Instead, she forced a smile. “I could use the help.”
She waited as Lanna hurried to find another sack for the wool and they set off. As they walked, the sun crept down the mountain slopes into the valley. It wasn’t long before the snow softened enough to soak Ilyenna’s shoes. She took her coat off, wondering if the winter fairies had finally decided to withdraw. With the warm sun on her face, she could almost forget the Argon refugees crowding Shyleholm and emptying their foodstores, almost forget her worry over Father, Bratton, and the shadows in the graveyard. Almost.
They reached Volna’s by midmorning. She opened the door and nodded when she saw them. The old woman’s face was as wrinkled as a winter apple. “You’ll be looking for my wool skeins,” she said.
Ilyenna and Lanna shared a surprised look.
Volna shrugged. “Why else would our clan mistress walk all the way to the mouth of the canyon?” She moved aside and they stepped into the room. Volna tipped her head toward a woman and three small children braiding rags into rugs at the table. “This is Hinley and hers.”
They nodded to the Argon woman, who nodded back. Then Ilyenna and Lanna followed Volna into her storerooms. From floor to ceiling, the shelves spilled with colors, everything from skeins of yarn to felt and raw wool. Volna nodded toward their sacks. “I suppose you’ll want to fill them.”
With a nod, Ilyenna held out a small bag of silver.
The old woman held up her hand. “Old women like to feel wanted. You can pay me after you’re sure you can afford to feed all the Argons.”
Ilyenna hesitated, the bag dangling between them. “But how will you buy dyes at the spring feast?”
Volna smiled. “Wool’s just as warm in cream as it is indigo. We’ll make do.”
A weight lifted from Ilyenna’s shoulders. “Thank you, Volna.”
“Take some of the brighter colors, Lanna,” the old woman said. “The Argons could use some cheering up.”
With that, she left Lanna and Ilyenna to make their selections. Once their bags were stuffed to overflowing, they said goodbye and started down the road. They chatted softly at first, but a sense of alertness soon grew inside Ilyenna. Even the birds had gone silent. She found herself watching the woods and feeling like they watched back.
Finally, she stopped. “Something’s wrong.”
Lanna pressed her lips together, a worry line between her eyebrows. “I feel it too.”
That’s when Ilyenna noticed a soft rumble echoing off the mountain slopes. “Do you hear that?”
They stood in the road and listened.
Lanna shook her head. “It’s just the river.”
“No, it’s growing louder. Besides, the river is frozen over.”
Suddenly, Ilyenna recognized the pounding of hooves. She turned to look down the road just in time to see a rider round the corner at full speed. It was Otrok. He’d gone to act as sentinel again. But where were the other two boys she’d sent with him?
He waved his hands frantically. “Hide! Quick, hide!”
Ilyenna sprinted for the trees, the sacks of wool bouncing awkwardly on her back. She whirled at a sharp cry from Lanna. She’d slipped on the ice and fallen, landing on her backside. Brightly colored skeins spilled across the road. Ilyenna ran back to her and began frantically shoving the skeins inside the sack.
Drawing up his horse, Otrok gaped at Ilyenna. There was dried blood on his face.
“Mistress? What’re you doing here?” He held out his hand. “Get on!”
Ilyenna glanced down the road. The echoing distorted the sound, but they couldn’t be far. With two riders, the horse would fall behind and the village would have little or no warning. She met Lanna’s fearful gaze.
“Go with him.” Lanna said.
“No! Tell the men to defend the village,” Ilyenna said to Ortok. “And the women to scatter for their summer homes. Now!” She slapped the horse’s rump. Ortok looked back at her as the horse took off at a gallop.
Frantically, Ilyenna and Lanna shoved skeins into the sacks. The sound behind them grew louder. Any moment, Tyrans would round the bend.
“Leave it!” Ilyenna said finally, grabbing Lanna’s arm and hauling her to her feet.
They ran hard for the trees. After floundering through a snow drift, they threw themselves on the other side and lay flat. The pounding hooves grew louder. Ilyenna stared at the bright skeins scattered across the snow.
“Why didn’t they light a signal fire?” Lanna sounded close to tears.
There wasn’t time for Ilyenna to answer. Horses careened around the bend, all bearing men with shields and axes. She tried to count, but they came too fast and there were too many. Hundreds.
Please don’t let them notice the wool, she chanted in her mind. Please, please, please don’t let them notice the wool.
The group barreled past, their horses tramping the skeins and felt, churning the bright colors with dirt and snow until they lay like broken butterflies. Ilyenna bit her lip. The entire clan had worked so hard on that wool, and the Argons desperately needed it. Now it was ruined.
Before the whole army could pass by, one man stopped and stared down at the ruined skeins, his horse dancing to follow its companions. Ilyenna gripped her knife hilt. The man pulled his horse around, circling the wool. At the footprints in the snow, he stopped. His eyes followed the tracks to Ilyenna and Lanna’s hiding place. He shouted an order, and another man broke off from the group.
The first man pointed toward the snow drift, and both riders started forward. Ilyenna inched backward. “Run,” she whispered.
Lanna gaped at her, her face frozen with terror. Ilyenna grabbed her arm and heaved. The girl stumbled and nearly went down, but Ilyenna held tight and she managed to keep her feet.
“There!” came the shout from behind them.
Ducking branches, Ilyenna and Lanna struggled through the deep snow. She heard the heavy sound of horses crashing through the undergrowth and glanced behind. Unable to ride farther in the snow, the men tossed their reins around a tree limb and started after them on foot.
“Stop,” one of the men shouted. “We won’t hurt you!”
Lanna slowed, but Ilyenna grabbed her sleeve. “Just like they didn’t hurt the Argons?”
The young woman fell back in beside her, her face grim.
Her lungs burning from exertion and cold, Ilyenna looked back. The Tyrans were gaining on them.
Can’t outrun them. Can’t hide, she thought.
That only left one option. She stopped and slid her knife from her belt. Lanna noticed and did the same. Ilyenna nodded, and Lanna nodded back. Pivoting, they held out their knives.
The two men slowed, circling the women tentatively. Both had blue eyes, copper beards, and thick builds. Brothers, Ilyenna realized. She’d seen these men before, but she was too frightened to recall when or where. She stood back to back with Lanna. The man facing her rested his hand on his axe hilt. “My name is Hammoth. That’s my brother Darrien. We don’t want to hurt you. Put down your knives and we’ll bind you and take you back to your village.”
She instantly recognized the names. They were the sons of the Tyran clan chief. Ilyenna’s palm was slippery with sweat against her knife hilt. “Just like you didn’t hurt the Argon women?”
The Tyrans exchanged glances. “They fought beside their men. What would you’ve had us do?” Hammoth said.
“Leave the Argons alone. Leave us alone,” she hissed. She felt Lanna trembling behind her. Two small knives against axes. They had as much of a chance as a mouse against a fox.
Very slowly, Hammoth shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“And I can’t put this knife down,” Ilyenna said.
He eased his axe from its loop. “One last chance, Shyle clanwomen.”
Ilyenna thought of the Argons she’d tended—her father and brother, the young girl with the broken arm, the old man, and all the others who would be buried when the ground thawed. Then she thought of the babies w
ho’d likely die before tomorrow, and her fury burned hotter than her fear. Steadying herself, she lifted her knife.
In response, Hammoth hefted his metal studded wooden shield and slid forward. Ilyenna’s gaze flicked to the bloodstained blade. Was it from the other two boys she’d sent to guard the canyon? Enraged, she lunged toward him, but he blocked her with his shield and clocked her in the side of the head with his axe haft. She stumbled forward dizzily and he caught her, almost gently.
She drew back her knife. He hefted his axe, no doubt planning to kill her, then hesitated. She didn’t. She drove in her knife, just under his ribs. It sank easily to the hilt. Blood gushed, pulsing hot over her hand and down her forearm.
His mouth gaping, he stared at her as he sank to his knees. “Darrien!” he gasped as he reached toward the other man.
It was shockingly easy, no harder than killing a goat. Ilyenna felt no sorrow. Nothing. The Balance protect her, what was wrong with her?
“Hammoth!” Darrien cried. “No!”
Ilyenna whirled to see Darrien behind Lanna, his face frozen in horror. She heard a soft flop as Hammoth collapsed into the snow behind her.
With a shriek of rage, Darrien swung at Lanna. She threw herself backward, landing flat on her back. Ilyenna rushed forward, putting her knife between the Tyran and Lanna. He jumped out of range and slammed her hand with his shield.
She felt her bones shatter and pain lance up her arm. The knife slipped out of her useless fingers. Before she could react, the axe sliced toward her. She tried to jump back, as Lanna had, but she wasn’t fast enough. Cold metal drew a line of fire through her belly. She smelled the unmistakable scent of bile mixing with blood. She sank to her knees, propped up by one hand, her injured arm wrapped around her belly to keep her bowels from spilling out.
The healer in her understood, even if the rest of her couldn’t. She was going to die—a long, agonizingly painful death.
She glanced up as Darrien lifted his axe again. Lanna jumped in front of her and threw her knife. He blocked it with his shield. Redirecting his blow, he slammed his axe into Lanna’s shoulder, splitting her from shoulder to belly. With a sickening sucking sound, he pulled it free.
Lanna was dead before she hit the ground. Ilyenna stretched her bloodied hand toward her friend. The movement shot barbs through her belly. She doubled up, wondering why the pain hadn’t killed her. “Please,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Please, kill me.”
Darrien crouched in front of her, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. “You murdered my brother.” Without another word, he stepped around her. She heard him heave Hammoth over his shoulder.
“You’re no better than a Raider!” she panted.
He didn’t answer. Eventually the sound of his footfalls faded, leaving her only the silence, Lanna’s body, and the pain that burned until it swallowed her whole.
Ilyenna watched as snow twirled and danced delicately on the breeze, gently covering Lanna’s bloody body with pure white. It was as stark and disturbing as it was beautiful.
Ilyenna now felt neither cold nor pain, only wonder at the beauty around her. She knew she was dying, her soul slipping away. She waited for darkness to come for her.
One snowflake danced toward her, twirling and spinning like a silver bowl. It hovered above her and spoke in a voice like singing crystal. “I think this one might do.”
Other snowflakes danced and twirled, floating above her face. “She may,” one of them replied in a tinkling voice. “But then again, she may not.”
Strange, Ilyenna thought, that upon my death, I should hear talking snowflakes.
“Shall we choose her?” asked a third snowflake.
Everything grew hazy and out of focus. Ilyenna could no longer see the snowflakes, only hear them speaking as if from far away.
“She’s been marked,” came the voice of the first. “She’s already one of us.”
“Well then, that’s something else entirely. But if we choose her, it must be quick. She’ll not last much longer.”
Ilyenna could no longer distinguish one voice from another. Her life was slipping away as softly as a twirling snowflake.
“I shall choose her,” said one.
Something small, like a frozen teardrop, touched Ilyenna’s mouth. Her body instantly came back to life. The dim, grainy landscape grew clear again. She looked at the snowflakes, but their glamor was gone now. They weren’t talking snowflakes at all, but fairies. The one directly above her was the size of her largest finger. She had fluffy white wings that looked like rabbit fur.
Ilyenna’s eyes shifted to take in the other fairies. All had high, pointed eyebrows and ears. Their hair hung long and soft as silk down their backs. Their skin varied from bluish white to purplish black, with wings as varied as their faces.
With wings like clear ice, the purple-black fairy flew down and pressed her tiny lips to Ilyenna’s. Suddenly, the cold embraced her like an old friend. She felt as if winter’s secrets were hidden somewhere deep inside her, waiting to be discovered.
Another fairy, with wings like fans of frost shards, bent down and kissed Ilyenna. In her blood, ice crystals formed, searing her veins. She screamed. The sound was swallowed by an avalanche roaring in her ears. The pain seemed to slowly shred her body one icy knife at a time.
“You drag on her torment unnecessarily, Ursella. Choose her or not, but do so quickly.”
The fairy shook out her mane of silver hair. “They are weak, even the strongest of them.”
“The Balance requires a queen, Ursella. Choose now or she dies.”
Ilyenna felt the truth in the words. Her life ebbed away. The pain still tore at her, but it was as distant as a fading echo.
“Very well.”
Faintly, Ilyenna felt the last fairy’s lips on hers. Pain and time fled. She’d lived seventeen years, but she’d not lived at all. Her body, previously broken and bleeding, now pulsed with white light. Her wounds no longer existed. She suddenly realized she hadn’t breathed in many long minutes. She gasped, taking air into her lungs.
“And so a new winter queen is born,” said the fairy with furry white wings.
White streamers, like ribbons of silk, slipped around Ilyenna’s body. They shimmered and rippled like water before absorbing into her skin. Light gathered at her fingertips, and crystals sang in her ears. A new awareness grew inside her chest. She let her thoughts go and felt herself fragmenting, her body disintegrating into swirls of snow.
From deep inside Ilyenna, something whispered a warning. Danger and chaos and destruction lay before her.
“No! Not yet,” one of the fairies cried.
The warning was drowned out by the chiming of crystals and the wind rushing in Ilyenna’s ears. As if in a trance, she continued to fragment. The four fairies pulled and tugged at her hair and clothes, but they were no stronger than hummingbirds.
The one with furry wings planted herself in front of Ilyenna, fists on her slim hips. “You will not enter winter. Not yet. If you do, winter will never let you go.”
Shocked, Ilyenna pulled back into her physical form.
Clearly relieved, the fairy bowed. “I am Chriel, my queen.”
The fairies circled her, their small hands reverently tracing her temple, neck, hair, her bare back. “The power inside her—so beautiful.”
Ilyenna wasn’t sure which one of them said it. Once again, she realized she hadn’t expelled the air in her lungs. When she did, wind and snow rushed from her lips. Chriel tumbled back, her wings beating hard. Ilyenna clamped her hand over her mouth.
Shaking snow from her hair, Chriel fluttered back to her. “You might want to be a trifle more careful with winter’s wind, Queen.”
Ilyenna took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, very carefully. As cold as it was, her breath should have misted the air. It didn’t. “Winter queen?” she asked.
The fairy with wings like the finest glass fluttered them unhurriedly. “Winter has birthed you, endowing you wi
th its power. You are a force of nature manifest in flesh—hence you are winter queen.”
“I’ll live forever?”
The fairy’s wings quivered. “Not forever. But neither are you a mere mortal.” She bowed, her wings dropping low. “I am Tanyis. We would have you as our queen—the conduit of winter’s power, if you are willing. But there is a price.”
“A price?” Ilyenna echoed.
“There is always a price.” The fairy with wings that looked like broken glass flew forward. “You mustn’t agree unless you’re certain, mortal. The transformation has been set in motion, but you have yet to enter winter. We can still stop it.”
The other fairies shot the fourth looks of cold disapproval.
Normally, Ilyenna wouldn’t have been so bold, but the ice racing through her veins lent her courage. “If you had doubts, Ursella, you shouldn’t have chosen me.”
Ursella’s eyes narrowed into a tiny glare.
The other three shot her looks of triumph. “I knew she called to me.” Chriel clapped her hands in delight.
“What price?” Ilyenna asked again.
“Your humanity,” Ursella said, her wings stiff.
Ilyenna tried to speak, but she had no breath in her lungs. She had to remember to keep breathing. She inhaled and spoke carefully. “I don’t understand . . .”
The blue fairy with wings like fans of frost smiled. “I am Qari, my queen. You have been reborn into winter, but as Ursella said, the transformation is not complete. You must agree to the price first—your humanity.”
Ilyenna looked from one fairy to the next in confusion.
Qari went on. “Humans feel all ranges of emotions. As a queen of winter, the emotions on the light side of the Balance will be alien to you—emotions like passion, protectiveness, trust. Instead, you will naturally gravitate toward indifference, jealousy, and rage. You will no longer belong with mankind. Instead, you will be a force of nature. Your soul will be reborn, as your body has been. In return, the powers of winter shall be yours permanently.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Winter will fade and you shall forever return to your human state,” Qari said.