Black Ice Burning (Pale Queen Series Book 3)

by A. R. Kahler

  Pan huddles beside me, occasionally brushing up against my leg. His arms are clutched before his chest and his head constantly darts about. The crack in his skull isn’t fixed. Would it be rude to suggest he use it as pottery? He could sport a really wicked fern or something. Organic wigs. It could be the newest drag phenomenon.

  “Take this,” I tell him, handing over a dagger. “It’s iron. Enchanted against faeries.”

  Pan takes it gladly. But he returns his hands to his chest. He holds the dagger there like a warding cross.

  Kingston walks behind us, silent save for the crunching twigs. Dude really needs to take a class from me on stealth. Unless he’s using magic to sneak up on people, he’s louder than Pan. Who is made of stone.

  “Are you sure this leads to Penelope’s kingdom?” Kingston asks, a little too loudly for my comfort.

  “Nope,” I say. There’s a chance Meadowsweet brought us to some labyrinth in the heart of the Wildness, just to fuck with us. But, as I’m repeatedly telling myself, the chances of that are slim. Hate me though she does, she knows she needs me. No one else is rising up against the Pale Queen, and those that have are dead and gone. I’m not vain enough to say I’m the last hope (okay, maybe I am), but I’m smart enough to know that there aren’t any better options out there.

  Maybe a different warrior will rise up someday and take her down if I fail in this mission, but that’s a long time coming. Even with my tentative powers, I’m the best at killing in this saccharine kingdom.

  I would know; I murdered all of my competition.

  Something rustles in the distant trees. Eli and I stop at the exact same time.

  “How close are we?” Kingston whispers.

  “To the noise or the kingdom?”

  “Either.”

  “Near,” I say. “And far.”

  Kingston says nothing. Eli actually chuckles.

  But the momentary humor is cut short. Another rustle breaks through the trees.

  “Not now,” I mutter. I don’t know how far we are from Penelope’s castle. I don’t want to be given away. Not this quickly.

  Another rustle, much closer this time, but now from behind. Instinctively, we circle up, staring out into the woods as the creature or creatures rush through the undergrowth.

  “Perhaps it’s friendly?” whispers Pan, his voice wavering. Which—again—can he even feel pain? Why should he care if things get a little violent?

  A second later, as if drawn by his words, the foliage to our right parts and a creature dashes toward us.

  And stops.

  “Claire?” she whispers.

  If it weren’t for the fact that I’m frozen from shock, I would have fallen to my knees.

  She stands before us, naked and dirt smeared, but there’s no mistaking her. The blonde hair. The kind eyes. The voice that resonates with every fiber of my past.

  Kingston beats me to the punch.

  “Viv?” he whispers. He steps forward, walking past me, and I’m too captivated to reach out and stop him. Why should I reach out and stop him? She’s here. My mother.

  “Kingston,” my mother replies. It sounds like a gasp of relief, but despite this, she doesn’t move forward. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  He takes another step forward. Eli’s hand is a vise on mine. I want to shake him off.

  “What are you doing here?” Kingston asks. “How are you . . . how are you alive?”

  My mother spreads her arms to the sides, as if she can’t believe it herself. “I don’t know,” she says. “I just woke up here. A few days ago. I don’t know what happened.” She looks at me then. “I remember seeing you. Holding you. And then . . .” She shakes her head.

  I may not fall to the ground, but my heart definitely does.

  “You were reborn,” Kingston whispers. “I knew it . . . I knew you’d come back.”

  “Reborn?” she asks. “But I’m . . . I’m . . .”

  She shakes her head again. I’m losing feeling in my fingers but I’m too awestruck to do anything about it.

  “You’re the Oracle,” Kingston says. Another step forward. He reaches out. “Your essence is bound to return to this world again and again. I just . . . I didn’t think it would be like this. In your body.”

  He laughs. He seems to have forgotten all about us. “You know what this means? We can start over again. We can finally live that future we’d dreamed up.”

  His hand is close to touching her face, but right before he makes contact she steps back, turns away. There are tears in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t . . .”

  She sobs then, and runs off.

  Kingston runs after her.

  He crashes through the underbrush, louder than ever, but my mother is faster. She darts ahead of him, still sobbing. Kingston calls after her.

  “The bastard is going to get us all killed,” Eli says, letting go of my hand. He follows.

  I hesitate for only a second. This is my mother we’re talking about—she’s scared and lost and overwhelmed. I can’t blame her. But even through the relief of seeing her again, there’s a nagging voice in the back of my head. Something saying that stumbling upon her in the endless Wildness is beyond convenient.

  Then again, the place responds to need. And Kingston definitely needs her.

  I run at Eli’s heels. I also don’t sheathe my knife.

  We slip through the undergrowth, silent as ghosts or maybe just not as damn loud as Kingston is. He continues calling after my mother, and I continue to curse him out in my head. We don’t have too long a chase. Moments later the woods clear and the trickling stream from before appears. Only here, it’s not a tiny stream—it’s a river, as wide across as a city block and deep as midnight. Light hangs thickly, everything humid and crimson, the color of decay, the scent of rot. And there in the middle of it, running down the beach toward the shore, is my mother, followed quickly by Kingston.

  “Wait!” I yell out, not certain who I’m calling to, but it’s too late all the same. My mother takes a running leap and dives into the water, vanishing from sight. Kingston dives in right after her.

  Eli is cursing something under his breath, and it’s then I realize he has his baby-tipped cane in one hand, the point of it sharpened like the rapier I wielded in the Tapis Noir.

  We run.

  Because now the spell has vanished, and I know that whatever that creature is, it isn’t my mother.

  Especially when she rears her head from the water, and her hair is replaced with seaweed, her skin grey as decayed flesh and her eyes the pale pink of a salmon’s belly. A goddamned kelpie. And Kingston fell right for her trick.

  I’m running over the ways to kill the thing without magic when I stumble and fall to my knees. I curse myself and try to stand up, but my hands are suddenly snared by vines that whip from the ground like serpents. They lash around my wrists and tighten on my calves. I glance over to Eli, who’s in the exact same predicament, and then stare out at the water in horror.

  Kingston surfaces around the same time a vine curls around my mouth, keeping me from screaming. But he does that for me.

  The moment he realizes he’s been tricked, he yells out. There’s a spark and a small explosion, but beyond the smell of sulfur in the air, there’s no effect. I want to call at him that magic is pointless in the Wildness—surely he already figured that out. He starts splashing away, trying to get back from the monster that swims languidly toward him. The kelpie is bigger now, maybe twice the size of a man, and her mouth clicks open to reveal rows and rows of razorlike teeth, like a lamprey.

  The vines keep me from moving forward. They also keep me from looking away.

  Kingston isn’t moving fast enough.

  The kelpie raises a long, twig-thin arm out of the water, kelp dripping off it like gelatinous wings, her fingers tipped in black talons. She reaches toward Kingston. He can’t get away. There are strands of seaweed curled around him, and try as he might, he can’t thrash ha
rd enough.

  In a moment of clarity, a stillness dawns in my mind.

  This is where I watch Kingston die.

  The kelpie lets out a moan and wraps her hand around Kingston’s throat.

  Then she submerges, dragging Kingston down with her.

  The momentary calm snaps as he’s dragged under. I bite down hard on the vine and am rewarded with a gush of warm, viscous liquid that tastes exactly as it sounds, only more bitter. I let my body go slack in that same moment and fall to the ground on my side; there’s a split-second where the vines loosen, and I use it to shift my weight just enough so my hand is by my boot. My fingers curl on the dagger there, and the moment I pull it out I twist again, slicing first the vines along one calf, and then the other. A high-pitched squeal fills the air as the vines tighten, try to pull my arms taut, but I’m faster, and I’m pissed, and that makes for a deadly combination. A few more twists and thrusts and I’m covered in dangling vines. The live ends don’t try to attack again.

  Eli is just struggling free from his own bonds, his suit ripped and covered in reddish-brown sap. He slashes at the final vine with his walking-stick rapier, then looks up at me, bedraggled.

  Save for the distant scream of the vines, the scene is silent. The water deathly still.

  “Shit,” I whisper, staring out at the river.

  “How did he fall for it?” Eli asks. “It was so obvious.”

  I’m grateful he doesn’t point out that I fell for it as well.

  “We’re close to Tír na nÓg,” I mutter. “The land that gives you everything you desire. I guess it follows that the monsters nearby would use a similar tactic.”

  “Should we say something?” Eli asks. Which is really strange, because he’s not the sentimental type. Maybe he’d been lusting after Kingston hard-core.

  I open my mouth to say no, there’s no point—we have a job to do and we’ve already drawn too much attention to ourselves—when the water bubbles. Ripples dance across the surface, slowly moving toward the shore. I grab a second dagger.

  I wasn’t planning on killing a kelpie today, but that doesn’t mean I won’t.

  The bubbles and ripples are near the shore, and when the first bit of seaweed rears from the lake, I tighten my grip and prepare to throw this baby with all my might.

  Then it rises higher, and the grey, pockmarked skin appears, and beside it, another head, this one covered in black and muck. Wait, was it a damn hydra or something?

  Before I can think of changing tactics, I realize the black-haired head is actually Kingston. And the grey . . .

  “Pan!” I yell.

  I run toward the beach despite myself, sloshing through the water to help Pan drag Kingston ashore. The magician isn’t breathing and Pan is smeared with a thick gunk that smells like dead seagulls and beach waste.

  Eli grabs Kingston under the armpits and hauls him to dry land. I help Pan forward, taking one of his tiny arms in mine, trying to ignore the slime that squishes through my fingers.

  “Don’t worry,” Eli says when Kingston’s on the ground. He casts me a quick grin. “I got this.”

  Then he places his hands on Kingston’s chest and pumps a few times, before leaning in to deliver a mouth-to-mouth breath that I’m positive involves tongue. When Eli leans back and settles on his heels, Kingston still isn’t breathing. Eli’s eyebrows furrow.

  “Is he dead?” I ask.

  “Nope. Just stubborn. Or maybe he likes kissing me.”

  He shakes his head, balls a hand into a fist, and hammers it down on Kingston’s sternum.

  Kingston gasps and rolls over, water vomiting from his mouth. I turn away and focus on Pan, who’s picking seaweed off himself with disdain. I really hate vomit.

  “How did you—”

  “Knew it wasn’t your mother,” Pan says, not looking at me. “I’ve looked after the Oracle for centuries. They never come back knowing who they are. Part of the package. When I heard the river, I put it together.”

  He looks at me and gives me a smile that honestly looks a little malicious. Like he’s pissed I ever doubted his fighting ability.

  “Ran off the moment she darted. Came here. There are perks to being made of stone. I sink. And don’t need to breathe. Kelpies are pretty much only vulnerable in two places: on land, and when their guard is down in their underwater den. She wasn’t expecting me to be waiting.” He tosses the last bit of seaweed to the side. “Thanks for the dagger, by the way. Came in handy.”

  Then, wiping more slime off, he starts back up the shore toward the woods.

  “Better hurry up. That one caused quite a racket, and there are probably a few other water sprites and kelpies on the way. Amongst other things.”

  I glance to Eli, who’s still hovering over a fetal Kingston like he’s more than ready to give the breath of life again.

  “Who’d have thought?” Eli says.

  I shrug, then follow Pan up the shore.

  Eighteen

  Kingston doesn’t say anything.

  Not once.

  Not to the fact that Eli has his arm around Kingston’s waist to help him walk.

  Not to Pan, who saved his life.

  Not to me, who saw his greatest weakness played out.

  I knew Kingston loved my mother. I knew that losing her screwed him up more than he could admit. Just as I knew that my losing her for him again was a constant pain for him.

  He doesn’t speak, because he knows we all saw what we shouldn’t have seen. He fell for a faerie trick. Some cheap glamour and a bit of psychic flair. He fell for it because he wanted it more than anything else.

  Normally, I’d rub that shame in until he bruised or bled from it. But I’m silent, too. Because there was a moment there when I thought it was possible. When I thought I could have my mother back. Another ally. Another potential future.

  Kingston’s already hurting enough. So none of us speak as we walk the dark path through the Wildness. None of us question if it’s the right way. Any sort of speech right now would only emphasize what we aren’t saying, so we trek on in silence.

  After a while, the dread that we’re just lost in here begins to fade. There’s a familiarity to all this, a sensation running through my veins that tells me we’re actually going the right direction. Maybe it’s a trace of the visions I’d had of Penelope’s kingdom, or maybe I’m just deluding myself. I don’t say anything at first; I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, and I don’t want to make another awkward silence if I’m wrong. Then I taste it.

  The Dream.

  It’s every sensation rolled into one—the taste of electricity, the caress of wind chimes, the scent of the horizon. Even before I see it rolling in the sky, I can sense it running through me, calling me forward, a veritable will-o’-the-wisp. It twines through my veins, snares my nostrils, sends fireworks racing across my skin.

  “Impossible,” Kingston whispers, his voice tinged with awe. Apparently this is enough to break him from his misery.

  I, at least, was prepared for this; I’d seen it before, in the visions Penelope showed me. But stepping past the trees’ canopy, into the broad meadow of her new kingdom, still makes me want to gape like a tourist.

  Dream ribbons through the sky, undulating like an aurora in swaths of green and purple, red and blue. I’ve never seen it in such high concentrations, and suddenly, I’m wondering if Penelope will need to acquire any more to break open the barriers between the worlds. She already has more than Summer and Winter combined. I still can’t believe she’s gathered this much—we’d always known there was a leak in the supply, which was what brought me down this road in the first place. But this . . . this is an astronomical amount of Dream. We should have noticed sooner.

  We should have stopped it sooner.

  “I think we’re in the right place,” Eli says.

  “Yes, well,” Kingston begins, then shuts up.

  Behind us, the trees shimmy and shake in a rustle of leaves and branches. The path is gone. We
don’t step farther into the field. Music wafts over the rolling grass like the scent of baked bread, everything in the landscape an undulating rainbow of light and energy and sound. I can see the allure of this. So much Dream in one place . . . it gets under your skin, infuses everything from the grass under your feet to the air you breathe. It’s more effective than even Tír na nÓg’s magic. There you’re given your deepest desires.

  Here you’re surrounded by everything.

  It’s hard to keep my thoughts together.

  The field ahead of us stretches for miles, seemingly endless in its rolling expanse. Houses and groves and ponds dot the countryside, but they aren’t what catch my attention. It’s the castle towering above everything, a monolithic, Disney-like testament to grandeur and delusion. Penelope’s castle. Of course it’s just as gaudy and conceited as she is. The castle seems to glow and move slowly under the dancing lights of the Dream, making it even more ethereal, even more unreal.

  “That’s a hell of a big castle,” Kingston mutters. “I hope you have a solid attack plan.”

  “We’re going to need to split up,” I say.

  Eli chuckles. “So much for that dream.”

  “Split up?” Pan asks incredulously. He seems more authoritative now than I’ve ever seen him. Killing a kelpie was clearly good for his morale. And rescuing Kingston, I guess. But I do think it’s nice to be reminded you’re still at the top of the food chain.

  “Unless you magically know where the book is,” I reply. Maybe a little too harshly, since he did just save Kingston’s ass. “We’re going to have to act fast and cover ground. Penelope will know we’re here soon.”

  “Especially after the ruckus that someone made,” Eli says, looking pointedly at Kingston.

  “Shut up, Eli,” I respond. Now is not the time to argue amongst ourselves. “Who the hell says ruckus anymore anyway?”

  “Cool people,” Eli says. And honest to gods, the way he says it, with his calm, assured air, I almost believe him.