Fairy Queens: Books 5-7

by Amber Argyle

  Elice noticed a chip in one of the fine ice glasses. “Was there ever anyone else, Mother? Another boy, maybe? Or did you always love my father?”

  Her mother sat back in her chair. “There was never anyone else.”

  Elice reached out and ran her finger along the glass’s chipped rim, sucking in a breath when it sliced her finger. She watched the blood bead up, a splash of color against the paleness of her skin. “So there weren’t any other men competing for your hand?”

  Silence cut through the room. Her grandfather looked at her, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  Elice watched as the bead of blood turned to ice and then dropped from her finger to land on her plate with a little clink. “Only, did Mother ever see any other boys?”

  Her grandfather’s gaze slid nervously to her mother and then he forced a laugh. “Who else could there be?” Something about the way her grandfather said it . . .

  “Darrien.” The name slipped past Elice’s lips, and she immediately clamped them shut, hoping her mother hadn’t heard. But the temperature in the room plunged, and jagged spears of frost spread rapidly out from her mother’s chair.

  “Where did you hear that name?” Ilyenna demanded coldly.

  Grandfather’s skin was mottled with anger, but there was fear in his gaze, too. “Elice, go to your room.”

  She started to rise, but her mother’s voice froze her in place. “Where did you hear that name?”

  Frost was forming on Elice’s dress, climbing up her legs. It didn’t hurt—winter never hurt her—but it frightened her. “I don’t know,” she breathed out. “I heard it somewhere, long ago, and I’m only now remembering.” Suddenly she was aware of the utter silence in the room. She glanced around to find the winter fairies gone.

  Lightning flickered in the distance, changing the light from soft to harsh in the space of a gasp. The fairies were already venting the Winter Queen’s anger. Thunder rumbled. By the Balance, Adar was telling the truth! “Who is he?” Elice whispered. And then a terrible thought formed in her mind. “Was he my real father?”

  Wind howled into the room, hurtling hard snow that stung Elice’s exposed skin. Her mother’s wings stretched out, growing along her back. She shot out one of the wide windows and into the rolling sky.

  Her grandfather was breathing hard, his fists clenched. “You will never, ever say that name again, Elice. You will never even think it. Do you understand?”

  She held up an arm to shield her eyes from the snow scouring her from all sides. Adar had been right about her mother’s first husband. Did that mean the other things he’d said were true as well? Had her mother murdered Darrien and kept it a secret all these years? “I have a right—”

  “You have no right!” her grandfather thundered. She hadn’t seen him this angry since . . . well, ever.

  “Was he my father?” Elice shouted, angry, but also wanting to be heard over the wind.

  “No.” Her grandfather stamped his cane down hard. “Fine. Ask your questions, because after this, we will never speak of it again.”

  “Was my mother married to a man named Darrien?”

  Her grandfather winced. “It was a long time ago, Elly. But some wounds run so deep they never heal. We just learn to live with them.”

  “Did Mother really kill him?”

  Her grandfather stared at her in shock. “How—”

  By the Balance, she did! Elice realized. “Who was he?” One of the windows banged against the wall, the thin pane shattering into a thousand shards of ice.

  When she looked back at her grandfather, she was shocked to see tears running down his weathered face, freezing almost as soon as they left his eyes and leaving his cheeks slick with ice. “He was a monster, Elice. A murderer and a rapist and a traitor.” Her grandfather hunched over, resting his hands heavily on the table as if the words had exhausted him.

  Elice’s skin felt tender from the scouring wind that continued to howl outside. Already the room was covered in a blanket of ice, mounds revealing where plates and cups lay underneath. “So she killed him for it?”

  “She wouldn’t have had to if I had protected her.” Elice’s grandfather dropped his head as if it were too heavy to hold up. “Close the windows and clear up this mess.”

  Elice ran to do as he asked. As soon as a dozen windows were shut and the broken one repaired, she sucked all the snow into her, revealing frozen berries and apples, their vibrant colors muted by the cold. Her grandfather turned heavily and shuffled toward the door. She hurried to catch up with him and reached for his arm. “Grandfather—”

  He pulled out of her grasp. “If you ever say that name to your mother or me again, I will never, ever forgive you.” Her grandfather stepped out of sight beyond the door.

  As if to accentuate his words, lightning flashed and thunder slammed so hard Elice jumped. All around her, the palace windows shattered. She hurried into the hall to see her grandfather cowering, broken ice all around him.

  “Go to your room and lock the windows,” he said. “It’s going to be bad.” She started after him, determined to make sure his windows hadn’t broken, but he shrugged her off again. “Leave me be. I can take care of myself.”

  She watched him disappear out of sight before she broke into a run, rushing through the wailing storm that battered her from all sides. By the time she’d made it to her room, where she found the windows still intact, her sobs had started. She used all her strength to push her door shut against the wind. Tears fell from her eyes, turning to ice almost immediately. She pivoted and collapsed onto the soft blankets of her bed.

  Elice wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there in the grainy darkness when she heard a voice. “Elly?”

  She sat up in bed, her heart pounding. “Adar? What are you doing here?”

  She could just make out the secret door opening and a shadowed form emerging. “I think the Queen of Winter is angry.” His voice was shaking, his words stuttered.

  Elice flung off the blankets and hurried toward him. “What’s wrong?” But he didn’t have to answer. The moment her searching fingers touched him, she noticed the bitter cold and immediately took it into herself.

  He sagged against her side. “The blizzard suffocated the fire. And the temperature dropped so far and so fast . . .”

  She should have realized he would be in danger in this kind of storm. She guided him toward her bed, encouraged him to lie down, and pulled her blankets over him. They weren’t very warm, mostly just soft.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me for long,” Adar joked, his teeth chattering. “When we escape together, I have no doubt you’ll fall completely under my spell.”

  Elice rolled her eyes and hurried to her closet, where she pulled out her white fur cloak. She rushed back to the bed and draped it across him. As she turned to find something else, his hand snaked out, grabbing hers. “Just don’t let go of me. I’ll warm up if you keep the cold back.”

  She hesitated, wondering how she would manage that. In the end, she moved a chair and sat near the bed, where she kept hold of his hand and watched as his shivering slowly subsided. Once he had relaxed, Adar said, “I assume you confronted your mother about Darrien.”

  Elice bit the inside of her cheek. “You were telling the truth, at least about some of it.”

  “Are you all right?” The teasing was gone from Adar’s voice. When she didn’t respond, he said, “Elly, I’m sorry.”

  She melted the frozen tears on her face and wiped them away with her free hand. “She’s not evil. Her first husband was a bad man.” Her mother’s and grandfather’s reactions to the very mention of Darrien’s name had convinced Elice of that.

  Adar shifted and sat up so his weight rested on one elbow. He seemed to study her face, and she thought he would push her more—try to convince her to abandon her family—but instead, he lay back down. “Have you heard the story of the Summer Queen’s bargain?”

  Elice shook her head. “I don’t th
ink I want to.”

  “Her whole family was starving,” Adar began anyway. “She didn’t think it could get any worse, and then her father went missing. When they finally found him, he was dying from a snakebite.

  “She made a deal with the fairies to save his life. But the price had to be paid. A life had been spared, so the Balance decreed that another life must be taken. Nelay was taken to the temple to serve the Goddess of Fire. She never saw her family again.”

  Elice had never thought of Nelay as anything other than a raging dictator, and had certainly never imagined her as a starving child terrified for her father’s life. Now Elice wondered if perhaps she had hated someone who didn’t deserve it. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

  “Because the Summer Queen isn’t evil, either,” Adar said.

  Elice shook herself. It was just a silly story, probably exaggerated. And perhaps not even true. “How do you know so much?” she asked warily?

  “They teach Nelay’s history in their temples.”

  Elice glanced up at Adar, wishing she could make out his expression in the darkness. “You’ve been to Idara?”

  “Many times.”

  “Why would you go there?”

  He shifted a little. “My uncle is a smuggler. He used to take me with him sometimes.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Arid and windy, but during the game of fire, the city is bright with braziers and torches. Everyone goes to see the game played out at the temple grounds. There’s dancing and singing and games and parades, and more food than you could ever eat.”

  By then, Elice was sitting back, his hand nestled in her lap. The silence after the rich cadence of his voice rang with possibility instead of emptiness. “Tell me more.”

  He did—one story after another as the storm raged on beyond her icy windows. She let go of his hand just long enough to get them water, made of the melted snow she collected outside her window.

  When Adar’s voice was scratchy from talking so much, Elice told him her own stories. Stories she’d learned from the hundreds of books she had read. Stories she’d heard from her grandfather. Adar’s hand was warm and rough in her grasp, and that warmth spread throughout her, leaving her drowsy.

  “Is this blizzard going to let up anytime soon?” he asked with a yawn.

  Elice glanced outside, at the storm that still blasted her windows—a manifestation of her mother’s rage. “Not for a long while.”

  “Are you going to sit in that chair all night?”

  She shifted to look at the dark shadow that made up Adar’s face against the backdrop of her white bedding. “What else do you suggest?”

  “It has to be nighttime now.”

  She didn’t argue with him. She knew her body rhythms. It was well after the time she usually went to bed.

  “Sleep beside me,” he said.

  Elice huffed. “I may have grown up isolated and alone, but I am not ignorant to the lusts of men.”

  “Lusts?” There was laughter in Adar’s voice. “Elly, I just want to sleep without freezing to death. And I don’t want you spending the whole night in that uncomfortable chair when you could just as easily be sleeping too.”

  She shot him a dubious look that he probably couldn’t see. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

  “If you don’t help me, Elly, I’m going to freeze to death. Even if I had dubious intentions, would I risk dying for them? You could kill me with a thought.”

  She rested one of her arms on her stomach. “I know how men are. My mother has told me all about them.”

  Adar looked up at the ceiling. “Was your father a cruel man?”

  Gaze averted, Elice shook her head.

  “What about your grandfather?”

  “Of course not!” she burst out. “But I know them. And my mother was right.” Elice thought of the husband who had hurt her. “There are evil men in the world.”

  Adar tugged down his silly hat. “But there are more good and honorable men. And your mother’s doing you a disservice if she only tells you about the bad people.”

  As Elice considered his words, her resolve wavered. She had a choice. She could believe him or her mother. She thought of Adar. Of his scars, the reverent way he touched her books, the mischief in his eyes, not to mention his slicked-back hair and somewhat large forehead. She thought of the way he’d looked at her when she’d shown him her willow tree, with an awe that had quickly faded to something soft, even gentle. Despite all his flaws, he was sort of pleasant to look at. And she thought he might even be her friend.

  What if her mother had told her the world was dangerous and cruel just to keep her trapped here? What if the world wasn’t a place of darkness and debauchery, but color and light? Elice took a deep breath and let it out slowly, determined to relax. “First, apologize.”

  “For what?” Adar asked carefully.

  “For what you said about my mother.”

  He hesitated. “My mother says men should apologize frequently, even without cause. So I’m sorry.”

  “You need to work on that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, immediately this time.

  Elice couldn’t help but laugh. She considered going to bed fully dressed, but she doubted she’d ever get comfortable enough to sleep. So she unbuckled her clan belt and tugged off her overdress, then laid both across the back of the chair. She added the pendant her grandfather had given her to the top of the pile.

  She went to the other side of the bed and eased under the covers. Adar hissed through his teeth. “Don’t let all the cold in.”

  “Sorry,” she mumbled as his searching hand found hers. On her back—as far away as she could get while still holding his hand—she stared straight into the darkness, her whole body ridged. His big fingers pinched her smaller ones. Elice adjusted her hand position so their fingers weren’t woven together, but resting one on top of the other. That was much better. But she still couldn’t seem to relax.

  “You try anything, and I’ll freeze your balls,” she said suddenly.

  Adar choked on a laugh. “I promise.”

  Exhausted as she was, it took her a long time to fall asleep.

  Elice lay in a field, the warm sun beating down on her cool skin, an insect crawling around the inside of her wrist. All around her a sea of grass shifted and rustled with the gentle breeze. Birdsong trilled from somewhere out of sight. She breathed deep the smell of soil and growing things. Even though she knew she was dreaming, she wanted to stay forever. To never awake.

  She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, but eventually the prickly grass was replaced with granular snow. The warmth of the sun became the chilled kiss of winter. The grass and the sound of the birds were replaced with silence.

  Elice woke thinking the dream was more a memory than something conjured by her imagination. But where would she have ever experienced summer? Then she realized something warm and heavy rested on her hand. Remembering the night before, her eyes shot open. She and Adar both lay on their sides, facing each other. His chiseled face was only inches from hers. He still wore the ridiculous hat, had even managed to snugly tie the strings under his chin. Her eyes swept over the dark stubble on the lower half of his cheeks—darker in the cleft in his chin. His dark lashes and full lips. And a nose that was a little on the big side.

  She glanced past him at the snow that had sifted through the tiny cracks around the windows and piled in soft mounds along the walls and out onto her floor. After double checking to make sure he was really asleep, Elice slipped from the bed, opened a window, and concentrated on clearing away the snow from her room and her balcony. As she worked, she thought of Chriel. It was the fairy’s last day of captivity. After this, she would be free. Elice’s excitement and relief was tempered by the fact that hiding Adar was about to get that much harder.

  Outside, she studied the landscape, transformed from yesterday’s storm. Her ice forest was completely covered, only a few mounds hinting at the massive trees be
neath. Later, she’d have to remove the snow as well as repair any damaged trees. Beyond the forest, the shoreline was frozen waves of shuga ice, the kind formed in choppy waters. Farther out, the ocean was a soup of slush and frazil ice, a slush of needle-like ice crystals that had an almost oily sheen.

  At the sound of rustling behind her, Elice turned to see Adar shiver and pull the cloak higher over his shoulders. She stepped back into the room and shut the door, cutting off the breeze, and he settled immediately, breathing deeply.

  Suddenly she knew what she was going to make for him. She formed it quickly. Then, not satisfied with the result, she set it aside and started again. When she had it exactly how she wanted it, she opened herself fully to winter and splintered off a trickle of the magic, bonding it to the ice. That way it would never melt.

  She moved close and studied the stubble on Adar’s cheeks, her hand hovering above his skin. She wanted to know what it felt like—that stubble. If it would be soft like the hairs on her legs, or coarse like wool. Feeling brave, Elice touched his cheek, automatically drawing the cold away. The hair was coarse and rough, almost like crystallized snow.

  She realized something. She’d been regularly touching Adar for only a day, yet she had come to crave the contact. The warmth of his skin. She tried in vain to remember the last time her mother had touched her more than briefly.

  Adar’s eyes flew open, and she jerked her hand back. He watched her, his brows drawn. “For Winter’s End,” she said in a rush. “We give each other gifts every day. And when you asked me to make you something, it reminded me that you haven’t had any gifts. So I made something for you.” She realized she was rambling and clamped her mouth shut. She held out a wicked-sharp dagger, complete with a sheath of decorative snow. “Neither will ever melt.”

  He made no move to take her gift, and the moment stretched out awkwardly. Elice’s hand had just started to fall in dejection when he finally reached out and took the dagger from her. He unsheathed the blade and stared at the razor edge. Ever so carefully, he attached it to the clan belt that had been her father’s.