Bitter Frost Read online

  “Don't you suck the blood of humans and fairies?”

  “Well, some,” said Delano. “But not important ones. Not fairies like you. And you're a Halfling, after all – which makes you extra rare, extra special! Why would I waste you on a meal?”

  “I wouldn't encourage it,” I said.

  “I've got much better plans in store for you,” said Delano.

  I wondered if he wanted to exchange me to the Summer Court, too.

  “Half-human, half-fairy. The most powerful combination. You have the magic of fairyland, but the life-force of the land Beyond the Crystal River – fertility, strength, passion. All qualities lacking in most fairies,” he continued. “What a race you could produce. Part-fairy, part-human,” he looked up at me and smiled. “Part-Pixie.”

  “I wasn't planning on breeding anytime soon,” I said.

  “You're of age, aren't you? Don't worry – I'm not trying to insult you. I don't intend to possess you and toss you aside, like one of the concubines of the Summer Court.”

  I tried very hard not to focus on the fact that one of those concubines had been my mother.

  “I want to marry you,” he said. “Make you my Queen. Produce a new race – the strongest race that Feyland has ever seen. Of course, Feyland is rather a misnomer,” he added. “The fairies named this place, and certainly didn't bother asking us. Perhaps you can think of a better name for it, Breena? In the Pixie-language, we call it Skirnismor – Country of the Pixies. The part the fairies rule is Skirnifellentru – The Land the Fairies Stole.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “You could be Queen,” said Delano. “Queen of two kingdoms. The Summer Court, and the Pixie Lands.”

  “That would make you King of the Summer Court.”

  “Oh yes. Eventually. Upon the death of the incumbent.”

  “My father?”

  Delano laughed. “Silly girl. The Summer King is a pathetic wisp of a man. Everyone knows the court is ruled in truth by the Summer Queen. So, you see – it is in your interest to depose her. She is not even any relation of yours. She is only standing between you and the greatest power in Skirnismor.”

  I wanted to buy time, to figure out what was going on. I certainly wasn't prepared to marry a pixie – or anyone else, for that matter – but nor was I keen to be eaten alive by one of Coller's companions. “It's certainly a tempting offer,” I said. “But forgive me – how can I possibly give you an answer under these conditions?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I need time to think it over.” I said.

  “Well, it's rather an easy choice. You can marry me, and become my queen, or you can become my concubine and bear my children illegitimately.” He shrugged. “The stigma here is the same as it is in your world. Your mother, for example, is considered just as much of a whore in Skirnismor as she must be in Gregory, Oregon.”

  “How dare you!” I shouted, losing my self-control for the moment.

  “Halfling or not – you are still a bastard child,” he continued. “Unable to hold any real power in the Summer Court until the Summer Queen's death. There is no place in Skirnismor that will protect you, Breena. Find your own protection. Rule Skirnismor.”

  I understood my decision. Either I was to marry Delano, giving him rights over the Summer Court in exchange for relative freedom and power as Pixie Queen, or I was to succumb to his advances another way – producing valuable heirs, perhaps, but nevertheless trapped, without any power of my own, in the Pixie castle. Neither plan sounded particularly appealing.

  I remembered laughing with Logan one day, not long ago, about romance. “I'll probably die a virgin,” I had said to him, bemoaning my lack of romance. “Then again, that's better than going out with one of the football jocks.” How long ago that life seemed! The idea of bearing children to a pixie disgusted me. I had never even been kissed.

  “I'll need to consider the matter,” I said.

  Delano laughed. “Take all the time you need. However – if we're not to be married, I'm afraid I cannot – how can I put this – host you in my private quarters. Propriety, you understand. You'll have to go back to the – ahem - guest rooms. I'll come to see you tomorrow – perhaps you'll give me an answer then.”

  And with that, two guards seized me, and dragged me back into the dungeon.

  I could not sleep that night. I sat, rocking back and forth, trying to decide what to do. I had no doubt that Delano would have no compunctions about forcing himself upon me in order to produce an heir – that as a concubine I would be little more than a slave, and yet I could not bring myself to agree to be his Queen, to consent to the terrible situation that had been forced upon me. There was nobody in Feyland I could trust – the Summer Kingdom seemed not to want me, the Winter Kingdom wanted to take me prisoner, the pixies wanted to use me as some kind of human breeding machine.

  I remembered my dreams, how I had so longed to go back to fairyland. I felt now that perhaps it would have been better if I had just stayed in Gregory after all.

  Chapter 10

  The night seemed to last forever – if it was night at all. There were no windows in the dungeon, and I had no way of knowing how long I was there, how long the time went. I remembered Jared Dushev, whom the pixies had bitten, and who had gone mad. But now I began to think that the pixies didn't need to bite anyone to make them mad – no, they could drive a person crazy just by locking them in here. I curled up on my bed of hay and tried to decipher what it was I should do next. I had no weapons, no magic, and Logan and Kian were probably miles and miles away. Even if I were to escape, I had no idea how to get home to the mortal realm – beyond the Crystal River was a rather vague description at best – and I certainly didn't stand a chance of getting there before being eaten by minotaurs, captured by pixies, or arrested by the Winter Court. Kian had been kind to me, despite his duty to his home kingdom, but I remembered Flynn, and Pan the satyr, and I couldn't help but feel sure that many of the other winter fairies wouldn't be so kind. The Summer Court didn't seem like much help, either – I had hoped that, as heiress to the throne, I might hold some sort of power, but it seemed that as long as the Summer Queen held the real power in the kingdom, I could no longer rely on her. Which left me, I realized, with Delano. I had no means of escape, after all, and so my choices were few; either I could remain a prisoner and, most likely, a concubine of the Pixie King, breeding half-breed children that would be taken away from me before I could even catch a glimpse of them, rotting away in these miserable walls, or I could become a Pixie Queen. I remembered the screaming emeralds in the throne, the horrible magic of Pixie crafts, and I shuddered. Plus, if I married Delano, he would have rights over the Summer Court. Neither choice seemed anything but terrible to me.

  If I only had more time...

  I tried to remember what Kian had told me about magic. Ask the stone to move. If everything was magic, here, and if I was magic, too, then surely this meant that I could learn to somehow connect with these unearthly things.

  I needed to start small. I grabbed a decidedly unmagical-looking piece of hay and placed it before me. I closed my eyes, trying to feel my magic, the way I could feel my weight, my height, my place in space. I didn't feel anything. I tried to concentrate harder, thinking of moments that made me feel powerful, feel special, feel that there was magic running alongside the blood in my veins. I remembered my dreams, the gorgeous palaces and cloud-capped towers of the Summer Court, the whispering willows and juicy orange-vines in the garden; I remembered the fairy waltz. I tried to recall its music – that strange and melodic sound that sounded like no other music in the world, because it was magic that made the instruments play – the magic of the musician connecting with the magic in the object.

  I thought of the dance, of the steps. I stared at the stalk of hay, trying to find the magic inside of it, trying to get closer...

  Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I saw Kian's face, as it had been in my dreams, night after night – the proud
and icy-eyed knight of the Winter Kingdom, felt his lips pressing close to mine, felt him lean down, saw myself reflected in his eyes...

  I gave into the feeling. At once I felt a strange sensation – like heat, but not heat – like cold, but not cold. My body was running hot and cold, at once, as if I had a fever, and then hotter and hotter, so hot I could hardly stand it, so hot that I imagined I would burn up and still my temperature kept rising. I pressed a hand to my forehead; it was as cool as it had always been. Where was the feeling coming from?

  I felt a rush of energy leave my body; in the dark of the room, I could see the faintest glimmer as the piece of hay leaped into the air, making a spiral, before sinking down into the ground.

  Well, it was a start.

  I practiced with the hay for what seemed like days. I had not eaten; I had not slept. I only tried to get the hay to do my bidding – to contort into shapes, to move around, to change color. I tried to work similar magic on the doors of the prison, but I felt an automatic push against me when I tried, a sudden, jolting pain in my forehead. If the doors had magic, I reasoned, it had been already enchanted to repel me.

  At one point the guards opened the window and threw me a crust of bread.

  “Let us know when you're ready to talk to Delano,” said one of the guards.

  I could see the key jingling in the pockets of Flaurmaus, who had replaced Coller as my primary guard. He, perhaps more wisely than his predecessor, did not speak to me. I tried to magic the key in my general direction; it, like the door, had been magicked.

  The case seemed hopeless. Moving bits of hay and bread around was all very well and good, but it would do me little benefit against the Pixie Delano and his whole terrifying army.

  Until I realized something else. I could move hay; I could move bread. I could change its color, its size (useful, I realized, when I was hungry), and its weight.

  But what if I could also change its shape?

  The next time the guards brought me bread, I didn't eat anything. Instead, I stared through the little window at Flaurmaus's keychain – at the precise size and shape of the key, how it looked, how it fit into the lock. I tried to use my magic to save a picture of it in my mind.

  I stared at the bread, willing it to morph itself into a reproduction of the key, willing it to grow harder – staler – until it had calcified.

  By the time the guards next came around for my feeding, I had succeeded in turning half my bread into a key, the other half into small, dense, hard balls – as heavy and solid as lead.

  I had to think quickly. I concentrated on the balls first, willing them to attack the guard, to strike him directly between the eyes. He went down immediately. I scanned the hallway for signs of another guard – nobody was there – I magicked the key through the hole and down into the lock; the door swung open. The key, straining under the effort (for deep down, it really was bread), at last broke in half, dissolving into crumbs on the floor. Not a moment too soon, I thought.

  And then I saw the locked door at the end of the hall.

  “Bree!” I heard a familiar voice – warm and reassuring – and looked up to see two guards rushing towards me. I froze.

  “It's us.”

  Beneath the armor of the Pixie guards I could make out the faces of Logan and Kian.

  “Are you all right?” I could see Kian's frown beneath his visor.

  “I'm fine – we'll talk later. How did you get in?”

  “How did you get out?” Logan cut in.

  Kian cut him off. “We found some guards on patrol outside the castle; knocked them out and replaced them.”

  “Hold on,” I said, turning back to the guard I had knocked out. “Think these will fit me?”

  I hurriedly put on the Pixie chain mail, sticking the visor over my face. I took the keys out of the guard's pocket for good measure.

  “We'll talk later,” said Kian. “For now, let's get out of here.”

  We tried our best to look like three Pixie soldiers on patrol. For a few, brilliant moments, we thought we had succeeded. We were able to exit the dungeons and make our way to the Great Hall. We nodded curtly to the other soldiers, hiding our faces beneath our visors.

  And then the magic alarm went off.

  It was a silent alarm; nevertheless we could sense it, hear it in our bones, a sick, strange feeling that meant something is wrong in the castle, and we saw that the Pixies could see it too.

  They rounded on us. “Them!” called one of them.

  “It's the Princess!” cried another, more clear-sighted.

  Kian and Logan drew their swords. “We're outnumbered,” Kian called. “Prepare to fight to the death,” he said to Logan. There was a casual kind of honor in his voice; to die for a cause afforded him little terror. His self-control was chilling. It was the noblest thing I had ever seen.

  Logan seemed a bit less willing to die. He tore into the Pixies madly, hacking them with his sword. I stood behind them, with my back against the wall, as they fended off pixie after pixie. If only there was something I could do...

  I caught sight of the chandelier and focused on it, trying to concentrate amid the din of the fighting. It was harder than doing magic in the dungeon – the object was bigger, and I didn't have the time to concentrate. I tried only to shut my eyes and feel the fairy waltz in my bones, think of Kian, think of his lips on mine, feel the magic bubbling up out of me.

  It rocked; it swayed.

  Just a little bit harder, I thought.

  (and in my imagination Kian's lips had pressed against mine; my mouth was opening; I could feel his hands tight against my back...)

  The rope holding up the chandelier snapped, and the candelabras crashed down into a hoard of Pixie soldiers. It was just enough of a distraction to let us cross the Great Hall, towards the gate, towards the bridge across the moat, which was rapidly being closed by a series of sentries...

  In the din, Logan and I had become separated from Kian, who was fending off ten Pixie soldiers at once.

  He turned and hissed at us. “Go!” he said.

  I hesitated.

  “Go, Princess!”

  I saw at last the sword fly out of his hand, saw the Pixie soldiers descend upon him, twining chains around his arms.

  Logan grabbed me. “Get on my back.”

  I didn't have time to think. I leaped onto his shoulders, and landed on the firm, taut, muscular back of a wolf, digging my fingers deep into his fur, holding on as tightly as I could...

  He began running at an unearthly speed, his hindquarters shaking the ground. The bridge was closing, closing...

  With every ounce of magic I had left, I willed it to stay open for just a moment longer...

  He took the bridge at one great, terrible run. I could feel the wind on our faces as we leaped through the sky, over the moat, out of the castle. The wolf that had been Logan kept running, until at last I could feel in the air that there were no pixies following us.

  He stopped, and let me roll off his back.

  And there we were. Alone, in the night, with no idea where we were going, where to go, if anyone was following us. The two of us – alone.

  And Kian was back in the Pixie castle, weighed down with chains, the prisoner of Delano, King of the Pixies.

  They said Delano liked to play with his food.

  Chapter 11

  We stood alone in the darkness. The wind whipped around us, and even the stars were terrifying, for with every faint and unearthly glow that came out of the endless night my heart tightened and I thought again of the Pixies following us, with their misshapen faces, their glowing eyes, their cruel mouths.

  “Where do we go now,” I said to Logan. I didn't have time to think about anything but survival; there was a great stone inside my throat, an overwhelming emptiness overtaking me.

  He placed an arm around me. “I know this place,” he said. “In the forest. It's an outpost of the werewolves – a cave. We'll go there. Get on my back.” He transformed again –
first his ears and hands and feet, then the rest of him – and I got on top of him. The smell of his fur reassured me – the same musty, familiar Logan-smell that always used to remind me of the woodlands outside Gregory High School.

  By the time we reached the cave, I was shaking.

  Logan transformed back into a man, and began looking for sticks of wood. “Here,” he said. “Start rubbing these together – see if you can get them to light.”

  I tried to use magic, to imagine the fairy waltz as I had back in the Pixie castle, but every time I thought of Kian my blood turned to ice; I could not do it. Fat, throbbing tears dripped down onto the wood.

  “We'll have to do it the normal way,” said Logan.

  At last the fire was lit. But this was not normal fire. Instead of burning brightly, it seemed to obscure the rest of Feyland – the trees and shadows that we saw outside the cave entrance turned into endless black, while somehow the shapes and figures in the cave itself seemed perfectly clear. “It's darkfire,” said Logan. “The Pixies won't see anything beyond this point – even if they look in the cave.”

  “Logan,” I said at last. “What's going on?” My lips and chin were trembling. I was tired of being strong. I wanted to be a little girl again, a child, weak and protected; I wanted his arms around me, his comforting words. I wanted somebody else to tell me what to do. In the morning, maybe, I would be strong. Right now all I wanted to do was cry.

  “Werewolves, we're not like other creatures,” said Logan. “We're not magic in the same way. We're Halflings – real Halflings, not half-breeds like you. Half in the mortal world, half in this one. There's a legend about us – that a wolf fell into the Crystal River when he was just a cub, and that from that day on he needed to go back and forth into the mortal world and the magical one.”

  “I don't understand,” I said.

  “Our magic isn't the magic of Feyland – the cold, beautiful magic of fairy kings and queens. That magic, as you've learned, is often stifling; it's why so many fairies are barren – why whole royal lines are dying out, why the Summer Queen could not bear an heir. Magic is so strong, so powerful, that it overwhelms “normal” life forces – like procreation. Fairies, pixies, and so forth don't need to eat in the way that humans or wolves do – in order to metabolize calories, to keep the heart pumping. What they eat energizes them magically – from fairyfruit wine to the blood of fairies. Werewolves are from the magical realm, but their power lies in the mortal life-force. We do not feed on blood or magic, nor on fairyfruit and magical plants and herbs – but on mortal food. So we must go back and forth...”