by Amber Argyle
“Mother, I thought you’d be gone longer,” Elice squeaked.
Her mother harrumphed. “I told you I’d be gone as long as it was necessary. What are you doing?”
“Just had an idea for a new tree.”
Her mother didn’t answer for a moment. “Is that the trunk?”
Adar heard the sharp zing of ice-fairy wings. The top of the cone finally sealed off just as a dozen fairy shadows passed over. Had they seen him? He waited, not daring to breathe, knowing certain fairies wouldn’t need to see him. They would smell his presence. And if they figured out the unfamiliar smell was hiding inside the snow, he was as good as dead. Fire and burning, where were his swords when he needed them most!
“Yes,” Elice said with a little more confidence. “I thought I’d go for an . . . amorphous shape.”
Adar imagined Ilyenna looking the tree up and down. “Well, I came to tell you I’ll be holding Chriel’s hearing tomorrow morning. I want you to be there.”
“Of course,” Elice said quickly.
A brief pause. “Is this the tree you gifted me upon my return? Why didn’t you tell me it cast rainbows?” Footsteps crunched through the snow, coming closer. “What made you think to make it?”
“The colors.” Elice’s voice was full of longing. “The only way to see bright colors here is with prisms.”
A long sigh. “Are you so unhappy?” Elice didn’t answer, and Adar imagined her hanging her head. “You know it wouldn’t be safe for you anywhere my enemies could reach you,” the queen went on. Adar frowned to himself as Elice kept her silence. “Walk back with me,” her mother said. “I’ve prepared the Winter’s End’s feast for us, and I wanted to talk to you about your grandfather.”
“You go ahead,” Elice said. “I wanted to check on the seal before I head up.”
Ilyenna made a disapproving sound. “I see the fox is gone.”
Is that what Elice had told her mother she was healing—a fox? A predator, sure, but couldn’t she have gone for something bigger? A polar bear, maybe.
“Yes,” Elice answered. “He healed nicely.”
Adar heard footsteps crunching in the snow and then the Winter Queen’s voice. “Well, hurry along. Your grandfather and I will be waiting.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Adar waited, wishing he could see what was going on just out of sight. Inside the frozen cocoon, he was safe from the wind, but the cold seeped through his clothing. He folded his arms around his chest, huddling to conserve body heat.
A moment later, the snow streamed away from him. He watched in amazement as it seemed to shrink into Elice and then disappear.
“It was you,” he hissed. “The princess—all along, it was you?” This changed everything.
They stared at each other for a long time before he spoke again. “I thought I saw a spear of ice in your hand that day you killed the seal. Why did you lie to me?”
Elice looked away and shifted her weight from one foot to another. “My mother sank your ship . . . and I really didn’t trust you.”
“Probably smart of you.” Adar climbed out, using the time to compose himself. Back in the sunshine, he brushed the loose snow off his shoulders and hair. “Where does it go—the snow?”
“Back to winter,” Elice said. “The same from whence it comes.”
He studied the forest this girl had made, realizing that for her, love and hurt went hand in hand. He clenched his teeth. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to care. “Is this how it always is for you? The never-ending cold?” Even he wasn’t sure if he meant her mother or the weather.
Elice reached out and touched his cheek, and he could no longer feel the bite of winter. “It’s not so bad for me. You have to produce heat to keep yourself warm. I don’t.”
That’s how she’d kept him from freezing to death when he’d fallen in the ocean. Adar kicked himself—he’d seen signs of who she really was for days, but he’d written them off, all because he’d put too much confidence in the reports that placed the princess in her forties. And because, if he was honest with himself, he hadn’t wanted Elly to be the princess.
He met her gaze. She stood straight and tall, her head back, determination in her eyes. This one was a warrior. Just like him. He steeled himself to remember that. Because this was war, whether Elice knew it or not. “Princess or not, you could still come with me. In the Summer Realm you’ll see colors rich and bright and everywhere in between.”
She reached out and pressed the pendant against her chest, then turned and started toward her cave. “Even if it was safe for me, I could never leave my grandfather.” Adar felt sorry for her then, this girl who had everything and nothing at all. “But I will supply you with all that you need—food and warm blankets. You can even take a page from the atlas.” She winced as she said the last. “All you have to do is find a Svass village. You’ll be able to make your way home from there.”
Huddled against the bitter breeze coming off the ocean, Adar again wished for the swords he’d lost in the shipwreck. He felt helpless without them. He was surprised when Elice tugged off his glove and took hold of his hand. The wind didn’t feel bitter at all now. “I’m not sure I’ll survive without you there to help me.”
“Adar, if I disappear my mother will come looking.”
“Perhaps you could convince her to let you go on a trip.”
“She would never agree.”
He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You would be safer with me than here.”
She gazed up at him, her expression unreadable. “Why?”
He reached out and took a prism, watching the fire spark inside. “Have you ever really crossed her—your mother?” Elice shook her head. “All the stories say how cruel and heartless she is,” he said. Elice pulled her hand away and started down the rise, leaving him in the cold again. He pulled on his gloves and hurried after her.
“What stories do they tell?” she said evenly once he caught up.
Adar didn’t want to speak ill of her mother—it was obvious Elice loved her—but he had a mission to accomplish. “That she killed her husband on their wedding night.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Elice scoffed as she stepped into the shadows of her forest. “My father died when I was thirteen.”
“Not your father—her first husband.”
Elice stiffened. “First husband?”
Did she really not know? “He was a clansman—a Tyron, I think.” Elice had stopped walking. Adar turned to watch her, a pattern of shadow and light from the distant sun frozen across her face.
She met his gaze with a glare. “It’s a lie. It has to be.”
“And the war she has raged for the last forty years?”
“Idara attacked first! My mother was only defending her people!”
Cold burst from Elice like daggers, burning him. He knew he should stop, but she needed to understand how dangerous the Winter Queen really was. How much pain she had heaped on the world. How at any moment she could turn on Elice and kill her too.
“She massacred hundreds of thousands of soldiers,” Adar said firmly. “Not in defense, but in vengeance. If the Summer Queen hadn’t stopped her, she would have annihilated all of Idara. And after all that, the Summer Queen has been the one to offer a truce and the Winter Queen has been the one to refuse it.”
Elice pushed past him, storming toward the palace.
“Elly, she’s unstable. It’s only a matter of time before she hurts you too.” He started after her.
Cold lashed out from her, practically shoving him back. “Go to the cave.”
He halted just inside the darkness of the trees. He dared not get any closer to the palace. “His name was Darrien,” he called after her. “Ask your mother. See if she denies it.”
Elice paused, her shoulders rounded and her back to him. “It doesn’t matter. My allegiance lies with the Winter Queen. She is a hard woman, but . . . she is my mother.” Then Elice straightened
and marched toward the castle without looking back.
As soon as Elice reached the palace, she collapsed beside one of a pair of trees that flanked the front steps. The trees were hard and leafless, with sharp branches that pierced the sky. The things Adar had said about her mother—how she was the reason the War of the Queens raged on. How she had murdered her first husband. That she was a danger to Elice. It had to be lies. All of it.
And yet . . .
Elice had witnessed the aloofness in her mother’s gaze, tempered only by her father’s love. And since he had died, Ilyenna had only grown more cold and distant. Elice knew well her mother’s piercing anger—it had terrified her since she was a child. And the thought of it directed toward Chriel . . .
Elice shuddered. It wasn’t what Adar had said that had shaken her to her core—it was the gleaming bits of truth shining through like stars on endless midwinter nights. And if it was true, could she really trust her mother? Could she risk staying behind when he left? And what of this Sundering? Her mother claimed it was caused by the Summer Queen, but Chriel and Adar both seemed to think that wasn’t the case. And if they were right, Elice’s mother’s relentless pursuit of this war was causing it.
Elice curled up, her forehead resting on her drawn knees, and tried to rise above the fears swamping her. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, listening to the absolute silence of the Winter Queendom. Eventually, she unfolded herself and started up the stairs. Perhaps there was something to what Adar said. But he didn’t know Elice’s mother. Didn’t see the other side to her. The side that brought Elice books. The side that fought against her dark nature.
Back inside the palace, Elice paused before entering the dining hall. She held up her hand and the ice shifted to snow, which she pulled into herself, creating a hole in the wall. She peered at the opposite wall, which was made up of enormous windows that were open to the fairies. A lengthy ice table stretched the width of the room. On it was the bounty of winter—meats of all kinds. There were fruits sweetened with winter’s kiss—apples and rich-red and dark-purple berries. The light from thousands of candles shone off the reflective surfaces, giving a warm glow to the room.
The Winter Queen was pacing the length of the table, her hands intertwined behind her back. Her headdress of silver and diamonds and opals gleamed against her dark hair.
Elice’s grandfather sat in his regular seat, watching his daughter. Deep circles lined his bloodshot eyes. “Ilyenna, we have to discuss this,” he said. Snow swirled chaotically around her body. “I’m dying,” he went on in a gravelly voice. “And Elice will be alone. You can’t ignore that and hope it will go away.” Elice felt the weight of the pendant, the chain heavy against the back of her neck.
Ilyenna paused in her pacing and sat in the chair beside him. “She has me. Is that not enough?”
“No,” her grandfather said simply.
Elice’s mother pinned him with a disbelieving stare. “Why?”
He reached out to lay a liver-spotted hand atop Ilyenna’s pristine one. “Elice is lonely—terribly lonely. She needs companionship.” Ilyenna opened her mouth to argue, but he shot her a look, and to Elice’s disbelief, her mother held her peace. “All winter long, she’ll be alone here. Months and months of darkness and silence.”
Ever since Elice could remember, she’d been terrified of the dark.
Ilyenna sat perfectly still. “I always send her an aurora so she’s not in complete darkness.”
Otec studied his daughter. “Is that what you want for her? To live in near darkness for half her life—alone?”
Ilyenna’s chin came up. “She would not be safe anywhere in summer. You know that.”
Otec pulled his hand back and rested it atop his wooden cane. “Should she not know the touch of a man? The weight of her own children in her arms?”
“Having friends means having enemies,” Ilyenna insisted. “And being in love means suffering heartache.”
“Such is the way of the Balance. Life isn’t perfect. Not even here.”
Ilyenna spread her arms wide. “But here she is perfectly safe.”
Her father sighed. “She would be safe with the highmen—the Svass are good people. Honest, hardworking. And in summer, when the Summer Realm has invaded their lands, she could bring her family here. Then you won’t be alone either.”
Ilyenna was silent a long time before she said, “Very well. I shall consider finding her a companion, someone trustworthy, and we will bring her here. That way my daughter will not be alone.”
Elice’s heart swelled. A friend. Perhaps Adar could stay after all. He would see that her mother wasn’t as bad as the stories said. Then she could show him all of her world. If they were very, very careful, she could even take him swimming. He could meet her grandfather and Chriel.
“Ilyenna—” Otec began.
She shot him a warning look. “Is this not a compromise?”
He watched her for a moment. “For now.”
Ilyenna took a dusty bottle of wine and poured three golden glasses. “Drink, Father. For we do not know how long my tardy daughter might be.”
Elice iced over the small hole she’d created in the wall, counted to two hundred, folded her hands together to keep them from shaking, and stepped into the room. She studied her mother as memories danced through her head. Memories of flying in her mother’s arms, her aurora wings around them. Walking hand in hand onto the ocean, ice freezing beneath their feet, so they could watch the orcas breech, their haunting calls like a lonely melody.
It was then that Elice had found her first patient. A bird with a broken wing, floating helplessly in the water. It was so exhausted it didn’t even struggle as she picked it up. Tears had pricked her eyes. “Mother, can you help it?”
“For every rise, there must be a fall,” her mother said serenely. “For every life, there must be a death. This is the way of the Balance.”
Elice had turned tear-rimmed eyes to her. “Please. He’s hurting—I can feel it.”
“You could teach her,” said Elice’s father from behind them. “It would serve us well as we grow older.”
Elice hadn’t known what he meant, but her mother had said tightly, “I will teach her.”
And she had, bringing Elice every book she could find on healing and herbs. She had brought the herbs, too, and encouraged Elice to practice—once even on a polar bear cub whose mother had died, though Ilyenna insisted a bear fairy stay with Elice to keep the animal from harming her.
Now her mother lifted her glass of winter wine, the movement distracting Elice from her memories. “Ah, there she is. Elice, thank you for the fresh meat. Come, sit beside me,” her mother said, for once not mentioning Elice’s tardiness. “We’ve had so little time to catch up since my return.” Her grandfather sipped from his glass, watching them over the rim.
Ilyenna was not perfect, but she wasn’t evil, either. With a relieved sigh, Elice sat beside her mother at the long table. Her grandfather leaned around his daughter. “For our gift today, your mother brought us apples from the clanlands—from the old tree behind the clan house.”
Elice reached out and took a green apple. She marveled at the bright burst of color, a stark contrast to the silver, whites, grays, and blues of winter. The fruit crunched beneath her teeth, sourness and sweetness bursting across her tongue. They so rarely ever got to eat anything that didn’t come from the ocean. She closed her eyes, wondering if there was anything in the world so lovely as apples.
She ate the entire thing, even the core, and then licked the juices from her fingers. “Are there any more?”
Her grandfather, who had been drinking his wine, choked a little and then laughed. “Yes, but we must save them. Your mother had to bargain with an apple fairy to get those out of season, just for us.”
He stared at the bubbles forming in his delicate glass of wine, his gaze distant. “Your grandmother always traded for golden curry to put in her lamb stew. For dessert, she’d give us a bowl with r
aspberries, milk, and a dollop of honey. It was my favorite meal.” Elice’s grandfather, more than any of them, missed the world outside the queendom.
His gaze brightened and he chuckled. “When your mother was a girl, she used the berries to make her lips red. That was before she became a clanmistress.”
“Father, there’s no need to give my daughter ideas,” Ilyenna chided, but there was a lightness to her voice. Qari landed on her mother’s shoulder and whispered to the queen.
Adar’s challenge flashed in Elice’s mind. Determined to prove him wrong, she leaned around her mother and asked her grandfather, “What was she like, as a girl?”
“I’ve told you all the stories!” he proclaimed. Even one glass of wine made her grandfather very loud; Elice knew he was only pretending to be annoyed with her.
“Tell me again,” she asked softly, desperate for any stories of the goodness to dispel the foulness of Adar’s words. “Let it be my gift for today.”
“But I had a lovely book to give you.”
Elice wet her lips. “You could give me both?”
He shot a smile in his daughter’s direction. “She was always trailing after her brother—learning to fight and hunt alongside him—when she should have been helping her aunt Enrid. But she was determined to be just as good as Bratton was.” Bratton was Ilyenna’s only sibling. The Summer Queen had killed him.
A mixture of fondness and sorrow showed on Otec’s face.
Elice’s mother waved off Qari and said to her father, “I was better than Bratton or Rone, and you know it.”
Her mother’s mention of Rone, Elice’s father, rubbed at a deep ache in Elice’s heart. It was painful, but in a good way.
“She was a healer, just as you are,” her grandfather said with pride. “By the time she was fourteen, she was delivering babies all by herself. By the time she was sixteen, old aunt Enrid was too slow and blind to keep up the clanmistress duties. Your mother was still a child herself, but she took over. The other clanwomen listened to her—they trusted her.”