Frost: An Otherworld Tale (The Otherworld Tales Book 1)

by Chelsea Clemmons Moye

  Damon drew in a sharp breath and stepped closer to me. "Did she say something specific to give you that idea?"

  "No," I shook my head, frowning. "It's just feminine intuition. I don't have any concrete proof to offer you." I chewed on my bottom lip for a second. "I just know that you love Sigrid, and you'll do anything to protect her. I'm telling you, I've gotten a vibe off Adele, and you should stick close to Sigrid if you really want what's best for your queen."

  "Duly noted," Damon murmured. "I'll keep your 'vibe' in mind and stay nearby. Are you ready to turn yourself in now?"

  "Yeah," I nodded, "But I've got one more question. Noah...is he...?" I couldn't make myself finish the sentence.

  "Alive and well, for now," came Damon's terse response.

  My knees went weak with relief as he took my arm, and I blew out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Thank God," I murmured, turning my gaze to Damon. "And thank you for being willing to answer me. I appreciate it."

  "You're a very strange girl," Damon muttered, shooting me a quizzical sideways glance. "I felt like it was fair, since you warned me about your Adele 'vibe.' You didn't have to do that, especially considering your previous experiences with Sigrid."

  I nodded in response, and we walked the rest of the way to Sigrid's tent in the back of the encampment. Damon escorted me inside and presented me to Sigrid with a flourishing bow.

  "Lauren Frost, otherworldly witch of the raven hair, wishes to turn herself over to you in exchange for cessation of all hostilities against humankind in Daraglathia."

  I shot Damon a surprised look, but nodded my agreement with the statement. Burns probably made those terms clear to Damon for me when he handed Adele over, I thought.

  Sigrid circled me, a shrewd expression on her face as she dismissed Damon with a flick of her fingers. I watched him back out of the tent and tried not to panic. Please stick close, I thought. It was then that I spotted Adele, lounging on a long, low couch in a far corner of the tent.

  "I was right," I muttered. "She was spying for you the whole time, wasn't she?"

  "Of course she was," Sigrid laughed. "She told me how you tried to warn the men about her, and none of them would listen to you."

  "Usually, being proved right about something makes me feel better than this." I frowned, shaking my head. "Something just isn't sitting right with me, though."

  "Oh, and what might that be?" Sigrid taunted.

  "I bet she didn't tell you she almost double-crossed you out of getting your hands on Noah and me, did she?" I shot the queen a defiant smirk.

  "Nonsense," Sigrid snorted. "Adele would never dare to undermine me when I'm grooming her to be Daraglathia's next queen."

  "Of course I wouldn't," Adele cooed with an evil smile. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to retrieve my future husband from his tent so this foolish witch can say her goodbyes before we set him right again."

  As Adele slipped out of the tent flap, I leveled a fierce look at Sigrid. "Don't you want to hear what Adele offered me? She offered to send Noah and me back home the same way you brought him here. She wants us out of the way, so I don't believe for a second that she plans on marrying Noah for her crown."

  "Kieran," Sigrid screeched, "His name is Kieran and he is my son!"

  "No." I shook my head, suddenly feeling sorry for Sigrid. "His name is Noah Rivers, he is your son Kieran's doppelgänger, and you stole him from his family in my hometown when we were six years old." I took a deep breath and plunged on. "I don't care what you decide to do to me. I'm going to give you the answers you've been looking for since I arrived, and then you can do whatever you want. Kill me if you please, but I am begging you to do the right thing by Noah. Send him home to his real family. They've been searching for him for eleven years. Don't you think they've waited long enough?"

  "I thought they would eventually give up," Sigrid murmured, shaking her head, and looking like she was beginning to crumble from the inside out.

  "You crossed worlds to try to replace your son," I prodded in the most gentle, empathetic voice I could manage. "They love Noah so much, Sigrid. They never gave up, they never stopped looking. Please, I'm begging you, let Noah go home to his family. Adele doesn't have to marry him to be queen."

  "Truer words were never spoken," Adele quipped from behind me. She shoved Noah toward Sigrid with surprising strength, and I felt a blinding, breathtaking pain in my side. I looked down to see a dagger sticking out from between my floating ribs on the right side, and I clutched at it, holding it there to minimize blood loss. It hurt to breathe, and I sat down hard against the pole in the center of the tent, using its weight to prop me up.

  "What the hell do you think you are doing?" Sigrid shrieked it at the top of her lungs, shoving Noah behind her in an instinctively protective maternal gesture. She actually loves him, I thought.

  "Do the right thing while you still can," I begged of Sigrid.

  "Quiet, witch," Adele hissed at me. "I'll finish my business with you shortly, but I'd like to answer Sigrid's question first." Adele rounded on Sigrid, a sadistic smile playing oddly on her inherently innocent facial features. "What I think I'm doing is taking what's rightfully mine, and I don't need your son's cheap doppelgänger to do it!"

  Adele flicked her fingers at Noah and muttered something, and I watched in horror as he doubled over, clutching at his stomach in obvious pain.

  "Noah!" I tried to scream it, but it just came out as a hoarse, choked gasp.

  Adele sneered down at me. "Do be quiet. You and the best friend you worked so hard to find are going to die together. What could be more romantic than that?"

  "Why are you doing this, Adele?" Sigrid demanded. I watched the queen's fingers twitch and contort behind her back, in Noah's direction, and it seemed to ease some of his pain.

  "I'm doing this because you're a filthy mutt who doesn't belong on the throne! Before you, Pallidia's throne was pure, and it will be pure again. Your mother was a filthy Southern bitch, and her spawn never belonged on the throne! Our father never loved her, you know! He loved my mother, and when the Southern bitch found out my mother was pregnant with me, she had us exiled to live in squalor and misery!"

  "I've been nothing but good to you ever since Rolf delivered you to me!" Sigrid pleaded, all the while I watched as her fingers flitted in complex patterns behind her back. "I didn't know you were my half-sister! I would have done more, given you more! I would have treated you as the queen's sister deserves to be treated!"

  "You never deserved to be queen in the first place," Adele bellowed. "You're half-Southern, which makes you impure and illegitimate, and you'd be surprised just how many elves in the North agree with me. They want just as badly as I do to cleanse the North of impurities and go back to the old ways!"

  "I will gladly abdicate and relinquish my throne to you, if that's what you want," Sigrid snapped. I held my breath as a subtle glow enveloped Noah while Sigrid continued to hold Adele's attention. "I can and will give you everything you've ever wanted!"

  "I don't want you to give me anything!" Adele snapped. "I'm going to enjoy taking everything I want from you in my mother's name! I will make you suffer all the indignities that Cashlin Faustheim suffered at your bloody mother's hands, and I will revel in your suffering!"

  As Adele delved deeper into her heated, maniacal rant, I watched Noah disappear from where he was curled up on the floor. I sent up a silent prayer. God, please let him go home and have a proper life with his real family. He deserves it. I slumped a little lower against the post as it got harder to breathe, but I couldn't seem to stop watching the drama that was playing out between the two half-sisters. Damon, where are you? Your beloved queen is in grave danger.

  "I don't understand why you're so determined to hate me after everything I've done for you," Sigrid said, her voice heavy with sorrow.

  "I hate you because my mother's spirit lives within me, and she could never love the spawn of a union that was a slap in the face not only to her, but to everyt
hing she ever believed in! You are an abomination, and you deserve to suffer as she suffered!" A battle of wills and magic began playing out before my eyes, and I mustered every bit of energy I had, forcing it into my voice.

  "Damon, if you want to save Sigrid, now might be a good time," I screamed, coughing violently with the effort it took to force the air out of my lungs. I wasn't surprised when I coughed up blood, or when Adele took a pause from battling with Sigrid to deliver a vicious kick to the side of my head.

  Black dots danced in front of my eyes at the contact, and I slumped to the side, trying hard to focus as Sigrid and Adele duked it out in front of me. Finally, Damon rushed in, his sword drawn, and he slashed at Adele. She flicked a hand at him and sent him flying through a side wall of the tent, ripping the cloth away to reveal that the elves in the camp seemed to have split into two factions, warring among themselves. It didn't take me long to figure out that there were forces loyal to Adele among Sigrid's troops. Damon slunk back to the tent, sneaking up behind Adele and delivering a vicious slash up her back, enough so that it broke her concentration on Sigrid. Instead, Adele turned, clawing at Damon's eyes with her bare hands.

  The two wrestled, and he slung her away from Sigrid, which happened to be in my direction. She landed no more than a foot away and reached out, viciously ripping the dagger out of my side and flinging it at Sigrid. It struck Sigrid in the chest, and Damon delivered another enraged slash to Adele's chest.

  "Purists with me," she howled in an unnaturally loud voice as a dark cloud enveloped her and spread throughout the camp. When the cloud dissipated, Adele and her forces were nowhere to be seen. Damon was kneeling beside Sigrid, applying pressure to the area around where the dagger was sticking out of her chest.

  "Get her to the hot springs inside the fortress, if you can," I gave a ragged gasp. "They have healing properties. You might be able to save her."

  "Will the humans inside attack us?" Damon's pale blue eyes were wide, pleading.

  "No," I shook my head and coughed up more blood. "They're all gone. They left before I turned myself in, and it would be impossible to follow them, but also impossible now for them to get to you."

  "I love you, my queen. Hold on," Damon whispered as he lifted Sigrid in his arms. He turned his gaze to me. "I'll come back for you and help if I can."

  "Don't bother," I rasped, closing my eyes because my eyelids were far too heavy to hold open anymore. "I'm going home."

  "Thank you," Damon and Sigrid murmured in unison, but it sounded much too far away. I tried to reply, but I couldn't make my tongue work. All I could think of was home. I could hear my iPhone playing faintly from my back pocket, the familiar strains of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" bringing irony to mind. I listened for as long as I could to the music, but it sounded farther and farther away every second, until I couldn't hear anything.

  I recognized the absolute sensory deprivation of limbo, and a feeling of relief rushed over me. I thought of God in the form of the messengers, and no sooner had I thought it than they appeared. I cleared my throat.

  "I think I failed," I said, my voice small with disappointment and self-deprecation.

  "What did you set out to do in Daraglathia?" It was Karita's gentle, loving voice doing the asking.

  "I wanted to take the second chance you gave me to find Noah and send him safely home to his family, while also doing what you sent me there to do, which was stop the impending civil war between elves and humans." My shoulders slumped, and I was mentally preparing myself to accept death when I thought about Noah. "I know you said that if I failed, that Noah and I would both die, but I'm begging you to reconsider," I blurted out in a rush. "If I have to die, that's fine, but please don't deprive him of his family for any longer, or them of him. They've never given up looking for him over the past eleven years, and he deserves a chance to be happy with his real family. Please, let him go home to his family."

  "Where do you think Noah went when Sigrid made him disappear from the tent?" This from the ever fair, detached Alyssa.

  "I was hoping home," I took a deep breath. "But I know that decision is really up to you, more than Sigrid or anyone else."

  "The portal in the Black Forest is as far as she could get him on her own," Aithne chimed in.

  "How will his family know to look for him in Germany if you don't give them a hint?" Karita smiled down at me.

  "Wait, are you telling me I get to go home? I thought I failed...I don't understand." I stared up at the three of them, confused but grateful.

  "The elves are no longer warring with the humans, or am I wrong?" Aithne stared down at me unflinchingly.

  "No, but I think there's about to be a civil war among the elves themselves, thanks to Adele." I wrung my hands, afraid they would change their minds at this revelation.

  "You achieved what you were sent to do," Alyssa replied flatly. "Therefore you get to go home. The strife between the purist elves and the elves in favor of a unified Daraglathia is someone else's war to fight. We believe you have learned what we sent you to Daraglathia to learn, so you can go back to your former life, as promised."

  "Thank you," I whispered, choked with overwhelming gratefulness and relief.

  "Help Noah's family find him," Karita urged, and then I was enveloped in darkness again.

  23

  Homecoming

  When I woke, it was to the faint, incessant beeping of a heart rate monitor. My eyelids felt too heavy to force open, and there was a constant flow of cool air in my nose that felt wrong. I worked up the energy to force my eyes open, and I saw that the air was coming from an oxygen tube resting inside my nostrils. I squinted into the semi-darkness around me and realized I was in a hospital bed. Granny Betty was asleep in a recliner beside me, my mom was out cold on a cot nearby, and my dad was slumped over sideways, sleeping in the most uncomfortable-looking chair in the room.

  I cleared my throat and pulled the oxygen tube out of my nostrils, flicking it aside. I tried to sit up and gasped because it hurt. Instead, I slumped back against the pillows and tried to speak. When I did, it came out hoarse.

  "What happened?" I coughed at the scratchiness in my throat, and Granny Betty bolted upright, instantly awake.

  "Be still, baby girl," she ordered, her voice somehow commanding, stern, and soothing all at once. "A car lost control on the ice, jumped the curb, and hit you while you were taking a walk."

  "Where are we?" I rasped, my throat feeling like it might bleed at any second. Granny Betty pressed the call button for the nurse and got up, shaking both my parents awake.

  "Mercy Medical Center," was Granny's short, practical response.

  "In Springfield? You came to Massachusetts? And dad, too?" I frowned at her, confused.

  "Of course we did," came her indignant response. "You got hit by a car and you've been in a coma for three days now!"

  "Why wouldn't we come?" My dad sounded exhausted, confused, and a little grumpy.

  Before I could answer him, a nurse rushed in to see what the problem was and she let out a startled shriek when she realized I was awake. Once reality sank in, she rushed to my side. "Is there anything I can get you before I let the doctor know you're awake?"

  "Can I have some water? My throat's super dry and sore," I rasped.

  "Just a couple of sips, slow and small. We don't want you to choke. I'll help you out and then go get the doctor."

  I nodded my assent, and the sweet relief I felt when that cool water trickled down my throat was well worth it. It felt like hours before the doctors and nurses finished checking me out and I was left in peace to talk to my family again. Granny Betty, Mom, and Dad all three started fussing over me at the same time, and I held my hands up to stop the commotion.

  "Let's all just take it easy. I'm okay, okay?" It sounded a little more bitchy than I intended, and I sighed, continuing in a gentler tone. "I'm really glad you're all here."