by Amber Argyle
She left the sea reluctantly, the sand sticking to her damp legs and between her toes. In the alcove, she and Adar wedged themselves under an outcropping of rock. He set up a sort of lean-to at the opening and settled a warm red fire that hovered above the ground, taking the chill from the air. Not that the chill bothered Elice, but the warmth was rather pleasant. She fell asleep in Adar’s arms, the steady beat of his heart thrumming next to hers.
Adar woke with a shiver and sat up. His breath clouded the air. His gaze went immediately to his red fire, but it was burning just as hot as when he’d fallen asleep. He carefully lifted Elice off his chest, which she was using as a pillow, only to discover that his left arm felt like a dead weight. He shifted the blankets to keep Elice covered, then pushed himself up with his right arm. His left arm tingled as the sensation came back.
He peered out of the lean-to, his breath catching at what he saw. A half dozen frost fairies, their bodies glimmering a pale blue, darted about the alcove, weaving back and forth over the world, leaving a trail of frost in their wake.
Adar knew what this meant. Fire and ashes, he didn’t want to face it. But it didn’t matter what he wanted. It never had. He glanced out once more, hoping against hope that his eyes had deceived him. Though the fairies were gone now, the frost they’d left behind continued to expand.
What froze him in his tracks was the dark figure standing beside the river. All Adar could make out was the outline of a cloak, but he didn’t have to see her face to recognize his mother. With one glance back at Elice, he slipped out of their makeshift shelter and strode out to meet his mother, anger burning his tongue. But when he saw her dark eyes glimmering in the starlight, his words snuffed out.
“Adar, I’m sorry,” she murmured.
Surprised, he stopped short. “For deceiving me or for making such a cruel bargain?”
“Both,” Nelay said immediately.
“And you just expect me to forgive you?”
The wind picked up, tugging at her cloak. “No,” she said evenly. “I’ve lost you. I had to accept that before we began. But Adar, I had to. Please understand.”
He could smell a storm coming. “There has to be another way. Peace can—”
“No,” Nelay said sharply. “I have tried every other way for twenty years. This ends, and it ends tonight.” Her voice softened. “But I will try to end the curse myself. I will try to spare your Elice that much grief.”
Adar jerked his head up. “You still plan to kill Ilyenna?”
His mother’s half grin was illuminated by the distant flash of lightning. “I was very careful in the wording of my bargains. ‘I will deliver the killing blow myself.’ That was my first bargain, the bargain with you. The second bargain—‘You yourself will destroy the Queen of Winter.’ Well, Elice has lured her mother here. Let’s hope that’s enough.”
“What if it isn’t enough?”
Nelay’s mouth tightened. “That’s why I did all of this. One way or another, Ilyenna will be destroyed.”
Now Adar could see that his mother wore armor beneath her cloak. The bulges behind her shoulders suggested she had her swords as well.
“My going to the Winter Queendom in the first place, falling in love with Elice, me overhearing you and Jezzel—you orchestrated it all?”
Nelay chuckled. “What did you expect? You’ve known all along that I’m the greatest strategist to have ever lived. Though I will admit, I didn’t expect you to love her. That had me scrambling to rework the plan.”
Adar felt a moment’s relief that Elice might have escaped her fate, but the relief was followed by a stab of guilt that the cost was her mother dying. “So you never intended to execute Elice.”
Nelay sighed. “She’s too valuable to die.”
Looking back at the shelter, he realized pain awaited Elice either way. He turned to face Nelay again. “Then don’t fail, Mother. I can’t bear to see Elice kill her.” Even as the words left Adar’s lips, he knew Elice might never forgive him. Not for arranging the death of her own mother.
Nelay took his face in his hands and kissed his forehead. “I have tried to love you, my son. Tried harder than you can ever know.”
Tix alighted on her shoulders. “My queen, it’s time,” the fairy said in her sticky spider voice. Nelay’s wings flared out from under her cloak in a deep blue fire that cast only a little light. She took to the sky, Tix riding on her shoulder.
“Adar?” came Elice’s breathless voice. He spun around, wondering guiltily what she’d heard. She pushed past the lean-to. “Something woke me. A bright light that—” She froze, no doubt noticing the frost gleaming around them. “She’s coming.” Distant flashes of lightning revealed her facing north with a hard expression.
Should Adar tell her that a battle between their mothers was looming, and that it was better for the world if Ilyenna died? Before he could decide, Elice ran headlong toward the edge of the alcove. He hurried after her. “What are you going to do?”
“She’s coming for me. After all I did to her, she risked everything to come for me.” By the sound of Elice’s voice he could tell she was crying, or close to it. “Don’t you see, Adar? That means she is capable of love! Perhaps there can be peace after all.”
He didn’t believe it. Not after all the years of hatred and death. He caught up to Elice and pulled her into his arms. Fire and burning, he’d been so angry when she’d hurt his mother. And now he was doing the same thing to Elice by letting his mother kill hers. But what else could he do? If he warned Elice, she’d put herself in harm’s way. “It’s going to be all right.” Adar hated himself even as the lie left his lips.
A distant boom echoed off the sides of the cliff. Elice’s head whipped around. “Nelay,” she breathed, her voice full of fear. She wrenched herself free of Adar’s arms and rushed forward. He followed her.
Out over the black ocean, the clouds were stained a blood red and a poisonous green that emanated from two sets of wings, the figures at their center rushing each other. Nelay dodged a shaft of ice and lunged, slicing through Ilyenna’s wings. Ilyenna tottered for only half a moment, before she spun, her damaged wings wrapping around her body as she dropped from the sky, Nelay a beat behind her. Ilyenna plunged into the water like a stone, turning the waves a lurid green that spread even as lightning flashed.
Nelay tried to follow but slammed into a sheet of perfectly clear ice. She lay there for a moment, dazed.
“No,” Adar cried.
Ilyenna broke through, her axe plunging toward Nelay, but then his mother kicked upward. They collided, rolling together over the iced-over sea. Where the colors from their wings met, gold light shimmered and sparked. The light grew brighter and brighter until Adar could see neither of them. He turned away, his hands outstretched to shield himself.
The wind howled, gusting so hard it nearly pushed him over. He staggered against it, reaching for Elice with the intention of hauling her to safety. But the wind blew something into him and his knees buckled. He lay on the ground, stunned. Able to see, but unable to move.
“Adar!” Elice screamed as she dropped beside him. He struggled to roll over, but his movements were sloppy and uncoordinated. The ground beneath them bucked violently, and she draped herself protectively over him. He muttered something but she couldn’t hear it over the rush of the wind. “What?”
“Alcove,” he managed, pointing. It was obvious he wanted her to go back there, but it wouldn’t be any safer—not if tremors caused rocks to fall. Then his eyes rolled up and he slipped into unconsciousness.
Elice touched the lump on the side of his head. It was bleeding, but she thought he’d be all right. She looked back at her mother, wishing she could do something, anything to help her win the battle with Nelay. Out of mere habit, Elice opened herself to winter and was shocked to feel it flooding through her.
Her gasp was ripped away by the wind. She let the cold seep into Adar’s head to help with the pain and swelling. Then she pushed herself to her
feet and held her hand over him, forming a hard, thick layer of ice around him.
She turned from him and let a shield fill one hand, a spear the other. Protected behind her shield, she strode up the sand dune, testing the weight of the spear in her hand and waiting for an opening to launch it at Nelay.
Her mother and the Summer Queen had broken apart, and the light was red and green again. The tremors seemed to settle, and the wind died down enough that Elice dared lower her shield a fraction. Nelay rushed toward the shore. Elice shifted her stance and cocked her arm back.
But as the Summer Queen passed over her, Elice hesitated. There had to be another way. “Nelay!” she shouted. “We can end this. We can find peace!” Nelay’s eyes locked on Elice, fury burning in her gaze, but she flew on and disappeared over the mountain ridge.
“Elice!” Ilyenna cried. She pivoted midair and dove toward Elice, arms outstretched as if to snatch her from the shore and carry her off to safety. Ilyenna couldn’t see the army that rose up behind her. Couldn’t see them draw back their bows. Couldn’t see them launch a volley that blacked out the stars.
“No!” Elice cried. She formed an ice shield to protect her mother, realizing a beat too late that she wouldn’t have time to make one for herself. Elice tensed for the coming pain, but something barreled into her and slammed her backward onto the sand. Arms held her, pinning her down. Her mouth was full of sand. She spit it out, blinking furiously and gasping for breath.
Then the arms went slack. She twisted to find Adar on top of her, his expression grim. “Adar?” she gasped.
He groaned, his face red and the veins standing out. She glanced back at the ice she’d encased him in. One side had a large hole. Adar had melted his way out.
Elice suddenly realized she was wet and looked down to see blood soaking her robes. She searched for any signs of pain. Nothing. It wasn’t her blood. Her gaze went back to Adar in horrified understanding. “No,” she cried.
She scrambled out from under him and saw the arrows sticking out of his back, three of them, two in his lower back and one at his shoulder. “No!” Her hands reached for the arrows, determined to stop them from hurting him. But then she froze. Taking them out would only kill him faster. “No!” she screamed again.
Hands gripped her and pulled her to her feet. She recognized the cold grasp even as she turned. “No,” she wailed to her mother. “You have to save him! Do something!”
Ilyenna took hold of Elice, her wings rising for a down stroke that would take her to the queendom, where Elice would never see Adar again. “No!” Elice screamed again, tears running down her hot face. She wrenched herself free and stumbled back. “He cannot die! I love him!”
“We have to go before she comes, Elice.” Her mother’s hands stretched out imploringly. “My strength is already waning. We must return to the queendom before it leaves me completely.”
Elice crouched beside Adar. He was very still, his eyes tracking hers. “A life for a life,” he said breathily. “You’re free.”
Was he paying the price of her bargain? Elice gently brushed the sand from his face. “Don’t. Don’t leave me.”
He only smiled at her. “You were worth it.”
“Don’t talk like you’re dying.”
Ilyenna knelt and grasped Elice’s shoulders. “Come, we must go. The boy is dying. And if we stay here any longer, so will we.”
“Elly, go!” Adar said.
From behind them, a scream echoed off the cliffs. Ilyenna’s gentle hands turned to steel as she darted to her feet and shoved Elice behind her. “Winter fairies, to me. Defensive formation.” The fairies circled around Ilyenna and Elice as Nelay shot toward them, streaking through the sky like a comet.
Ilyenna formed an ice spear, but it shattered in her grip. Staring grimly at it, she clenched her jaw. Elice reached for the magic and found only a trickle. The rest was locked up far, far to the north.
“Run, Elice,” her mother ordered, even as she turned to face her foe.
But Nelay didn’t charge them. Instead, she dropped beside her son, her scream turning to a wail of grief so sharp it seemed to tear the world in two. Her wings went out in a puff of smoke as she stroked Adar’s face, murmuring to him. Ilyenna watched for a moment and then strode forward, forming a needle-like dagger and poising it to strike.
Elice pulled on her arm. “Leave them alone, and I’ll come back to the queendom with you.”
“Let me go, Elice,” her mother hissed below her breath, “and we can end this once and for all.”
“No!” Elice pushed her way between the two women. “I’ll fight you myself if I have to.”
Nelay raised hollow eyes to her immortal enemy. With a wave of her hand, she melted the knife in the Winter Queen’s grasp. “Your power is spent, Ilyenna. What other price must we both pay before this is over?”
When Ilyenna didn’t answer, Nelay formed a ball of fire in her hand. Elice darted protectively in front of her mother. “Don’t!”
Nelay’s gaze softened a fraction. “It will be easier this way, child. I promise you.”
Elice shook her head. “The bargain has ensured this will happen, one way or another. But not like this.”
Nelay’s expression was uncertain, but the ball of fire faded to nothing. Ilyenna let out a gasp of disbelief even as Elice dropped to the ground beside Adar. She pressed her fingers to his throat. “His heart still beats!” She hauled off her bloody robes and ripped the linen, using it to pin his arms together so he wouldn’t move and further injure himself. She gripped Nelay’s shoulders with bloody hands. “There has to be another petal.” Nelay could only shake her head. “Then you have to take him to the healers in Thanjavar.”
The Summer Queen shook her head harder. “I can’t carry him that far. My arms aren’t strong enough.”
“You have to try.” Elice bit her lip, forcing herself to think. And she remembered the way the horses’ saddles had been tied. “We’ll strap him to you.”
Nelay nodded. Elice got under Adar and helped to push him up. His mother tried to hold him up, but he outweighed her and she struggled to keep him from slipping, a slip which would probably kill him.
“Mother, help us,” Elice begged. To her shock, her mother did, holding Adar in place while Elice tied the strips. Between the three of them, they managed to tie him to Nelay.
Ilyenna stepped back, blood on her pristine robes. “This isn’t over Nelay,” she said darkly.
“But it will be soon. One way or another,” Nelay replied. Then she spread her fire wings, gave Elice a grim nod, and shot into the sky.
Elice watched them go. In the silence following the chaos, dread filled her to overflowing. But her attention was pulled away from the fading red sky to the light catching off the weapons of the Immortals as they started down the hill toward them.
“It is long past time we left this place,” said the Winter Queen.
For once, Elice didn’t argue.
Elice wandered around her room. Everything was exactly as she’d left it. But she looked over the reliefs in the walls with new eyes, recognizing from her own memories the mountains and meadows of the Shyle, with Shyleholm resting in the center.
She walked out onto her balcony, her fist clasping the pendant Adar had given her. She could feel the radiating cold and the gentle lick of the flames as she stared out over the vast, frozen landscape. It was a harsh beauty, full of subtle colors and sharp angles. Surprisingly she had missed it—missed the smell of snow, and the prisms’ reflection off her trees.
Behind her, she heard the bedroom door creak open. “Elice?”
She turned at her grandfather’s voice. Ilyenna stood behind him, her hands folded in front of her. Elice met the old man’s watery blue gaze. His face had aged ten years in the few short weeks they’d been apart. He hurried into the room and gathered her into his arms. “The boy?”
“She told you?”
“Yes, everything.”
“I don’t know if he yet
lives,” Elice managed, her voice breaking.
Her grandfather let out a heavy sigh. “Sorrow is a bitter drink. Would that you had not had to taste it.”
Elice turned her face into the wind, letting it freeze the tears on her cheeks. “I have something to tell both of you, about Storm.”
Otec’s brow furrowed. “My sister?”
“And Holla.” Elice quickly explained all that had befallen her grandfather’s sisters since they were taken as slaves by the Idarans. Before long, tears lined his weathered cheeks.
“Storm wanted to tell you that she forgives you for leaving her,” Elice said finally. “Every day she forgives you.”
He bowed his head. “If only I could forgive myself.”
“If you hadn’t done what you did, the clans would have fallen,” Ilyenna said as gently as she ever said anything.
Her words resonated deep within Elice. If she didn’t kill her mother, the Sundering might destroy the entire world. Trembling, Elice took her grandfather’s gnarled hand in hers and placed in it the half-beaver carving he’d given to his sister all those years ago. He stared at it for several seconds, then pulled out its match and held the two pieces together to make a whole at last. “The Balance has brought me full circle. And you too, Elice, for now you are where you began.”
“Yet everything has changed,” she whispered.
Her grandfather rested both his hands on the top of his cane. “I had to choose. That choice meant I betrayed my family for the good of my people. Your mother had to make a similar choice once. Now, so do you.”
Elice gaped at him, wondering if somehow he knew the decision before her.
“What choice is that?” Ilyenna asked icily.
“It’s the kind we all have to make—to let go of something so we can hold onto something else.” Otec turned angry eyes to his daughter. “Rone fought once, fought for the woman he loved. Nearly killed himself twice trying to save her. You did the same for him. As did I for Matka. Do you think to deny your daughter that same right?”