Midnight Frost (3 page)

“Do you
deny
he was unfaithful?” Redleaf laughed. “You are living proof.”

“I may be my father's daughter,” I said. “But I've done you no harm. If you don't help me out of here, though – I swear, Redleaf, by my crown I'll leave you to rot in this miserable place.”

Redleaf raised her eyebrow, and I swallowed my anger. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed Redleaf as much as she needed me. If I got her too angry, we'd both be trapped here. I didn't put it past Redleaf, a woman so trapped in her hatred and bitterness, to condemn herself to eternal suffering here if it meant hurting me, too. “That is to say...” I coughed slightly. “You are right, Highness, that I have suffered much, through many tribulations. I have learned that my harshest trials bring the sweetest rewards, and that the most troublesome tribulations lead me to wisdom. And I have learned from your example, my Queen – winning a war is not easy. But I am willing to undergo difficulties for the good of the kingdom.”

A faint smile spread across Redleaf's lips. She was mollified – for now, at least. “Very well,” she said. “I see you have grown a great deal in wisdom since I saw you last. I wouldn't be surprised if you've been hearing the Voices already.”

“The voices? What voices?”

“You have great magic within you, now. The magic of your crown. But it does not belong to you – you know that, don't you? Any more than it belonged to me. It is an ancient force, greater than any one of us. It is composed of all the Summer Queens who have lived and died before you – all the ancient voices of wisdom. When you listen to your power, you will hear their voices.
And mine too.
” Suddenly I realized that Redleaf was not moving her lips at all – that the voice I heard, I heard not with my ears, but rather within my very spirit – just as I heard Kian's voice when we communicated telepathically.

“And as your Voice, as your guide – as the Summer Queen – it is my duty, however reluctant, to guide you to safety, out of the Kingdom of the Dead. But just this once, you understand?”

“I am grateful for your help,” I said, carefully.

Our conversation was interrupted by a swift, chilling wind that blew past us, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

“What was...?”

“Stand back!” Redleaf cried, and instinctively I followed her, brandishing my dagger once more.

The wind returned with an even greater chill, and then there appeared before me a shuddering skeleton – a collection of bones held together by mere air, a malformed shape that must once have been a Minotaur.

“Don't move.” From Redleaf's hands there sprang a sword – glowing ember-hot like a flame – and she rushed to meet the Minotaur, her blade clashing with his terrible horns. “Don't touch him!” The Minotaur was twice Redleaf's size, but she showed no fear – bringing down her sword again and again upon the minotaur's frame, severing bones from the skeleton but never bringing the creature down.

I could not deny my admiration for Redleaf, even as I hated and feared her. As a fighter, she was magnificent – stronger than any man or woman I had ever seen except the Winter Queen – her posture impeccable, her eyes flashing with rage. She was every inch a Queen, for all of her other faults, and she knew it.

“Let me through!” A hollow, guttural sound came through the motionless dead mouth of the Minotaur. “She belongs to me!”

“I most certainly do not!” I shouted from the sidelines.

“She has no quarrel with you,” Redleaf said. “Leave us in peace.”

“Her prince – the Winter whelp – slayed me when I sought to take her for our food outside his Winter cottage,” snarled the beast. “If he had not been so enamored of her, she would have made a fine feast for me and my brothers. But he slayed me – and so too were my brothers slain. All for that pathetic little...”

“You tried to eat me and now you're angry you got caught?” I scoffed, feeling all the more braver standing behind Redleaf, who was evidently getting the upper hand in this battle. “Maybe you should have thought about your brothers before trying to snack on an unarmed girl.”

“The Prince has destroyed my family – my bloodline.”

“You attacked first,” I said, holding my dagger aloft. “As far as I'm concerned – you deserved what you got. And if I recall correctly, Kian got a pretty nasty wound, too.”

“He didn't die!”

“Well, worse luck for you then!” I couldn't help feeling more annoyed than afraid. This dead creature, whoever he was, could likely do me little more harm than Redleaf – my fight was with them no longer – at least, not until they left the Kingdom to fight. “What kind of fool do you take me for – to sit around and gladly let you munch off a bit of my thigh?”

“A fairy fool,” the Minotaur spat.

This was, evidently, enough to anger Redleaf. With a single fell blow, she severed the Minotaur's skull from the rest of his skeleton. “Insolent, wretched beast!” she cried. “We fairies ruled Feyland in life – and in death we shall rule this kingdom, too. I shall not allow your insolence to go unchecked!” The skull bounced silently on the ground. “Now go, away! And trouble us no more.”

The skull bounced back onto the skeleton, but the Minotaur had evidently had enough. He bowed low, his bones cracking and shaking as he did so, and then scampered off.

“Now,” Redleaf said, “Before we have any more trouble, we need to get to the river.”

“What river?”

“Thanamoth River,” Redleaf gritted her teeth. “Less like a river than a sewer, if you ask me, but we dead ones take what we can get. Follow me!” Her phantom form vanished, and before me I saw instead an orange light, beckoning me to follow. I ran after the light, following it as it took me around bends, up the mountain path, through forests of trees on which no leaves were growing or, I felt, ever had grown. At last we came to a riverbank – the River of Thanamoth, no doubt. I recognized it from the description. The water was black and turgid, smelling of decomposition and death.

“Not pleasant, is it?” said Redleaf, transforming once more into her phantom form.

I grimaced.

There, at the river's mouth, lay a boat with two oars laid across its width.

“Come on then,” said Redleaf. “Paddle! You don't expect me to do it, do you?”

Even when she was being helpful, I decided, Redleaf was far from charming.

We made our way down the river, paddling for what seemed like hours. My arms ached with the exertion, but every time I thought of pausing for breath I thought too of Redleaf's scorn, of what she would say if any fairy dared to show human weakness. The thought kept me going.

“Where are we going?” I asked at last.

“There!” Redleaf pointed straight ahead. A cluster of trees – on which a few buds were beginning to grow – marked the beginning of a path. “I cannot go beyond,” she said. “I cannot go where there is any life – not unless I have been summoned to fight. And even then, I can only bring death.”

“What is this place?”

“How do you expect me to know – I've never been there!” Redleaf snarled. “But I know this – the other side of the mountains brings you somewhere else – somewhere out of here. You still have your wings – as I do not. You can fly towards the Twin Suns of Feyland – you can fly towards the land of the living.”

“The Suns?” Here it seemed as if there were no suns. But Redleaf pointed, and dim upon the horizon I could see a single, glowing light – no larger than a needle's point. “Far away, isn't it?” She said.

We began paddling faster. Yet before we could reach the riverbank, a thick, tar-like substance began to emerge from the river, complete with a sickening, all-too-familiar, smell. From the tar emerged something terrible – half-horse, half-monster – thick with black goo, its teeth bared. I knew it well. A kelpie. And unlike the Minotaur, this one certainly wasn't dead.

I put up my hands, expecting to direct some Summer magic its way. But from my palms, there emitted not the familiar gold spark that marked the magic controlled by a fairy of the Summer Court, but rather a silvery-blue streak – sharp as frost – that made its way straight towards the kelpie's heart.

Redleaf turned to me, her countenance one of surprise. “So, it is true,” she said, her face turning ugly with scorn. “You have Winter magic after all...”

“No, I...” But something stopped me. The magic I had just performed seemed different, somehow. Colder. This wasn't Summer magic at all.

“I always suspected,” she scoffed. “You and that Winter brat – sharing your souls, trading magic. And now you're corrupted – your pure Summer magic marred by that filth! I always knew intermarriage was...”

“Intermarriage just warded off a kelpie!” I said.

The kelpie rose again from the tar, but this time Redleaf was unwilling to test the merits of Winter magic further. She shot an orange bolt of lightning into the kelpie's chest, sending it reeling onto the riverbanks. “So can pure magic,” she retorted.

A roar came from the fallen kelpie. “First you send me to the Summer Court to kill this creature when she was but a babe,” he roared in Redleaf's general direction. “Now you attack me? What kind of loyalty is this?”

“What nonsense,” said Redleaf dryly, sending another bolt of lightning straight into the kelpie's chest, sending it reeling back into the river, emitting a few gaseous bubbles of tar before all, at last, was silence. “Really,” she said, with a sniff. “Why he would
say
such things....”

“You deny it?”

“Nothing personal, Breena,” Redleaf did not look at me. “Politics, my girl.”

At last we reached the other side of the bank. The boat stopped against the soil with a thud.

“There we are,” Redleaf said. “Now, my girl, we cannot go any further. I am bound to remain here – where I belong. Among the miserable of the dead. Life goes that way – a life I cannot enter again. You have the chance to walk that road – do not make my mistakes.” She gave me a smile – tinged with bitterness, but evidently genuine.

I clambered onto the riverbank, unsure of what to say. This woman had made me suffer so much – she had wrought suffering on all those that I loved, and even now I knew that if Summer loyalty did not hold us together she would gladly have fed me to the kelpies. But her duty to her kingdom, to her crown, stopped her. A duty I knew well. At that moment, I forgot the pain she had caused me, forgot our troubles. She was a Summer Queen and so was I. Two Queens, meeting on the doorstep between life and death.

“Your Majesty,” I whispered, bowing low. “Thank you for helping me.”

“You do not belong in this world yet, Breena,” said Redleaf. “And in any case, I won't have you dethroning me a second time. I don't trust you enough to let you run amok all over the Kingdom of the Dead.” Her tone softened. “But keep safe. That winter pendant you wore may have given you immortality before – but now you are on your own. Strong magic can kill you, still. So one day, I am sure, our eyes will meet on this side of the river once again.”

“I hope not,” I said. “I don't want to be lost in hatred and bitterness.”

“But you love,” Redleaf said. “You love – just as I loved...” She looked down. “One is the flip side of the other. You cannot choose to love and to feel nothing towards those who thwart that love. Your destiny is here...”

“Here?”

“I did not marry Flametail for political reasons,” Redleaf said. “It was an arranged marriage, it is true – but I loved him from the moment I saw him. I loved him so much...I fell into the same trap that humans are always falling into. I let my emotions get the better of me. And you and I, Breena, we have had many difficulties. Many misunderstandings. We have risked much and lost much. And I have learned that duty comes above personal pettiness – but I learned it too late. Learn what I have learned, Breena. And do not let passion consume you and keep you here – in this place. Unable to move on.”

“I...I won't,” my voice trembled.