Summerfall: A Winterspell Novella
Page 12
“It’s all right.” Garen stroked her soaked head, his voice harsh with anger. “They won’t find you. We’ll keep going, and they’ll never find you. We’ll find a healer.”
But Rinka was fading; she was drenched with rainwater and blood, and couldn’t keep her eyes open. Then she felt a sharp pain in her belly, and another not long after. She cried out and sagged against Garen, and he lowered her, frantic, to the forest floor. He pressed a hand to her head, urged her to rise, but Rinka couldn’t. She knew nothing but these increasing waves of pain.
“Oh, blessed Ebba, help us,” she heard one of the other faeries say. “The child is coming.”
Rinka could have laughed. Obviously, her child would want to come at such a moment. Her unique child, her warrior daughter. Rinka longed for the steadying presence of Leska. She hoped they had not hurt her.
“Save her,” she heard herself whispering. She found Garen’s hand and held it to her face. “Garen. Save her.” She put her other hand to her belly. Would her daughter be pale as a faery, or dark as Alban? Would she believe in destiny? Would she grow up in a world at war?
“Save her,” Rinka gasped, and the last thing she knew was Garen’s voice at her ear, apologizing, telling her that he loved her. He loved her, still and always.
He would save her child, and he would love her just the same.
Epilogue
FELAZITA WAS ASLEEP when they arrived, but she awoke soon enough from the commotion.
Garen, and five of the other appointed faeries, returned home after a wild, desperate flight from Erstadt—a flight through an impressive series of Doors. A difficult, ancient bit of magic, but then, Garen had always been talented in that way.
Garen—road-weary, heartsick, newly gaunt, blood-streaked. Reeking with the lingering touch of mage magic. A burn on his cheeks, cracked and frozen as if frostbitten.
Garen, with a screaming infant in his arms.
By the time Felazita pushed her way through the throngs of whispering faeries to her mother’s side at the Council seats, she had caught enough of the story to understand, and to feel ill with grief.
The king was dead. He had fallen in love with Rinka, Garen said, and now he was dead. The family with the dragon on their crest had murdered him and taken over the capital, and Rinka . . . Rinka was dead, too. The child was hers, and the king’s. Their daughter. A half-breed. A little two-blooded royal, whom the dragon family would no doubt do anything to kill, if they ever found out she was still alive.
Felazita felt a sudden, passionate fascination for the child, as she heard its screams, as she climbed atop the Council table and saw Garen holding it close to his chest.
Felazita glanced at her mother, who stood at the head of the table, glaring at the crying infant like it was a bug she wished to stomp out of existence. The other Council members seemed equally disgusted—except for poor Kaspar, who had shut himself into his rooms. The crowds were growing hysterical—shouting their opinions and clamoring to be heard.
Kill it! The traitorous blood of humans runs in her veins!
Save it—it’s only a child!
Save the child—she could be of use to us. Think of it: a two-blood, a half-breed.
Think of what she could be.
Felazita watched her mother’s face as she spoke with the other Council members, and finally Felazita could bear the tension no longer. She rushed to her mother’s side.
“Mother, please, let her live,” she said, tugging on her mother’s gown.
Her mother considered her, as did the others. It seemed Felazita had spoken more loudly than she had thought, and the crowds began to silence, seeing that she had the attention of the entire Council. Only Rinka’s baby continued to make a fuss.
Felazita felt suddenly shy, embarrassed. She was only a child, after all. What did she know? This two-blooded baby could be dangerous.
But then, hadn’t Rinka always told her to listen to the bend in her heart that sometimes directed her down surprising paths?
The humans call that destiny, Rinka had told her, hugging her close. They think our paths are written in the stars. All we have to do is find them.
A pretty idea, even if stars reminded Felazita of mages, who had most certainly given Garen that nasty burn on his cheek. Felazita held the memory of Rinka close to her, and said to her mother, “We should save her because she is Rinka’s, and Rinka was one of ours.”
In the silence following Felazita’s words, something seemed to change. The air took on the bittersweet pangs of memory, and Felazita’s throat twisted, tight and hot. If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear Rinka’s voice. She could almost pretend it was Rinka beside her, holding her own child, instead of Garen.
And that, it seemed, was all it took—the crowds subsided, though Felazita, even young as she was, could see the lingering distrust and hate on many faces. Even when the decision was announced, after hours of Council deliberation during which Felazita had fallen asleep under the table, that the child would live, and be raised as a normal faery child—even then, Felazita knew the battle for Rinka’s daughter had only just begun.
Later, in Garen’s rooms, Felazita held the baby, cooed at her nonsensically, kissed her soft, wrinkled forehead with as much love as she could muster. This child would need it, in the years to come.
Felazita glanced up at her brother, who stood at his desk, staring at nothing. She wished she could comfort him but didn’t know what else to say. She worried he might never smile again.
Then an idea came to her. “Garen?”
He turned, his face a wreck of sadness—and something darker, something that frightened Felazita and made her wish her brother was not a bretzhenner but something harmless like an artisan, or a clockmaker.
She worried the bretzhenner’s life would simply make him angrier. For that was it, stewing beneath his sadness—anger. Garen was furious at the people who had killed Rinka. And Garen was not one to forget.
But Felazita tried not to think about that and what it would mean—especially for the child in her arms—and instead said brightly, “I’ve thought of a name for her. Do you think I could name her? I don’t trust you not to name her something horrid and fusty.”
The barest smile, on Garen’s haggard face. “I don’t see why not. I think Rinka would like that.”
Felazita beamed at him, and then returned her attention to the child, who stared up at her with unsettlingly blue eyes. Even by faery standards, they were piercing, and Felazita felt a swell of love.
“Anise,” Felazita whispered, tucking the blanket more closely around the child. The word dropped from her tongue like the beginning of a dance. “I’d like to name her Anise.”
About the Author
Photo credit Ellen B. Wright
Claire Legrand used to be a musician until she realized she couldn’t stop thinking about the stories in her head. Now a writer, Ms. Legrand can often be found typing with purpose at her keyboard, losing herself in the stacks at her local library, or embarking upon spontaneous adventures to lands unknown. Her first novel is The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, a New York Public Library Best Book for Children in 2012. She is also the author of The Year of Shadows and Winterspell. Claire lives in New Jersey with a dragon and two cats. Visit her at Claire-Legrand.com.
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Also by Claire Legrand
Winterspell
The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls
The Year of Shadows
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Claire Legrand
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Legrand, Claire, 1986–
Summerfall : a Winterspell novella / Claire Legrand.
pages cm
Summary: In this prequel to Winterspell, Rinka is a passionate and powerful fairy, determined to maintain the tenuous peace between faeries and humans, and Alban Somerhart is a human king, trapped into an arranged marriage but desperate to prevent war, and their love could either save the kingdom of Cane or shatter it forever.
ISBN 978-1-4814-2252-9 (eBook)
[1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Fairies—Fiction. 3. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L521297Sum 2014
[Fic]—dc23
2014008103
Contents
* * *
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Also by Claire Legrand
Table of Contents
Cover
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Claire Legrand
Copyright