Crown of Frost

by Isabella August

  A few minutes later, the waiter came by to offer her a drink, and Elaine took a glass of the house red. As she sipped at it, staring into the fire, her thoughts drifted. The feeling of contentment she’d instilled in the walls of the place sent her mind back to the last dream she’d had. She wasn’t entirely sure of its significance. In between the cold laughter and lifeless stone trees, she sometimes caught snatches of something else — a warm hand, a cool whisper. Those moments came with a surge of irrational longing. She wanted to reach out and hold onto those tiny shreds of memory, to gather them up inside her like precious jewels.

  Nothing good comes from Blackfrost, Elaine reminded herself, sipping at her wine. She stared into the fire. And there was no life in the Lifeless Garden.

  The memory was probably a cruel faerie trick — an illusion of comfort, paraded before her during her darkest hour, only to be snatched away again. She was finally free now. That strange mirage was merely her last chain, a final tether to be broken.

  Elaine took a longer swallow of her wine, suddenly unsettled.

  She had a real garden now. She had a real relationship. Slowly but surely, she was replacing those false things with truthful ones.

  Adam wasn’t perfect, but he was real. “Real relationships take work,” Elaine whispered to herself.

  As if on cue, Elaine felt Adam cross the restaurant’s threshold, passing beneath her invisible roses as he walked up to the host stand. She swiveled in her seat to watch him. He was a dark-haired man of average height, but his presence had a breadth to it that seemed to take up more than his normal allotment of space. He was classically handsome, with a strong jaw, a confident manner, and an impeccable sense of style. He was also one of the smartest men Elaine had ever met — an engineer with a deep sense of passion for his work.

  Tonight, however, Adam was keyed up, irate — he tapped the hostess stand impatiently, in a hurry to get her attention. Elaine frowned. Though she’d thought herself prepared, her hopes for a pleasant evening suddenly wavered.

  The hostess brought Adam over to the table, where he took the menu from her hand and thanked her with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Before Elaine could greet him, Adam reached over and took a sip of her wine. He frowned.

  “Elaine, again? What is this, the cheapest wine on the menu?” He shook his head, and turned to the hostess. “We’re going to need a better vintage than this.” He flipped open the menu and tapped his finger expectantly on a different line. The hostess seemed taken aback for a moment, but she caught herself with a quick nod and a right away, sir.

  Elaine winced. Jenna’s arguments rattled around in her head, cutting more keenly than ever before. Doormat, her apprentice’s memory accused her. But the moment passed, as Adam turned to look at her and smiled.

  “Wow,” he said. His eyes gave her a full once-over. “You look fantastic. Where have you been hiding that dress, and how do I get you to wear it more often?”

  Elaine flushed. “You could ask like that,” she said. “With the wow.”

  His smile widened. He leaned in toward her ear. “Wow,” he said, more softly. “Wear that more often. I like it.”

  Like something he owns.

  Elaine’s pleasure faded. She looked away. “You looked a little upset when you came in. Is everything okay?”

  Adam shot her a surprised look. He settled into the chair across from her. “Everything’s fine,” he said. “Better than fine. The latest project is almost wrapped up — the hydro dam, I mentioned that? It went so well, I got a hint today that I might be up for a promotion.”

  Elaine blinked. “Oh,” she said. “That’s fantastic! Congratulations!”

  Adam smiled again. “I thought we ought to celebrate. I kept thinking I wanted to try this place out, but I always forget. I figure we ought to take advantage while we’re still here.”

  “Still here?” Elaine frowned. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  A waitress returned with the new wine, interrupting them to fill their glasses. Adam took an experimental sniff of his, and nodded more approvingly. He lifted it toward Elaine, and she clinked her glass with his obligingly.

  “It’s an exciting opportunity,” Adam continued. “A big change — but a good one, I think. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you.” He winked at her. “It’s not just a promotion. I got offered a head position in the new Edmonton office.”

  Elaine stared at him over her wine. Her shock must have been transparent in her expression, because she saw Adam’s brows knit.

  “What?” he said. “Something wrong?”

  Elaine worked her mouth soundlessly for a moment, searching for words. Finally, she said: “Adam. That’s in Alberta. It’s literally on the other side of the country.”

  He frowned. “Well that’s part of the point, Elaine,” he explained slowly. “I’m as high up as I can go if I stay in Toronto. The only way I can keep climbing is by going somewhere else. It’s going to be different, sure. But I think of it kind of like an adventure.”

  “You think,” Elaine emphasized. “You think of it like an adventure. I don’t. I have a home here. I have… there are things I can’t just pick up and leave behind at a moment’s notice.”

  Adam set his glass down. He had an exasperated look now. “We were discussing selling that little flower shop anyway,” he said. “It’s not that much trouble to move up the timetable a bit.”

  Elaine blanched. “We weren’t discussing anything,” she said. “You suggested selling the shop. I told you I wasn’t interested in selling it. I thought the matter was settled after that.”

  Like something he owns.

  “You need to calm down, Elaine.” Adam was frowning now. “You’re making a scene.”

  “I’m making a scene?” she echoed dimly. “You brought me here to tell me you’d decided to uproot my whole life. I get a say in that.”

  “This is a relationship, Elaine,” Adam argued. “I thought you were going to be supportive, to help me figure this out—”

  “You already seem to have it figured out,” Elaine said. “It didn’t involve my opinion.”

  Adam’s jaw hardened. “Well I’m certainly not passing up the opportunity of a lifetime. That’s ridiculous. And if you’re not coming with me, then we can hardly keep dating, can we?”

  Elaine pressed her lips together. “I suppose we can’t,” she said. The words escaped her before she even had time to think them through.

  A silence fell between them. Disbelief flickered in Adam’s eyes.

  I feel better.

  The realization hit her like a thunderbolt. There was guilt and shame and misery in those words… but at the same time, a great weight had lifted off her shoulders.

  No more last-minute texts. No more comments on the wine. I’ll wear all the damned cardigans I want from now on.

  “You don’t mean that,” Adam said warningly. “Don’t say things you’ll regret, Elaine.”

  He expected her to give in. She saw it clear on his face. He fully expected that any moment now, she would curl into her seat, hang her head, and quietly agree to reorder her life around his.

  Not this time. And never again.

  Elaine stood up from her seat. She pulled her wallet from her purse, setting down a few bills. “Don’t tell me what I mean,” she said. “I’m done. We’re done. Good luck in Edmonton.”

  The utterly dumbfounded expression on his face gave her a strange jolt of satisfaction.

  Elaine grabbed her coat and turned on her heel, heading for the entrance of the restaurant. The hostess blinked at her as she passed, looking confused. Somehow, she managed to keep the tears from spilling out until she turned the end of the block, out of view of the restaurant.

  Chinese food sounded better anyway.

  The cold night had deepened and snow had started falling by the time Elaine came out onto the street near her loft. Her too-high stilettos dug into the white coating on the pavement; wet flakes caught on her stockings, dam
pening her toes.

  Her phone gently pinged. A terrible, masochistic impulse made her check it, though she knew it was a mistake.

  Let’s talk about this.

  She shivered and closed her eyes. Guilt rose up inside her, in spite of her best efforts. What if she’d been too harsh? Maybe he really would talk more seriously about the matter, give her opinion real weight, now that he knew how much it meant to her…

  Another ping. She opened her eyes.

  Don’t just cut me off.

  Ping.

  You’re being overdramatic.

  Elaine stared down at the phone, while snow drifted into her hair. A weird panic seized her.

  Like something he owns, like something he owns, like something he owns.

  Blackfrost had been the same way. She had been a trinket, a prize. The faerie lord had trapped her in his Lifeless Garden and left her, fully expecting that she would freeze into a pretty little statue he could visit at his whim.

  Ping.

  We’ll talk when you’re less upset.

  Elaine’s lip trembled — whether from anger or from misery, she couldn’t tell. Maybe it was both.

  We’re over, she texted back. Her fingers shook. Please leave me alone.

  “Elaine Halstead?” a woman’s voice asked.

  She snapped her head up from her phone, startled.

  A short, rangy woman stepped out from an alleyway. Her black coat was oddly tattered — what remained of it was clearly meant to keep away the rain, and not the cold. Her long, tangled black hair held a faint tinge of blue in the moonlight. Her eyes — a cold, abyssal black, as deep as the ocean — fixed upon Elaine with determination.

  Elaine took an instinctive step backward. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said carefully.

  The woman stepped closer, eating back up the space that Elaine had tried to put between them. A drop of water trickled down her pale face, undeterred by the freezing temperatures. There was an unmistakable veil of power about her… and it wasn’t pleasant.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” the woman rasped. Her voice was rough, like someone with a stubborn, hanging cough. She had a broad, murky accent that clearly wasn’t from the area. “I’m going to ask nicely. Give me what you took from Lord Blackfrost. If you do, I’ll pretend I never saw you.”

  A few more drops of water hit the snow.

  Elaine took in a deep breath… and opened up her Witchsight.

  A deep and terrible void yawned before her. It was the last gasp of a dying man; it was fingers grasping at her feet, dragging her down into the depths. That void threaded its way through the woman’s soul, holding her fast in its endless embrace.

  Elaine sucked in a deep, rattling breath. “You’re a warlock,” she whispered. “Who did you sell your soul to?”

  The pale woman smiled grimly. “They call me Pallid Valentine,” she said. “The Drowned Lord holds my leash. You don’t want his attentions, trust me.” She paused. “Give me what I ask for, an’ no one will bother you further.”

  A distant sense of pity washed through Elaine, though she knew it was misplaced. Sometimes, creatures who were either truly desperate or else very foolish would intentionally call upon a faerie lord for aid. Such help always came at a terrible price; faerie lords didn’t traffic in any currency so mundane as money.

  The truly hopeless, with nothing else of value to offer, might enter into a pact with a faerie lord, swearing their eternal service in return for a shard of that lord’s power. Such pitiable souls, known as warlocks, often lived long enough to regret their decision. But where they went, great suffering very often followed.

  Elaine pressed her lips together. Her mind was still reeling, trying to readjust. Someone’s finally found me, the thought came. This isn’t good. “You don’t want to threaten me,” she said, with more bravado than she felt. “I’ve killed a full faerie lord, at the center of his own domain. You’re just an attack dog.”

  Valentine laughed. It was a harsh, desperate sound. “The White Rose of Blackfrost offers to end my suffering,” she said. “How kind of you. But there will be others after me. The new Lord Blackfrost searches for you. You have something of value to him — which means it is of value to anyone who wishes his good favor. If you give it to me now, I will give it to him… an’ neither he nor my master will have reason to hunt you any further.”

  A spike of pure, unadulterated fear slammed into Elaine at the words. Broken images bubbled up from within her mind.

  Stone trees, icy roses, no life anywhere in the darkness—

  Elaine shuddered. The warlock watched her impassively, with grim, hopeless eyes.

  Something of value to Blackfrost. Elaine had no idea what it could be. She’d barely made it out of Arcadia with the clothing on her back. Even her memories had been stolen, taken from her by the veil that separated the two realms from one another.

  Panic fluttered in her chest, seeping its way up into her throat. Her heart began to pound.

  I can’t. I can’t go back there. Not again.

  “I don’t have anything,” Elaine managed. “I don’t. If I did, I would give it to you, I swear.”

  Pallid Valentine sighed. There were deep, dark circles underneath her eyes that spoke of a sleepless existence far beyond anything Elaine had ever imagined. “Lord Blackfrost believes that you have something,” the warlock told her. “I would think very hard if I were you. If you can’t remember, I’ll have to deliver you to him whole.”

  Elaine tensed, clawing back at the fear in her stomach. She reached her mind out for the seeds in her coat pocket, stretching her power. Whatever she’d implied, she wasn’t truly confident she could defeat a warlock on her own; she still had no idea how she’d killed the original Lord Blackfrost. She’d deeply hoped never to have to repeat the ordeal.

  “Don’t make me do this,” Elaine pleaded.

  Frigid water crept up her feet. Elaine staggered back, wide-eyed — but the black water continued climbing up her body, writhing its way up the inside of her coat.

  She shoved her hand into her pocket, grasping at a handful of seeds and flinging them toward the warlock with a rush of wild, panicked magic. Phantom vines sprang into being, winding their way around the other woman’s legs. Taurus magic, used as a weapon, ripped at the lowest foundations of the human mind, instilling doubts and fears. The thorns of Elaine’s magic cut deep into Valentine’s spirit, searching out her sense of self, safety, stability, and ripping it away.

  The warlock’s spirit was already torn and tattered, though. Elaine’s thorns found little purchase in a creature already so heavy with despair. Valentine’s soul resisted Elaine’s onslaught like sticky, miserable tar.

  Cold, vile water forced its way between her lips. Elaine tried to spit it out, but the brackish fluid slithered its way down her throat, choking out her breath. She coughed harshly, gasping for air.

  Pallid Valentine stalked forward, undeterred by the horrific bleeding gashes on her psyche. The cold water that dripped from her hair wept pink now, instead of black — but still, she persisted. Each heavy bootfall sounded with the curse of inevitability.

  Elaine tightened the thorns that pried at Valentine’s concentration… but as she fell to her knees, she knew the effort was in vain. I should have run for the store, she thought dimly. I should have gone for the wards, I should have done anything else…

  From deep within Elaine’s soul, a different sort of cold snaked up through her magic. Lifeless, hungry, black as a starless night… it replaced the warmth of her Taurus magic with pure ice.

  It was a magic she knew far too well. Its touch — the touch of Blackfrost — still plagued her nightmares.

  She seized upon it anyway.

  The frost in her veins pressed back against the Drowned Lord's magic. Elaine’s grip on it was clumsy, but its power was such that she barely had to direct it. She spat black water from her mouth, staggering back to her feet. As she did, she noticed that the bitter cold outside
had ceased to bother her.

  Pallid Valentine stepped back. Confusion played across her face.

  “You’re no warlock,” the other woman rasped. “What are you?” Her black eyes widened. “What did you steal?”

  Elaine stared down at her hands, horrified. She had touched the power of Blackfrost. Her old tormentor’s power ran through her veins even now, filling her with vicious satisfaction. She could so easily reach out and force her foe to heel, make her beg for mercy—

  “She stole nothing.”

  The voice that came from behind her sent a chill down her spine. It was a man’s voice, low and melodic. It was a ghost, risen from the depths of her broken memories.

  You’ll forget me.

  Elaine turned her head, shivering with fear and familiarity.

  The man behind her was tall, towering a good head and a half a head over Pallid Valentine. His black button-down shirt and jeans were far too mild for the weather. Long black hair fell loose about his face like spun silk, in a definitively anachronistic style. His cheekbones were slightly too sharp; his features were slightly too elegant. His eyes, a piercing bright blue, were currently fixed upon Valentine with a cold fury.

  A dark, hungry power seethed within his soul — a much greater twin to the essence that currently ran through Elaine’s magic. That eldritch darkness stretched out behind him, so deep and terrible that she had to force her Witchsight closed before she could fully comprehend its magnitude.

  Cold, quiet reality settled back into place. Snow teased at her hair, but it failed to chill her.

  “What is owed cannot be stolen,” said the man next to her, in a glacial tone. “And she is owed a great debt.”

  His hand came to rest on Elaine’s shoulder. It was warmer than she’d expected. No, her memories supplied. He was always warm. The scent of sandalwood and evergreen engulfed her.

  Valentine flicked her eyes between Elaine and the man behind her. She took in a shuddering breath. “I was going to deliver her to Lord Blackfrost,” she said simply. “I wouldn’t have killed her.”