Winter's Crown

by Alexandra Little

  Yes, I could just see him, where the city ended and the mountains met the water. Dalandaras and Firien spoke to each other a little distance away from Singael.

  “What is it?” Zarah asked at last.

  “Stay where you are,” I said, and headed for them.

  Dalaras spotted me, and met me halfway, with Firien following. Singael knew I was coming, I could tell, but he couldn’t even bother to glance behind him.

  Coward.

  “You have returned,” Firien said.

  I could hear the crunch of running footsteps behind me as my father and Aerik caught up.

  “Did you know?” I demanded of Dalandaras.

  He frowned. “What is it?”

  “Captain?” I turned to Firien.

  “I do not know,” Firien replied suspiciously. “Though I can guess several things.”

  “What is it?” Father asked behind me.

  “Look at her, my lord,” Firien said, tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword. “She is not herself.””

  I very nearly drew Dauntless. When was the last time Dauntless had cut into flesh? It wouldn’t do, for a warrior’s blade to be untouched by blood for so long.

  “What are you talking about?” Aerik asked.

  They were converging around me, caging me in. I brushed them aside. I could deal with them later. “You stay here as well,” I ordered, and there was something under my voice that was not my own. “I have long unfinished business with Singael.”

  My breath was deep and ragged, puffing out in front of me in a cloud of white. Singael stood atop a steep mound of snow partially covering a huge slab of rock that had once been a giant building’s foundation, but had cracked and crumbled and now stood half into the lake. I climbed up to the top, next to where Singael stood, and saw why he had stopped here.

  It was the same hole in the floor as the one I had been thrown into by Adhannor. It was cracked through, but was otherwise intact – the concentric stairs led to a platform on the bottom.

  “So,” I said as calmly as I could, and my words did not feel entirely my own. “You were not entirely truthful about what is at Tal Anor.”

  “There were several things I did not tell you,” Singael replied calmly. “Though I was not entirely untruthful about them.”

  “How were you not untruthful about Tal Anor being a place where I could gain full control of my powers of an inheritor?”

  He inclined his head towards the pit. “I was not untruthful,” he repeated. “I simply did not tell you all that must occur in order for that to happen.”

  “And who,” I said slowly, as that seemed the only way to keep me from strangling him myself. “Should I kill in order to stabilize my powers?”

  He shrugged. “Firien or any of his elves would do nicely,” he replied calmly. “Or all of them. At least until Adhannor’s mysterious helper arrives here, for he and Adhannor will most certainly be close to us now.”

  “Your grandson must have some power,” I said. “Why should I not kill him as well?”

  “You would not dare.”

  He was drastically underestimating how much I despised him right now.

  You could kill Singael, Adhanel said inside my head.

  Adhanel was inside my head.

  Adhanel was inside my head.

  She hadn’t disappeared, or harmed me; she had entered me.

  She was going to have me kill him. I would get my powers; and she would get her revenge.

  But before I could warn Singael, I felt her presence rise to the surface.

  “Singael,” she and I said at once, gently.

  His eyes widened. “Adhanel,” he said, and he smiled the most joyous smile I had ever seen on a man. “I had hoped you would come.”

  “You sent my granddaughter down to me,” she and I replied. “Did you think I would not take advantage of it?”

  “How could you seal yourself in there?” he grabbed my arms. “How could you seal yourself away from me?””

  Because I was never yours. “It is done and over now,” we replied, and we touched his face. The poor fool truly thinks I love him. He doesn’t think it could be any other way. What was a human to one of the most powerful elf princes of the Dagnar?

  “Evalandriel!” Dalandaras said behind me.

  “Do not disturb this,” Firien replied close by. “She is possessed; the ghost will not leave until the purpose is done. Unless you would hurt Evalandriel?”

  “But why did you have to kill the human, Singael?” Adhanel and I asked.

  “He offended me,” Singael asked simply.

  He offended you? He offended you?! Rage rose within us swiftly, deadly. “How did he do that, love?” We crooned.

  “He touched you,” his fingers tightened, his grip iron around my arms. “He was nothing, and he dared to touch you.”

  I loved him. He was my life. “I am here now,” we said.

  “And now we are together at last,” Singael replied.

  And then I saw the ghosts. Four of them, the same as last time. Merchants, I knew instantly, merchants presumed lost in the storms months ago.

  Help us, one said piteously. Please.

  I broke away from Singael. “Adhannor’s here!” I drew my sword.

  Firien released Dalandaras and turned back to his people. “Prepare!” he shouted, his voice carrying unnaturally over the landscape.

  “Aerik,” I said. “Watch over Zarah. Please.”

  He nodded, and headed back down to the boat.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Father said. “Eva…are you yourself?”

  “Not quite,” Adhanel and I replied.

  Storm clouds gathered quickly, blotting out the sun and the help it would bring us. Thunder rumbled and sheets of lighting flashed as the blood magic stirred the air. And then I saw him, coming swiftly through the mist from the river, a distorted black cloud that snaked over the water and against the mountains at an unnatural speed. The cry went up from the elves as Adhannor’s creatures spouted up from the rock and snow of the land. There was a colossus for each elf, and smaller monsters beside them.

  “Fall back and regroup!” Firien shouted, rushing to aid his people.

  “Go,” Singael ordered Dalandaras. He nodded and went, drawing his sword.

  “There is one thing left to do,” Adhanel said to Singael through me. “We must give Evalandriel what she wants.”

  “Why?” Singael demanded. “Adhannor is no longer our problem.”

  “Because once that is done, we are free to be together.”

  “Eva?” my father asked, confusion plain. “Eva, we must go.”

  My hand slid down to grasp Singael’s tunic, and Adhanel and I smiled the kind of smile that held hatred beneath it. “My love.”

  “Together,” he replied with a smile of bliss.

  “No,” we replied. “Not together. For I am not yours.” And then Adhanel and I ran him through, and shoved ourselves into the pit.

  We landed on top of Singael, Dauntless twisting in his body.

  Singael stared, wide-eyed, unable to breath more than a short gasp at a time.

  “I was never yours,” she and I whispered to him.

  He stared up at us, and he died while I smiled at him.

  I pulled my sword out of him and let him fall to the ground. His blood pooled quickly onto the stone, following the slight tilt and pooling quickly into the ditch.

  “Eva!” Father shouted.

  I had a cut on my arm. When had a cut my arm? My blood and Singael’s blood dripped together. Power swelled around me, like a warm hug from an old friend. There was no taint here, only the depth of the pure old magic as it freed itself from Singael’s crippled body and maddened mind. And I stood there, and let it flow into me. There was hardly a need for the blood ritual, the old magic was so desperate to leave Singael.

  Adhanel disappeared from me. I stood and inhaled, and let it all flow into me. Oh yes, I could feel everything now. Each tendril of wind, each shard of s
unlight, each individual scent of the snow and our bodies. I could smell decay, somewhere.

  And then I felt the taint of Adhannor.

  I rushed out of the pit, past my father, and down the shore. Old magic rose from Firien and his crew. The words they shouted slowed the colossi, but did not stop their determined movement towards us.

  “Onto the boat!” I shouted as I neared them.

  I grabbed Zarah and shoved her towards the boat, and pushed Aerik. I reached Firien just as his people and Lorandal and Eliawen regrouped with each other. “Into the boat,” I ordered. “Now.”

  Whatever Firien saw in my face, he didn’t argue. “As she says!” he ordered, and everyone obeyed.

  “They are coming closer!” Kiril said. “I cannot halt them.”

  “Nor I!” Malarin replied.

  My friends, I thought to myself in the dead language. I need you.

  And then my lady guardian was beside me, her sword in hand. She was of Adhanel, I could see that now, an ancestress that had come before us both. Creatures of my own rose up out of the snow. They were not the pitiful little creatures that I summoned outside the fort, but my own colossi, my own massive creatures to battle Adhannor. They were creatures who had once been born of the old magic, I could feel that now too, but had been trapped by time and Singael and Adhannor’s machinations.

  “Give us time,” I told the lady guardian.

  She inclined her head, and rushed into the burgeoning battle.

  I boarded the boat, pulling myself over the side with little effort. “Everyone on board?”

  “Where is my grandfather?” Dalandaras asked.

  “Adhanel killed him,” I replied. So had I. “I’m sorry.”

  Dalandaras stared in shock.

  Firien nodded firmly. “Right. Raise sails!”

  No need for that. I pictured a swell of water and there it was, pushing our craft away from the shore.

  “What’s happening?” Father shouted over the sudden rushing of the water against the hull.

  “We need distance,” I replied.

  “We’re getting it, and quickly,” Nogoriel replied as she tried to control the craft. “We are going to run into the ruins at this speed.”

  No, we weren’t. I went to the starboard side and leaned over. I could feel the submerged ruins much better than I could see them, and the swell of water was enough to carry us over them. It was not the submerged ones I was looking for.

  I saw one that I liked, one that was just above the water line. Before I could even think it, the swell turned us towards a course where we could come alongside it. Its height aligned perfectly with the rail of the boat.

  As the boat swung by, I got up onto the railing, and leaped.

  The rock was slick with water and ice as the wave swelled over it and I landed hard, but didn’t skid off into the lake.

  “Come about!” Dalandaras ordered.

  “I can’t!” Nogoriel replied, their voices fading swiftly with the boat.

  I grasped my sword, and waited for Adhannor to meet me.

  He came across the water with ease, his army battling mine in the background. I could feel his human friend back there as well, waiting on shore.

  “Adhannor,” I said in the accent of the old tongue.

  “Come to me,” he replied, his voice stronger, his form more solid than before.

  I smiled. “Come and get me.”

  He did, the storm clouds darkening above us both until I could have sworn it was night again. I let him get within a hair’s breadth. And then I brought Dauntless down onto him.

  Old magic that I couldn’t control welled within me, and then exploded from me.

  Adhannor screamed a primal scream. I was thrown back onto the stone, shattering through the layer of ice that coated it, cracking my head against the ruins.

  The pain spread, and I curled onto my side. I nearly dropped my sword. When the pain cleared, I saw that Adhannor was gone. His army started to collapse on the shore as mine overtook them, and the cloaked man fled south, towards the river and the safety of the mists. The thunder faded and the clouds lightened, until the sun just started to peek through.

  I got onto my hands and knees.

  And I saw my mother in the water.

  She reached for me, reached upward through the water, as the rigging that had tangled her dragged her under.

  My heart stopped in my chest.

  No. Not this time. This time I wouldn’t lose my mother.

  I reached for her, and tumbled in.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Southsea could be cold. In winter especially, when the storms were churning up the deep waters something fierce. This was beyond cold. This was a burn. A burn that soaked through your clothes and scorched your skin and sucked the air from your lungs. My muscles seized. I couldn’t move. And then I saw Mother beneath me.

  It was storming; the worst storm I had ever seen. The Daring could not survive such a fury, and was in pieces around us. The rigging caught mother, and as the main mast sunk into the depths it pulled her over the edge and into the violent ocean.

  I swam down after her. She reached up to me, her legs trapped. She shouted: ‘Help! Help!’ but only the mutest of sound and bubbles of air came out.

  I struggled down into the black depths, fought against the frozen cold, to get to her as she fell farther into the darkness. My eyes began to burn. My lungs cried out for air. The world started to blacken; dots danced in front of my eyes. But I wasn’t going to give up on my mother. Not this time.

  And then I had to breathe. And there was only water. I choked, and thrashed, and clawed for my mother, but she wasn’t there anymore. My lungs cried out in pain, and then there was faintness, and darkness.

  “Oh, Eva…” I heard my mother murmur in that darkness.

  It was nice in the darkness. It was cool, and I was floating, and Mother was here. I couldn’t see her, but she was here all the same.

  And then there was pressure on my chest, and air in my lungs. I choked and gasped. A pair of hands rolled me onto my side as I expelled water.

  My throat was raw. My skin was frozen.

  “Come about!” Firien shouted in the distance.

  “I have you,” Dalandaras murmured close to me. “Just breathe, Evalandriel.”

  My eyes refused to open. Everything felt too bright. I didn’t want the bright. I wanted to go back into the darkness. But air was there, and my lungs wanted it. I gasped it all in, my throat burning as much as my skin.

  But Mother wasn’t here! I was still atop a ruin at Tal Anor. I wanted my mother. They were not going to pull me away from my mother. Not this time. This time, I would save her. This time, I would get to her in time.

  “Let me go!” I pushed against him, tried to grab his arms and pull them from around me, but my hands were shaking and I couldn’t find my strength. “I have to go!” I tried to reach the edge of the ruins with my feet, to pull myself back to the water and to mother.

  “Take her!” Dalandaras said as he lifted me up, and he passed me over the railing of the boat. I tumbled onto the deck, crashing into Father and Aerik. What little strength I had left disappeared completely as I was consumed by the shakes. My teeth chattered wildly and filled my ears with their fast, unstoppable tapping.

  “Kiril, Malarin, As fast as you can aid us!” Firien ordered from somewhere behind me. “Nogoriel, keep us well clear of any shore.”

  Zarah knelt in front of me, and through the tangle of my hair I saw Dalandaras pulling himself over the railing. He had stripped down to nothing but a thin tunic and trousers, and was as soaking wet as I was. Lorandal quickly wrapped a cloak around him, but he was as unaffected as I was consumed by the cold.

  Eliawen knelt next to Zarah, and they started stripping everything off of me—my boots, my coat, my sword. I was shaking so violently now that Zarah was struggling to remove my gloves.

  “She’s in shock,” Father said.

  “We need to get all of this off of
her,” Eliawen said. “And into dry clothes.”

  “We need to get to shore and build a fire,” Aerik said.

  “We cannot risk Adhannor returning,” Firien said. “Not until Evalandriel is well enough to summon her army. He is too strong for our magic.”

  “We’ll lose her unless we can get her warmed up,” Zarah countered. “Dry clothes alone won’t help her.”

  Dalandaras cast off his cloak and leaned over me. He cupped my face in his hands. “Sleep, Evalandriel,” he murmured, and a gentle warmth of old magic flooded through me.

  “Oh Eva,” my mother said sadly from somewhere near, and I allowed myself to close my eyes and float away.

  “Oh Eva,” my mother said again, and I opened my eyes.

  I wasn’t in the boat any longer.

  I was lying on my side, swathed in blankets. In front of me, a safe distance away, was a crackling fire. I was in a room that had been carved out of stone, not built from blocks of it. It was a small place; there was room for little more than the fire and myself. The walls were unadorned, and the reflection of the orange flames danced gently on them. There was an archway directly opposite me, and through it I could see the glow of a second fire and hear whispered murmurs of elvish.

  And then I remembered the water, and my mother, and Adhannor.

  My face flushed in shame. How could I be so stupid? So gullible? Mother was dead; that fact had proven itself to me over and over again. I had seen her body. I had spent the past six months waking from nightmares of that death, with no Mother to comfort me. Adhannor had tried to trick me before. The conversation I had had with Mother in the night was probably nothing more than a product of my own desperation. How could I have so stupidly forgotten Adhannor, and nearly gotten us all killed in the process?

  Then I heard someone take a very deep breath behind me. Right behind me, in fact. I froze, and an arm tightened around my waist.

  “You are safe,” Dalandaras said quietly into my ear.

  He shifted; his chest pressed against my back, his legs tangled with mine, and his head was just above mine. At least we were wearing clothes…I was mostly certain we were wearing clothes.

  Not only was I bundled up… Dalandaras was bundled with me.