Winter Queen(8)

She felt her bones shatter and pain lance up her arm. The knife slipped out of her useless fingers. Before she could react, the axe sliced toward her. She tried to jump back, as Lanna had, but she wasn’t fast enough. Cold metal drew a line of fire through her belly. She smelled the unmistakable scent of bile mixing with blood. She sank to her knees, propped up by one hand, her injured arm wrapped around her belly to keep her bowels from spilling out.

The healer in her understood, even if the rest of her couldn’t. She was going to die—a long, agonizingly painful death.

She glanced up as Darrien lifted his axe again. Lanna jumped in front of her and threw her knife. He blocked it with his shield. Redirecting his blow, he slammed his axe into Lanna’s shoulder, splitting her from shoulder to belly. With a sickening sucking sound, he pulled it free.

Lanna was dead before she hit the ground. Ilyenna stretched her bloodied hand toward her friend. The movement shot barbs through her belly. She doubled up, wondering why the pain hadn’t killed her. “Please,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Please, kill me.”

Darrien crouched in front of her, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. “You murdered my brother.” Without another word, he stepped around her. She heard him heave Hammoth over his shoulder.

“You’re no better than a Raider!” she panted.

He didn’t answer. Eventually the sound of his footfalls faded, leaving her only the silence, Lanna’s body, and the pain that burned until it swallowed her whole.





4. Winter Dance



Ilyenna watched as snow twirled and danced delicately on the breeze, gently covering Lanna’s bloody body with pure white. It was as stark and disturbing as it was beautiful.

Ilyenna now felt neither cold nor pain, only wonder at the beauty around her. She knew she was dying, her soul slipping away. She waited for darkness to come for her.

One snowflake danced toward her, twirling and spinning like a silver bowl. It hovered above her and spoke in a voice like singing crystal. “I think this one might do.”

Other snowflakes danced and twirled, floating above her face. “She may,” one of them replied in a tinkling voice. “But then again, she may not.”

Strange, Ilyenna thought, that upon my death, I should hear talking snowflakes.

“Shall we choose her?” asked a third snowflake.

Everything grew hazy and out of focus. Ilyenna could no longer see the snowflakes, only hear them speaking as if from far away.

“She’s been marked,” came the voice of the first. “She’s already one of us.”

“Well then, that’s something else entirely. But if we choose her, it must be quick. She’ll not last much longer.”

Ilyenna could no longer distinguish one voice from another. Her life was slipping away as softly as a twirling snowflake.

“I shall choose her,” said one.

Something small, like a frozen teardrop, touched Ilyenna’s mouth. Her body instantly came back to life. The dim, grainy landscape grew clear again. She looked at the snowflakes, but their glamor was gone now. They weren’t talking snowflakes at all, but fairies. The one directly above her was the size of her largest finger. She had fluffy white wings that looked like rabbit fur.

Ilyenna’s eyes shifted to take in the other fairies. All had high, pointed eyebrows and ears. Their hair hung long and soft as silk down their backs. Their skin varied from bluish white to purplish black, with wings as varied as their faces.

With wings like clear ice, the purple-black fairy flew down and pressed her tiny lips to Ilyenna’s. Suddenly, the cold embraced her like an old friend. She felt as if winter’s secrets were hidden somewhere deep inside her, waiting to be discovered.

Another fairy, with wings like fans of frost shards, bent down and kissed Ilyenna. In her blood, ice crystals formed, searing her veins. She screamed. The sound was swallowed by an avalanche roaring in her ears. The pain seemed to slowly shred her body one icy knife at a time.

“You drag on her torment unnecessarily, Ursella. Choose her or not, but do so quickly.”

The fairy shook out her mane of silver hair. “They are weak, even the strongest of them.”

“The Balance requires a queen, Ursella. Choose now or she dies.”

Ilyenna felt the truth in the words. Her life ebbed away. The pain still tore at her, but it was as distant as a fading echo.

“Very well.”

Faintly, Ilyenna felt the last fairy’s lips on hers. Pain and time fled. She’d lived seventeen years, but she’d not lived at all. Her body, previously broken and bleeding, now pulsed with white light. Her wounds no longer existed. She suddenly realized she hadn’t breathed in many long minutes. She gasped, taking air into her lungs.

“And so a new winter queen is born,” said the fairy with furry white wings.

White streamers, like ribbons of silk, slipped around Ilyenna’s body. They shimmered and rippled like water before absorbing into her skin. Light gathered at her fingertips, and crystals sang in her ears. A new awareness grew inside her chest. She let her thoughts go and felt herself fragmenting, her body disintegrating into swirls of snow.

From deep inside Ilyenna, something whispered a warning. Danger and chaos and destruction lay before her.

“No! Not yet,” one of the fairies cried.

The warning was drowned out by the chiming of crystals and the wind rushing in Ilyenna’s ears. As if in a trance, she continued to fragment. The four fairies pulled and tugged at her hair and clothes, but they were no stronger than hummingbirds.

The one with furry wings planted herself in front of Ilyenna, fists on her slim hips. “You will not enter winter. Not yet. If you do, winter will never let you go.”

Shocked, Ilyenna pulled back into her physical form.

Clearly relieved, the fairy bowed. “I am Chriel, my queen.”

The fairies circled her, their small hands reverently tracing her temple, neck, hair, her bare back. “The power inside her—so beautiful.”

Ilyenna wasn’t sure which one of them said it. Once again, she realized she hadn’t expelled the air in her lungs. When she did, wind and snow rushed from her lips. Chriel tumbled back, her wings beating hard. Ilyenna clamped her hand over her mouth.

Shaking snow from her hair, Chriel fluttered back to her. “You might want to be a trifle more careful with winter’s wind, Queen.”

Ilyenna took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, very carefully. As cold as it was, her breath should have misted the air. It didn’t. “Winter queen?” she asked.

The fairy with wings like the finest glass fluttered them unhurriedly. “Winter has birthed you, endowing you with its power. You are a force of nature manifest in flesh—hence you are winter queen.”

“I’ll live forever?”

The fairy’s wings quivered. “Not forever. But neither are you a mere mortal.” She bowed, her wings dropping low. “I am Tanyis. We would have you as our queen—the conduit of winter’s power, if you are willing. But there is a price.”

“A price?” Ilyenna echoed.

“There is always a price.” The fairy with wings that looked like broken glass flew forward. “You mustn’t agree unless you’re certain, mortal. The transformation has been set in motion, but you have yet to enter winter. We can still stop it.”

The other fairies shot the fourth looks of cold disapproval.

Normally, Ilyenna wouldn’t have been so bold, but the ice racing through her veins lent her courage. “If you had doubts, Ursella, you shouldn’t have chosen me.”

Ursella’s eyes narrowed into a tiny glare.

The other three shot her looks of triumph. “I knew she called to me.” Chriel clapped her hands in delight.

“What price?” Ilyenna asked again.

“Your humanity,” Ursella said, her wings stiff.

Ilyenna tried to speak, but she had no breath in her lungs. She had to remember to keep breathing. She inhaled and spoke carefully. “I don’t understand . . .”

The blue fairy with wings like fans of frost smiled. “I am Qari, my queen. You have been reborn into winter, but as Ursella said, the transformation is not complete. You must agree to the price first—your humanity.”

Ilyenna looked from one fairy to the next in confusion.

Qari went on. “Humans feel all ranges of emotions. As a queen of winter, the emotions on the light side of the Balance will be alien to you—emotions like passion, protectiveness, trust. Instead, you will naturally gravitate toward indifference, jealousy, and rage. You will no longer belong with mankind. Instead, you will be a force of nature. Your soul will be reborn, as your body has been. In return, the powers of winter shall be yours permanently.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Winter will fade and you shall forever return to your human state,” Qari said.

“Do not make the decision, lightly,” Ursella warned. “The price will cost you everything that makes you Ilyenna—a healer, daughter, sister, friend. All of it will be gone.”

Ilyenna tried to concentrate, but the thrill of winter kept luring away her thoughts. It took all her will, but she forced herself to ignore it. “Powers of winter?”

Three of the four fairies laughed. At the sound, the wind picked up.

“A strange question,” Qari said. “What is winter if not the power of the blizzard, winter winds, snow, ice, cold. . . the ability to put the world to sleep, to make ice flowers bloom, and to deck the world in thousands of sparkling frost diamonds.”