooly heads shifting in the breeze. They became smaller as the view widened, revealing two muskoxen charging each other. Their heads met in an explosion that rocked the world around them. Surrounding the muskoxen were fairies making the plants grow and change. Giving the animals their instincts.

  “But we were not the beginning,” Chriel went on. Now the field of cotton grass and muskoxen blurred, until no shapes at all were discernible in the shifting snow. “I was born at the death of the Second Age. Though I was little more than a kitten, I remember . . .

  “Magic was different then—it was held by the many creatures of the earth, but mostly by the races of man—elves and dwarves, and even Hebocks, who wielded it for good or evil.” Each creature was formed in the snow. The elves had pointed ears and an unearthly beauty. The dwarves were squat, solid, and covered in frizzy hair. The Hebocks resembled a cross between a gorilla and a human.

  Chriel stared at the images, but her gaze was distant, as if she were seeing what she described in her memories instead of in front of her. “And I saw these creatures of the Second Age use their magic against each other. I saw their wars. I saw their corruption.” A long column of elves wound through a dense wood. They wore beautiful, flowing robes. One of them held a child in her arms, and the child fussed and cried while the elven mother tried to comfort it.

  Then men poured from the covers of trees. Hundreds of them. And though the elves fought with a quiet desperation and breathtaking skill, they were vastly outnumbered. Holding the child tight in her arms, the elven woman fled.

  The images faded away to become snow once more. “The Balance dictates that all things—even magic—must eventually die and then experience a rebirth,” Chriel said darkly. A woman was formed. Large with child, she ran through the clashing armies, hands protectively over her stomach.

  “And like a woman in travail, the Balance labors to beget the magic anew. What those of the Second Age did not realize, what they did not understand, was that the Balance is weak at this time—vulnerable. And like a birth, if the new magic is twisted against the Balance, it can destroy both. This is called the Sundering.” More battles were fought in the silent swirl of flakes. A Hebock tore a man in half and roared soundlessly. Giants the size of icebergs ripped ancient trees from the ground and swung them at the armies. Hidden between two of these dead giants, the woman screamed as her pains overtook her.

  “The Sundering could not be diverted, and so the magic chose one to restore Balance, lest the whole world be destroyed.” Elice saw a new woman, beautiful with delicate features, pull back the string of a bow with deadly efficiency as she rode a horse through a battlefield. But Elice’s eyes caught on the black horse, for it was much larger and perfectly formed than the other horses around it. A spiral horn sprouted from its magnificent head. This must be a unicorn.

  “Her name was Ara, and she was chosen to save those she could from the Sundering. It was she who selected the boundaries of the new magic—that it would be wielded by elemental beings led by dispassionate women. That form became the fairies of winter and summer, led by immortal queens who lived their lives separate from the influence of men.”

  The battle was over. The woman had brought forth her child. The wind stopped, the flakes drifting without direction, and Elice’s gaze shifted to Chriel. “Though this age has passed from memory, I watched as the races of elves and men merged into one. I saw the Heboc
ks die out. Watched the giants turn to the stone we now call mountains. And I pass my knowledge on so that we might never forget.” Chriel dropped her head, her wings trembling.

  Elice had heard some of these stories before, in a book of fables Chriel had given her not long ago. But something was wrong. First, Chriel had seemed sad, and if Elice didn’t know better, she now seemed frightened.

  Ilyenna tapped a finger impatiently on her throne’s armrest. “Thank you for this story, Chriel.” She took a breath to begin the next part of the ceremony.

  Chriel raised her head. “I’m not finished, my queen. I have not come this day to simply recite the histories, but also to deliver a warning.”

  Elice made a choking sound. No one dared challenge the queen, especially not before the entire assemblage of fairies.

  Ilyenna rolled her apple between her hands, her gaze narrowed in a warning that Chriel didn’t see as she turned in a slow circle to face the fairies around her. “The time has come again. The Fairy Age is ending. The magic is dying.” The fairies went very still, only their wings betraying their movement.

  The rich red of the apple in Ilyenna’s hands was suddenly lost beneath a layer of frost. Slowly she set it down on the table. “Have you too fallen for the Summer Queen’s lies, Chriel?” Ilyenna’s voice was full of regret.

  If any other fairy had said these words, she would have been banished to summer, where she would be sick and lost until Nelay found and killed her. Ilyenna was giving Chriel a chance to take it back, whether because she had been the first fairy to choose Ilyenna as queen, or because of her years of tutelage to her daughter, Elice wasn’t sure. She only knew Chriel had to take it back. Pronounce these stories just that—stories best left to dusty books of legends.

  Elice’s eyes begged the fairy to back down, but Chriel refused to meet her pleading gaze. “I have never been against you, my queen,” said the rabbit fairy. “I chose you because I sensed you were important to easing us through the rebirth.”