Afteralltheseyears,I still haven’t figured out if the citizens of Winterenjoytheir realm being this damned cold, or if they’ve all just lost feeling after ages of serving under the iciest bastard in the Vale.
I breathe hot air into my palms and rub them together, but it does little to chase away the chill in my bones. Ah, well. Won’t be here long.
I’m never long on the surface these days.
My feet thud on the hard stone floor of Frostfang’s dungeon. Several guards squirm and press against my thorns, which bind them to the wall. I wave a hand and the thorns grow to cover their heads, saving me from listening to their bothersome cries.
A shame, really. I don’t get much time up here nowadays, and I hate to spend it in this frozen vault. Hate spending it running errands forher.
She walks in front of me, long black hair swaying behind her like a cape. Each step radiates with the command she asserts over everything, whether it be stone tile or fae. She’s beautiful and terrible in the way a lightning storm is beautiful and terrible.
Sira, Queen of the Below.
My mother.
“I don’t want to be here anymore than you do.”
I shiver at the smoothness of her voice.
“Don’t you think I have better things to do than free idiots from this freezing wasteland?” she continues, not even deigning to look back at me. “It was the perfect opportunity for you to take Autumn. You could have swept in while they were in turmoil. You already forced your brothers and sisters to fight the night of your little party—”
“The goblins,” I snarl, “are not my brothers and sisters.”
She snorts, then finally turns to look at me. I’m caught in the serpentine green of her eyes, the sly smirk. “My perfect boy,” she murmurs. “My perfect, pathetic boy.”
She turns on her heel and we continue down the hall. Instinctively, I reach into the folds of my tunic for the book, but it’s not there. Of course it’s not there. Because Rosalina took it. My only solace is I doubt she understands the magnitude of what she possesses.
Not that it’s of particular importance to anyone but me.The only fae that could change her form, truly transform herself…
Ah, well. I’ll retrieve it soon enough. It’s always fun to pay my little Rose a visit. And I haven’t yet beheld her now that she’s unleashed her true form.
At least a part of it.
Sira stops before a cell and snaps her fingers, drawing me back to the present. I sigh and send a surge of thorns cracking through the ice, ripping the door from its hinges.
Huddled in a corner is the withered shape of Perth Quellos. His defeat has left him a husk of a man.
“Who are you?” he breathes, backing further against the wall. “Caspian? The Below has come to kill me—”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic.” Sira examines her fingernails, filed to talons. “I saw a lot of potential in you, ice sorcerer. I thought you could be of assistance to me. Who did you think delivered those crowns to your doorstep, after all?”
Quellos blinks. “T-they were gifts from the Below?”
Sira steps toward the fallen vizier and studies him with a cold gaze. “I have use of your talents. But you’ll need to be educated so as not to fail me again.” She offers me a sweet smile. “I don’t take kindly to failure, do I, pet?”
“No, Mother,” I respond flatly.
“I won’t serve a master,” Quellos hisses, and I’m almost impressed by the passion left in him. “Especially one of the Below.”
Sira sniffs. “Come now. We all answer to someone.”
A shudder passes through me as I think of who my mother answers to. The Green Flame.
With a sudden spin and flick of her raven-black hair, Sira walks back toward the broken door of the cell. “Offer your allegiance and services to me, and in return, you shall have revenge against those who shamed you. I will gift you power greater than even that of the crown. Or…” She narrows her eyes. “Stay here. Rot in this cell, knowing that brute Keldarion rules over what should be yours.”
Quellos’s chest heaves. Sira waves for me to follow her out of the cell. We start to exit—
“I’ll do it. I’ll serve you,” Quellos cries. “And then I will have my retribution against the beast prince.”
