Frost Kisses (Bitter Frost #4: Frost Series) (3 page)

I must be in the Summer Court, I thought to myself. That meant I was safe. I could feel my breathing slow, feel my body relax beneath me, as if it had a will of its own.

Or did it? The heartbeat in my chest started up again, sensing my fear before my brain did. The Summer Court wasn’t safe – that was the last thing I remembered thinking, in the time that existed before I was in this cave, in the time before…but I couldn’t remember the time before. My images were still hazy. I remembered only that the golden halls of the Summer Court had been stained silver with fairy blood, and that a knot of terror had formed at the pit of my stomach and I could feel it, tensely knotted, still.

My memories crept forward out of their hiding-place. I remembered the clashing of swords, so loud and horrible even in my memory. I remembered the fear in my throat, fear that tasted black on my tongue. I remembered a swarm of knights I did not know or recognize - the confusion that followed – as we no longer knew who we were fighting, or who our enemies were, and fought only to survive, to kill whomever stood in our way.

I remembered that face, the face that had haunted me so many times before, icy and remote, yet so beautiful: its paleness like the marble statues that stood in the Great Hall. What Great Hall? My memories searched each other, making connections. The Great Hall of the Summer Court.

Where the siege had taken place. Siege?

I could remember at last only that pain, that pain that had made me clap a hand over my mouth and scream first in shock and then in astonishing pain which crumbled me to the floor. The pain so sharp and sudden I thought it had killed me where I stood. My hands moved to the wound, but there was no wound.

My muscles remembered the pain; they tensed as my fingers touched the contours of my belly. But there was no scar there, no line. There was no pain, only the echo of a pain that had been felt once before. Something had happened, but whatever it was, it had been fixed. It had been taken away. Had another fairy healed me – is that what it was? Had a Summer fairy taken out the wound and replaced it with new, pink skin?

I tried to sit up again, higher, this time, and suddenly pain sent shock waves through my system. My head had collided with something hard, something that left a trail of silver trickling from my forehead…

Silver? My mind began to shudder and shake. I didn’t have silver blood. Only true fairies had silver blood. I was a Halfling, one who bled red like the humans from the Land Beyond the Crystal River. What was going on?

I felt again the thing… invisible and sharp… that had collided with my head, running my palms up and down, trying to ascertain its surface. Whatever it was – some hard and invisible
thing
… it seemed to be trapping me on all sides, holding me inwards, keeping me on the slab of ice.

I pushed up, harder, squeezing my muscles and groaning with the effort, but it was no use. The invisible covering surrounding me remained immobile, mute, cloying.

I began to breathe faster now as terror took hold of me. “Help!” I cried out, and my voice seemed to echo within the confined space of the covering. “Help me, somebody help me!”

But I heard no sound in response; my voice had been muffled inside the slab. I beat at the covering until my hands bruised, but there was nothing. Nobody would come to save me.

Come on, Breena
, I told myself.
Use your magic.
I imagined myself commanding the cover to rise up, imagined it rearing back, shattering in deference to my will. I used the magic of Summer, which came from being its Queen and felt a warm amber glow heat up within my confines. But still the covering would not move, even as I squeezed my eyes shut and focused all my concentration on that heavy, terrible invisible slab.

I was trapped. I looked around the room, wildly, hoping for some answer, hoping for some deliverance. I could see only the flowers… the orange-blossoms of the Summer Court and the cold winter lilies… decaying and withered alongside the slab.

And then it hit me. I was in a coffin. This place – this beautiful, cold place – was my tomb. I wasn’t in the Summer Court at all. I had been buried alive.

And I could not stop myself from screaming.

My scream died as the footsteps – hard, decisive footsteps, sounded in the hallway, and the door opened. For a moment my heart leaped with relief. Somebody had heard, after all! Somebody knew where I was. Somebody was going to save me!

And then I froze, for I knew him. I knew the figure that had just walked in, the figure that I had not seen in a while – whom I had expected, hoped, never to see again.

It was Delano, the Pixie King.

Chapter 3

I
had hoped never to see Delano again. When I had escaped from him many months ago… carting Logan away to safety… I had sworn to myself that I would do everything in my power not to let him touch me again. He had imprisoned me in his dungeon and tried to convince me to become his lover, his mistress, his concubine, so that I could bear him children powerful enough to take over Feyland: part pixie, part fairy, part human. All the powers of the supernatural, combined with the ability to control love. I still had nightmares about him, sometimes – his yellowish-green eyes and white-blonde long hair, his caress. I still remembered the terror that kept me awake and screaming those nights in the dungeon. I remembered the relief, palpable enough for me to taste it, which rose up in my throat when we had at last escaped. And here I was again, in his hands. Here for him to capture, to control, once more. If being trapped alone in this tomb was terrifying, then this was even worse. I would have rather been left to my fate than suffer this.

“Hello, Breena,” Delano’s voice was low and cool. “Or, as I am delighted to now say, Queen Breena.” He gave a deep bow that belied his intentions.

“What are you doing here?” I pounded on the invisible glass angrily. “What am
I
doing here?” My mouth struggled to form words. “Where am I? This isn’t the Summer Court, is it?”

“No,” said Delano. “Glad to see that you’ve got your powers of observation with you, even after all that time out of consciousness. Looks like you’re recovering nicely.” He gave a little laugh and waved his hand. “For a while, though, we – that is to say – I had my doubts about you. Wasn’t sure that you’d come through, given the severity of… what happened.”

“This is a tomb!” I cried. “You left me for dead!”

“Not quite,” said Delano, rapping playfully at the invisible glass. If it hadn’t been there, I would have bit his knuckles off. “I believe everybody at the Fairy Court left you for dead. See, Breena, they left you these lovely flowers. Even the Winter Court, despite your treachery. You were dead as any mortal could hope to be, Breena.”

“What are you talking about?” I could feel my voice shake.

“You died, my dear Queen,” said Delano lightly. “Right in your own Grand Hall, in front of so many witness of Winter and Summer alike. All fairy knights saw Queen Breena of Summer die by the hands of that Winter Prince – the broken-hearted Kian, the scorned lover who could not handle love.”

Kian! My memories came rushing back to me in a flash, and I felt that same agony in my stomach – that same pain in my heart as he drove the dagger through…

“Your death, Breena – the death of the Summer Queen, not to mention her betrayal in the Grand Hall, was enough to break the peace treaty. It is null and void; there is war raging once more between your land and the land of your lover. If you can call him your lover. After all, there is war between you. He killed you. Perhaps that was enough to set you free of that dangerous thing called love. You are a fairy, after all. You let love get the better of you!”

My heart sank. I had given up everything – my love for Kian, my autonomy, my whole life- in order to broker peace between the Summer and Winter kingdoms. I had gone from a girl who had never heard of fairies to a Queen dedicated to protecting her people – and the people of the man she loved – at all costs. And now my efforts had failed. The peace I had worked so hard to create was ruined, destroyed, broken. And I had lost Kian, too. Kian! My heart once again cried out for him – I felt once again the pain shuddering through me. He thought that I had betrayed him, that it had all been a trap. How could I explain to him that my lust for Logan which led to the engagement had been brought on by a spell – a spell so terrible it made me sick to my stomach? For Logan and I had been drugged by the evil Wort to believe that we loved each other – the drug had made me lose my mind, forget my senses; forget even my love for Kian. And I had hurt Kian. And now the consequences for all of Feyland were clear.

Delano leaped forward, at last lifting the heavy lid of the coffin. “Special trick,” he said. “It can only be opened from the outside.” He leered at me. But as I felt the air enter my lungs – fresh and clean, so different from the dry, stale air inside the tomb – I felt stronger, better. The air, whishing through my lungs, brought with it clarity, brought with it strength. It tasted like the fresh air of the Summer Court, alive with bergamot and orange blossoms. The taste of freedom sent me reeling, and made me realize just how confining the tomb had been. My vision blurred once more as I was overwhelmed by the burst of freshness that had come over me. I felt a hand touch mine, and for a moment I let it stay there. Then I realized who it belonged to: Delano. I quickly yanked it away.

Delano almost looked hurt. “I was hoping you might have forgiven our petty little squabbles, my Queen,” he said. “After all, you’re free now. No longer betrothed or bound to your fairy prince. He killed you; the bond is broken. You can choose anyone you want.”

I may have been disoriented, but I wasn’t that stupid. I knew exactly what Delano wanted with me, and it wasn’t exactly connected with true love. “Why am I here?” I said in my sharpest, most intimidating voice.

“Because that was part of the plan,” Delano whispered. “I brought you here, complete with your tomb and flowers, my Queen. I wanted you here.”

“As a pack animal?” I snorted. “Some
thing
you can breed with – like an animal?”

“Have you forgotten our arrangement, Breena?” Delano rolled his eyes. “Before you reneged on our plan and escaped, I believe you promised to be my wife on the condition that I freed the Wolf and the Princess Shasta.” His gaze turned serious. “You cannot go back on a pixie oath, my sweet. Everybody knows that. They are unbreakable.”

“Too bad,” I said. “I’m already engaged.” The fact that my engagement was to Logan, who didn’t yet know that his love for me was worsened by the spell, I decided to leave out for the moment.

“Too bad,” Delano grinned back at me. “You’re not at the Summer Palace, are you? Nobody to check up on these things here. And everyone over there thinks you’re dead. You were publicly killed – as Wort and my men, glamoured as your Summer Knights, wreaked havoc on the Great Hall.” He closed his eyes, as if gleefully remembering his crimes.

“You still haven’t explained to me why I’m alive,” said Breena. “What happened? Did one of my fairies heal me?”

“Afraid not, my dearest one,” said Delano. “Your wounds were too deep for that. Rodney tried – he even enlisted the help of his sister Rose, an alchemist. But it was too late. They pronounced you dead – you were dead. They laid your body in wake after the fighting died down, and after the funeral my Pixies – glamoured as some of your loyal attendants – were able to snatch away your body….”

I felt even sicker than before. First Wort and the potion, now Delano and his glamouring. How dare these Pixies try to take me away, to control me? My feelings for Kian and Logan may have been confused, but they had no right to do this to me, no right to take away my choices! To take away my chance to make peace in the two kingdoms, to explain to Kian truly what had happened! My face burned with anger. “What did you want with my body?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. After knowing what Delano was capable of, I didn’t think I could stand to hear of any more of his villainies.