Melissa Marr - Fragile Eternity

“I don’t love him,” Aislinn blurted hurriedly, as if afraid the words weren’t going to be pronounceable, as if it could be almost a lie. “I’m furious with him regularly and…I want you and him to be together.”

“I know that as well.”

“Then just be with him.”

“I won’t be your shield, Ash.” An edge of scorn threaded through Donia’s voice.

“My…?”

“You can’t hide behind me to make sense of whatever you two are trying to sort out.” Donia flexed her fingers almost absently, and hoarfrost crept over the walls. Crackling ice covered sconces and faded wallpaper.

“You two had plenty of problems before me.” Aislinn felt her skin warming, an inevitable reaction to the dropping temperature in the room. Her own energy tried to push the chill from the air nearest her.

“We did.” Snowflakes floated gently to the ground around Donia. “But they were all based in him seeking you. ”

“I didn’t ask for this.” Aislinn was advancing on Donia. She needed Donia to see Keenan, needed her to understand. It was what they all needed. “You have to—”

“Don’t dictate to me, Aislinn.” The Winter Queen sounded perfectly calm. Her stillness was that of newly fallen snow, untouched, undisturbed.

“I didn’t come here to fight you.” Her sunlight was a weak shield in the Winter Queen’s home. Her palace. Call it what she would, that’s what it truly was, her palace, her seat of power. And not where I should be.

“Maybe that was a mistake.” Donia’s fingertips were points of ice. “Summer began early this year because I allowed it. ”

“And we appreciate that.”

Donia toyed with the ice in and on her hands, clicking the shards together. “Yet you come into my home as if you are stronger, as if what you want matters more, as if your court has a voice in my domain….”

Aislinn’s temper flared, a blink of sunlight in the icy room, but she still moved back. “I didn’t mean it that way. We didn’t. I just don’t see why you have to be unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable? Because what Summer seeks must be a good idea?”

Aislinn couldn’t answer. It seemed obvious that a stronger Winter Court wasn’t the right answer. Hadn’t they all thought that? Donia had faced almost certain death at the last Winter Queen’s hands because she had thought that, but as they stood there, it seemed clear to Aislinn that Donia’s stance had changed.

“If I strike you, he will be furious, despite your insults.” Donia took a step forward. “What would he say? Would it keep him from coming to my door, dragging out this hell he puts us through? Would it put things as they should be?”

“I don’t know…as they ‘should be’? What does that mean?” Aislinn wanted to run. Donia was stronger; the Winter Court was still stronger.

“This thing between us isn’t as simple as it was before you and I became regents. If we fight, our courts are in discord. My court wants that”—Donia caught her gaze and held it—“and I’ve thought about it. I’ve imagined it, driving this ice into your sunlit skin. I’ve thought about striking you. I would resolve this foolish attempt to pretend we’re all friends here.”

“Donia?” Aislinn watched her warily. As with Niall, the faery Aislinn thought she’d known was replaced with something feral, someone who could— and would —injure her. Aislinn stood alone with the Winter Queen in her palace.

“I like you. I remind myself of that often, but there are other factors….” The Winter Queen’s words faded away. Snow drifted around her feet. “The Summer Court is not welcome in my Winter.”

Despite the ice covering the walls, despite the chill in Donia’s voice, Aislinn’s temper finally slipped out of her control. “We have no voice in your court, but you can dictate to us?”

“Yes.”

“Why should we—”

And Donia was beside her before the words could come out. She put a hand on the center of Aislinn’s stomach and pressed ice-tipped fingers into Aislinn’s skin. The ice melted as it pierced Aislinn, but as fast as that ice melted, more extended, cutting deeper into Aislinn’s stomach. Bits of it broke off and embedded inside her.

Aislinn screamed. The pain was instant, burning holes inside of her, and Aislinn wasn’t sure which was from the stabbing and which was from the ice. Am I going to die here?

“Why should you listen to my desires?” Donia murmured. Fingers still red with Aislinn’s blood, Donia put her hand on Aislinn’s chin and tilted her head so they were eye-to-eye. “Because I am stronger, Ash, and you both need to remember that. This balance you want only comes if I allow it.”

“You stabbed me.” Aislinn thought she might vomit. Her body felt clammy. Pain from the ice inside her skin vied with pain from the punctures in her stomach.

“It seemed prudent.” Donia’s expression was all too similar to the last Winter Queen’s: utterly unapologetic and unmoved by the horrific thing she’d just done.

“Keenan will—”

“Be angry. Yes, I know, but”—Donia sighed, an icy cloud of breath that made Aislinn cringe—“your wounds are mild. They won’t be next time.”

Aislinn put a hand to her stomach, but it was a weak attempt to stop the blood that trickled from the row of holes in her skin. “Keenan and I could retaliate. Is that what you want?”

“No, I want you to stay away from me.” Donia handed her a lacy white handkerchief. “Don’t come back here until I invite you. Any of you.”

And with that, Evan came into the room to help Aislinn to the door.

Aislinn didn’t lean on Evan as he walked her out of the house. She didn’t clutch his arm for stability as she stumbled on the steps. She kept a hand cupped over her wound, as if holding it would lessen the pain.

I am the Summer Queen. I am stronger than this.

It hurt, though. Donia had pierced skin and muscle, and those muscles moved with each step. There was no way to walk without pain. Each step made her want to cry.

That doesn’t mean they need to see it.

Faeries loitered in Donia’s yard; whisper-white Scrimshaw Sisters drifted over the snow like ghosts. A Hawthorn Girl perched in the boughs of an ice-draped oak. Her scarlet eyes glistened like frozen berries. Something with tattered wings sat beside her. A glaistig stood with her cloven feet in an old-fashioned gunfighter’s stance. They all watched Aislinn as she left their queen’s palace.

They heard.

In the moment when Donia had struck her, Aislinn had screamed. The sensation of being stabbed wasn’t the sort of thing one takes silently. They’d heard her cry out, and now they could see her blood-wet shirt around the cup of her hand.

I am not weak. I am not defeated.

Midway down the edge of the walk, Aislinn pulled herself straight. “You can go.”

The rowan’s expression was disinterested; the watching faeries were equally nonplussed, but Aislinn wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her as weak. She lowered her hand and walked to the end of the flagstones. She paused against the pain, leaning on the iron gate that marked the end of the Winter Queen’s yard, but in that pausing she reached into her pocket and withdrew her cell phone. Then she pulled a glamour over her bleeding and far too pale body and stepped onto the sidewalk.

Just a little farther.

She made it a block before the tears started to slide down her face. Without even looking at the phone, she pressed and held a button. When he answered, she didn’t let him speak. “I need you. Come get me.”