Winter Reign: Rise of the Winter Queen

by N. M. Howell

  “Mother, father, this is Eduard Fenraden. You may know him as Grandestor. He is the man who taught me to harness and control my magic. And he is the man I love.”

  “I do not have the words to thank you, Eduard,” says my father, “But I have a lifetime to show my gratefulness.”

  “You do me too much honor, sir. You have given me Maerolwyn, whom no one’s words could describe. It is I who should be grateful and I am. I am with all my being.”

  “I would disagree with you both,” my mother says, taking my face in her hands. “It is all of us who should be grateful and for more than we even know. And you,” she says, turning to Thea. “It does my heart an incredible deal of good to see you. I have worried for you as I have my daughter. How have you fared?”

  “As well as anyone fortunate enough to survive this war,” Thea says. “I have lost much and gained much, too. And now I introduce you to my niece, Nevena of Dao.”

  My mother smiles and comes closer to see the baby. She looks mesmerized by the child, but then grimaces, as if in pain.

  “Are you alright?” I ask. “Here, rest against me.”

  “Do not worry for me,” she says. “I’ve been using a great deal of magic for our land, after not having any magic at all.”

  “Well, rest now, mother. I am here to do whatever needs to be done.”

  I take one side of her and my father takes the other. The Braelynn clear a path for us, though they continue to lavish us with praise and welcome. My parents lead us to a small, but elegant ice house. Inside it is more beautiful than words can describe. My father and I deposit my mother in the chair. She still looks somewhat exhausted, maybe even ill, but she smiles.

  “Mother, I have something for you.”

  I turn to Eduard and he hands me the sack I have asked him to carry. I place it on the floor in front of my mother and she gasps.

  “I can feel it,” she says. “Where did you find it?”

  “I found many things during my travels. This I found among dragons.”

  “Dragons?” my father asks, stunned.

  “Yes. When Dregathaleon of the Aiglon went to Queen Maerolwyn for the power to preserve his race, she tasked him with hiding this tablet until a time when it was safe to restore our people. He took it to the Lost Paradise.”

  “But that city was destroyed in ancient times.”

  “Somehow it ended up in the sky and is now inhabited by dragons, who are very much alive and more beautiful than you can imagine. We could not have won the war without them.”

  “Two of their strongest and bravest died for our cause,” Eduard says.

  I remove the tablet from the sack and present it to my mother. For a moment she simply stares at it, tears gathering and falling from her eyes. My father is just as moved. Slowly she begins to reach for it, her hands trembling and her mouth smiling. Then she stops, her hands half way to the tablet. I start to push it forward into her hands and she pulls them back quickly, without touching it.

  “I dare not,” she says. “Long have I dreamt of this stone and its power. Many long, desperate nights I fantasized about bringing our people back to the sun and letting the force of this table rush through me, giving me the power to bring back our homeland. But this is not right.”

  “But of course it is,” I say. “This is your destiny.”

  “No, daughter. It is the destiny of the Queen.”

  “And you are the Queen.”

  “Maerolwyn, do you remember what I told you the first night we met? The throne of the Winterlands is not something given to one simply because you are born of royal blood. You must earn it. While it is true that since the Braelynn went underground the Queens have all come from our bloodline, it is also true that the title was earned. Every Queen has tasked herself with the most difficult and paramount duties and earned their right to be the leader of this people. It was not I who was a commander in the war. Neither was it I who fought the Helkar, Norrolai, Vampires, Meethrul, and Loqckna. I did not storm Gardenwall and expose a corrupt king. It was you. You who put the needs of the world before your own best friend and who took on the burden of a people she had never known. It was you who rode dragons and traveled across the world. You who defeated Laoren and saved the earth. And it was Maerolwyn, not Corinnalwyn, who returned the tablet to the Braelynn. This honor and this destiny are not mine, for I am not Queen.”

  She stands.

  “It was enough for me to be a beacon to our people while we were under the earth, and more honor than I deserved to be able to lead them back to the light and save them from the monsters here in our own land. It is your time now.”

  My father steps forward to take her hand. They open their arms to me. I place the tablet back in the sack and go into their embrace.

  “We will hold the ceremony in the morning,” my father says.

  I do not know how long we stand there, embracing, lost in our magnificent, blinding happiness, but it could never have been long enough.

  When night comes, I conjure a small cottage for Eduard and me. We lay in each other’s arms. We have spent so much time talking and planning since the close of war that we have neglected those things which we wanted most, namely each other’s closeness, but also those more intimate things that we once reveled in so joyously.

  There are no words this night. Eduard takes my face in his hands and kisses me. He kisses me as if it were the very desire of his soul, as if there was no one else in the world worthy of his love. I kiss him with a passion so true and so consuming that it is a wonder I don’t hurt him. I have missed him, missed this. He begins to undress me just as I begin to unbutton him. My heart is racing, threatening to run out through my mouth. I try to read his mind, but it is such a jumble of desires and wishes and intentions that I cannot make sense of it. But then again I cannot make sense of my own soul tonight.

  I am sitting in his lap, pulling off his clothes as he pulls off mine. My Eduard. My love. A man I lost for three impossible years. So much have we been through in our time apart and our time back together that it seems as if we’ve lived lifetimes, loving each other across time and space and memory. I am so happy at this moment that the night seems but a dream; even Eduard’s hand in mine seems ethereal. But as he kisses my lips and neck, it begins to dawn on me that this is not disbelief. It is love, that beautiful and unstoppable thing of the heart that I almost forgot. This is bliss. This is everything.

  Chapter 31

  It is a very simple ceremony. There are no chants or rituals, so songs or pomp. The Braelynn all gather together and my mother and father stand on a raised platform of frost and ice. I fly up to them and we are high enough so that all the people can see us. My parents kiss both of my cheeks and I kneel. My mother, the Queen, asks only one thing of me:

  “Will you love this people?”

  “I will.”

  “I pronounce you Maerolwyn of the Winterlands, daughter of Corinnalwyn and Rhealwyn, warrior, sorcerer, commander, and savior. Rise, Winter Queen.”

  I stand and forty thousand Braelynn ring the sky with applause. Eduard floats the tablet up from below and I catch it. I present it to my parents and then to our people. Then I rise.

  Up, up. Higher. Into the bottom of the clouds. The tablet floats in front of me. I turn in a circle and blow, clearing the clouds all around. I reach into the heart of my mind. I do not need to read the spell, I can feel it. I place both hands on the stone, breathing in tis magic, then I pull it to my chest. The stone becomes a blue haze of light and cold, and I absorb it. I do not know how to describe the sensation. It feels like life.

  And now I call upon my own power and gaze down at the land stretching out all around me. I hold out my hands before me, palms facing the earth. So much winter magic comes forth that it feels as if some great, vicious storm has turned its breath on me. A jet of blue light, ice, frost, and wind rushes out for the earth, thousands of feet below me, and when it hits there is no crash. There is only winter - beautiful, pale, and gentle - spreading
out across the Winterlands. And not merely cold, but also life. Great pine trees emerge from the earth, along with bushes and grass, before they are covered with snow. A river gushes from the earth and runs way in either direction, singing its hushed, loving verse to the sky. Even the land trembles as hills and dales form in the face of the earth. It is exquisite.

  But the spell is not done yet, for all across the land homes appear. The stones are conjured from the air itself and beautiful cottage after cottage springs up. And a final bone-shaking rush comes up from the very epicenter of my spirit. A castle begins to form, gorgeous and sprawling and brilliant, shimmering in the sun as stone and diamond and glass and ice catch the light. I watch in awe as parapets, towers, ramparts, and bridges appear. It is heartbreakingly perfect magic.

  I sink back to the earth, tired, but happy. My reception is loving and excited. I offer my parents a final honor of their former title: to lead our people to the castle and be first to walk its halls. We all turn to follow them. The people turn to look at their new homes as we pass them, but everyone is most excited about the castle, as am I, for it will be a great joy to see my parents in the place they have so deserved. We near the bridge and my mother lowers it with a wave of her hand.

  “How remiss of me,” she says, turning. “I have forgotten something quite important.”

  She beckons to someone behind me. A man steps forward, smiling at me. I smile back.

  “My daughter, this is Analwyn. You may remember him for the night you met in the tunnels. He has been a close friend of the family.”

  “Analwyn,” I say. “I remember. How are you, sir?”

  “Happy to see the princess returned and your family ascending to its royal place. Long have we waited for this.”

  “Yes, I have been waiting a long time as well,” I says, still smiling.

  “Do not let me interrupt the procession,” he says, bowing low. “Just allow me to follow behind.”

  “No.”

  A gasp rolls through the crowd.

  “I beg your pardon, Princess?” Analwyn says.

  “You will call me Queen, as Laoren called me Queen. Do you think me a fool? Or do you truly believe your magic or charm to be so grand? It does not matter what face you wear, for my eyes see all. Even the fallen.”

  “My Queen,” he says turning to my mother. “I beg of you, have words with your daughter. She seems--”

  “Bind your forked tongue and shut your mouth,” my mother says. “I have known for some time that you were not of this people. Twenty-eight years ago, when we came above ground, I felt your magic. You tried hard to hide it, but I am no fool. I have kept an eye on you, worm, for even without magic the women of this race have ever been wise. How sad, that you spent these long years thinking I believed your ruse.”

  “And I see your scar peeking above your collar,” Eduard says. “I would not forget such a sight.”

  “I smelled you the moment I arrived,” I say, stepping forward. “You reek of fear and envy. And the stench of the cosmos hangs on what must be your spirit.”

  He looks around. I can sense him realizing that his game is up. Even my people are turning toward him with suspicion. Suddenly he lunges for Thea; with one hand he holds her neck and with the other he holds the head of baby Nevena. He grins as if he has beaten me. I do not stir.

  “You will give me your magic,” he says, “Or they will both die now. I have enough power left to slaughter them both.”

  “Do not be afraid, Thea,” I say. “He is too stupid to realize that his reign is over.”

  “You doubt my willingness to kill this girl?”

  “But why would you kill them?” I ask calmly. “They are the only people on this earth who possess pure magic. Still, it is not your willingness I doubt, but your ability. Do you want to know what I sense strongest in you, what was easiest to determine the moment my power detected you? An absence of magic. I can tell that it once course through you, but now there is not even remnant.”

  “You lie!”

  “You doubt my ability to sense it? Go ahead. Kill them.”

  He exerts himself. Nothing happens. Again he tries without result. For several more pathetic moments he tries to summon spells, anything at all, and all that happens is that he shakes and begins to sweat. When she’s had enough, Thea reaches up and touches his face. He screams. He releases her and falls to his knees in the snow, and Thea walks calmly to my side.

  “What did you see?” she asks.

  For a time he cannot speak, is too frightened by whatever horror appeared to him.

  “Darkness,” he says.

  I step forward until I am standing over him as he cowers before me.

  “How devastated you must be,” I say. “Not a single soul in all the world believes in you. And why should they? You have slaughtered us, tricked us, and given us false promises that never came to pass. You wore a mask of kindness and love, but acted with a heart of brutality and hate. You failed us.”

  I reach out and touch his face. I absorb his memories, learning his entire existence: torture, jealousy, greed, and destruction. Horrible crimes too sickening to repeat. It is the blackest, most wicked mind I have ever touched.

  “Three hundred and fifty years underground has ruined you. All that time you were under the draining spell and you kept exerting yourself. And now you’ve nothing left. You’re not the Almighty, not Ragnarok, you’re not even Analwyn. You are no one and you are powerless. You’re mortal.”

  “You must show me mercy,” he says. “I beg of you. It was my magic that made yours.”

  “Just like it was Laoren’s magic that made Eduard’s, but that does not bind us to you. You ask for mercy, but you attempted to poison my mother with Heaveneath and would have succeeded had you any power left. You want mercy from these hands, how often in the three million five hundred thousand years of your existence have you shown mercy?”

  He opens his mouth to speak, but has no defense. He closes his crying eyes and bows his head. I raise my hand.

  “I will not kill you,” I say. “Do not think it is out of weakness or forgiveness, for left to my own desires I would turn you inside out. But I have taken enough lives. The war is over for me. A new age of the world calls and I will not answer it with bloodshed. I will take you to face the judgement of Chrysanthemum’s Break. Then you shall die.”

  I wave my hand over him and he sleeps.

  We stay with my parents for a week more, helping to get the Braelynn way of life started and learning about the place I will soon call home. Then it is time to make haste for Jasslwyn’s wedding. I am only expecting my mother and father to come with us, but all the Braelynn pack up and follow us. It is the first marriage of a Braelynn above ground since the marriage of Veorlwyn and Maerolwyn.

  Gardenwall is coming along splendidly. Roseheart Gate is up and Orchid’s eye is in the process of reaching for the sky again, though it will be some years before it is complete. Humans and creatures from all over the kingdoms and realms have come to see this event. I see many old faces I have not caught sight of in quite some time, including Radluff and the Fox Lords, and Bamfal and the Stags. We have a joyous reunion.

  Eduard, Thea, my parents, and I make our way inside the castle and find Jasslwyn. I meet my aunt and uncle for the first time and they have many stories of my childhood. They and my parents go to walk the halls. Thea takes baby Nevena and Eduard to see the Throne Room. Jasslwyn and I are left alone in her room.

  “How does it feel to be here again?” she asks.

  “Strange, but now I see how beautiful, how majestic this place is. I can hardly believe it will be your home.”

  “Me either. The Winterlands are finally restored and now I’m to live in Gardenwall. This is a gorgeous land, to be sure, but I will miss home.”

  “You must visit often then.”

  “So we shall,” says a voice behind me.

  It is Yunger entering the room with a smile. He embraces me.

  “It is good to h
ave you here,” he says. “I owe you an apology. We’ve recently received word that the group of refugees who perished in the fir of Night’s Deep was actually a contingent of mercenaries waiting for orders from King Michael. They were far from innocent. As for the rest of your charges, let us simply say that war is hard and mistakes are the burden of every living creature, but Chrysanthemum’s Break will not try the woman who saved us all.”

  “I cannot thank you enough.”

  “But you can show your gratitude by coming to the trial of the Almighty and speaking against him, though he has no chance already.”

  “With pleasure, your majesty,” I say, curtseying.

  “Tease me if it makes you happy,” he says with a smile, “But I did not want the seat of the High King.”

  “Then it is a good thing the people elected you unanimously,” Jasslwyn says, rising from the bed to kiss him.

  “If all my life has been for that one kiss I believe I have lived greater than any man before. But now I must leave you both. There are some minor matters to attend to today. We are erecting a monument in the Orange Plain in remembrance of the toll taken on the earth by the War for the Earth’s Soul. And the outer realms are all requesting permission to join the Hundred Kingdoms. There will be some five hundred lands under the banner now. And rest assured, we are sending as much as we can to the city of Golrend and Ethore. We owe them a great deal for their kindness.”

  Yunger leaves. Jasslwyn and I sit on her bed and talk of things to come.

  The ceremony is held the next morning and it is beautiful beyond words. The celebration lasts a week and all of Gardenwall rejoices. Yunger has the decree against the Braelynn struck from the law books and declares us free from all punishment. He also reinstates Thea’s title as the Lady of Moerdra Castle and clears the name of the House of Eaynfall. He gives her an entire caravan of gold. He will make a good king and Jasslwyn will be by his side every day, strengthening him.