Once they were in the desert, she was relieved that he could contain his reaction to the faeries that were now visible to him. He muttered “Wow,” but he didn’t stare at them and his soft exclamation could’ve been in reference to anything. He squeezed her hand a couple of times, either in excitement or nervousness, but in all, he hid his reaction to seeing the world revealed in a new light. She hadn’t been anywhere near that subtle in her responses when she’d first seen the creatures that lived hidden all around mortals. Then again, she’d also just become such a creature, so her own responses were heightened by emotions he didn’t have to experience.
“It’s amazing,” he said, almost reverently. His gaze drifted across the desert, and anyone watching could easily think he was referring to the cacti and cliffs.
“Deadly too,” she reminded him.
“My girlfriend is ruling the desert, right?”
“More or less.”
“Then I feel pretty safe,” he told her. “You can keep me safe.”
Admittedly, he had a point. Whether she took Alpha from Sionnach—which she certainly could if she wanted to—or accepted his repeated offered to share it with him, she would be able to keep Jayce safe from the fey here. She could order them not to reveal his Sight. Realizing that went far to easing her worries.
“Only here though,” she cautioned. “Outside the desert, I have no power.”
He nodded.
Rika and Jayce were silent as they crossed the desert. There were more things to discuss than she knew how to handle. The hardest of which just then was that she was going to tell Jayce he couldn’t come with her to see the Winter Queen. There were rules in dealing with the courts, and she wasn’t foolish enough to expect that all of those rules would vanish because she’d known Donia when she wasn’t yet a queen. Unfortunately, Rika wasn’t convinced that leaving Jayce in the desert was ideal either. Things were increasingly unsettled in the wake of the attack on Sionnach, and before that Keenan’s visit, and earlier still, the Summer King’s assumption of his full power. The solitary faeries might be outside the courts, but that didn’t mean they were untouched by the events that happened within the courts. They all knew trouble was brewing. The only question was if they could avoid the worst of it.
Beside her, Jayce looked pensive, and while she couldn’t solve all of the problems facing the solitaries, she hoped she could sort out whatever was worrying her mortal boyfriend.
Rika took his hand as they walked. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m a part of your world now, Rika, just as you are a part of mine.” Jayce’s expression became the already-familiar determined one that told her that he was going to say something he didn’t expect her to like. Quietly, he said, “I’m not like Keenan . . . or like Sionnach.”
Rika looked startled. “I know.”
“So everything will be okay.”
She had to look away. Seeing him so open, so unlike the fey, made it hard to refuse whatever he wanted—especially right now. As her gaze darted around the desert, she could see a dozen or so faeries peering out at her from behind rocks. They weren’t the ones who had seen her with Maili, and by the curious way they watched her, it was clear that they hadn’t heard about her altercation with Maili. They were simply acting as they always did, watching and teasing. They came out of hiding to approach her.
“Ooooh, she’s leaving.”
“With her pet.”
“Running away with a mortal.”
Rika shook her head before she corrected them. “I’m not leaving. I’ll be back.”
“Mortals aren’t all bad,” a faery muttered.
The others all paused to stare at the faery who’d just spoken such an unusual thing out here in the desert. Rika smiled at him approvingly. The desert fey weren’t a bad lot; they simply needed to learn some new ideas.
Jayce glanced at her questioningly, and she nodded.
“Or just pets,” Jayce casually added.
In a surge of movement surprisingly quick in the midday heat, the faeries skittered away from Rika and Jayce. Their expressions were clouded with mistrust and doubt as they stared at the mortal boy beside her. Rika couldn’t truly blame them; it was unusual to be seen by mortals. There were those rare few born with faery Sight, but she couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen such a mortal.
“He sees us,” one faery accused.
With more patience that she wanted to have, Rika put her hands on her hips. “I gave him faery Sight. It seemed only fair.”
The faeries scurried away muttering about her disregard for the rules, and Rika was momentarily glad that the faery regent she was going to see that day had reputedly broken that very same rule recently—and had done so for the new Summer Queen’s beloved. If the regents were allowing mortals to have the Sight, it was harder to argue that she shouldn’t have done so.
Jayce draped his arm over her shoulders. “I’m not your pet, but I am yours. I know you’re upset over what Sionnach did, but falling on you was the best thing that I ever did.”
“You didn’t fall. They pushed you,” she corrected him. “Sionnach probably told them to do it. Solitaries are not civilized. They’re manipulative.”
“I know.”
“And the same faery who helped Shy stabbed him.”
“I know,” he repeated.
“Maili tried to injure me earlier. She said all she wanted to do was talk, but she hurt me to do it.” Rika moved away from him, hoping that distance from his touch would strengthen her resolve to leave him in the desert. She held up her bruised and burned wrists. “She did this.”
“I know.” Jayce followed her. “I listened when you explained it—and when you yelled at Shy. I heard it all, but I’m not giving up on you just because we were manipulated or because you’re a faery.”
“You should. You know that, don’t you?”
“Don’t let Shy or Keenan or any of them”—Jayce gestured into the direction the faeries went—“make you give up on us.”
“Faeries can’t keep mortals,” Rika said sorrowfully. “And now that Shy . . . and Maili . . . and Keenan have put me in this position. . . .” She looked away, unable to bear the tangled frustration and determination in his expression.
“So tell me you’d be happier without me. Tell me you haven’t had more fun these past few weeks than you have had in a very long time.”
She looked back at him and admitted, “I can’t, but I’ll have responsibilities now. If I’m going to be Alpha or even co-Alpha, things will change. Maili won’t be the only faery to challenge me. There will be fights, and I have to figure out what to do about Sionnach, and if Donia won’t help, I need to deal with Keenan, and—”
“You’ll be busier,” he interrupted. “That’s fine. You do your Alpha thing, and we’ll date around your schedule of fighting rowdy faeries. It’s not like I can’t find things to do when you’re busy: classes, skating, art, climbing. . . .” He caught her hands and pulled her closer. “I have a life of my own, you know? I just want to be a part of yours, too.”
Rika shook her head. It sounded too easy, and she’d never exactly known a relationship to be easy. Maybe he was right though. With more hope than she’d felt since before Sionnach was stabbed and she was captured, she asked, “You’re sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure.” Jayce kissed her, giving her the reassurance that she needed.
When she pulled away, she kept hold of one of his hands. “Fine. Let’s go see the Winter Queen then. With her help, I won’t have to fight as often.”
With his hand in hers, she began to run across the desert. The speed at which she could move was something that she’d cherished about being fey from the very beginning. At first, she’d needed that speed to better serve the last Winter Queen. She’d helped to freeze the earth, a painful process that hadn’t ever gotten easier with time. Carrying some of the weight of winter inside a body was painful for anyone other than the Winter Queen. She’d done it as her punish
ment for trusting Keenan, the cost of being willing to cross the then Winter Queen, who had wanted no one to take the test. The only benefits of the curse were that she had been made fey—given speed and near-immortality—and those advantages were only conferred on the Winter Girls because without them, the girls would die when they took the test. Now, that same faery speed was simply a benefit that she could utilize for her own purposes. As they ran, the scenery blurred as they raced by cities, fields, and mountains, until they stopped in a busy street in front of a house that had featured in far too many of her nightmares.
The massive gray house before them had turrets and oddly shaped windows that were filled by faces of creatures that had once seemed stranger than she could’ve created in her darkest hours. Those same faeries were no longer a threat to her, but back then she’d been the Winter Girl cursed by the old Winter Queen, who had seemed to live to terrorize everyone.
The house seemed less ominous now even though faces still peered from the windows, and the yard was snow-draped despite it being spring. Rika’s grasp on Jayce’s hand tightened as they approached the iron fence that still wrapped around the property. She was briefly surprised that Donia hadn’t had the poisonous metal removed, but with the upheaval between the courts, maybe that touch of menace was wise. Winter was still the strongest of the courts, even though Summer was recently unbound. A reminder that Donia could be a force to fear was a good move politically.
“Everything should be fine,” Rika whispered, but she still shivered as she stepped through the gate and onto the elegantly curved sidewalk that wound between trees that were bowing under the weight of snow and ice. She wasn’t sure that everything would be fine. An awful lot of things were very not fine in her life, but she’d known Donia since the girl was a mortal. Like Rika, Donia had been one of the unlucky girls who had caught the then–bound Summer King’s attention. Rika had done all she could to convince her not to take the test. Afterward, she’d worked hard to hide her own bitterness from Donia, hoping that she could ease the newly fey girl’s pain by creating the illusion that one day forgiveness and freedom would come. Donia had been the last Winter Girl, though. Recently, she had been freed from the curse and replaced Beira, the Winter Queen who had made them all suffer for so long. Of all the faeries Rika had met, none were so easily trusted as the former Winter Girls. None of them spent much time together, choosing instead to forge new lives, but they all helped when one of their sisters needed them. Rika would be surprised if Donia refused her offer—especially when what she’d come to propose would also be an asset to the new queen.
CHAPTER 17
As Rika approached her house, Donia felt a twinge of envy. The former Winter Girl was holding the hand of a mortal boy. Like the Summer Queen and her mortal, Rika had someone at her side. Of late, even the Dark King had found a way to be reunited with the one he loved. It was only the High Queen and the Winter Queen who were without partners, and even the High Queen had found some affection. For her it was creating a son. So in reality, it was only Donia who remained without love, just as she had been when she was the Winter Girl. For a person who had risked everything for love, who had lost her mortality and then almost given her life for the one she loved, being deserted seemed an unreasonably cruel fate. It wasn’t that Donia wanted any of them to lose their loved ones—she wasn’t so heartless as her predecessor—she merely wished that she wasn’t without her beloved. Keenan was and had always been the one faery she couldn’t have, a faery who had only claimed his court because he’d found his rightful queen. A queen who is not me.
Many years ago, Donia had dreamed that she was the one he sought. Like Rika and numerous others, she’d thought that loving Keenan would be enough to break the curse that bound him. She’d believed that love really could conquer all. Now, she knew better. Maybe for Rika or the other former Winter Girls, there would be happy futures. Donia hoped so.
She smiled as she stood in the open doorway with Sasha, her white wolf, beside her. She lowered her hand to caress her constant companion behind his ears. He leaned against her affectionately.
At the foot of the stairs to Donia’s house, Rika stopped, let go of the boy’s hand, and stepped forward. Even now, so very crushable in front of a regent, the former Winter Girl stood unbending. Donia smiled at how familiar Rika’s posture was: that strength was what had enabled them both to survive the curse.
“Hello, Rika.” Donia’s words were accompanied by a white cloud of frozen air.
“Sister,” Rika greeted. She ascended the steps and held open her arms.
The boy stayed on the sidewalk behind her. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and shivered, but his gaze didn’t leave Rika.
“Sisters always,” Donia promised as she embraced Rika. They shared no blood, but as with the rest of the former Winter Girls, there would always be an affection between them that no one other than a former Winter Girl would understand. Carrying ice and snow inside a body not made for such pain wasn’t something that could be explained—nor would those who’d experienced it want to try to describe it. Some experiences were not meant to be spoken.
When Rika stepped back, she said, “You look healthier.”
Donia shrugged delicately. “Ruling suits me better than . . . the other. Carrying the curse of Keenan’s mistakes was unpleasant.”
Rika shook her head. “We both survived though.”
“And Beira didn’t.” Donia felt the storms fill her eyes and knew that they were snow white. A gust of icy air radiated from her skin, causing the trees to shiver and snow to fall from their branches in a brief flurried snowfall. Being around the other former Winter Girls stirred memories and emotions that they’d all rather forget. She suspected that was why they so rarely saw each other. Beira’s curse had made so many people suffer, and it was harder to deny those memories when the person in front of you had similar ones.
“I’m glad she’s dead.” Rika shivered again.
Donia tried to keep her own chill reined in as she said, “She won’t ever hurt any of us again. I’m the queen now.”
“Was it horrible? Her death?”
Truthfully, Donia hadn’t expected that question, but she wasn’t surprised. Beira had devastated a lot of lives, and few faeries mourned her passing. No one had sought Donia out for details, and few faeries would be so bold as to ask for details from the reigning queen.
“It was,” Donia said softly. She had lived for almost a century, but the day Beira had died and Donia had become Winter Queen was one of the memories that she still dreamed about more often than she’d like. Sometimes in the remembering, it felt like the moment was trapped forever in the now, as if—like the day when Donia had lost her mortality—it would never be an experience that she could relegate to memories.
The floor is already covered in spikes of ice; the furniture is well past broken. In the midst of the destruction, Beira stands like a beautiful nightmare. Despite the horror she has inflicted, Beira has always been lovely, dark hair and shocking red lips contrasting with the extreme pallor of ice.
She tilts her head inquiringly. “Do you think they’ll be more upset if you’re dead or still suffering?”
Donia is bleeding and exhausted, trying to rescue Seth—the mortal that the new Summer Queen loves. The boy is a strange one, brave in the face of the embodiment of Winter even after he’s had one of his facial piercings ripped out. His dark hair falls over his face, hiding his expression in the moment.
“Decision, decisions,” Beira murmurs as she walks over blades of ice, slowly and gracefully, as if she were entering the theater. She looks at Donia and Seth, trying to decide whom to torture next.
After a moment, she pulls Donia up by her hair and kisses both cheeks. Her frigid lips leave frost burn on Donia’s skin. Being the Winter Girl gives her some tolerance of the ice, but Beira is Winter. Since the last Summer King died over nine hundred years ago and the then newborn king was cursed, no one has been able to stand against her.
r /> “I believe I already told you what would happen to you, dearie,” Beira whispers, and then she seals her lips to Donia’s. The ice pours from the angry queen’s lips into Donia’s mouth. In moments, she will be frozen alive.
She doesn’t see Seth until he throws himself at Beira.
The furious Winter Queen drops Donia, but she doesn’t understand why until she sees the rusty iron sticking out of Beira’s neck.
With surprising strength for a mortal—especially an injured one—he’s attacked Beira, and the Winter Queen is not amused. She lashes out at Seth with a burst of ice and cold; the force of it slams him into a wall. Beira follows him in that too-fast-to-follow way.
“Do you think that little trinket will kill me?” She digs her fingers into the skin of his stomach and—using his ribs as a handle—jerks him to his feet.
He screams over and over, awful sounds that make Donia tremble, but she can’t help him. She can’t even lift her head from the floor. The mortal has risked his death to help her, but even that seems too little, too late. She feels the ice that Beira has exhaled into her body. It’s killing her.
Beira removes her bony fingers from Seth’s stomach, and he slides down the wall, slumping in a boneless pile.
Donia struggles to crawl to him as the ice slides down her throat, choking her, filling her lungs. She’s not sure what she can do, but she wants to save him.
Beira doesn’t attempt to stop her, but she doesn’t need to. Donia has barely managed to move. Her vision blurs, and she closes her eyes.
Donia has no idea how long she is motionless on the floor. She opens her eyes when a burst of heat stirs her.
Aislinn is there. The girl is no longer mortal. She’s the queen that Keenan sought, and she’s at his side now. They’re both glowing so brightly that it hurts to see them. The newly ascended Summer Queen is holding Beira’s arms as Keenan leans closer, his lips almost touching Beira’s mouth.
Then he just breathes.
Sunlight pours onto her like some viscous fluid.