Fairy Queens: Books 5-7

by Amber Argyle

  Elice reached out to stroke Chriel’s head. The wolverine fairies snapped their jaws. Snatching her hand back, Elice peered into the cage. “Are you all right, my friend?” The fairy didn’t answer. “Chriel,” Elice said carefully, “my mother said she will let you go if you apologize in front of everyone, declare your allegiance to your queen, and work to dispel the rumors of the Sundering among the other fairies.”

  Elice had expected Chriel to be relieved and appreciative, but she didn’t move from her position. “Chriel?” she tried again.

  “Sometimes you have to see the truth before you will believe it.” The rabbit fairy’s words came out muffled.

  “I don’t understand. Mother won’t banish you—why doesn’t that make you happy?”

  Chriel’s pink eyes glittered as she finally looked up. “Ilyenna was broken long ago. They all were. That’s the mistake Ara made during the last age. Now you have a chance to make it right.”

  Chriel was still talking about the Sundering. Angry, Elice took a step closer. “Why would you believe the Summer Queen’s lies over your own queen? How could you betray her like this?”

  “When it is your turn to choose, Elice, remember that when you choose the good, you also choose the evil.”

  Tears pricked Elice’s eyes. “Chriel! You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep up like you are.”

  Chriel’s skin shifted, her mouth elongated, and twitching whiskers formed on her cheeks. Fur rustled from her pores, coating her skin, until she stood as a rabbit instead of a fairy. Her pink eyes fluttered shut, and she pointedly turned away from Elice.

  Pushing back the tears that burned her eyes, Elice leaned even closer to the cage, buying her a warning growl from the wolverine fairies. “Fine, Chriel. Refuse to talk about this rationally. Just apologize to my mother and stop this nonsense before it’s too late.” Elice sniffed, then whirled and marched back up the stairs.

  On the first floor, she stopped at the library. Her grandfather was snoring on the couch again. Her mother sat at the broad desk, quill in hand. One of her council fairies, Ursella, perched on the edge of a book.

  “I need to go hunting,” Elice said, aching for a release for the pent up tension inside her.

  Her mother looked up from her book. “Your grandfather told me we have enough meat to last a while.”

  “I have a fox and a seal to feed,” Elice explained.

  Her mother sighed disapprovingly. “One of my fairies can bring a seal right to the front doors. You can slit its throat and be done with it.”

  Elice pursed her lips. “That isn’t fair. And the meat was to be my gift to you for tomorrow.”

  Ilyenna sighed again, this time with long-suffering. “I’m going to orchestrate our withdrawal from summer myself. There are still many mountaintops we have strongholds in. Many battles we can still fight.” Which meant Elice’s mother planned to steal into the Summer Realm with the night. Battles that would leave behind frozen crops and dead animals.

  Elice frowned. Her mother had just arrived, and Winter’s End had just begun. “How long will you be gone?”

  Ilyenna’s attention was already elsewhere. “As long as it takes.”

  She would take the majority of her fairies with her. At least that meant there was less chance of Adar being discovered. Atlas pressed to her chest, Elice made her way to her room. She left the book on her table and hurried down the secret tunnel to the cave beneath, which now smelled strongly of smoke and cooked meat, with an undercurrent of seal dung. Normally, she’d have replaced all the dirty snow in the pup’s pen with fresh, but she couldn’t do that with Adar watching.

  He was asleep, but woke when she stepped inside. She knelt beside him to set a freshly packed bag of snow around his bruised shoulder. She was pleased to see it didn’t look any more swollen than the day before.

  “Can you move it at all?” she asked him

  Adar nodded as she settled his clothing back in place. “Hurts like fire, but I can.”

  “Well, that means it probably isn’t broken. Another week and you can start taking the brace off and moving it around.” She set his breakfast on the table and fed the last of the meat to Picca. Then Elice went to the opposite wall, where her bags were. She took down the sled her father had made her so long ago.

  Adar was already standing, his eyes heavily lidded from the poppy. “Where are you going?”

  He still wore Elice’s father’s wool clothing from his youth, that odd hat pressed firmly to his head. She could barely look at Adar for the memories. “We need more meat if we’re to keep you alive.” She continued past him, but he followed her.

  Without a word of complaint, he gulped down the blood she’d brought him. “I’ll come with you.”

  She eyed him. “No leaving the cave, remember?”

  He shrugged and his face paled. He reached for his injured shoulder and let out a controlled breath. “Elly, Elly, Elly. I thought we were past this. Besides, I peeked out earlier. The fog’s so thick I couldn’t see two steps in either direction.”

  She frowned. He grinned. She rolled her eyes. He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “You’re not making it easy to keep you alive,” she said.

  “I never do.”

  “I might kill you myself.”

  He started to shrug again and then seemed to think better of it. “My mother says the same thing.”

  Elice considered sealing off the cave with ice to trap him. But since that would reveal her identity, she decided against it. Besides, her mother would have left with Ursella by now. “Keep your hood over your face, just in case,” Elice told him. Then she went back and grabbed two harpoons and a couple of her father’s skinning knives. They were rusty but serviceable, and besides, she couldn’t very well form an ice spear in front of Adar.

  She headed out of the cave, keeping to the base of the mountain and her ice forest for cover. Adar stayed close behind her. He was right about the fog—her ice forest was merely a blur of shadowy shapes to her left. The mountain to her right was the only thing that anchored her bearings.

  At the sound of the seals wuffing, Adar froze. “Is that a lion? Do you have lions this far north?”

  She chuckled. “That’s a baby seal calling for its mother.”

  Adar’s brow furrowed. “I’ve heard seals before. They sound like a dog.”

  Elice passed a hand down her face. “That’s a sea lion. Seals mew, wuff, grunt, chirp, grumble, boom, chuck, and sing. They do not bark.”

  Another seal wuffed. “Are you sure? Because that sounded an awful lot like a lion’s grunting.”

  “Don’t worry, the fairies did something to the forest. Predators don’t come inside.”

  “This will be a great story to tell the women back home,” Adar whispered from behind her.

  Elice tensed up. “Are all men as annoying as you?”

  “No other men compare to me, Elly. Not in bravery or chivalry or—”

  “Cockiness?”

  “Only because it’s true.” She could hear his grin in his voice.

  “I should have let you drown,” she muttered.

  “I know. My presence can be overwhelming at times. But like too-bright sunlight, you’ll adjust to my brilliance eventually,” he said in exaggerated tones before sniggering at his own joke.

  She bit back a reply in the hopes the silence would be catching. It worked. For a few seconds, at least.

  “So when do I get to meet the princess?” Adar went on. “And does she like her men tall, dark, and handsome?”

  “She likes them quiet and decidedly less hairy.” Elice started jogging, hoping to leave him behind as she made her way past the forest and the jutting glacier, where her willow tree stood like a sentinel. On the other side was an ice covered-beach. She could smell the colony of seals before she saw them—a mixture of fish and dung.

  Crawling, she eased around the rise and peeked over a drift of snow. The fog was thinner here. She could just make out the seal’s dark shap
es. She chose a young bull—she didn’t want to orphan a pup—that was farthest away from the shore.

  She was dismayed when Adar huffed up behind her and dropped to her side. “That was fun.” He gasped great puffs of white into the air. At least he had the sense to keep his voice down. “But maybe next time wait until a few days after I nearly died to sprint through this frozen wasteland. I almost lost you in the fog.”

  “That was sort of the idea.”

  He grinned. “Worried I’d show you up with my one arm? That would be humiliating.”

  Elice rolled her eyes and pointed to the seal she’d chosen. “I’m going after that one.”

  “We won’t be able to carry that much meat.”

  Elice shot him a disbelieving look. “Like you can carry any meat with that shoulder injury.”

  “I only need one good arm.” Adar flexed the one that wasn’t injured.

  She shoved a harpoon into his grasp. “Try not to get yourself killed. They’re faster than they look.”

  He tested the weight of the harpoon like he knew how to use one. Which was unfortunate, because she was sort of looking forward to him making a fool out of himself. “Circle to the left and scare them toward me.” She pointed so he could see what she meant. “Try to angle yourself between them and the water so they don’t escape.”

  Without waiting for his response, Elice disappeared in the fog and skirted the group, then came up on the other side. She dropped to her belly and crawled toward the seals. When she was close enough to hear their heavy breathing, she rose up, steady and smooth, and ran at them.

  One seal chirped a warning, and the others started scooting for the water. Elice could make out a faint shadow on the other side that had to be Adar, waving his harpoon to startle the animals, who immediately angled away from him toward the water, and Elice.

  She was in the midst of them now, as they shot past in a hazy blur. But her eyes remained fixed on the bull she’d chosen, a half dozen steps away. She lifted the harpoon, the heavy weight pulling at her shoulder. She threw it just as the bull reached the edge of a crashing wave. He bellowed in pain and charged her. She sidestepped and bashed his head with her club.

  The seal swung back around, mouth gaping. Elice danced back but lost her balance as a wave pulled her feet out from under her. She crashed into the surf, sputtering. The bull seal charged her again. Without a thought, Elice formed an ice spear and braced it against the hard ground. The bull lunged, impaling itself, and choked on its own blood. Adar was on the animal a moment later, his club striking it hard enough to cave in its skull.

  Elice pulled the ice spear back into herself, hoping Adar hadn’t noticed it, but he stared at her in disbelief. He shook himself, reached down, hauled her to her feet, and then danced back from a wave that soaked him to his thighs. He gasped, his breath fogging the air. “Fire and burning, that’s cold!”

  She wiped seawater from her eyes and took hold of the harpoon. “Come on, we need to get him on shore before the waves take him out to sea.”

  Adar grinned at her through his shivers, his body hunched protectively around his shoulder. “I think I just saved your life.” He hadn’t, but Elice couldn’t tell him that. He helped her roll the animal farther up the shore. “Still, you’re quite impressive on your own, Elly.”

  Her cheeks burned. “You better head back to the cave. I don’t want to drag your unconscious body again. And your hood has fallen off.” She could tell he was struggling with the cold and that his shoulder was bothering him more than he was letting on.

  He tugged the hood back over his head. “You sure you can handle it by yourself?”

  She met his gaze steadily. “There’s not much out here I can’t handle.” Except maybe him. He didn’t argue this time but headed off with his arm wrapped tightly around his body. “I brought you enough food to last for the rest of the day,” she called to him. “Stay in the cave. I’ll see you in the morning.” He waved without looking back.

  Elice knelt next to the carcass and ran her hand gently down the soft fur. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She wished it wasn’t like this, that she didn’t have to kill to survive. Perhaps that was why she healed—to balance what she took.

  As the wind picked up, thinning the fog, she butchered the bull quickly, before his scent brought in the bears. She took the meat and settled onto the sled. It wasn’t long before she caught sight of a distant polar bear running toward her. The animal outweighed her ten to one, and they were fast. It paused, its nose testing the air, its gaze weighing the competition.

  But Elice had most of the meat loaded anyway. She quickly laid down a path of hard snow for the runners. She was barely two dozen steps away when the bear started running again. But he was heading for the bones and intestines, not her.

  At the ripping and tearing sounds, Elice forced herself to keep her pace even and her senses tuned to the bear, should it turn on her. She let out a breath of relief when she made it past the trees. She bypassed the cave, came around the back entrance of the palace, and hauled the meat into the kitchen. She had to constantly thaw the meat to prevent it from freezing so she could cut it into slabs, after which she hauled it downstairs.

  She paused in her work to visit the dungeon to try to talk to Chriel. Elice even offered to line her cage with soft snow or bring her a book to keep her occupied, but the fairy ignored her. Hurt, Elice turned away and did not approach her again.

  When she finished with the meat, Elice stretched out the sealskin on pegs, then spread coarse salt across the top. This took a few hours and left her sticky with seawater and blood. She scoured herself with a blizzard as best she could, then delivered some lunch to her grandfather. He was asleep on his bed again.

  She’d just left his food on his nightstand and turned to leave when his gruff voice reached out to her. “Matka, is that you?”

  “No, Grandfather, it’s only me.”

  He looked disappointed for a moment, then his gaze brightened. “Elly girl, what time is it?”

  “Lunchtime.”

  He sat up, rubbing his face, and swung his feet out of the bed. Elice couldn’t help but notice that they were nearly purple.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Hmm?” Following the direction of her gaze, he waved her words away. “No, no. Just old, and tired from all the excitement yesterday.” He pushed himself to his feet, took his cane, and shuffled toward the chest at the foot of his bed.

  Elice gestured to the food at his table. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

  “Bah, later, later. Bring me a chair, will you, Elly? It’s time to give you your gift.”

  She brought a chair and he sat in it, facing the chest. He motioned for her to open it.

  Elice grinned. She loved going through her grandfather’s trunk. She pulled back the lid to reveal dozens of books he had bound by hand. She pulled them out and reverently set them on the floor. She’d spent many hours going through the drawings inside. Drawings done by her grandmother. Landscapes mostly, some of great deserts interrupted by onion-domed towers, others of rolling forests and great mountains.

  Elice’s grandfather held out his hands for one drawing—the one that had the faces of his family, brothers and sisters as well as Ilyenna and her brother Bratton as young children. Elice thought she looked like her mother, except her skin was paler and her body of a thicker build. “Keep going,” her grandfather encouraged as she eased through the pages one by one.

  Finally, Elice had reached the bottom of the chest. Inside was a long braid of black hair, very much like hers, only without the curl. In a box were some carvings in a box—most of animals.

  One day, not long after her father had died and her grandfather had come to take his place, Elice had stolen the animals and played with them in her forest room, pretending they were real as she herded them and hunted them and ran from them in terror. And when she’d grown tired and angry that her handsome, playful father had been replaced by a limping old man, she had snapped the stall
ion’s legs.

  When her grandfather found her, he spanked her hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. Elice told him she hated him and that she wished he would go home and her father would come back.

  Her grandfather had sat down hard on a chair, staring at the stallion’s broken legs. “I made this the day my son was born. A gift for him.”

  He didn’t say any more. He didn’t need to. Elice knew the story of her uncle—how he had died in the final battle of Idara. For the first time, Elice realized her grandfather had feelings, and that she had hurt them very badly.

  “I made you one too, Elice, the day you were born. I’m not sure what happened to it.” He had left her then, with carved animals scattered all over her floor. Elice had gently picked up each one and put them all back in the box, just as she had found them. She had never opened her grandfather’s trunk again, not without his permission. But the next day, Elice had her own menagerie of animals to play with, still smelling of fresh-cut wood.

  Now her grandfather leaned forward and pointed. “Inside the box.” Elice opened the lid and he gestured. “That bundle of cloth there.”

  Reaching past an otter and a chicken, Elice took out the bundle carefully and handed it to him. He settled it in his lap and unwrapped it to reveal an elice blossom, the stem broken off, and half of a beaver carving, cut straight down the center. He reverently ran his fingers over the splintered edge of the beaver before reaching down and handing the flower to Elice. “I made this for your grandmother. She drilled a little hole in it and wore it as a pendant. I took it off her neck the day we buried her. I should have given it to your mother . . . Now, I’m giving it to you.”

  Elice stared at the worn carving in her hand. She glanced up at her grandfather, but he wasn’t looking at her. His fingertips were on the family drawing, tracing his wife’s face without actually touching the vellum.

  He didn’t bother to hide the tears on his cheeks as he turned the page back and paused on the drawing of his sister Holla, with her wide-set eyes that were tipped up at the edges, and her round, flat face. “The beaver I made for Holla before the Raiders took her. I liked to think she had the other half while I kept this one, and in that way, we were always connected.