Frost Kisses (Bitter Frost #4: Frost Series)

Frost Kisses

Published by THE EDGE

THE EDGE is an imprint of Sparklesoup LLC

Copyright © 2011 Kailin Gow

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Do NOT post on websites or share this book without permission from copyright holder. We take piracy seriously.

All characters and storyline is an invention from Kailin Gow. Any resemblance to people alive or dead is purely coincidence.

For information, please contact:

THE EDGE at Sparklesoup

P.O. Box 60834

Irvine, CA 92602

www.sparklesoup.com

First Edition.

ISBN 13:
978-1597489010

DEDICATION

This dedication is for my family and friends who stand by me and lend me an incredibly supernaturally amount of support for me to follow my dreams as a writer.

This dedication is for my mother, who underwent cancer surgery during the writing of this book, and although it was for preventative measures, suffered through the pain of the surgery and recovery.

Last, but most importantly, this dedication is to a wonderful lady name Kristi Stern, who got in touch with me first as a reader, a blogger, then as a supporter. She is an amazing woman whose story of pain management through reading the Frost Series inspires me to continue writing.

Prologue

F
airies were different. In the winding mountain paths and emerald-topped forests of Feyland, there were so many magical creatures. There were werewolves, who looked like men and walked like men and smelled like something deep and mysterious from the innermost cloisters of the woods, who could transform into beasts more noble, more intimidating, than any lion. And there were Pixies, slender creatures with pointed noses and pointed ears and neon-glowing eyes that masked a culture of deceit. There were kewpies, which looked so sweet, so vulnerable, and called you near to comfort them, and then would eat you alive. There were other creatures, too – rarer creatures. There were flying horses and unicorns, two herds locked in fierce rivalry with each other over the Northern Territories, and in the south near the deserts there were genies who granted wishes – if you dared to ask for them. There were some humans – not like those who lived in the cities and strange, unmagical towns beyond the Crystal River – but who had strange powers; a line of mortals who had passed from beyond the Crystal River long ago, and founded a lineage tinged with magic – sorcerers, stregae, crystal-ball-readers.

But fairies were different from all of these. They were not merely magical, not merely supernatural, not merely able to connect with that magic which lie in all things and manipulate it. They had one gift which was far greater. They could not die, at least of any natural cause. Never could a fairy simply die on its own. Nobody knew why. The Summer Court had a legend that immortality was first delivered to the fairies in the form of a gift from the heavens. A fairy prince had, riding on his stallion, once discovered the place, hidden in the mountains of Feyland, where the dead were sent upon their death, to live out the rest of their eternity in unimaginable beauty. The fairy’s courage, which had led him to make this discovery, was to be both rewarded and cursed. For at the gates of this splendid and shining kingdom, he met a woman – unlike the fey and yet so much more beautiful than even the Fairy Queen herself – who said to him:

“I am rewarding you, and I am punishing you. For a reward for your courage, your bravery, you will never die. And for punishment, for having seen what cannot be seen, you will never return to this place.”

And so did the woman at the gate snatch away the fairies’ ability to die, and no fairy was ever to know if that shining palace would have been as beautiful as it seemed, or as terrible.

The Winter fairies had a different story. They believed that immortality came when the daughter of the Fairy King fell ill, and was near death. The Winter King pleaded with Death for the life of his daughter, and at last offered to fight Death in single combat on the barren snow-smoothed meadows of his kingdom. If he lost, he declared, he would give up not only his own life, but also that of his entire kingdom; they would all succumb to the reign of Death. But if he won, and defeated Death, then his daughter would live. But the battle was rougher and more vicious than he had imagined, and instead of merely felling Death from his horse, as he had intended to do, he in his rage and determination to win, slaughtered the fallen Death, cutting off his head.

That night he had a dream, in which Death appeared to him and said: “You, of the race of Fey, have killed death, and so it has no hold over you. But you have done more than defeat death; you have gone further – by slaughtering me. So your reward is tinged with punishment. Your daughter shall live, but from this time forward, none of your race will know the peace I bring. You have asked for life and you will be given it – forever.”

The Pixies, who did not know this tale, believed that there was some secret in the medicinal herbs and berries that the Fairies customarily ate, that would provide immortality, and Pixie doctors and alchemists spent centuries studying the properties of the rowan berry in the hope that they could unlock the secret of immortality there. Humans, those who had crossed the Crystal River, started a legend among their people that they were fallen angels, and their wings were the only reminder of the place they had been before. After all, had not the Sons of God in Genesis carried off human women, as fairies were known to do? For fairies often fell in love with human women and sought to carry them across the shining waters of the River. But those women were all too often not strong enough to survive the power of the fairy kiss, a power that drove most human women mad the moment a fairy’s lips touched her own. Those women were the strongest of their human tribe, and their children – a mixture of fairy and human – were the strongest of all. There was but one woman in the past two hundred years who had survived this kiss, and this was Raine Malloy, who had given birth to the Princess Breena, who in time had become the Summer Queen. Her love for Foxflame had been true – true enough to restore Raine’s sanity, to allow Breena to be born with the strength of this love. It was a strength that had made her powerful even as a child – she had been able to repel a kelpie before she could walk – and it was a strength that attracted the jealousy of the previous Queen of the Summer Court.

For fairies, for all their immortality, could not love. Some said that the two were linked – that death and love would evermore be intertwined, and that therefore fairies who could not die could not truly love. Love, when it infected fairies, took over them like a fever – causing them to go mad, to lash out, to lose control of their powers and take leave of their senses and their strength. Humans could love, but fairy love was dangerous. And so it had long been taboo in the fairy kingdoms. Love, if it occurred, was not to be spoken of – one married in arranged marriages, out of obligation, and one perhaps, if one was lucky, developed affection for one’s husband. If one had the misfortune to fall in love, it was treated like a shameful secret, and the afflicted fairy knew it was her duty to keep quiet. If lovers were discovered, they would be treated as outcasts by their community: selfish fairies who allowed the dangers of love into the area.

But love had never been expressly banned by anything other than cultural mores until the Winter Queen – seeing the havoc love had wreaked on her own daughter Princess Shasta– had decided to take action. Not only was love frowned upon, but love was now expressly banned, and any fairy who allowed love to control him would meet with punishment by death.

In the Summer Court, where Breena reigned, love was still legal, but frowned upon by many fairies – particularly those in the upper classes. Breena’s own announced engagement to the Wolf Logan had caused quite a stir among those who suspected that she was marrying for love, although the fact that the Wolf was a trusted military advisor led her supporters to rationalize that she was marrying in order to secure an alliance with the Werewolves.

But then again, as everyone knew, Breena was not a true full-fairy, but a half-fairy, borne of a human and a fairy. She could love, for she did not have the gift of immortality that made love so dangerous.

At least, not yet.

Chapter 1

I
n the belly of Feyland, hidden in the rocky crevices of Feyland’s deep gorge, creatures of unspeakable evil, with morphing black shapes, red eyes, and sharp teeth felt the stirrings of life once again penetrate their centuries long sleep.

Creatures of different sizes, of different race, and breed slowly opened their eyes to the sunlight that streamed through the cracks in the cavern. How long have they been here, buried in time, like fossils hidden in the sands of time now solidified into harden stone? Hundreds of years, perhaps thousands?

Layers of dirt and Feyland colored sand, have preserved them into hardened flesh…a prison within their own bodies, forever attached to the hard jagged surface of the cavern. A natural chain to tether them to the cavern, years of water and sand formation had crystallized even their red eyes. For the creatures of this gorge, driven into there in a battle long past, were prisoners.

They were the Dark Hordes. And they were the enemies of Feyland.

Evil seeped into their very veins, so dangerous were they that their threat to Feyland compelled the denizens of Feyland to band together in their fight against the darkest forces of Feyland - creatures who used their magic to ravage the land, to destroy other creatures for spite, to cast fear into every living creature in their path. They were the Dark Hordes made up of the most evil of Feyland creatures, corrupt by the madness of power and magic, ruled by Death and Destruction - minotaurs, giants, kelpies, fairies, Pixies, and whatever creatures touched by the corruption. They were once distinguishable by what they were – minotaurs, giants or fairies; but had gradually transformed into hideous black morphing creatures that retained their original shapes, but were now made of dark substance, mere shadows of their former selves.

For a period in Feyland, the Dark Hordes ruled the lands, water, and air. Their rule was unjust and many Fey creatures suffered. Chaos ruled, and all that was beautiful and tranquil – art, literature, poetry, music, and speech were trampled in this chaos. The Age of the Dark Hordes was finally laid to rest when the denizens of Feyland came together. Winter, Summer fairies, the shifter fairies led by the Red Wolf, and even the Pixies of the Ancient Fey had banded together, united in magic and might to drive the Dark Hordes deep down into the Great Gorge. With the combine force of the Fey and Pixies, they closed the cavern of the Great Gorge and sealed it shut, laying to rest the darkest period of Fey history.