The more she raged, the more she became it. The cold and the storm enveloped her so completely she knew nothing but the storm, at one with her fairies’ shared fury.
When the men were buried beneath a thick layer of snow, she moved on, looking for others. She didn’t find many. Few caught out in the open had survived her initial fury. But she still wasn’t satiated. “Find more,” she ordered. The fairies fanned out, searching. Alone, she trolled the land. Then she saw a solitary traveler. She attacked, driving him back.
His horse ducked its head, its sides quivering. The man booted it, trying to drive it into the storm when it knew it needed to turn its tail to the wind and find others of its kind to huddle with for warmth.
Another cruel man. Ilyenna pummeled him again and again, until he finally abandoned the trembling horse and stumbled forward alone. Frustrated, she pulled back and blew with all her might. The wrappings around the man’s face caught in the wind. He reached out, trying to catch them, but her wind jerked them away. He turned his face to the storm.
She stopped short. Somehow, she knew this man. Something within her broke the barrier. Her fury faded as her memories floated free. She could see them all. But it was like looking at someone else’s life. Her past life. She remembered, but she felt nothing. She pulled away from winter, retaking her human form.
Using her wings that shimmered with the iridescence of an aurora, she fluttered curiously toward him. The man groaned, hunching unnaturally even for the cold. She came a little closer and a word came unbidden to her mind. “Rone.”
More memories swelled inside her, bursting into her mind so fast she nearly fell from the sky. As it was, she barely caught herself from crashing. Still, she landed with enough force to shatter human legs.
Ilyenna hurried forward. Rone lay face first in the snow, his eyes closed. Her emotions were still frozen. She felt no fear, no sadness. But she remembered him—remembered loving him. The memory alone was strong enough to drive her to save him. She bent down, drawing the cold from his body into her own.
His eyes fluttered open. “Ilyenna?” he asked.
“The Ilyenna you knew is dead,” she answered.
His head rolled back. She felt him again and sensed an unnatural heat in his body. “Fevered.” Her other life supplied the word. She added a bit of cold, just enough to make him feel right.
Other fairies arrived. Though they didn’t know the source of her new emotions, they felt them. Her compassion had swallowed their fury.
Holding the man called Rone in her arms, Ilyenna took to the skies. She found a house—the same one she remembered borrowing a draft horse from in her previous life—and landed on the doorstep. She knocked on the door. The humans inside opened it. They took one look at her and gaped, too afraid to even close the door.
Ilyenna shoved past them. She lay Rone down before the fire. Even the heat from those meager flames made her feel sick and wilted. She turned to find the humans gaping at her wings. Though she couldn’t resurrect any emotions, she remembered enough to understand how ethereal she must look to them. With a thought, she made her wings disappear.
They blinked in disbelief and begin to rationalize what they’d seen in low, harried voices.
Ilyenna dug around in her jumbled memories. It was like sifting through the contents of someone else’s life. Then she found the right memory. “He’s sick. I need qatcha. Do you know what it is?”
The woman shook her head.
“Garlic, oregano, and onions, simmered with a silver spoon, salt, and chicken organs.” Ilyenna recited. “I also need juice from crushed garlic. And clean rags.”
As she started pulling off Rone’s layers of clothing, she could smell the rot. Finally, she saw the source of the smell. The wound was swollen and red, obviously infected. “Give him whiskey. As much as he can hold.”
The woman knelt next to Ilyenna and began pouring whiskey down Rone’s throat by the spoonful. Ilyenna bathed the wound with whiskey while she waited for the alcohol to inebriate him. When his mumbling went from tight with pain to loose and random, she figured it was close enough.
She enlisted the help of the man and one of the older boys to hold Rone down. Pressing on the skin, she forced out the puss. Ilyenna rubbed and pushed and wiped and poured warm whiskey over the wound until only clear liquid and blood came out. Then she carefully separated the wound, sticking a silver spoon in sideways to keep it open. She scoured it with whiskey and a rag, cut off any dead tissue, and dripped pungent-smelling garlic juice inside.
Leaving in the spoon, Ilyenna left the wound open to the air. “Keep him warm, and keep as much of the qatcha down him as possible.” She started toward the door.
“Wait,” the woman cried.
Ilyenna turned expectantly.
“Where are you going?” The man asked. “That storm is no place for a woman like you.”
Ilyenna smiled. “The storm is exactly the place for a woman like me.”
She stepped outside. With a thought, her wings appeared. She shot into the thinning clouds. She heard the door being thrown open behind her, heard the confused shout. But she was already in the clouds.
Chriel appeared. She’d obviously been waiting for her. “The man?”
Ilyenna shrugged. “I hope he lives.” At least, she thought she did. She felt regret for not loving him, but she didn’t think she was capable of love anymore. “My memories knew what to do to heal him. He’ll have to do the rest.”
Ilyenna felt it then, the press of summer against her. It was strong and unbearably hot. She couldn’t help but shrink before it.
Chriel looked to the south. “She’s much stronger than us. It’s her season.”
Ilyenna followed Chriel’s gaze and saw her, Leto, the summer queen. She had left when Ilyenna had begged for help, so that winter might come and restore Ilyenna.
Leto came to her with wings like maple leaves. They were trembling with the cold. In contrast, the heat made Ilyenna shudder. But in this half space between winter and summer, both could stand before each other for a brief time.
“Thank you,” Ilyenna said simply.
Leto smiled. “In years past, I’ve fought with winter. Perhaps with you, fighting will not be necessary.”
Ilyenna dipped her head in acquiescence. “I do not wish to fight you.”
Hesitantly, Leto bent forward and touched Ilyenna’s stomach. “Every year, I have a child. But winter never has. Strange.”
Ilyenna felt the life within her, still growing, still strong.
Leto withdrew her hand. “It is summer.”
Ilyenna understood. This was not her realm, not her time. Part of her wanted to fight, to stay and revel in winter a bit longer. She’d eventually lose, but she could draw out her time. Yet she respected the summer queen and was grateful for what the woman had done for her.
“Until summer ends, winter will not come again,” Ilyenna promised.
She called her fairies to her with a thought and sped away. Behind her, she felt summer’s heat spreading through her cold like a drop of milk in water.
26. Aurora
Ilyenna cut through the night sky in the form of an aurora. She pushed back winter’s borders, directing her warrior fairies to act as sentinels. There was no moon tonight, only sharp stars that pierced the sky behind her. She shimmered at the center of the aurora. She tried to press further south, but her strength was dissipating before summer’s power. It was as far as they would manage before the warmth of morning drove them back.
Ilyenna pulled herself back to her human form. The aurora condensed into her wings, which shimmered with color. An army of fairies took shape around her. The starlight gleamed dully off hundreds of their lithe bodies.
Ilyenna searched the forest below until she found a clearing to land in. She flared her wings, catching pockets of the wind to slow her descent. She landed gently on the ground, dry leaves crunching beneath her feet. Within moments, they were rimmed with frost. She crouched, letting her senses settle around her. In this land, the harvest was weak. Many of the trees had died from a late touch of winter. The animals would struggle to survive until next season. Even mankind, with their cursed fires, would find this winter a difficult one.
Ilyenna felt no joy or sorrow in their hardship. It was the way of the Balance. Good years and lean.
Her fairies awaited her orders. They had until morning and the day’s heat to do their work. “Prepare the land for winter,” she commanded.
Her frost fairies danced across the green leaves, sending tendrils of cold into the trees to warn them of winter’s coming.
Chriel and the rest of the creature fairies sought out the animals. Ilyenna heard their whispers. “Hurry, hurry. Eat and grow fat, for sleep and rest and cold are coming.”
Ilyenna watched as a rabbit lifted its nose to the air, listening to the fairies’ warnings. When it saw her, it darted away. Closing her eyes, Ilyenna sent ribbons of her power outward, pressing against summer. “It is my time,” she reminded Leto softly.
Ilyenna felt summer shiver. It instinctively dug deeper, trying to resist, but the season was shifting. Winter’s power spread farther by the day. Ilyenna slipped through the forest and came across some of her frost fairies working on an apple tree.
The winter queen cocked her head to the side. In the darkness, the tree seemed to be made of layers of shadow, but she made out the heavy globes weighing down the boughs so they trailed along the ground.