Of Snow and Blood

by Kris Black

  He hadn’t seen her in the hallway with Felix, had he? He could have seen that out of context and thought the worst. She may have done the same. Her heart plummeted, her throat constricting.

  She didn’t think he would sense it, didn’t imagine the connection would reach as far apart as they were, but she tugged on the bond. She pulled on that invisible, intangible thing between them harder than she ever had. She needed him to look up. She needed to see his face.

  As soon as she yanked, Christian’s head shot up. His face was strong and beautiful as she remembered, but thinner too. He hadn’t been eating; it was clear. He was pale and his eyes were bruised underneath with exhaustion. His hair was in disarray from lack of care and running his hands through it, a worrying habit he had.

  Those beautiful azure eyes flashed open as he reached for the mirror. She couldn’t hear him, but she didn’t have to.

  “Show me Alina.”

  She expected to see herself in the mirror, looking as she was staring at him right now - from above, from the sides. Instead, her own mirror readjusted, and she was looking at Christian. At Christian. As though they were standing face to face, speaking to each other in the same room.

  To her credit, Christian looked as startled as she was.

  “A-Alina?” He stammered. A stammer that Alina heard.

  “Christian.” His eyes widened when she choked out his name, tears rising to her eyes and spilling out without her permission.

  “I- I can hear you. How is this possible?”

  “I’m not sure. I found another enchanted mirror. It worked just like yours until you asked to see me.” Alina’s eyes studied his face, memorizing it. “I have so much to tell you. So much I’ve discovered since I left.”

  “I’ve seen enough to guess what is happening.” His voice betrayed him. He wasn’t speaking of King Belmont and the tiaras on Alina’s head. He’d clearly seen, at the very least, what had happened in the hallway. With no context, it looked as though she and Felix were having a tryst. That’s what the ladies had thought who had passed them.

  “Christian, no.”

  “You need not deny it. I have eyes. I’ve been spending most of my time here, watching to make sure you’re okay.”

  “It’s not like that, I promise.”

  He looked resigned, as though he were waiting for the other foot to drop. She could almost see what was running through his mind. What they had was quick and real and almost a dream now that she had gone. Months of courting followed by a night of passion. Perhaps she left because she wanted to. That she broke her promise to come back on purpose. For Felix. For life as a princess, heir to the throne.

  “Felix is helping me adjust to the castle. He helped me get this mirror today. He and I are just friends, Christian. That’s all we’ll ever be.”

  “That may be what you want. But I’ve seen the way he looks at you when no one is watching - when you’re not watching. He wants much more than to be friends.”

  “Well, that is all we’ll ever be. I love you, Christian. Nothing will change that. Never. Not some stupid castle or tiara or lord.”

  Christian was silent for a moment. He spent the last few weeks convinced that Alina had left him forever, that despite her promises and vows, she found somewhere better and stayed on purpose. And he didn’t blame her for it.

  Who would choose him and a cursed castle of beasts over a kingdom of light and a clear favorite of the king?

  “I’m sorry.” Christian’s shoulders fell. “I love you. I miss you.”

  Alina took a deep breath to stop more tears from coming. “I miss you too. I miss everyone. I miss home, and the forest and the grounds. I miss the pack. I’m trying my best to get back.”

  “You’re coming back?” He sounded genuinely surprised and hopeful.

  “Of course I’m coming back. That’s my home. You’re my home. We’re mates.”

  “I just thought-”

  “Well, you can stop. I am coming home. I need to get this coronation ceremony done and then I am coming back as soon as I can. We will figure this out and we will break this curse.”

  “Coronation ceremony?”

  “I have so much to tell you - about my parents, about the curse. Everything is different. Christian, I’m cursed too.”

  Christian didn’t say a word. His brow furrowed, and he opened his mouth to speak a few times, only to shut it again as he processed it. “You’re cursed?”

  “After the faerie cursed you, she came to our kingdom. My mother, my real mother, altered the curse, but it still stands. The same curse has linked us since we were children. It always meant us to find each other. Belmont is looking for how it was rewoven now, I don’t know the details.”

  “Your mother altered the curse. Your true mother?”

  “There’s something else I need to tell you. And I’m not sure you’ll be thrilled about it.” Alina steeled herself. Christian’s distaste for faeries wasn’t a secret, yet her own fae aunt wove his curse.

  Three quick knocks on the door interrupted her, causing her to startle. Both she and Christian turned their heads towards the door.

  “Princess, we need to go. The queen could return any moment,” Felix warned.

  Alina turned her face back to Christian, her eyes wide. They hadn’t had enough time. She hadn’t told him anything she needed to. Christian reached out to his mirror and touched it, as though it were possible to reach through and touch her.

  “I’ll try again. I’ll try to get the mirror again.”

  “Stay safe. Do nothing to endanger yourself, not when we don’t know the rest of the curse. Please, just come back to me.”

  “I will. I love you.”

  “I will always love you.”

  Alina’s chest heaved, and she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing Christian out of view, steeling herself to place the mirror back where she had found it. She wasn’t sure if she had the strength to walk away from the one item she could use to communicate with him. She put it down and backed away, resisting the urge to hide it in her dress and take it with her - damn the consequences.

  She hesitated and reached for the mirror again. She should take it with her. The queen might never find out she had been the one to take it.

  “Princess, we really have to go.” Felix’s voice was more urgent this time and Alina opened the door.

  But she might find out Felix had something to do with it. She pulled her hand back from the handle, her fingers had stopped a hair’s breadth away. “Let’s hurry then.” She said and let Felix lead them the safe way back to her rooms, the least likely route the queen would take.

  They reached the door to Alina’s room and paused. She wasn’t able to look Felix in the face, not after speaking with Christian. Not after what Christian had told her about how Felix looked at her.

  “Thank you for this, for helping me.” She said. “It was a lot to ask of you.”

  He reached out, his hand under her chin and turned her face toward him. “What’s wrong, Princess?”

  She staggered back, removing her face from his hand. “I can’t. We can’t be like that Felix.”

  He raised both hands in supplication. “I was only worried, but noted.”

  “Thank you, again. I just need to lie down for a while.” She turned the door to her room and let herself in.

  “Sweet dreams,” Felix said as she shut the door behind her.

  Alina stood there for only a moment, swaying with the force of what just happened. She rushed over to her balcony door and threw it open, hastening outside to grab the biting-cold metal of the railing. She breathed deep, letting the burning cold sting her nose and throat. She needed to gather her thoughts. She needed to get her head together and focus on what to do here until she made it home.

  Her palms started to burn, and she pulled them back, hissing. Thick, red lines where she had grasped the railing screamed from her skin, moments away from blistering. She stared in horror for a moment, looking from the railing to her hands. What
had caused such a reaction? She stepped back away from the balcony, letting herself into her room and staring at her open palms.

  Was this part of the curse? She wasn’t sure about anything any longer. She could contribute anything odd to the spell cast over Christian and herself, or from her being a faerie. It was all too confusing and disjointed.

  The second copy of the curse, after Breena altered it, that would help. Surely it would have answers she desperately needed. She just had to wait for Belmont, for her father, to locate it. There was nothing to do but wait. She hated waiting.

  And she needed to access the mirror again but was hesitant to use Felix. It was cruel - to keep asking things of him now that she suspected he may have feelings for her. No, she would need to find another way to get the mirror next time. She would have to get it herself. She could start planning for that.

  Then there was the greenhouse. In the greenhouse today she had felt useful and almost whole, as whole as one could be with their other half a world away. There, she’d be able to test what powers a halfling faerie may have. No one else was around to teach her, certainly not her mother, so she would teach herself with the idle time she had here.

  She also needed to find the faeries. If she wasn’t able to figure out how to break this curse, she would need their insight. She needed to know how to find them; she wanted to know how to find them. They were a part of her as much as this kingdom she resided in. Perhaps they’d teach her more about her magic. More about her mother. There had to be books about old faerie entrances and places in the library in the castle.

  For the first time since arriving in Belmont’s kingdom, she had a plan, a steady guideline of what she had to do.

  The next morning, she made her way to the library.

  Chapter Eight

  Family Troubles

  The library was the place, other than the gardens, that Alina was the most at home in the castle walls. She wished she had sought it more deliberately before now. She missed the moldy smell of old books, the brush of the rough spines, the reassuring weight in her hands. Each volume held a wealth of knowledge just waiting to be discovered. Alina pulled out various volumes about faeries before finding a comfortable table and chair in the corner that allowed the most sunlight in.

  Thomas had started as her guard that day, standing at the far wall near the door. As the day wore on, her guards had shifted. Henry was a little more lax, picking up a book and reading in a plush wine colored chair near the door while Alina continued.

  It was only when the sun had gone down and it had become too difficult to read by candlelight that Alina finally shut her books. She returned the ones she had finished and carried the rest in her arms, intent to bring them back to her bedroom.

  “Allow me, Your Highness.” Rhys, who had replaced Henry when she hadn’t noticed, took the books from her arms. Alina thanked him as they walked the corridors back to her bedroom.

  She was deep in rumination as she sunk into her couch, Rhys depositing the books on the coffee table in front of her before bowing and retreating to his post just outside her door. Some staff had been through and lit the candles, leaving her room in a soft glow from the candles and fireplace. The tick-tock of the clock on the mantle was the only indication of the passage of time.

  Alina leaned over and rested her forehead against her right hand, propped up against the arm of the couch. There was so much information to digest, to process. Her father had not destroyed all evidence of faeries in the castle. Instead, there had been a plethora of books and research.

  That wolf’s bite in the forest hadn’t affected her, hadn’t cursed her and now she understood why. She still couldn’t explain the miraculous healing yet, but she knew why she didn’t shift. It wasn’t possible to be both wolf and faerie, her faerie blood won out - an internal struggle in her blood that she hadn’t even been aware happened.

  Faerie blood ran true, always.

  The implications of that statement had more of an effect on her than she had realized when she had written it down on her parchment of notes. Faerie blood always ran true. Always.

  Did that mean she was more faerie than human?

  She didn’t let herself dwell on it; she wouldn’t spiral. She had a mission to complete with this research - find the faeries. She’d worry about her own identity crisis after that. The faeries might have more insight than a book, both about her identity and the curse.

  And at some point, after she got the second part of the curse, she would have to tell the king about Christian. Confess that she had found the cursed prince he had been looking for. More than found him. She had no idea how Belmont would react to the news; she knew so little of her father still.

  The gentle ticking of the clock lulled Alina’s eyes shut, tired from hours and hours of staring at the pages of ancient texts. The lullaby of the fireplace crackling eased her breathing as she fell asleep on the sofa.

  “Your Highness?” A footman startled Alina. She had been weeding the gerberas, the bright petals of the flowers brightening up the stark-whiteness of the winter outside the safety of the walls. The little flowers seemed to sway and reach for her as she rid them of the strangling vines around them. “You’ve guests that have just arrived at the palace.”

  Alina stood straight, wiping the dirt on her hands on her apron. Since getting it from Brigit a few days ago, Alina had put her share of muck on it. It was a solid mess but had done its job protecting the portions of the gown it covered. A smudge of dirt ran across her left cheek and up the bridge of her nose.

  “Who is it?”

  “I believe they are your family, Your Highness,” the footman replied awkwardly.

  “Oh, thank you. I’ll be right up.”

  The footman bowed and made towards the exit of the greenhouse. Alina untied the apron and returned it to its place in the shed. She used the gardener’s sink to rinse her hands and straightened her hair in one of the glass windows, seeing and wiping the dirt from her face she tried her best to wipe it off. She supposed that would have to do, her family had seen her look much worse.

  It had only taken Alina a few minutes to walk the now-familiar halls from the greenhouse to the entrance hall, with Henry trailing behind her, but her family had already crowded in out of the cold - their trunks surrounding them. She noted that not only George, Elliot and Father had arrived, but all of her sisters.

  Abigail, of course, spotted her first.

  “Goodness, Alina!” She exclaimed, straightening out her new gown. “A guest of the palace and you still traipse around covered in dirt!”

  Alina looked down to find smudges on her dress that the apron didn’t cover. The bed of her nails had dirt embedded beneath.

  “Alina!” George called and dashed over to her, enveloping her in a warm hug and spinning her around. “I am so glad you are well.”

  “I am sorry I had to drag you all here in the dead of winter,” Alina said.

  Abigail scoffed. “It’s the palace! If we get an invitation, wild horses couldn’t keep us from here. Look at this place, it’s astounding.”

  Alina hid a frown. She hadn’t technically invited Abigail. Alina had only invited the men of her family. How would Abigail react to the news of Alina’s true parentage? Alina didn’t imagine it would be well, and it gave her a sweet sense of satisfaction.

  Alina called over a footman and instructed him to take her family’s things up to their quarters. He bowed and gathered more of his peers, picking up the trunks and moving them up the stairs. Alina wasn’t sure where Belmont had decided to house the Everston family during their stay but hoped that her brothers at least weren’t too far from her own rooms.

  “I am sure you will meet the king in the next few days.” She offered. Her family gawked at the grandness of the entryway.

  “What’s the king like?” Kitty implored, jumping at the bit. “We’ve heard so many things, but we’ve never seen him!”

  “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough. Welcome, Father,” A
lina said, turning to Edward Everston who looked around in awe like his children. “How did the travel suit you?”

  “It wasn’t as hard as I had imagined,” he said, not meeting her eyes. He hadn’t been able to since she had returned to care for Charles. She hoped, for his sake, that Belmont never learned that Edward had sold his daughter for money.

  “Can we explore?” Emma perked up.

  “Absolutely. So long as you’ll forgive me. I have a headache coming on and want to lie down.” She had not been expecting her family today, they had not sent word ahead. And, although she would love to visit with her brothers, there was no way she was equipped to handle her sisters today.

  The girls didn’t respond as they flitted away. George smiled sadly at Alina and patted her head. “Get well soon. We have much to catch up on.”

  Alina wasn’t used to having so much family in one place at one time. Belmont had sent Alina a note earlier that day, a mere day after her family arrived, that she and the Everstons would join the king and queen for luncheon that afternoon. The family lunch would be held in an intimate dining room with a table just big enough for everyone to sit.

  Alina was running a little late, Ella had insisted on taking extra time to wrap a small, golden coronet set with pearls in braids around her head before she had set her free from her vanity. Everyone was already seated when Alina entered the room. A strange sensation ran over her, seeing the family that had raised her sitting next to the queen, the king, and to her surprise, Felix. Edward sitting next to Belmont was slightly horrifying, like two different worlds colliding. Her brain was having trouble wrapping itself around the idea.

  Felix and the king rose when Alina entered, followed by everyone else who had to stand when the king did. The Everstons looked more than a little confused when Felix bowed to her. Abigail shot Alina a furious look like she had the audacity to be late just to make her stand from her seat. Then her eyes darted to the coronet in Alina’s hair and her face screwed in confusion.