Fairy Queens: Books 5-7

by Amber Argyle

  Below her was a round courtyard with a fountain in the middle. Surrounding it were a multitude of women scrubbing out their clothing in the basin, while children splashed around them. They were all darker skinned, with thick black hair, delicate features, and robes that varied in length from below the knees to the ground. Trees grew on raised beds, providing shade to more women who worked over smoking ovens, sweat running down their temples.

  There was laughter and scolding and singing, a raucous noise that left Elice feeling lightheaded. She stood for a long time, marveling at them. She could have watched them forever. But then a child, a naked little boy, noticed her and Adar. He came running up the hill on short legs before launching himself at Adar. “Dar!” he squealed.

  Adar picked the child up and patted his back. Elice stared. She’d seen a few children at the highmen village, but only from a distance. Was I ever that small?

  Now, more of the women noticed Adar. They called out their greetings, leaving their washing and their looms to climb toward him. They were all sound and faces and movement, all of which seemed to be directed at her. Elice started to shrink back, but Adar gripped her hand.

  She tried to send him a shock of cold, but he only smiled a little and held on tighter. “They’re my family. My aunts and cousins.”

  The women descended on him, hugging and kissing and laughing. Elice watched, desperate to get away, yet somehow wanting to stay. Though they were speaking Idaran, the words battered her like an angry ocean—waves of sound breaking up and over her, leaving her gasping for breath. Adar made them promises, something about eating. Then he took Elice’s arm, led her through the throng to the other side of the clearing, and started up a narrow canyon.

  It was cool in the shadows; Elice got the feeling the sun never directly reached the canyon floor. And there was a breeze—hot, but refreshing nonetheless. Here women worked a hinged wooden contraption that crushed long stalks.

  “Flax.” Adar pointed at the stalks. “They’re crushing out the brittle parts, leaving the flexible fibers.”

  A young girl took a bundle and ran it farther up the canyon, where she set it with dozens of other bundles. A woman took one of the bundles and scraped it between a board and a large, flat stick. Farther still up the canyon, women used what looked like a large wooden brush to comb out the flax.

  “That makes the fibers line up.”

  More women took the fibers and wove them through a loom. Adar paused beside an older woman wearing a veil, her hands deftly working the shuttle. Elice watched her for a moment, entranced by her precision.

  Adar touched her shoulder. “Storm, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  Jumping a little in surprise, the woman turned. Elice’s gasp caught in her throat. She was obviously clannish. Though pure white, her hair must have once been blonde. Her features were proud and fine, though her skin was dotted with age spots and lined with wrinkles. But it was the eyes that gave her away—eyes the dark charcoal of a thundercloud.

  Elice stepped forward and reached out to touch the woman’s skin, who looked curiously at her but did not shy away from the touch. “My grandfather had a sister taken captive by the Idarans when she was a young woman,” Elice said. “Her name was Storm.” Elice had heard the story only once, and her grandfather had not been the same for months after the telling of it.

  Storm’s head came up. “Otec?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Elice managed, her voice cracking. She pulled out her pendant and showed it to the other woman.

  Storm’s fingers grazed the raised edges. “He always loved carving—he’d make toys for the village children.” Tears slipped down the old woman’s cheeks, and she looked around in shock. “But what are you doing here?”

  Elice clenched her teeth and her fists, a whole line of tension that locked her body up. “My mother is Ilyenna, daughter of Otec, and Queen of Winter. Adar lured me out of the Winter Queendom, where I was taken by the Summer Queen to serve as bait to trap my mother.”

  Storm shot Adar a look of churning anger. “You betrayed my great-niece?”

  He sighed. “Would you believe me if I told you I had good reasons?”

  “Then Cinder is my cousin,” Elice gasped. “You are my great-aunt.” She felt overwhelmed with the sense that she came from somewhere. That she belonged.

  Storm stepped closer to Elice, her hands smoothing over her cheeks and lingering on her hazel eyes before she took a lock of Elice’s dark hair in her hand. “But who gave you this coloring, child?”

  Elice frowned. Of all the questions she thought Storm might ask, this wasn’t one. “My grandmother was a highwoman. Her name was Matka.”

  “That cannot be.” Storm dropped the lock of hair as if it had burned her.

  “Otec and Matka are my mother’s parents. My father is Rone, son of Seneth and Narium of the Argons.”

  Storm turned to Adar, and some silent communication passed between them. “This is why you insisted on Cinder?”

  “Partly,” Adar replied.

  Storm motioned for Elice to follow her.

  “What is it?” Elice asked warily.

  Without answering, the old woman abandoned her loom and took Adar and Elice to a narrow opening in the wall. An incense lantern swung above them, smoke flowing out of it. “To keep the fairies away,” Storm muttered.

  Inside was a large cavern with beams of light refracting at a million sharp angles. Elice glanced far above and found small openings surrounded by mirrors. The beams of light landed on dozens of tents, colors bright where the light hit them, and then mute again where it fell away. Elice felt dizzy from the colors and the incense smoke curling from blocks before all the entrances.

  Storm led them into a tent with walls made of woven landscapes of high mountains, capped in white and rimmed in emerald. Beneath Elice’s feet, the rug resembled a field of grain, and pillows of dozens of different flowers lined the floor. There was even a village on the far panel, the houses made of round stones.

  “It’s like my room,” Elice said in wonder.

  “It’s the clanlands, child. The home of my youth.” Storm pulled out more squares of sticky, tarlike incense, placed them in shallow bowls all around the walls of the tent, and pressed the flame of her lamp to each until they began to smoke.

  While she worked, Elice circled the square tent. The first panel featured the village surrounded by green. In the next, the mountains were bedecked in crimson and gold, with amber fields on the rolling hills. The next panel showed mounds of snow weighing down the pine trees like a too-heavy coat. The final panel was a riot of color—blooms of lilac and mountain daisy and a dozen other flowers.

  Elice circled back to the first panel and stepped closer to the flock of sheep. A boy was there, a dog at his feet. The barefoot boy held a shepherd’s crook in his hand. “I have nearly the same image in the walls of my home,” Elice whispered.

  “That’s where I first recognized them,” Adar replied. “I thought you must have spent some of your childhood in the clanlands.”

  Storm was suddenly beside her. “That’s your grandfather, Otec.”

  Elice ran a finger along his outline and let her fingers rest on the dog. Suddenly she remembered. “His name was Freckles.”

  She turned to Storm and saw tears fill the old woman’s eyes again. “I never knew what happened to my brother,” Storm said quietly. “He was the only one of us not taken.”

  “He had two children, Ilyenna and Bratton,” Elice told her. “Bratton became High Chief of all the clans—he led the clanlands as they invaded Idara. It was there that Nelay killed him.”

  Storm’s breath caught, and she turned an angry glare to Adar. “Get out.”

  He pressed his lips into a hard line. “I need to hear this just as much as she does. I’m staying.” The way he said it with such finality, Elice knew he meant it.

  Storm seemed to know it too. Easing down onto some cushions on the floor, she motioned for Elice to join her. “Tell m
e more.”

  Elice knelt before the older woman. “Bratton married Larina Bend—”

  Storm snorted. “A Bend? I’m sure he had his hands full. Old money there, and not the good kind.”

  Elice didn’t know how to respond, so she continued on. “Together, they had eight children—all of them boys. Five of them died in the war, the rest made it home. The oldest living son is now the clan chief.”

  Storm’s gaze was distant. “And is the clan house filled with the voices of children again?”

  “My grandfather said it was.”

  Storm finally met Elice’s gaze. “Why did he leave?”

  Elice smiled a little. “Grandfather always said his grandsons didn’t need him anymore, but his granddaughter did.”

  Storm hesitated before reaching out and taking Elice’s hand in her own. She rubbed her thumb across Elice’s knuckles. “Tell me more about your grandmother.”

  “She was an artist, like you and me, and she loved drawing with charcoal. Grandfather used to buy her vellum whenever he could. She drew landscapes, mostly of the clanlands, but sometimes other places. Grandfather keeps them in a chest in his room with some of his carvings. He showed them to me every once in a while.”

  Storm seemed instantly angry. “Did any of these landscapes ever look like Idara?”

  At the look in the old woman’s eyes, Elice felt a strong foreboding that Storm held some secret Elice didn’t want to know. “Yes,” Elice said in a whisper.

  Storm looked at the meadow beneath her feet. “Your grandfather married a traitor—an Idaran.”

  Elice wanted to laugh, but the look of hurt in the old woman’s eyes couldn’t be denied. “My grandmother was a highwoman,” she said carefully.

  Storm grunted. “Half. They were all half Idaran and half highman. The Raiders came pretending to be ambassadors from the Highlands, but they were really infiltrators. They attacked the Shyle and killed any who resisted, as well as any men who hadn’t already left to fight the Idarans gathering along the coast. They planned to attack the clanlands from two fronts, leaving us with only enough Idarans to guard us.”

  Storm stared at the image of the Shyle village, her face hard and bitter. “I don’t know what happened. Otec had taken Matka into the mountains, but then she was back with us and they wanted her dead. They thought we would kill her; she was one of their priestesses and they feared to harm her themselves.” Storm gave a bitter chuckle. “I would have killed her—started to—but Holla begged me to stop. And no one could deny Holla anything. Not even me.”

  Elice had heard stories of Holla, a woman with the mind of a child. Her grandfather had always spoken her name with reverence and longing, as if he missed her more than the others.

  “Then something went wrong,” Storm went on. “The Idarans took us and fled. I only saw Otec two more times, both when he was fighting to free us.” Her eyes slipped closed as if the memories were too much. “In the end, he had a choice—to save us or save the clanlands. I told him to go, but inside, I wanted him to stay. To save us. I hated myself, hated him, for choosing them over me. Sometimes I still do.”

  Elice suddenly realized Cinder had said her grandmother and mother had been sold into a brothel. No wonder Storm resented Otec. If she’d known what was before them, would she have chosen differently?

  Storm looked up, her eyes dry, her face brittle as old bones. “Every day I try to forgive him, forgive myself. Some burdens you can never put down but must simply struggle to carry. But I would see him again. I would see my homeland and my people.”

  “Nelay doesn’t know who you are?” Elice whispered.

  “Idara leaves me alone, and I leave them alone,” Storm scoffed.

  Elice glanced at Adar. “But you said this part of the canyons was for your family. If so, why is Storm here?”

  “Storm’s daughter, Ash, married one of my cousins, Ashar,” Adar said.

  “Yes,” Storm said softly. “And Cinder married another cousin, Darsam. Both are good men.”

  Elice looked between them. “Ash is Cinder’s mother?”

  Storm nodded softly. “I named her to remind my offspring that we can rise from the embers and ashes.”

  “How did she get free?” Elice asked.

  Storm sighed and lay back against the cushions. “That’s a story for another time, and it is Cinder’s story to tell. Leave me now. The old memories are stirred up, and I must beat them down.”

  Elice wanted to stay, wanted to learn more, but Adar reached out and touched her hand. “We need to head back before it’s too dark.” She rose to her feet and turned to go.

  “Wait,” Storm called. She went to a carved trunk beneath the tapestry of the village and pulled something out. She cradled it in her hands and then looked up at Elice, tears streaming down the lines in her face. Without a word, she held it out for Elice to take. Elice opened her palm and looked at the small carving inside. It was one half of a beaver that had been cut perfectly in half.

  “It was Holla’s. Tell Otec I took care of her. She raised my daughter while I worked in the brothel. And she was happy.”

  Elice stared at the beaver, the edges worn smooth and shiny from years of handling. She’d seen its mate—the exact replica—inside her grandfather’s chest. “And his brothers and other sisters?”

  “I searched for years but never found them.” Storm wiped the tears from her eyes.

  Elice stepped forward and pressed a kiss to the old woman’s cheek. “He never stopped missing you. I’m not sure he ever forgave himself, either.”

  Storm closed Elice’s hands around the carving. “You give him this, and you tell him about me. Tell him my child and grandchild are happy.”

  But there was something else in Storm’s hand too—a dagger about the length of her palm, with a wicked point. “A clanwoman always carries a knife,” she said softly. “And knows how to use it.”

  Elice swallowed hard as she tucked the knife beneath her belt, inside a little pocket her mother had sewn into the leather. “Thank you.” Storm curled up with one of her flower pillows and stared at her village, a look of longing on her face.

  When Adar and Elice reached the outside and she could feel the sun on her face again, she took a deep breath and asked, “Why did Storm stay here? Why didn’t she go back to the Shyle?”

  “The same reason your grandfather didn’t go back,” Adar said. “You needed him in the Winter Queendom. Storm’s daughter and granddaughter need her here.”

  Elice closed her eyes, realizing just how much her grandfather had given up to raise her. “Why did you bring me to this place?”

  “Because I wanted you to know who you are, and I knew you wouldn’t take my word for it.”

  “When did you figure it out—who my grandmother is?”

  “Matka is an Idaran name. It means ‘mother,’” Adar answered. Elice gave a bitter chuckle, but he continued, “Your mother is a quarter Idaran, and you’re an eighth. You can’t hate something that’s a part of yourself.”

  Elice whirled on him. “Storm and her daughter were both forced into a brothel because of Idarans.”

  “And your grandmother was raised an Idaran,” Adar said carefully.

  Elice faltered. “Half!” she spat. “She left them, didn’t she? She became a clanwoman.” She spun around, refusing to look at him anymore. “What exactly are you trying to prove?”

  He touched her arm, but she shrugged him off. “I’m half Idaran, Elice. I’ve spent half my life in Idara and half in the Adrack, as have my brothers and sisters. There are some . . . dark things about Idara. But there is also so much good. And much has changed since Queen Parisa took over. There are no more slaves. Idara doesn’t raid anymore. Can you look at our goodness and let go of our bad? Can you forgive us, please?”

  “You think that by making me less hateful toward Idara you will somehow get me to forgive you?” Elice stalked away. “Take me home, Adar. Our truce is over for the day.”

  “There is one more
thing for you to see. Then you can go home.”

  Seething, she turned to find him heading deeper into the cave. She considered not following him, yet she knew him well enough to realize he wouldn’t take her back until he’d shown her what he wanted her to see. She stormed after him. They climbed to another level and then Adar started up a wood-and-sinew ladder. Elice followed, not feeling entirely safe.

  After what seemed like forever, they emerged onto a flat plateau of rusty rocks. Adar strode across the surface. “There are other canyons in the Adrack filled with groves and crops and people. Dozens of them.” He paused at the edge of a cliff and looked down. Elice hesitated before stepping up beside him and looking down.

  There was nothing there. Not nothing like an empty canyon, but nothing like a gash in the world that bled darkness. Elice’s mouth came open. “What is down there?”

  He scooped up a fist-sized rock and hurled it over the edge. She watched it until she couldn’t see it anymore. “Nothing. A crevasse this deep should be filled with water. But as far as we can tell, it never ends.”

  Elice looked to the left and right, noting how the rift narrowed at the ends. “Are there more?”

  “Not yet.” Adar brushed his hands off. “Do you believe in the Sundering now?”

  She opened her mouth, closed it again. But how could she deny it after everything she’d seen. “I’m not sure I’m strong enough to say it out loud.”

  He took a step closer to her. “Elice . . .”

  She shut her eyes. “How can I not believe after everything I have seen?” The guilt nearly overwhelmed her. “What do I have to do with any of this?”

  He turned to her and she saw the fear in his eyes, and a hurt so deep it made her breath catch. “Adar? What is it?”

  “Remember when I asked you what you would give up to save the world?” Warily, she nodded, and he said, “What if you could save just one person, but it would cost you everything? What would you give up then?”

  Elice sensed he was talking about something important. “I guess that would depend on the person.”

  “If it was someone I loved, I would give up everything—even my own life.” Adar turned and walked away without looking back.