Black Ice Burning (Pale Queen Series Book 3)

by A. R. Kahler

  What better way could an assassin go?

  I shove the other blade into my chest. One more sacrifice. One more boost of power.

  The last thing I see is the flare of power as Penelope is torn apart.

  The last thing I hear is the howl of demons, the rushing whorl of my death, of the world splitting apart and dragging me down to hell.

  The last thing I feel are my parents’ hands on my shoulders, the burn of their skin, as my power—our power—unmakes the one who tried to destroy us all.

  Twenty-Four

  “Fucking took you long enough,” I say, curling over on the ground.

  Everything hurts. It feels like I’ve fallen down a stairwell made of nails and broken glass. A few times. But with every breath, the pain subsides, becomes a dull throb that slowly recedes to the back of my eyes.

  Kingston grunts and shifts, light moving against my closed eyelids. I don’t want to open them, because I don’t want the impending migraine to worsen. But then I realize that the place smells familiar. I force my eyes open, which is honestly about as hard as doing a one-handed pull-up. If there was any room left in my body for surprise—or any emotion, really—I’d probably be shocked.

  “How the hell did you do that?” I ask him.

  “What?” Kingston sits back and loops his arms around his knees. He’s in jeans and a nice T-shirt and has clearly showered since I last saw him. Since I died. His tattoo curls around his forearm. It seems to be glaring at me.

  “My room. How did you get it back? I burned it down.” The last part is almost a question. Everything in here is in perfect order—we’re clearly in the living room, and the fireplaces are burning and my books aren’t ash and my weapons case . . . oh sweet gods, my weapons case is intact. The first blossom of emotion flourishes in my chest. Relief. How long has it been since I felt relief?

  Kingston smiles sheepishly, but he doesn’t look away. Something in that expression reeks with pride. “Oh. That. Remember when I said you had a childhood room in my castle?”

  The relief plummets.

  “You didn’t.”

  “What? It had been empty for a while, but I figured I’d remodel, after I visited you last. Just in case.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Probably. That never bothered you before, though.”

  I push myself to sitting, but my body doesn’t react the way it should. My arms nearly give out in the process. If not for Kingston scooting over and steadying me, I would have fallen right back to my side.

  “Careful,” he says.

  I don’t bat his help away.

  “How long was I gone?” I ask.

  “Not long.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it, just stares at the flames. I don’t want to ask him what happened to my body. I really, really don’t want to know.

  “Felt like months,” I reply.

  He just grunts and stares into the flames. I forgot; he’s been dead before, too.

  We sit there like that for a while. He conjures a bottle of whiskey from somewhere and hands it over. I take a few drinks and so does he. The only sound in the room is the crackle of fire, the occasional clink of the bottle. There are a billion unasked questions between us. What happened to Penelope? To the show? To my father?

  But there’s one that digs in the back of my brain, especially as we sit here in this replica of my room. Especially knowing that even though this feels the same, it isn’t. Nothing is.

  “What happens now?” I finally ask. Just voicing the question feels like teetering over the edge into the unknown. “Faerie still needs rulers. The world’s still in chaos.”

  Once more, he doesn’t answer right away. He takes another drink.

  “First, you need a bath,” he says. He snaps his fingers, and in the other room, I hear the splash and gurgle of running water, the soft sound of stringed instruments. It’s not my imagination—I can smell the lavender bubbles from here. He pats me on the shoulder and stands, holding out a hand to help me up. “The rest of the world can wait.”

  The bath is better than every orgasm and every piece of chocolate cake and every drink of whiskey I’ve ever had, combined. I soak for what feels like hours, and the water never gets too hot or too cold, and the bottle of whiskey and pot of tea and cheese plate at my side never run out. The string quartet playing in the background sounds like a live band. And even when Kingston slips into the tub across from me, I feel nothing but . . . if not bliss or contentment, at least a feeling of a job well done and a victory well deserved.

  The thought just makes me think about Eli. I need to try summoning the bastard. I think I still owe him a few meals. And some victory sex.

  “Do you think it’s over?” I ask, sliding the bottle his way. He stretches a bit, his toes tickling my hip. I slide my hand under the water and rest it on his shin.

  “I don’t know,” he replies.

  It’s answer enough. And really, I can’t expect anything more. We sit there, our skin brushing, and for the moment things feel okay. I can forget what I’ve done and what I’ve lost. I can forget just how terrifying the future actually is.

  “I take it back,” he says after a few more bars of music.

  “What?”

  “Your mother. I think . . . I think she’d be proud of you. Of what you’ve done. That was quick thinking back there.”

  I don’t answer for a bit. My dad said the same thing, but this feels different. I know, in saying it, he’s apologizing for earlier. It’s about as good as I can expect to get from him.

  “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I finally say.

  He slides the bottle over. “I need to make up for that.”

  I take a long drink. It feels as though I’m drinking to the dead. Roxie and the artist friends of hers I killed. To Oberon and Mab. My mother and father.

  My mother.

  I think of her, of the woman she was in those few brief moments before she turned into the Oracle, before her memories started to crack. I think of the way she looked at me, the tears in her eyes, the relief and pride in her voice. The scent and strength of her hug. It was almost like how my father looked at me.

  All these years, I thought I was a hardened killing machine. I thought I’d been raised as such.

  Turned out, even when out of their lives, I was still loved.

  “Are you crying?” Kingston asks. But it doesn’t sound like he’s poking fun.

  I don’t respond, of course, and he doesn’t say anything else. Maybe our relationship has turned over a new leaf.

  “We could start over, you know,” he finally says. “We don’t have to hate each other.”

  I want to say I know, but that feels too sentimental, so what actually comes out—after I duck under the water to wash away the tears—is, “You slept with my mother and then slept with me. I’m pretty certain that makes you a motherfucker in my book, no matter how you spin it.”

  He laughs. It’s way too loud for the room, but it fills the space with a lightness I haven’t heard or felt in a while.

  “I suppose you’re right,” he says. “We’re damned to battle for eternity.”

  Something triggers in the back of my mind, but I’m too hazy from alcohol and heat for it to gain traction. Instead of thinking too hard, I take another drink and slide back deeper, pulsing a wave of power through the water and letting the bubbles foam.

  “I brought you something,” he says after a while.

  I quirk open an eye. He holds a ring between his fingers. The ring William made me, and Penelope stole away.

  “I thought—”

  “It fell out of your pocket when you, you know, died,” he says. “Thought you would want it back.” He holds it out.

  My heart twists to see it. That’s all that’s left of my mother. But the way he looks at it . . .

  “Keep it,” I say. That gets him to look at me.

  “What? Seriously? But this was—”

  “Mom’s. I know. She’d probab
ly want you to have it. Consider this my peace offering.”

  “I . . . thank you.”

  I just nod and close my eyes, waving a hand to turn up the music, letting the rest of the night melt away in a blur.

  Mab’s kingdom still smells like smoke. But the black ice coating everything glints like obsidian mirrors, crisp and smooth as the first day I set foot here. It’s empty, sure, but the wild Winter winds have swept back in, making the place a glittering ghost town. Which, in a way, it always was. Mab was right: Winter will always prevail. It gives me hope. And a sense of pride. I may not have been born here, but I’m a part of this place. It survives . . . so I’ll survive, too.

  My feet crunch over shards of ice and glass, sink through piles of snow as I make my way up the boulevard leading to Mab’s castle. I don’t bother checking any of the side streets: I know that this place is abandoned. Everything was ruined in the wake of Penelope’s pillaging. It’s going to be a long time before anyone returns here. If anyone returns here. The place is a wasteland, and after seeing the paradise that Penelope built, I could understand them wanting to stay. Windows lie shattered in the street like broken teeth; whole strips of apartments have been burned to the foundations. Bottles and trinkets and paper line the gutters. All of it encased in a thin sheet of ice. As though the destruction is being preserved, or put on display. A testament to the one time Winter was bested. And Winter still prevailed.

  The sky above is clouded and grey, so the flash of purple light glinting on a nearby wall puts a dagger in my hand before I even turn around.

  “Damn it, Celeste,” I gasp.

  The purple Wisp floats toward me, her light dim. “I had heard you survived,” she says telepathically. “And had hoped you’d return.”

  “I didn’t think I’d see you around,” I say. “This place can’t be good for business.”

  “It will return.”

  I resume walking toward the castle. She hovers beside me. She doesn’t ask what happened—like the rest of Faerie, she probably already knows. In a world where nothing changes and no one grows old, gossip is as good as sex.

  “What happens next?” I ask her. “You said you were there, at the beginning. Rulers emerged from chaos and brought order. But it’s been a few days and it’s still pretty chaotic.”

  “The balance will return,” she says. “Winter and Summer are forces of nature after all. And nature always prevails.”

  “When will that be?” I ask.

  She doesn’t respond, which may be the telepathic equivalent of a shrug.

  “Do you think the citizens will choose sides again? Or is this really the dawn of a new age?”

  Her laugh fills my head like the sound of distant wind chimes.

  “The Fey and humans have little in common, save for this: they get bored easily. Soon, there will be fighting. Soon, they will choose sides and fall back into their old habits. We cannot change who we are.”

  “Then you better get your bar back in order,” I say. “You know damn well I’m your star patron.”

  “You’ve never paid your tab in your life.”

  “I’ve got time,” I say.

  She doesn’t follow me all the way to the castle. She says her good-byes and that she has to go check on her friends—which is a notion that I never even bothered to consider—and then flits off into the shadows.

  I wander up the boulevard leading to the castle. Now, all the statues have been toppled, save for one near the very end, right beside the entrance. Which is odd, because I don’t remember one being there. Maybe it was sentient—the others line the cobbled road, all of them in pieces, all covered in snow and ice. Some hold shattered swords or other weaponry. All of them had been hacked to bits. The castle itself is smoking and pockmarked, with huge chunks gashed out from the sides. Maybe I’m just projecting, but it feels as if it’s cowering. Or maybe just beaten down, but still trying to be strong.

  My feet lead me up the avenue and toward the remaining statue. When I near, my heart beats double time.

  It’s me.

  And it’s damn well incredible.

  My statue stands atop a writhing figure of Penelope, her body twisted and serpentine—no, mermaidish—and I wrestle her, holding a spear in Penelope’s mouth with one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other, like some punk Saint George slaying the dragon. The statue’s mouth is open either in a laugh or a battle cry.

  I can’t help it. I start cackling.

  Because whoever created this knows me all too well.

  At the very bottom, on a silver plaque set into the ground, is a simple statement. “Winter Endures.”

  I don’t know how long I stand there, laughing in the silence and the snow. I laugh until I can’t see from the tears in my eyes. I laugh until I’m on my knees, and I’m not just laughing, but actually sobbing. Because here I am, memorialized for eternity. No longer in the shadows.

  I’m center stage.

  Even in death, Mab—or maybe her castle itself—is pulling the strings.

  After a while I pull myself together. There are things to do. Winter endures, and I will as well.

  Despite the apparent destruction on the outside, the castle seems to have fended off the worst of the attacks. Or, at least, it’s hiding it well. Everything inside is coated in a thick layer of snow and ice, the halls open and clear. If there was any debris or damage, it’s already been repaired or hidden. I walk through the foyer and into Mab’s throne room.

  Despite the high of seeing the statue, the thrill of knowing the kingdom would go on, the moment I step inside the room, my heart stops.

  The room is empty. Mab’s high throne—a precarious pillar of ebony and ice, atop which sat her crystal seat—is toppled. Snow dusts against its base, and the seat itself has skidded to a corner of the room. Overhead, the arching windows have imploded, and their shards reflect the dim light at my feet. It feels empty. Wounded. And as much as the castle has put on a good face, this reveals one concrete fact.

  Mab is dead. The Winter Queen is no more. And without her, this kingdom is just a bunch of broken buildings and ice.

  I may have a statue in my honor, but I’m still not her.

  “Why did you bring me back,” I whisper to the emptiness, “when I have no one left to serve?”

  I walk over to the throne. Despite the fall, it hasn’t broken or chipped. The high back sits regally above what appears to be a very uncomfortable seat. And it is small. Much smaller than I would have expected it to be.

  It was made for Mab. She always appeared larger than life. I guess she made everything around her seem larger, too.

  I don’t sit on her seat. That feels like sacrilege. Instead, I crouch down before it and lean back against the throne. I close my eyes, let the coldness seep through my leather jacket. I pretend it’s Mab’s touch, that she is behind me, that this is one of our softer moments, when I let myself believe she loved me for more than my skills.

  “I did not bring you back to serve,” she says. And for a moment, I think it’s my imagination. Then I realize it’s not, and my pulse races. I open my eyes. But the Winter Queen is nowhere to be seen.

  Snow drifts through the shattered windows. Thick, fluffy chunks. They fall around me, landing lightly at my feet. Only one of them isn’t a snowflake. It’s a wad of paper.

  It unfurls before I get a chance to touch it. But I know what it is before I even see the letters spread across the page. My contract.

  “I kept it safe for you,” Mab says. I look around again, but still can’t see her anywhere. Then I catch it—the faintest reflection in a large pane of glass by my feet. The green of her eyes, the red of her lips.

  “You’re alive,” I whisper. Tears come dangerously close to forming in my eyes.

  “I am dead,” she replies. Her reflection wavers as she speaks. “But my memory lives on. This castle has always been an extension of me. Now, it is all that is left. Nearly all.”

  “What do I—”

  “Read the
contract, love. I would have thought I taught you better than to sign without questioning. Still . . . you have made me proud, Daughter. And that pride does not come easily.”

  She flickers away then, her reflection vanishing like snow in the sun. I want to scream at her to come back. I want to beg for her guidance. But a part of me knows that I won’t hear from her again. It was just the castle. The memory of her. The words she wanted to impart.

  I sniff and wipe the tears from my eyes. Then I pick up the contract and read.

  Most of it is generic. Most of it I knew. To serve without question. To never stray from Winter. But as I get to the bottom, to the finer print, my heartbeat hammers in my skull.

  I hereby give my life, and all future lives, to the kingdom of Winter. And should I die in combat, in service to the Winter throne, I shall have proven my loyalty to the kingdom. I understand that, in the case of my death at the hands of my enemy, I will be reborn anew. And all magics or contracts used against me, save this, shall be voided.

  Furthermore, should the kingdom of Winter ever find itself without a queen, I do solemnly swear to relinquish my humanity so I might take up the throne and all of its powers and burdens. If I die in service to the throne, and if the throne ever requires an heir, I, Claire Melody Warfield, shall take on the role of the Winter Queen. And should the world of Faerie find itself without any ruler, I take on the responsibility of finding a fitting replacement for Summer.

  My signature is below. But beside it, in a tiny, fine handwritten script, are a few more words.

  I hope you like that last line, love. Oberon has fallen. I doubt he picked an heir. Choose his replacement wisely. You will be stuck with him for eternity.

  Mab

  I sit there, stunned, staring out across the abandoned throne room, every inch of it glittering in the light, both from the ice and my tears.

  “This is mine,” I whisper. Then, a bit louder, I try out the words that set my blood on fire. “I am the Winter Queen.”

  A shudder runs through the castle. It’s not the tremors from before. It’s the vibration of a cat, purring itself awake. Realizing its master’s touch.