His Frost Maiden

by Michelle M. Pillow

  Josselyn stared at the door as the thick wood crashed open, hitting upon the metal wall with a hard, resounding clank. Evan was there? How was that possible? Had he followed her? Did he come for her? Her heart soared until she felt the burning sensation spreading toward her chest. If she died and Evan was near, would he be free or would she kill him? The support of her good arm crumbled and she collapsed on the floor. Still, her eyes watched through a mess of hair as Evan came fully inside the room.

  “Evan, no!” She tried to scream, but the words were a hollow whisper. “Don’t come in here. This is not where you should be.”

  Chapter 24

  “Josselyn,” Evan yelled, half commanding, half questioning. All the worry he felt since waking up to learn she’d slipped past Rick cumulated into this one moment. It didn’t help that they planned to let her escape, left her family jewels where she could find them, found a reputable captain going to the Rifflen base and made arrangements for her safe, yet unaware, passage. Jarek had known she would try to find the general for he understood the nature of vengeance. Nor did it help that Mei had somehow slipped one of the ESC homing beacons into the material of Josselyn’s shirt. The beacon would track her and assure she got where she was going.

  Aside from when Mei forced him to sleep with a shot from the hand-held medic, Evan had stayed awake, staring at the viewing screen in the cockpit, hoping for just a glimpse of the ship they followed. Rick stayed behind, flying right on the edge of all standard radar detection range so they could not be seen.

  Evan understood why the others had done it. They couldn’t take her with them because of his health. Her nearness was literally killing him. None of the others were sure if she would trust them, so they did what they had to do. Their only choice was to drive her away and they did, like a perfectly orchestrated plan, understanding she would do the only thing she could in her situation—find revenge.

  Now he saw her, pale and weak on the floor, beneath an older version of the general from the hologram. Jack stood above her, a bloody slim dagger in his hand, poised as if he would collapse upon her with the blade. Evan didn’t think, just acted as he lifted the laser. It didn’t matter that he was on a federation base, that he was a highly decorated general, that to fire this shot would mean his death. He pulled the trigger, the quick blast shooting from the end and finding its mark right in the general’s heart. To Evan’s surprise, he felt the briefest sense of relief come from the man as the general gave him the smallest of smiles before the life faded from his gaze. Almost instantly, an alarm sounded in a series of two short beeps and one long, repeating.

  As the general’s body slid to the floor, Evan rushed forward, trying to reach Josselyn before she was crushed by the dead man’s weight. Jack fell across her legs and she cried out.

  “Josselyn, I’m here,” Evan said, pulling her by her arms. She didn’t fight him, only moaned. He felt her numbness and it scared him. Running his hands over her body, he searched her for wounds, for the source of the bloody dagger. He found it, not with his hands, but with his eyes. The red stain spread over the general’s chest. The blood was his. “I’ve got you, starshine. It’s over. You’re safe now.”

  “Ev,” the whisper was so soft it could have been a gasp. With the loud alarm it was too hard to tell.

  “Not yet,” he demanded. “You cannot die yet. We should have more time. I saw us having more time. I knew this would—”

  “Back away! That is the general’s heart alarm. He’s dead.” A woman shouted. “You have your orders. As his heir, I’m in charge now until the federation sends his replacement. This base operates on the old codes and I invoke my rights.”

  Evan maneuvered his arm under Josselyn’s legs, ready to lift her. A woman walked in, hard green eyes rolling over the whole scene. She wore tight black pants and shirt. The long sleeves were cross-laced together from shoulder to wrist with white ties. Her shutter of grief was real and controlled and mixed with disgust and pity. The composed expression didn’t change. Evan understood immediately that Jack was her father.

  “Just as he said it would be,” the woman stated. “I didn’t want to believe him, but he has been waiting for her my whole life. He told me she would come to end him, his ghost lady.”

  “You don’t understand what is happening here,” Evan said to the woman. “You can’t.”

  “I understand that a very young girl swore a blood oath to her father.” The woman tugged at her tight sleeve, lifting it to show a long scar on her forearm. “I understand that today that oath has been fulfilled. But, mostly, I understand that once Josselyn is safely off this base and the affairs of my father are wrapped up neatly and a new general is in place, my obligation is over. I will come for her. I will come to avenge my father, for unlike him I do not forgive her. When she wakes, tell her Captain Violette sends her regards.”

  “There is no need. She’s dying. Your father killed her years ago when he imprisoned her into stone.” Evan lifted her up. Josselyn’s arm flopped to the side. “I recommend you find a better use of your energy. Revenge will only eat away your soul.”

  “There is a chance she will survive.” Violette crossed the room, going toward her father. She lifted a needle off the floor. “He gave her the antidote. He might have killed her, but he also saved her.” Then, pulling a disc key from beside her father’s hand, she tossed it at Evan. He caught it, barely, as Josselyn almost fell from his arms. “That is for her. The safe is on Quazer in the Glamour District. I’m revoking your ship’s permission to stay on the grounds because they refuse our standard inspection. Your shipmates have been unharmed and await you on the ship. I recommend you take her and go.”

  “Thank you,” Evan said, feeling foolish. He just shot the woman’s father and she was letting them go. There seemed to be a deep story there, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. His emotions were full from Josselyn, he couldn’t handle Violette’s.

  “Get out of here.” Her voice rasped, catching slightly.

  Evan didn’t need to be told again. He carried Josselyn from the room. Pulling her tight, he moved past the guards waiting down the hall. They eyed him, their jaws set, as if memorizing his face. Behind him, he felt Violette’s anger slip. He imagined her to be over her father’s body, slamming her fists into the man’s dead chest, cursing Josselyn and the oath the general had made her take.

  Evan blocked Violette from him, cutting her off. It wasn’t hard with the numbness of Josselyn filling his veins. Each step was labored and he felt her death eating at him. Would he ever be able to be near her without feeling so much? When she was gone, he’d thought of her, wanted her to the point his body stung and his senses ached. It was a bittersweet torment. He felt like he was dying without her and knew he would die with her.

  Unsure how he managed, he found himself at the end of the corridor in the center docks, gripping Josselyn tight in his trembling arms. The Conqueror was there, waiting with engines on. Guards eyed him as he passed. No one moved, but their hostility snapped in the air. The alarm stopped blaring and was replaced by the hum of the ship.

  Dev waited at the end of the docking plank with Jackson, his arms crossed in a threateningly composed position as his black eyes stared down the surrounding guards. It was as if he dared them to try and breach the ship. Evan knew they wouldn’t. Violette had given her orders that they remain unharmed.

  “Jackson,” Evan called, stumbling. The man rushed down the plank, trying to take Josselyn from his arms. Reluctant to let her go, but unable to force strength to his weakening limbs, he released her. Feeling a pull behind him, he glanced over his shoulder. Violette stood, arms crossed, watching Josselyn disappear inside the ship with Jackson.

  “Walk straight,” Dev whispered gruffly, grabbing Evan’s arm and practically dragging him up the plank. “We don’t want to be stuck here waiting for the next chance at takeoff.”

  Overhead another alarm sounded, punctuated by the sound of metal clanking metal. The center column began to lift
. Dev let go of him as they neared the top of the plank. Instantly it lifted, closing behind them. And, as he glanced through the narrowing view of where the plank lifted to meet the side of the ship, he saw Violette still stared. Her eyes met his and she nodded once before turning her back on them. Evan saw the challenge, the warning, but there was nothing he could do. His worry was for Josselyn. She was all that mattered.

  Chapter 25

  The heat burned, setting her veins on fire and boiling her blood until it seemed to bubble out of her flesh in a sweat-soaking nightmare of pain. A weak moan filled her ears, but the voice was strange, not hers. Or maybe it was. It became too hard to tell.

  Why wasn’t she dead? Or was this death? Did her final act of vengeance earn her a spot in eternal hellfire? Should she have asked for forgiveness?

  Where was her family? She expected to see her family—her father and brothers, standing and waiting at the end of some black hole at a bright light in the stars. Their faces smiling, the blood she’d last seen on them all gone. But there was no family.

  Then she thought of her mother, of what Jack said and the burning became worse, focusing on her heart. Her mother married Jack. The elder Lady Craven never knew the truth and she died married to Jack. Had she been happy? A prisoner? Insane? If she’d gone crazy, that would make sense. For Josselyn couldn’t believe that her mother could love Jack as she’d loved Lord Craven.

  She might be dead, but this wasn’t heaven. There were no happy families, no peace. The fire turned her thoughts back to her body. This had to be hell. Nothing but fiery pain and tormenting thoughts of things she could not change as she floated in darkness.

  Evan wasn’t sure how long he was locked in Josselyn’s dark dreams, but as he clawed his way out of them, he felt as if he understood more of her than he had just feeling inside her emotions. Images came to him, her images, of her past, of her family. At first, they were images of bloody bodies in her home, of gasping dying breaths, of young Jack in shiny white.

  But as the pain within them lessened, so did the darkness of her dreams. Dead bodies turned to live ones, of first frowns and serious conversations about the government on the planet of Florencia trying to take over the individual moons, about money, land and power. Conversations with her father and brothers about shiny objects given to get the masses to spy on their leaders, of moles within the Craven house, of swayed votes and of the secret group Josselyn and her family helped form to fight back. Then the planet of Florencia joined the Federation and chaos broke loose. The domineering government met with resistance and Evan could guess the rest from what he knew of her, Jack and the nature of the Federation itself.

  The Federation would not wait patiently for Florencia to comply. They would give an impossible timeframe, get angry when that timeframe wasn’t met and then they’d kill the head of the Florencia government, and claim the lands under a hidden treaty clause. From there, the moons would have been attacked using the colony spies against them. Prisoners were taken, this time put into stone. They destroyed much, blowing up the weather satellites, killing the territories they thought to want. The moons died, were abandoned and the Federation, without blinking, would have gone on to their next war with only a greater number of foot soldiers recruited from the destroyed masses to show for their victory. Time had passed, new commanders would have risen in the Federation’s ranks and the moons and prisoners would have been forgotten.

  The pieces of her story fit together neatly in his mind, not that it affected the way he was feeling. He cared for her and worried that what he felt was empathy, not love. But did it matter where love came from? If he felt it and it felt real, if he dreamt her dreams, wanted nothing more than to hold her, was willing to risk death just to be with her, wasn’t that love? He didn’t feel like this with Samantha. Sam was like his sister, his love for her platonic. Josselyn was...

  “Different,” Evan whispered, blinking in the dim light of his quarters invading his sight. He took a breath, barely able to believe that the pain had released its hold. All the memories stayed and he felt closer to Josselyn than he’d ever felt to anyone. For an empathic soul, that said something.

  “Josselyn?” Again his voice was a hoarse whisper. Worried that he felt no one with him in the room, he reached to his side, to where he’d made the others promise to leave her. They probably just took her to the medical unit for testing.

  Evan’s hand hit against cool, unmoving flesh. His heart skipped and he sprang into action. Josselyn’s pale face was turned toward him, buried in a sea of her long, brown hair. Her expression was so serene in its beauty and yet it was the most horrific image he’d ever seen. He grabbed her wrist, running his thumb to her pulse, knowing before he felt for life that there would be no responding thump of her heartbeat.

  Zhang An’s curse. The full reality of it came over him.

  ‘Together you travel and together you’ll remain. Tied and joined like the five elements of our people. The road to happiness is very rocky for all of you… But fate is not clear. If you do not recognize it, you will lose it and be forever alone.’

  Had he resisted his fate too long? Is this why he no longer felt her? She was dead?

  “Joss?” He managed, choking over his panic. “No, Josselyn.”

  Chapter 26

  “It’s over, sweet daughter.”

  Josselyn gasped, opening her eyes. The darkness and pain eased and her body felt light as if the very breeze drifting through the castle would pass through her. Whispering, she looked at the front hall of her castle home. The warm spring air surrounded her, smelling of wildflowers and berries. “I am home?”

  “Yes, we are all home.”

  Josselyn blinked, glancing around at the familiar sound of the late Lady Craven’s soft, melodic voice. The noblewoman looked exactly as Josselyn remembered her, not some older worn version who would have married Jack.

  “Mother? What happened? How did I get here?” She was too scared to move. “Is this real?”

  “You came here the same as us,” Lady Craven answered, moving slightly so Josselyn could see her father standing behind her, and her brothers standing further still behind the noble couple. Her siblings approached, their movements as leisured as limbs swaying on the wind. All were there, smiling and perfect—Jonathan, Peter, Ralphe and Rainier. “We found each other in the afterlife, as we were meant to.”

  Around them, the hall seemed to blur like the very edge of a dream, hazy yet there. Her mother gently touched her cheek. “It is there, my daughter, as real as it ever was. This is our reward for leading an honorable life. Our eternal peace.”

  Josselyn shivered, instantly covering the hand with her own. Her mother’s scent, honey with just a hint of lavender, wafted through her. Lady Craven’s skin was as soft as she remembered, smooth and perfect.

  Jonathan stood, tall and proud, his face set in the serious way she loved. His short brown hair was cropped close to his head. Peter, their scholar, with his mussed up locks and crooked smile nodded in her direction. Ralphe was more a lover than a fighter, though in life he’d been proficient in both pastimes, grinned and winked audaciously. And finally, Rainier stood hands on hips, young and pleasant with a proud face and eyes full of mischief.

  “The things Jack said about you,” Josselyn told her mother, not able to believe the general’s words now that she saw her parents together.

  “I was not the same in life after the death of all of you. I was lost and he was the only thing from the world I knew. He was not a bad man in the end, but he had to pay for what he’d done in order for us to find peace, together as a family. No amount of humanitarian work can erase a sin as great as he’d committed. In the end, we pay for our choices. You have avenged us, Josselyn. Now we can be together. It is over.”

  Josselyn’s smile faded.

  “What is it?”

  How could she say Evan’s name now, in the presence of her family? Her heart ached to go back to him, to fight for life, but perhaps it was too late for
that. Besides, every time she went near him, she inevitably almost killed him.

  “Nothing,” Josselyn lied. “I just can’t believe that you all are here and well.”

  Rainier laughed. “We’re dead. Does that count as being well?”

  Ralphe stepped forward, his movements were unhampered in the brilliant paradise surrounding them. They were home, all of them. She looked over her brothers, all smiling and youthful, so happy it made her heart flutter with relief.

  Every instinct inside her bade her to tease them, to forget all but the feeling of lightness and home. Well, every instinct but one—her desire to see Evan again, to say thank you, to say she loved him for however brief their time was, to say goodbye and to say she wished it wasn’t the last time they’d meet.

  “Not all of us,” her father said, his hand lifting.

  They knew about Evan? Josselyn gasped. “Father?”

  “There is one more we shall welcome as our own.” Lord Craven slipped his arm around his wife’s slender waist. “Another child I will claim as my own when the time comes.”

  Lady Craven gazed at her husband, smiling sweetly and with graciousness. “I did not deserve you in life and I do even less in death.”

  “Right you are, my angel,” her father chuckled. “But I do love you for lowering your standard and staying with me anyway.”

  Lady Craven giggled and Josselyn knew both parents understood that was not what her mother had meant by her words.

  “He will come here, then? If I wait? If I am patient? He will come to join us?” Josselyn asked.

  “She,” her mother said.

  “She?” Josselyn shook her head in confusion.

  “A sister,” her father answered, hugging his wife tighter.