The Ascension

by Kailin Gow

  “Ingrates!” Able to concentrate now, it was an easy matter to conjure an icy wind to rip the book from her daughter’s hands, then to step over and grab her, throwing her down to her knees beside her brother. “Traitors! I am your mother!” Kat looked up at her angrily.

  “My mother lives in London, along with my father.”

  Beside her, Jack nodded.

  “There’s more to family than flesh and blood.”

  “Yes,” the Winter Queen said, “There is ice. I wanted to give you kindness. I wanted to give you kingdoms. Now though, I see that I should never have expected gratitude for my largess.” She stepped over to her kneeling offspring. “I should have done this from the start.”

  She bowed her head over Jack, giving him a motherly kiss on the forehead before he could stop her. The infusion of cold flowed into him, forming bridges between synapses as it worked its way into every corner of his brain. She turned to Katherine, who put up her hands to stop her. The Winter Queen caught them easily, brushing them aside almost gently.

  “Don’t worry, my child. It wil be al right.” The icy touch of the Winter Queen’s lips to her forehead claimed her too. The Winter Queen straightened up and surveyed the pair of them, now regarding her with near reverence. It was as wel , in some ways, that they had no schooling in the Winter arts. Devon, for example, would have fought through the enchantment easily. Her children, on the other hand, had succumbed utterly.

  “Good,” she said, ruffling their hair fondly.

  “Now, you wil go and help in the battle against the Summer Court. Show me how brave you are, darlings. Fight hard against those Summer fools with their heat and warmth.” She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at a spot of dirt on Katherine’s cheek.

  “Make your mother proud.”

  “Yes, My Queen,” the pair of them said in unison, and headed for the door.

  Chapter 19

  Resplendent in his armor, Sparks stood on the high ground above the meadow that would serve as the armies’ battlefield, watching the line of the snow creep closer. Heat crackled along the edge of it, holding it back, but the adverse conditions blackened and burnt the grass there. Standing beside Sparks was his mother, the Summer Queen, overseeing the arrangement of her forces below from the best view they could get without actual y becoming aerial. Nixies and Dryads, fairy folk and satyrs, they al stood armed and waiting for battle.

  “The werewolves are here,” Sparks said, pointing as a group of wild-looking young men formed up on one side of the field in an amorphous clump, apparently more concerned with ease of movement than defense. His mother smiled.

  “And I see that your friend from the party is with them. We should go and speak with them.” For an instant, Spark’s heart leapt, because he thought that his mother meant Gem, but as they walked closer, it was clear that it was in fact Rio standing there, swinging a sword in readiness for the fight to come. Sparks resolved to keep things cordial. After al , they were on the same side.

  “Rio, hi!”

  Rio nodded solemnly. It seemed to be about a s decorous a greeting as Sparks was going to get.

  “It’s good that we’re fighting together.” Sparks decided to ask what he real y wanted to know.

  “How’s Gem? She left with you, didn’t she? I looked for her after the party. She isn’t mad at me for dancing with other people? She said she was ok with it, but then she left.”

  Rio looked away.

  “What is it?” Sparks asked. “Rio, what’s going on?”

  “She’s dead!” The other boy shouted it loud enough that his penitent tone could be heard across the field. “Is that what you want to hear, Sparks?

  She’s dead. I was trying to kil the nephew of the Winter Queen, and she threw herself between us. I…

  I saw her fal , and the wound was right by her throat.”

  “You could be wrong,” Sparks said. “She could stil be…”

  “She’s dead.”

  The certainty of it hit Sparks like a lead weight. He stood very stil for a moment, before his weight. He stood very stil for a moment, before his hand went to his sword. Only his mother’s hand folded over his stopped him from drawing it.

  “Let me go.”

  “No, my son. Show discretion here. We need the werewolves to counteract Winter’s assault. I wil not let your anger get us al kil ed.” Sparks wanted to argue. No, he wanted to throw off his mother’s grip and attack Rio. The trouble was, even with al his anger, he knew that she was right. A grey-haired werewolf had stepped in front of Rio. To get to Gem’s kil er, he would have to start a war. A divisive move like that could see them al kil ed by the forces of the Winter Court. Defeating them was paramount. He glared at Rio.

  “When this is over, you’re dead. I wil find you.”

  The other boy gave him a look that simply didn’t seem to care. Sparks might have said more, but the forces of the Winter Queen chose that moment to arrive. They were impressive, Sparks had to admit. Huge polar bears studded lines made up of fairy men in dark armor. Spiky beings of pure ice moved in unpredictable patterns. Snow leopards and white tigers paced, held on golden leashes, while a pack of timber wolves jostled around a huge figure in furs.

  At the center of their line stood the Winter Queen, wearing armor that seemed to shimmer and change as Sparks watched, a spear that was little more than a long icicle in her hands. There was no thi ng equivocal about the sense of power emanating from her, and for a moment it was enough to distract Sparks from the pair of figures by her side, wearing dark armor and carrying two short, stabbing swords each.

  “Jack? Kat? When did they get here?”

  His mother looked out over the battlefield, fol owing the line of his gaze.

  “So, the Winter Queen has her children back too.” She gave Sparks a long look. “Do not hold back when you fight them, my son.”

  “But-”

  “Wil you flout my wishes in this? I want you safe. Take no risks. Whatever you think you know about them, it is untrue now. They wil not hesitate to kil you, and your forbearance could be your death.

  Now, to arms.”

  With the late arrival of the werewolves, there hadn’t been time to even adumbrate a battle plan, but Sparks suspected it wouldn’t have made much difference. This was not a battle that was going to be decided by clever stratagems. It would be about might, and power, and Summer crashing against its antithesis again and again until one side found itself forced back. Briefly, Sparks tried to appraise the sides in an attempt to work out which it would be, but he simply could not tel .

  The battle started without warning, and apparently without signal. Vol eys of arrows came from the Summer side, only to be matched by clouds of ice shards from the Winter ranks. Sparks conjured a shield of Summer heat as a few came close, letting them melt before they hit. His mother pul ed him back to the rear of the line.

  “Don’t be too eager. There wil be danger enough.”

  Sparks knew that she was right, but even so, it was hard to stand impassively as the edges of the two armies harried one another. The arrows didn’t do much damage though, and soon the armies began to sweep towards one another, building towards that appalling moment when the warriors within would clash, and fight, and kil .

  It came in an instant, and even near the back, Sparks could feel the violence ahead. The armies pressed and surged, struggling for advantage.

  Sparks drew his sword, waiting for his moment to join the fray. A little way away, Rio and his werewolves were watching just as patiently.

  The moment came, in the form of a gap through which Sparks could see the Winter Queen and her entourage. Ignoring the danger it would entail, Sparks threw himself forward.

  “Charge!”

  A Winter Court fairy got in his way, and Sparks cut him down without pausing. Another slammed a blow into his shield, and his mother blasted him aside with pure heat. Around Sparks, the werewolves joined the fight with almost berserk fury, striking at any Winter Court foe foolish enough t
o get near. Rio exhorted them to even greater efforts, not that it did anything to expiate his crimes in Sparks’ eyes.

  In fact, just the anger that came with thinking about that made Sparks fight al the harder. He found himself almost exulting in the simplicity of the violence, losing himself, and his pain, in the need to fight. He stepped inside the reach of a polar bear to thrust through its heart, then spun to strike down a spear wielding fairy who had been sneaking up behind him.

  He looked up from that to see his mother throwing herself at the Winter Queen. Even from where he was, he could feel the backwash of the magic they were using against one another, while the sight of the Summer Queen’s sword clashing with the icy spear of her nemesis was simply terrifying. Sparks doubted that he could have stood for long against either of them.

  There were other opponents available though.

  Jack and Kat came out of the chaos of the battle, fighting together with speed and almost fastidious precision. One would block a blow, and the other would be there, already riposting. One would tangle a foe’s blade, and the other would be there to finish them off. Their eyes locked onto Sparks almost them off. Their eyes locked onto Sparks almost simultaneously.

  Except that Kat’s eyes then shifted to a spot beside Sparks. Sparks saw Rio step past him, and Kat leapt at him with a barrage of blows, forcing him back. It left Sparks facing only Jack.

  “Come on, Jack,” Sparks said, searching for some sense of affinity between the two of them, “it doesn’t have to be like this. We’re buddies, remember?”

  “Is that what you cal it?” The fury in the words hardly sounded like Jack. He paused to toss aside a fairy who ran at him. “I recal you tolerating me, treating me like a kid. Rio, you treated him like a genuine rival when it came to Gem, but I wasn’t even good enough for that.”

  Sparks found his anger rising again at the mention of Gem.

  “Jack…” he warned.

  “No.” The boy flexed his muscles, spinning his two swords in a loose circle. “I’m sick of your kind.

  Quarterbacks who only want to push people around.

  Wel , we’l see who is the tough guy, won’t we?” He lunged at Sparks, forcing Sparks to parry frantical y. In the teeth of that much fury, Sparks wasn’t in a position to see the figure watching the whole thing from a nearby hil side…

  “I should be down there,” Gem insisted, for the third time. As with the other two, her father shook his head. They had stolen horses from the Winter Queen’s castle as they fled it, arriving here before the armies, but apparently it wasn’t to aid in the war effort.

  “And what could you add to the total aggregate of violence?” her father asked. “No, Gem. You needed to see it, but that isn’t your part in al this.”

  “Then what is?” Gem demanded.

  “There is another altercation to deal with, one that is yours to resolve.”

  It came to Gem then.

  “You mean the attack on Anachronia.”

  Her father nodded.

  “Exactly,” he said, “Devon and his men march on your castle even now. May I have your ring for a moment?”

  Gem pul ed off the red-glowing ring that would Gem pul ed off the red-glowing ring that would normal y have served as her way back home. Henry Word examined it for a moment.

  “Yes, this should stil work, and with any luck Percy is stil monitoring things.” He spoke into the ring like it was a smal microphone. “Percy, if you can hear me, my daughter is going to need something more than a dress when she lands. As quick as you can, please. Now…”

  He gave the ring back to Gem, who put it back on her finger.

  “When you get back to Anachronia, run for the castle gates. Run. With any luck, people in your castle wil be paying attention. Oh, and try not to kil Devon. We’l need him.”

  He twisted the ring before Gem could reply, and the world shifted. The dizzying sight of her own castle lay in front of her, and looking down revealed a suit of golden armor along with a sword.

  “Thank you, Dr. Brown.”

  Unfortunately, looking around revealed a force of fairy knights, laying siege to the castle.

  Fol owing her father’s advice, Gem ran for the gate.

  She’d gone almost half way before a cry went up among the besiegers, but the castle gate stil wasn’t opening. Gem turned, drawing her sword in time to fend off a blow from a soldier.

  “Evanescent.”

  The brief light the ruler word provided was enough to make the man reel back. She edged away, but a half circle of them was starting to form around her, whose culmination would probably be an attack. Only then did the comforting sound of an opening gate come to Gem, along with the blare of horns as knights poured from it. Gem ran again then, catching the fairy men by surprise. With a ring of knights around the entrance to Anachronia’s castle, they didn’t try to fol ow. Gem barreled through the gate, coming to a halt only when she more or less crashed into a familiar, gold-robed figure.

  “Goolrick! Am I glad to see you!”

  Gem actual y kissed him then, catching the young wizard by surprise for a moment, though he recovered wel enough to kiss her back.

  “I have missed you too, My Queen. As promised, no bouts of evil-wizarding in your absence. As you can see though, we do have a slight problem with invaders.”

  “I noticed,” Gem said. “Are you managing to fight them off?”

  “So far, though I’m sure your presence wil help. You see, your Dragon has quite refused to move for me, while the shadow folk are simply watching from the edges. They seem to think that I am culpable in your disappearance.” Wel , Gem could hardly blame them. After al , she had run off in a hurry. But she was back now.

  “Goolrick, send a message to the Shadow King informing him that I’m back. I’l go and see the Dragon. Then get the men ready. It’s time to fight!” Chapter 20

  Gem circled the battlefield below atop her dragon, which had cooed and rumbled when it saw her, buffeting her with its three heads like a kitten trying to get its ears scratched. As a result, Gem ached as each powerful beat of the creature’s wings sent them powering through the air. Gem just hoped that those bruises were the worst she would receive today.

  Already, the armies were engaged at the castle gate. Gem had allocated most of her strongest fighters there, where they could do the most good. Even so, the press of the Winter Court knights against them had to be terrible, and Gem found herself hoping that their shadowy al ies would arrive soon, before the Winter Court’s attempts to annex her kingdom were too far advanced to stop.

  As if the thought summoned them, a dark wave of creatures flowed from the nearby woods.

  From above, it looked like a stain spreading across a tablecloth, but Gem knew that in it there would be spiders and woodland creatures. At their heart would be their protean King, who never seemed to settle on one form for more than a heartbeat.

  The shadow creatures struck the Winter Court forces from the side, and vicious fighting began, quickly turning to viscous fighting as the ground around the castle gates churned into a muddy morass. Gem swooped low, and the Dragon let out a blast of flame that had several Winter Court knights retreating.

  One figure didn’t retreat, however. Even among the chaos below, Gem could pick out Devon’s redoubtable figure, fighting in the middle of a line while issuing instructions to a second in command who ran with the orders where they were needed. A flash of fear shot through Gem as one of her own guards got close to him with a swinging glaive, but Devon managed to avoid it, tripping the soldier and pushing him back into his own lines.

  Actual y, Gem thought as she surveyed those trapped in a more terrestrial existence than she was, Devon seemed to be doing a lot of that sort of thing. He hit one Anachronian with his shield, then sidestepped another’s thrust without riposting. He kicked the legs out from an attacker, but didn’t fol ow it up with a kil ing thrust. Devon seemed to be either a much greater humanitarian than his renown among his men would suggest, or he
was fighting without any real commitment to the battle.

  It made sense that Devon would be ambivalent, Gem supposed, since he was only there thanks to the threat to her. The trouble was, in the fickle heat of battle, would Devon real y be able to last long fighting only without kil ing anyone?

  Somehow, Gem doubted it. That brought fresh worry to her, until she was fraught with it, though whether it was for Devon as a man, or simply because her father had said that they needed him, she couldn’t say. Maybe she didn’t want to say.

  Of course, it probably counted as hypocrisy of the worst kind to go around being scared for someone’s wel -being just after you had sent out your army to battle theirs. Stil , Gem couldn’t help her fear.

  Nor could she help it getting worse as she saw a golden-robed figure fighting his way towards Devon with cool, measured strokes of his blade that cut down any fairy warrior hapless enough to get close.

  That Goolrick might seek Devon out had not occurred to Gem. He seemed to be advancing with real purpose. Was it only that Devon was the enemy commander, or had Goolrick somehow learned of Devon’s interest in her? Gem didn’t know how he could have, but there did seem to be a real spark of hatred between them as they stood in a rare clear moment in the melee, just staring at one another.

  Gem could see that it would only be a matter of time before they charged, and when they did, at least one of the men who cared for her would die.

  Gem knew she couldn’t al ow it.

  “Dive,” she ordered the Dragon. “It is imperative that we stop them.” The Dragon plummeted like a missile, forcing Gem to hold on for dear life. Even as she and her dragon fel though, Gem could see that whatever blink or slight movement was needed to instigate the battle between Goolrick and Devon had already happened. She was too late.

  The two young men charged at each other, shouting words of magic even as they raised their swords for the first blows.