The Frostwoven Crown (Book 4)

by Andrew Hunter

  "You fear the shadow so much that you'd make a deal with the dark itself!" Annalien said, "Do you think you can control this? You think you can master it? Have you ever sat and listened to the death-song of a thousand wisps, sent screaming into the netherworld by the monster that lies here at our feet? Have you done that, fairy?"

  "Well, no, I haven't," Shortgrass mused, "but then I have heard the cries as the Children of the Grove are slaughtered for meal or sport. I've watched 'em wither and fade, bound in cages, weepin' ta know they're ne'er ta fly again... so maybe that counts fer somethin', ya think?"

  "Don't do this, please," Annalien wept, "Don't let my failure become my people's doom."

  "Doom, is it?" Shortgrass said, "’Tis not the way I see it."

  "Then you are a fool," Annalien said.

  "Enough!" Ymowyn snapped, "Both of you stop feeling sorry for yourselves and help me aid this boy, or by the black heart of the Moon That Was, I will start eating souls!"

  Silence hung in the golden air above the icy surface of the river, and Garrett, grateful for the quiet at last, let himself sink further into the cool black mud below.

  "What's got yer tail in a bunch, girly?" Shortgrass said.

  "Garrett needs help," Ymowyn sighed, "This... thing... is starting to control him, and he needs our help to bring him back from it."

  "He's gone, girl," Annalien sighed, "and the most merciful thing we can do is to let him sleep."

  "No!" Ymowyn said, "We need him... We all need him... We need the power he holds, but, most of all, we need him, the boy he is, and the man he can become."

  "Now what would you be needin' him for?" Shortgrass asked, curiosity in his voice, "Yer no Fae. The blood drinker’s laws hold no sway o’er you or yer kin. So what reavin' would you have 'im do?"

  "Look at him!" Ymowyn sighed, "Look at him, and what do you see? A tool? A threat? Is that all you see?"

  "And what is it that you see there, soul-eater?" Annalien asked.

  "A king!" Ymowyn said.

  "Yer mad!" Shortgrass laughed.

  "Yes!" Ymowyn gasped, "I am mad! I sought to use forbidden power to save my people, and I was driven mad by it! I know better than anyone what he must be going through now, but I know as well how strong this boy truly is. I’ve seen it in him! I know that, if any of us have a chance to hold that kind of power and not lose themselves to it... it is this boy!

  "Look at him! Look at this simple boy. He didn't seize this power for his own gain. He wasn't trying to conquer or destroy. He did what he did out of compassion... out of love!

  "One of you looks at this power and wants to use it. The other wants to bury it. I... I want to serve the only one worthy enough to wield it with justice and mercy!"

  "What if you are wrong about him?" Annalien sighed, "If you are wrong, you will undo us all... the last human to wield this power very nearly tore this world in half. Would you put another son of dust upon that throne?"

  "If it comes to that, I'll end 'im meself," Shortgrass said.

  "He could unmake you with a word!" Annalien hissed.

  "If he falls to madness... I will slay the Songreaver," Ymowyn whispered, "I swear my soul upon it."

  "Could you do it?" Annalien asked.

  "If I did not believe in him, I would have slain him already and taken his light for myself," Ymowyn said, her voice cold and hard.

  "You think yourself worthy to wield it?" Annalien scoffed.

  "The day one such as I gain this power, the world will surely die!" Ymowyn laughed bitterly.

  "You are drawn to it, then?" Annalien said.

  "Aye," Ymowyn laughed, "and yet I know I must never possess it. Let me then bask in its glow and worship it at arm's reach."

  "A dangerous game you would play, soul-eater," Annalien said.

  Ymowyn laughed again. "I find my pleasures where I can, ghost," she said, "and dancing this near to the flame keeps me warm."

  "’Tis the fate o' me people a joke to ya then?" Shortgrass asked.

  "Aye, fairy, it is," Ymowyn chuckled, "but then I've always had a perverse sense of humor."

  Garrett felt somehow ashamed, eavesdropping on them like this. He tried to speak, but the cold black mud filled his mouth, and he sank deeper into the blackness below.

  “Ah, look at him, poor boy,” Annalien sighed, “My heart aches to see him fade into shadow.”

  “Then call him back,” Ymowyn said, “Join your will with mine and help me call him back to the light.”

  “It would be kinder perhaps to let him sleep,” Annalien whispered, “Can we ask this of him? What right have we to set that frost-woven crown upon his brow?”

  “We have every right!” Ymowyn hissed, “The dark powers that even now weave this world’s doom will not be stopped by any power save this one. If we let it fade into shadow for all eternity, then the blood of this world will stain our hands, for we alone had the power to stop it and did nothing!”

  Annalien laughed bitterly.

  “Ah,” Ymowyn sighed, “a poor choice of words perhaps… Forgive me.”

  “Well, if yer goin’ ta do somethin’, ya might want ta start now,” Shortgrass said, “I think he just stopped breathin’.”

  “Garrett!” Ymowyn cried.

  Garrett tried again to speak, to tell her that he was all right, but the cold black mud closed over his eyes now, shutting out the faint, golden light. He couldn’t hear their voices anymore, and, for the first time, he began to feel afraid.

  Garrett tried to move his arms, but some force pinned them to his sides. He began to struggle in earnest, growing desperate, but his muscles no longer answered his command. He tried to scream, but his mouth hung open, silent as the tomb.

  No sound, no light, no feelings at all anymore, save a dreadful sense of falling, falling into an infinite void. Some fear-mad part of his brain wondered if this was where the magic went when sundered by the Word.

  The Word… it burned now like an icy flame in his chest, flaring to life even as his thoughts turned toward it. A pale blue light flared and seared away the shadows that engulfed him, leaping up like a writhing bonfire from his breast.

  Garrett screamed at last, a wordless cry of agony as the icy blue fire raked through his veins like tiny shards of frozen rage.

  And then the flame laughed at him.

  Garrett stared up in horror as the blue fire took form, shaping itself into some stooped, long-necked beast with grinning jaws. It’s azure flames flickered against the roiling clouds of darkness that whipped past as Garrett fell into the nameless abyss.

  The blue fire creature pierced Garrett’s shoulders with the tips of its bladed talons as it pulled him closer to itself, and it leaned forward, grinning at him with jagged teeth of flame. Little rivulets of seething pain drooled from its jaws to burn Garrett’s face as it opened its mouth to speak.

  “I need this,” it hissed, and then the creature drove its fist into Garrett’s chest, seizing the boy’s heart in its icy fist.

  “No!” Garrett cried. He managed to move his hands at last, clawing at the creature’s arm with his fingernails, trying to pull it from his chest.

  “Give it to me!” the creature moaned, “I must live!”

  “It’s mine!” Garrett screamed.

  “No, I need it,” the creature whined, raking at Garrett’s flesh with its other claw as Garrett fought to pull its arm out of his chest.

  “Please stop!” Garrett wept, “Please stop!”

  “Give it to me!” the flame roared.

  Garrett saw the clouds of darkness part as his body plummeted through into a great empty void beneath a billowing gray sky. His body spun as he fell, and he saw a vast plain of shadow and fire rising up below him. The ground itself seemed to writhe with unwholesome life, and the anguished wails of a million voices rose up from the churning shadows below.

  “Give it to me!” the flame thing shrieked, pulling with all of its strength, trying to tear the heart from Garrett’s chest.

  “N
o!” Garrett screamed, squeezing the thing’s forearm so hard that it shattered like hammered ice, “It belongs to me!”

  The blue flame creature whipped apart in the wind of Garrett’s fall. Garrett felt the pressure in his chest abate as the flames died away, and his body slowly turned in the air, now falling head-down, toward the sea of hungry shadows rising up to claim him.

  Garrett closed his eyes and crossed his hands over his chest. A small smile touched his lips as he began to hum a few bars of an Astorran waltz that had just now danced into his recollection, and he lost himself in the scent of Marla’s hair.

  Garrett felt two strong hands close upon his shoulders, and he squeezed his arms, protectively over his chest.

  “It belongs to me,” he whispered, “It belongs to me.”

  The hands pulled at him, tugging him upward, away from the sea of shadows.

  Garrett struggled, trying to free himself from their grasp, but they held fast, tearing at his clothes, scrabbling for purchase as he twisted and shook his body to escape them.

  “It belongs to me!” he screamed.

  “Garrett!” a familiar voice cried, “Stop fighting us!”

  “Ymowyn?” Garrett gasped. He opened his eyes again to see long tendrils of shadow rising up from the dark plain below, reaching for him. Then he saw two slender arms, formed of golden light wrapped around his chest as someone struggled to bear him up from behind and above.

  Garrett twisted his body and let the golden creature turn him to face herself as she held him fast with her strong hands. His eyes went wide at the sight of her.

  “Annalien!” he cried.

  The elven spirit burned like sunlight itself, her large eyes weeping tears of golden fire, and her smile as bright as the first dawn.

  “Annalien,” he sobbed, wrapping his arms around her, and she hugged him tight, burying her face in his shoulder as they wept together.

  “Bring us back,” Annalien whispered, “Bring us back now…”

  Sheets of living sunlight wreathed the elven woman’s body, spreading like wings more glorious than any sunset, and the shadow tendrils burned to cinders where they touched her radiance.

  Annalien lifted her eyes toward the roiling black sky above, and there opened a breach in the darkness through which the light of the noonday sun poured through like a shaft of white fire. The fire engulfed them both, and burned away the very memory of despair.

  “Bring us back,” Annalien sighed, “Bring us home.”

  Garrett’s lungs burned as he filled them with air, his eyes opening on a green garden, filled with light and warmth.

  “Annalien!” Garrett gasped, looking at the elven woman as she knelt above him, translucent and faded now again in her ghostly form. Her lambent eyes sparkled with ethereal tears, and she sobbed out a happy gasp of relief. She reached to stroke his face with her hand, but she had none now. She withdrew the ghostly stump to her breast and laughed again.

  Garrett’s eyes now focused through Annalien’s ghostly body to see Lady Ymowyn kneeling in the pool behind her. The fox woman was on her knees in the water with one hand outstretched toward Annalien’s back and the other stretched toward the glowing crystal moonshard that lay upon the pedestal in the center of the room. Ymowyn sagged in relief, wheezing with exertion, as she closed her outstretched fingers into fists and then collapsed with a splash into the water.

  “Ymowyn!” Garrett cried, trying to rise to help her, but his sense of balance failed him, and he fell back to the floor once again.

  “Hoh there, lad!” Shortgrass cried as he flew down to land beside Garrett on the floor, “Ye were dead as a bloomin’ stone nary a moment ago! Give it a wee rest!”

  “Ymowyn,” Garrett gasped, reaching out his hand toward her as Annalien stood and turned to look at her as well.

  Ymowyn lifted herself from the water on her hands and knees, her dress soaked through, and a fine, silver mist escaped through her lips with each ragged breath. Her red fur seemed dusted with frost, and her green eyes now looked glassy and unfocused.

  “Help her,” Garrett cried, but Ymowyn shook her head, lifting her hand to ward off any aid.

  “Don’t…” she gasped, “Don’t… come close!”

  “She needs help,” Garrett said. He tried pushing himself up on one arm with some success.

  “She needs to feed,” Annalien sighed.

  “No!” Ymowyn groaned, shaking her head angrily, “…no.”

  Annalien looked back at Garrett, her eyes full of sorrow, and she shook her head. “Oh, Garrett,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Annalien,” Garrett said, “I wanted you to understand why I did it. I wanted…”

  “It’s not your fault, Garrett,” Annalien whispered, “It’s not your fault.”

  Garrett smiled and nodded, and then looked around the garden, noting for the first time that things had changed since his last visit. The vines and flowers had all either overgrown their pots or simply withered and shriveled to brown husks. He looked toward the vine racks and saw them almost completely overrun with the ugly blue firevine, now blistered with hundreds of blood-red berries.

  “What happened here?” he asked.

  Annalien looked around and gave a rueful laugh. “I suppose I should see about hiring a new groundskeeper,” she said.

  Ymowyn suddenly doubled over, retching into the crystal blue waters of the pool.

  Garrett scrambled to his feet and stumbled toward the pool as Shortgrass and Annalien got out of his way.

  “No!” Ymowyn groaned, spitting bile, “Stay back!”

  Garrett waded out into the shallow pool, surprised at the warmth of the water as it poured in over the tops of his boots.

  The fox woman staggered backward and fell again, staring up at him with real terror in her wide green eyes as he moved to help her.

  “No!” she croaked, lifting her hands in a feeble attempt to ward him off, “I don’t want to hurt you!”

  Garrett stooped low and grasped her by the shoulders, lifting her from the water, and then knelt, cradling her gently with his hand behind her neck. “It’s all right,” he said, “It’s all right.”

  “No!” she wept, shaking her head from side to side.

  “It’s all right,” he said again, smiling, “You saved my life, Ymowyn. Now let me help you.”

  “I can’t…” she rasped.

  “You can,” he said, “It will be all right.”

  “What if I can’t stop?” she sobbed.

  “You can,” he said.

  “I…” she sighed, her eye lids fluttering as she swooned in his arms.

  “Breathe it in, Ymowyn,” he said, remembering what he had seen the white ghoul do for her once before, “Just breathe it in.”

  Ymowyn’s lips parted, her eyes half-lidded. She seemed about to speak again, but then her breath came rasping through her teeth as she inhaled sharply.

  Garrett’s eyes widened as he felt the breath being drawn from his lungs. It burst from his mouth as a fine silver mist that shimmered like frost as the fox woman drew it in.

  Ymowyn gasped, her eyes opening wide again as she looked up at him, desperate with need. She clamped her jaws shut, struggling to hold her breath, trying not to breathe him again. She begged him for release with her eyes, but Garrett held her close.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered.

  She gasped again, drawing another silver breath from his body, inhaling his spirit into herself. Garrett felt it flowing from him like water through a broken dam, pouring in to quench the burning hunger in her eyes.

  She sobbed then, at the end of her breath, shoving him away with stolen strength.

  He let her go, rising to his feet in the center of the pool with the burning light of the moonshard behind his back.

  She stumbled from the pool, dragging her sodden dress with her. She turned to look back at him, falling to her knees in his shadow at the edge of the pool.

  Garrett smiled gently back at her, wanting her to know
that she hadn’t hurt him.

  She looked at him, her green eyes blazing with adoration and awe.

  “My King!” she cried, and then she bowed low before him.

  Garrett looked to Annalien in surprise, but the pale blue ghost only stared back at him in wonder for a moment before she too fell to her knees.

  “My Lord,” she said, lifting her missing hands to him, “I pledge my service to you for as long as I may tarry here.”

  Garrett looked to the fairy standing beside her on the floor.

  Shortgrass stared at Ymowyn and Annalien with an expression of utter astonishment. He glanced at Garrett then as he gestured toward the two women. “Yer not expectin’ me ta…” he began, and then ran his hand through his coppery hair and sighed, “Oh, why tha hell not?”

  With a florid bow, the little fairy tilted his wings toward Garrett and cried out, “Long live tha King!”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Garrett found the injured ghouls lying on palettes in Warren’s living room beside the hearth. He winced in shame to see the bandages wrapped around Warren’s massive chest, but, most of all, his heart broke to see the padded bindings around Scupp’s head.

  “Back for another round, eh?” Warren chuckled, a bit wheezily as he looked up at Garrett’s entry, hastily concealing something that looked like a ball of yarn beneath his tattered blanket.

  “I’m sorry,” Garrett said, shaking his head, “I’m really sorry.”

  “I’m fine,” Warren scoffed, “You hit like a little baby.”

  “A baby that gave you three cracked ribs,” Ymowyn muttered as she entered behind Garrett, hanging her cloak beside the door.

  Garrett rubbed his hand over his forehead, still unable to believe that he had hurt his friends. He had only faint, blurry memories of incoherent rage, but the sight of Scupp, lying unconscious on the floor, was a brutal reminder of his loss of control.

  “How is she?” Garrett asked, crossing the floor to stand beside the palette where the young ghoul lay.

  Diggs, who was kneeling beside his sister, cradling her paw in his own, looked up at Garrett with an expression of weary sorrow. “I don’t know if she’s gonna make it,” he whispered hoarsely. His eyes fell again to his sister as she lay, rasping for breath. “Hang in there, Scupp,” he sobbed, “Hang in there.”