Winter Queen(9)
“On the last day of true winter,” Chriel sang.
The three shifted on the breeze, their tinkling laughter filling Ilyenna’s head with thoughts of flight. Long wings uncurled from her back, shifting and shimmering with the colors of an aurora. The rest of her body was nearly as pale as the driven snow, and as bare as trees in winter. She gestured to the snow. It swirled forward, coating her in a gown of white.
Part of her wanted to stay on the ground, to ask more questions, but the wind called for her to dance. Her wings beat to life. She rose, her arms outstretched as they commanded the storm. She dove in and out of heavy clouds, swam through swirls of snow, sang and danced the dance of the storm.
Other fairies appeared, pressing their lips to hers. As they did, a pleasant awareness of each grew inside Ilyenna. Some of those fairies brought shards of frost and diamonds. After sweeping up her black hair, they placed a headdress upon her head. In its center was a diamond the size of Ilyenna’s thumbnail.
The storm slowly shifted. “Come with us,” the fairies sang. “We move north for summer.”
Her wings ached to follow them, but as she did, she happened to glance down at a small village, nestled in the mountains. Smoke rose up from gutted stone houses. Memories of a past life tugged at her heart. She lifted her bluish white hands. “Who am I?”
Chriel glanced nervously at the storm as it moved further away. She seemed faded somehow, her brilliance melting. “We must follow. We’ve held on as long as we could, but the last storm of winter has passed. Summer comes.”
As winter’s power slipped from Ilyenna’s body, memories of a people she’d once loved blossomed in her mind. They were in trouble somehow. She must remember why. She shook her head, trying to remember. “Can I not stay, Chriel? Can I not?”
Chriel strained against an invisible current, her arms outstretched and her voice pleading, “My queen, you must come with me! You’re not strong enough yet—not yet.”
Ilyenna’s wings wilted, melting like frost before the sun. She fell back toward the earth. “I can’t, Chriel. Not yet.”
5. Marked
Ilyenna lay on the ground, staring into Lanna’s clouded eyes, her grayish blue skin. She felt no grief. No pain. Nothing. Perhaps she was dead too. So she stared, waiting for her own eyes to glass over.
Voices floated in and out of her waking dreams. Only when one spoke right next to her could she make sense of the words. “There’s two of ’em over here.”
She groaned, trying to make her mind work.
“She’s still alive!” he gasped.
“Alive? She can’t be.”
“But she is!”
Hot fingers brushed the snow off her face. “Get her on the horse.”
Strong hands gripped her arms and dragged her, then hauled her, belly down, onto a saddle. Why didn’t that hurt? Darrien had cut her there. Ilyenna tried to fight, to kick, but only succeeded in wiggling. Her body had no strength. The men tying her down didn’t even seem to notice her efforts.
“Look at her clan belt,” one of them said.
The other man grunted. “Looks like we found the missing clan mistress, eh?”
She managed to look at the man just finishing up her wrists. He frowned at her before grabbing the reins and leading the horse through the trees and onto the road. There, he mounted another horse and kicked it into a trot, pulling her horse behind.
The jarring ride clouded her brain, and she passed back into oblivion.
Some time later, hands gripped hers. She pushed against unconsciousness, but it was like trying to catch hold of mist. She groaned and shifted. A man pulled her from the saddle and carried her, at one point slinging her over a shoulder before taking her back in his arms. She nestled her head against a strong chest as her thoughts slowly ordered themselves. Fairies. There’d been fairies. Dancing. Kisses. Power. Queen.
She heard a door creak open, and the arms dumped her on a bed.
“By the Balance, what have they done to you?” Bratton cried. When she didn’t answer, he shook her so hard that her head hit the bed frame. “Ilyenna! Ilyenna!”
Moaning, she pushed her brother away. The ropes beneath the straw mattress shifted as he sat next to her. She heard a door shut and a wooden bar fall into place. She groaned again and forced her eyes open. She blinked up at her brother. Something was wrong. Bandages wrapped his head. Dark blood had seeped through them and dried on the sides of his face. She pushed all thoughts of fairies far away. “Bratton?”
He tipped a wooden mug to her lips. “Are you all right?”
She swallowed a mouthful of qatcha, nearly gagging at its strength. She pushed it away and glanced around. They were in one of the smaller rooms in the clan house. “Wh–what happened?”
His hands probed her stomach. “You’re covered in blood. Where are you hurt?” He shoved his hands through his hair, tugging the bandage awry. “By the Balance, I’m no good with healing. That’s your talent.”
She reached inside her torn dress and felt skin as smooth and soft as a child’s. In wonder, she wiggled the fingers of the hand Darrien had crushed. Her searching fingers found the matted blood on her head. “I’m not hurt.”
She remembered Darrien’s axe slicing her stomach. Remembered hunching over as the pain burned up her thoughts and hot blood seeped through her shattered fingers. “He gutted me. But the fairies healed me with a kiss.”
Still not quite believing it herself, Ilyenna glanced up to see disbelief and worry written across her brother’s face.
Suddenly, she felt so tired. “It was real. I saw them. They asked me to be their queen.”
Bratton smoothed her hair away from her face. “Listen to me, Ilyenna. In a battle, sometimes a man gets confused. That’s all this was. It wasn’t real—none of it was. But don’t say it again. You’ll frighten the others with talk of fairies.”
Ilyenna barely heard him. All of yesterday came back in a rush. The wool trampled into the snow. The men. Lanna.
May the Balance protect her, Lanna’s death was her fault. She closed her eyes. “Lanna’s dead.”
Bratton rocked forward and cradled his head in his hands. “You’re sure?”
Ilyenna nodded once.
Rage hardened his face. He spoke through gritted teeth. “She isn’t the only one.”
Ilyenna sat up in the bed, clenching the blankets in her fists. “What are you trying to tell me? Is it Father?”
Bratton pressed his palms into his eyes as if to stave off tears. “He was alive when the Tryans took him a few hours ago.”
Ilyenna felt her mouth go suddenly dry. “Otrok?”
Bratton swallowed. “He died trying to avenge his father.”
A wave of horror rolled through her. She’d gone to the dead, asking her brother and father’s lives be spared, and her request had been granted. In the space of a day, they’d gone from the brink of death to fighting in a battle. And in return, the dead had taken two others whom Ilyenna loved.
“The Balance,” she gasped. “Lanna and Otrok for you and father.”
Through his haze of grief, Bratton stared up at her.
She scooted back, trying to get away from him. “You need to stay away from me.”
Bratton’s brows drew together in confusion. “What? Why?”
“Otrok and Lanna—their deaths are my fault.”
“You weren’t even with Otrok,” he said.
She shook her head, desperate to make her brother understand. “Bratton, I—I was so afraid you and father would die. I—I went to the dead. I begged them to spare you. And now, Otrok and Lanna are dead.”
Bratton gaped dumbly at her.
“Don’t you see? The dead spared you and Father and took two others in your place.”
Bratton shot to his feet, his hands fisted at his sides. “No.”
“I saw the shadows boiling, saw them crawl up my skin. I’m marked.” And will be, until the dead claim me forever as their own.
Horror dawned on Bratton’s face just before the doors behind him burst open and several Tyrans entered. Two grabbed Bratton; another two came for Ilyenna. They hauled her out of the bed and to the ladder. “Down. Both of you.”
Bratton cast a hard look at her before climbing down. She followed him. The hall was filled with what remained of the Argon and Shyle clans. Most of the men had fresh wounds mixed with old ones. Many of the women and children were gone—perhaps Otrok had come in time for the them to flee to their summer homes.
She reached the bottom of the ladder and stood beside Bratton, who glared toward the main doors.
Ilyenna followed his gaze to see a group of Tyrans, the sunlight streaming behind them and casting their faces in shadows. The guards at their sides took Ilyenna’s and Bratton’s arms and pushed them through their clan.
As Ilyenna came closer to the Tyrans, she could make out their features. At their center stood a man with twin streaks of white running down his ruddy beard. His gaze bore down on her.
Ilyenna recognized him immediately—Undon, the Tyran clan chief. All along the spectrum of the Balance, men ranged from good to evil. Ilyenna had the distinct impression Undon was on evil’s side.
A man flanked his side, a young man with a red beard. His stunned gaze met hers. It was Darrien. Unconsciously, she planted her feet and tried to twist her arms out of the guard’s hands. They relentlessly dragged her before Undon and his son.