Bitter Frost Page 10

  If there were many more meals like that ahead of me, waiting would certainly not be so hard.

  Chapter 16

  Kian and I decided together that we should make the most of the time we had together, as we lay low and Kian tried to get a sense of the goings-on of the Fairy Courts. He had sent a letter, the paper curled round the foot of a dove, to one of his closest friends at the fairy court, asking him what the circumstances were in the land of Winter and how the Winter Queen planned to treat the Princess Breena when she found her.

  The letter, we knew, would take some days to arrive, and in the meanwhile I asked Kian to teach me more about the ways of Feyland.

  “If I have to fight off a pixie,” I said, “I want to make sure I'm doing it properly.”

  “That display with the chandelier was quite impressive,” said Kian. “Certainly a good start.”

  “That was dumb luck,” I said.

  “Well,” said Kian. “I think the first place we should start is discussing the source of your magic. Every fairy has one. An image, a thought, a piece of music, a sound that allows you to harness to power within you. When you performed that stunning piece of teleportation, what were you thinking of?”

  I remembered my concentration on Kian's face, the feeling of love and longing I experienced when I let the sound of the fairy waltz overtake me, and against myself I blushed.

  “I wasn't thinking of anything,” I said. “Just how to get out alive – I just wanted to live, that's all.”

  “That can't be,” said Kian. “Magic doesn't work that way. You'll have to tap into it somehow.”

  “You'll laugh,” I said. “I know you will!”

  “I won't laugh at you,” Kian promised. “You have my word.”

  “Well,” I began, “when I was little – in fact, my whole life, even up to my sixteenth birthday in the mortal world, I always had...how can I put it? This dream. This dream about the Summer Court. And you and I were children, then, and laughing and dancing – we were learning the fairy waltz, which in my dream – and I know this is stupid, Kian, - was going to play at our wedding.”

  He had gone pale.

  “And whenever I try to tap into the magic, I just think of that fairy waltz – and you, I guess,” I added hurriedly, trying to swallow my words. My face had gone beet-red. “And somehow I'm able to perform whatever magic I need to perform. Maybe because you taught me how magic worked – I don't know. I wouldn't read anything into it; it's just silly.”

  He grabbed hold of my hand.

  “I have had that dream many a time, Breena,” said Kian. “Often I would refuse to let myself sleep while preparing for battle, for I knew that the dream would come and distract me from my purposes. I remember the waltz better than you might think.”

  He began to hum it – the song I knew, the song that we had shared – his voice beautiful and melodic, echoing through the stone walls of the manor.

  “It's gorgeous...” I breathed.

  “Yes,” he said. “It is a wedding song. It is our song, Breena, only yours and mine. Every fairy marriage has a song – it is created by the union of the two intended fairies. And that song is ours – created out of our souls.” He pressed his lips to my fingers, then got up abruptly, embarrassed. “It is good,” he said, “that you have such a strong source of your magic. It is dangerous – I have told you that love-magic often is – but nevertheless it is very much a strength, if you can use it correctly.”

  “What's your source?” I asked.

  Kian colored and looked away.

  “We should get down to lessons.”

  The first thing Kian taught me was how to use a sword. “It is heavy,” he warned me, “I only have men's swords here. Women's swords are lighter and more agile. We have female warrior-knights among the winter court, but there are none at the moment.”

  I felt the weighty metal in my hand.

  “I was never very good at P.E.,” I laughed grimly as I traced my fingers down the sharp blade. “So, do I have to start working out?”

  “You have two choices,” he said. “You can wield your sword as men of your world do – using your body, moving the sword with your hands. Or you can use magic. Both are worthy – there are times when mortal men, or fairies fighting in the mortal manner, have overcome fairy ways by the surprising use of a good mortal feint or parry. But I suggest you start with the magical ways; a woman of your size might have difficulty going up against a pixie with nothing but her strength to sustain her. I suggest you ultimately learn both ways, however; as a Halfling, you ought to make use of both your halves of talent.”

  I closed my eyes and seized the handle of the sword, willing it to move and shake and protect me.

  “Forge a bond with the sword,” said Kian. “It must want to protect you. If it dislikes you, you may find yourself tripped and fallen upon it.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” I said, eying my sword warily.

  “Magic is dangerous,” said Kian, and shrugged. “Go on now, try and fight me.”

  I couldn't will the sword to attack Kian if I tried. It stood limp in my hands.

  “That's not fair,” I said. “How am I supposed to try to hurt you?”

  “You won't hurt me,” he said, holding up his sword. “No disrespect, my Princess, but I have been training as a soldier for many fairy-years. Think of it as a challenge. Whoever loses the battle will have to cook dinner tonight!”

  I thought of the sumptuous feast Kian had prepared for me the night before and my mouth watered. And then an image, however fleeting, of Logan preparing tortillas on my kitchen counter flashed into my mind – as carefree and happy as he had always been, in the days that we had been so close, so intimate! How could I have almost forgotten him already? Tears stung my eyes, as I remembered his death, that final climactic battle. If I had been able to fight, then, then perhaps Logan would still be alive, still be here...

  The sword leaped in my hand, powerful and red-hot, soaring towards Kian's shield.

  It knocked the sword out of his hand with a loud clatter; he stared at me, shocked. He had not been expecting me to strike so well; he had not bothered to be on his guard.

  “All that for a nice dinner?” he said, with a faint smile.

  The tears remained in my eyes.

  “Logan...” I whispered.

  His face clouded. For a moment he almost looked angry. Certainly there a hint of jealousy that swept across his regal face. Then he came up to me and gathered me into his arms, whispering my name over and over into my hair.

  “He died a hero,” said Kian, because that was the only comforting thing he knew to say.

  “But he died,” I hissed.

  My commitment to learning self-defense increased tenfold. We learned swordplay and archery, the riding of horses (I remembered clinging to Logan's back when he was in wolf-form and this too brought tears to my eyes), magical dueling, and other pursuits, breaking up the physical exertions with discussions of Fey History and the lore of Feyland. Kian had brought out his old academic textbooks from the days when he had been tutored by one of the ancient professors of his race.

  “I never much liked them,” he said, but nevertheless I devoured them – the dull genealogies and talk of fairy politics as much as the exciting stories of mythical creatures that far outstripped anything in Causabon's Mythology.

  And every night, I would fall asleep in Kian's arms and woke up to his morning kiss. He would hold my face in his hands, gently as though he would never want our moments together to end.

  By necessity we muted our romance, subsuming it into days of fencing and riding and study, knowing that we had no time for anything more than a chaste, stolen kiss between bouts of lessons. But when I slept, I felt the warmth of his arms around me, and I wished, in some deep part of myself, that the answer to his letter could be delayed just a little longer.

  Chapter 17

  Time moved slowly in those days – slowly but beautifully. Kian and I spent sunrise to sunset toget
her, helping me become the best fairy queen that I could be. The things we learned together were of the sort that even my most frenzied dreams back home in Gregory, Oregon, could never have guessed at. I learned how to fight, of course, to guide my sword or dagger or even bow and arrow into the heart of an enemy foe. I learned to vanish into invisibility, only to reappear moments later around some hidden corner. I learned to treat the air itself as if it were earth, treading on clouds and fog and even clear breezes, running and jumping in the air. I learned, too, some special powers – ways in which I even outranked Kian. As a Summer Princess, I found that I had a special affinity for the sun; when I concentrated, I found myself able to lock into the power of the great golden orb itself – to radiate energy, becoming like a sun myself, glowing with power and magic. These powers coursed through me; once I learned them, it seemed that I had always known them, that they had always been part of me – I just hadn't realized it yet.

  Kian, for his part, was extraordinarily proud of me; his pale arctic nose went faintly pink with pleasure whenever I found myself able to outmatch him in a game of magical wits – to run faster, to prove myself stronger. He was, of course, far more experienced than I was, but I took great pleasure in even the tiniest victory over him, and in time I came to score increasingly more points, until Kian dispensed with handicaps and “beginner's luck” altogether and began seriously exerting himself in order to keep the lead he had held so easily in the first days of my magical training.

  I cannot tell how long we stayed in the manor; it seemed, in those wonderful days, like an eternity. Time stood in place or else glided slowly – like a woman dancing to a soft waltz – and nothing seemed real outside of the world of fairy magic that we too had created. Even the pain of Logan's death – like a knot in my chest – loosened after a while; as I worked in the realm of magic, I began to feel that rather Logan – wherever he was – was somehow part of that ancient set of rituals, that his love and nobility were not lost with his destruction at the hands of the Pixie King Delano, but rather absorbed somehow into the great and wonderful world about which I was learning so much.

  One morning I decided to put my training into practice and go hunting for deer for that day's lunch – a surprise for Kian, and one that I felt sure would solidify my status as his equal in magic. He had taught me to distinguish between those deer that were for eating and those that were to be left as magical equals, to engage with the deer I hunted and participate in the magic that allowed the arrow to pierce the deer, the deer to willingly give up its life as part of the circle of birth and death and renewal. I felt sure that deer would be meager compared to the rare options Kian was able to bring down and cook with such skill, but nevertheless I wanted to do something to contribute to the little life we were building together in the manor.

  I sat crouched and hidden within the woods, waiting for a herd of deer to pass me by. The sun was bright and golden in the sky; the air was cool and crisp and delicious. I could feel the warm heat of afternoon prickling comfortably at my back. It was a perfect day.

  Before long I caught sight of a running herd of deer, whirring with graceful agility through the forest. I concentrated, biting my lower lip as I did so, and aimed my arrow straight towards one of the blurry brown shapes passing by me.

  I tensed my arm against the bow, remembering my physical training as well as my magical one, and let the arrow fly.

  And then I felt the arrow pierce my calf.

  I winced, confused despite the searing pain. I had shot away from me...what happened?

  I heard another sound, the whirring of an arrow through the air, and narrowly dodged it.

  Danger.

  I looked around me. There, in the distance, was a cavalcade of knights on horseback, each more beautiful, more splendid than the next. They carried golden bows with them – but did not even so much as buckle under the weight of the gem-encrusting things. They seemed to radiate golden brightness as they rode towards me, noble and upright on their galloping steeds. I knew them by the armor they wore – the orange-and-golden metal – but I would have recognized them even if they were wearing human clothes, so bright and strong was their demeanor. They were my knights – knights of the summer court.

  Thinking the arrow in my calf must have been an accident, a stray from the hunt, I looked up, focusing my magic on silencing the pain coming from my leg. These were my men – perhaps here to rescue me! I would explain; everything would be fixed in the end.

  And then two of the men grabbed hold of my arm and twisted it around, hard.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “You're under arrest,” barked one of the men. They began tying my hands behind my back with fairy chains; the gold dug into my flesh.

  “I am Princess Breena of the Fairy Court,” I said, in my best imperial voice. “Release me at once! I have been waiting for the Summer Court to come find me.”

  “We know exactly who you are,” said the other man, and my heart sank.

  “What are you doing? Can't you see I'm a princess?” I almost shouted at him.

  “Afraid we're just following orders, Highness,” said one of the knights. “We answer to the Summer Queen, and she's put out a warrant for your arrest.”

  “For what?” I asked, suddenly wondering if what Kian and I had been doing would get me into trouble at the home court. “I haven't done anything wrong; I've been kidnapped.”

  “You've entered the fairy realm after being banished,” said the knight. “The whole point of exile is that you stay over the Crystal River; the second you came back over, you breached fairy law.”

  “What?” This was new to me, and confusing. “But I didn't come here, anyway; I was kidnapped...”

  I stopped speaking immediately, realizing my mistake. The last thing I wanted to do was have Kian woken up by some vicious fairy knights with a price on his head, too.

  “Take it up with the Queen at the fairy castle,” said the guard. “You'll have plenty of chances to speak your case at the trial,” he said, with a smirking laugh that gave me some lingering doubts about the fairness and efficacy of the fairy judicial system.

  And with that they thrust me onto their horses and began spiriting me away.

  I tried to call out to Kian, using my magic, trying to open a doorway between our two minds.

  I focused on his face with all my energy, squeezing my eyes shut.

  Kian, I called out, Kian.

  And then I gasped. For a moment I felt as if I were inside Kian's head, feeling what he felt, experiencing what he experienced. And Kian was waking up to find a series of fairy daggers pointed at his throat. These were cold, frightening creatures – Winter Knights – his own men! Flynn, with a scowl, was at the head of them.

  “We are under orders to return you to the Winter Court immediately,” said Flynn, pressing the dagger into Kian's throat; I could feel its point on my own.

  I could feel Kian reach for his sword; the dagger pressed in more deeply.

  “We have orders to kill you if you resist,” said Flynn. “The Winter Queen is most displeased with your actions.”

  “Bree...” I could hear him call, and my heart called out to him in response.

  “Yes, the girl,” said Flynn. “We no longer need her alive.”

  I could feel the pain in Kian's chest as my fairy knights sped me away. He was far more worried about me than his own welfare. “Breena!” he cried out loud again, his eyes flying around the room, frantically looking for me.

  “All your calling won’t bring her back,” Flynn said.

  Kian’s eyes opened wide, and his face colored with fury. “If you so much…” he began, stopping himself. He bunched up his hands into fists. I can feel his anguish, his fear for me, his sadness if the worse had happened to me.”

  Flynn’s eyebrows arched slightly. “So has it come to this? Has our revered crowned Winter Prince been succumbing to his feelings over the Queen’s prisoner? The knights all know how she was once your inten
ded. Why that would be trea…”

  Kian looked down. All the feelings, all the love he had for me stirred him to the core when he thought of any harm that could have befallen me. Finally, he looked up, steeling himself, composing his mind, his heart. “She is but the Winter Queen’s prisoner,” he said. “I risked life and limb to find her and bring her to the Queen. Do not be stupid, Flynn. Do you think I would betray my sister so readily? Where is Breena?”

  Flynn was taken aback as though he was confused by Kian’s response. “She cannot be found here,” he said. “We have a far better prisoner in her stead. As far as the Fairy Court is concerned, she's fair game for bounty hunters now.”

  I could feel the shock and surprise in Kian’s mind. I can feel his regret that he cannot truly confess his love for me, that he had to hide it, suppress it, refrain from letting it rule his logic, like he had tried to suppress the same dream I have always had about Kian and I at the Summer Court, dancing our fairy waltz, our souls and fate entwined.

  I closed my eyes, willing the tears not to come, and amid my tears I felt a terrible confusion. Who could this other prisoner be? And what would happen to all of us?

  Chapter 18

  The guards escorted me into the Summer Palace. It was nothing like I remembered. The parapets and turrets had once been my hiding-places; I remembered, out of the corners of my mind, the soft, melting gold of the steps and the banisters, the gorgeous tapestries rich and warm on the white stone. Now, the palace was still warm – it was the Summer Palace, after all – but its warmth was like a white-hot flame, or a burning ember – remote, mysterious, and ultimately frightening. It was not a warmth I liked; instead, I felt myself growing hot as I entered, as if I had walked inadvertently into a furnace; my face flushed and grew red, and I began to stagger. I held my head up as high as I could, focusing with all my strength on the task that lay ahead of us. I had to figure out what was going on, to see the Summer Queen eye to eye, and to try and understand what it was I had done, in the bright days of my infancy that could have possibly gotten me banished from the Court. Me – a Princess!