The Fairy Letters: A FROST Series(TM) Novel (8 page)

But
that does not stop my mind from drifting, from time to time, to your little
home in Gregory, Oregon – so clear in my mind's eye. I imagined sometimes,
growing up, what you and your mother were doing at that moment – was she
playing a game with you? Brushing your hair? Teaching you to paint? Tucking you
in to sleep? Such simple hallmarks of a human life – and yet so alien to me.

My
mother may have been wary of yours, at first – although the friendship they
developed was, if unexpected, nevertheless a powerful one. But I never was.
From the first time I met your mother at the Summer Court – the happy, bright
woman who – despite the sadness that sometimes clouded her eyes at the mention
of the Summer King – showered you in such love and affection – I knew that she
was a truly special creature indeed. And so she must have been, if it meant
giving birth to an extraordinary being like yourself.

Was
your mother wrong to go with your father? Certainly, there are many in Feyland
who would say so. Your father was a kind and good man – but he was not the more
responsible of kings (but then again – in a world where love is so frowned
upon, was he not merely the most-human king in a world in which human
attributes are shown no hospitality?). But your mother, even more – was a
brave
woman! For how brave must she have been to leave behind all that she knew,
all that mattered to her – her home, her country, her land, and follow the man
she loved to strange and distant shores? No, Breena, it was not weakness that
motivated your mother so but strength – the strength to follow her heart where
it led! Your mother was willing to stand upon the shores of this brave new
world and start a new life here, with you.

And
I think even my mother knew that. Her prejudices against humans and love aside,
I remember that she always treated your mother with a respect she showed to few
fairies, let alone to mortals. Your mother had true strength, true spirit, and
even my mother was able to pick up on that. With Raine my mother was able to
speak out about her love for her children, her fears for them – not as heirs
but as her son and daughter – in a way that she could not even speak about with
her own husband. Raine brought out a strange kindness, softness – even
tenderness – in my mother, qualities that while unfamiliar to me and to many
who know her, I know now my mother possesses deep down. It was little surprise
to me then to find that, only recently, it was my mother who gave yours
hospitality and protection. Their friendship had once flowered – and even now
it flowers again. Of course, much has changed in between. My mother grew so
much colder and harder after my father's death – would she, I wonder, been as
able to forge Raine's friendship had she met Raine after that tragic event?

Ah,
Breena – how difficult it is to talk of our parents! Their stories, their loves
and desires and pain and ambitions, have shaped us – we cannot escape them. And
yet when we look at our reflections, we see their faces staring back at us.
Will we make the choices they have made – or forge new paths?

Letter 9

My
Dearest Breena,

In
my last missive to you I spoke of our mothers – the Winter Queen and Raine
Malloy, two women who could not be more different. And yet, since I have penned
that letter, my thoughts have turned rather to my father – and to yours – to
the other halves of that strange equation that brought us both into being. I
cannot imagine what it must have been like for you to grow up without knowledge
of your own. For me, the absence of my father, his death, is like a black line
severing my past from my presence, my childhood from this cold, hard world of
men. I still think about him often – not only about my father but about the world
he represented – the world before the war, the world before the pain.

There
is one memory of my father that particularly stands out – amid the blur of
memories I have of him: his gruff voice, his silver beard, his long furs that
smelled of pine and fir, that kept him at once regal and warm in the heart of
the freezing tundra. It was a few months after your departure, and while the
war had begun, it was hardly as dangerous as it would come to be after the
Winter Massacre that spelled the beginning of the end for peace-time. My father
wished to lead an expedition out to one of our Spring outposts, a small village
called Juniper that, while in the Spring territories, was inhabited by a mix of
Winter and Spring Fey, many of whom had intermarried over the years. “We want
to fortify the place,” said my father. “If the Summer Fairies attack here, the
good people of Juniper could be in very great danger. Summer isn't too happy
with Winter at the moment – and the Spring fairies still loyal to Summer look
upon the residents of Juniper as traitors. I want to send a regiment of troops
down there to keep watch – and build an extra ring of fortifications around the
area. And son,” he clapped me on the shoulder. “I want you to do it with me.”

It
was my first real mission. I had done practice-fighting before – and trained
until my muscles and limbs ached with the exertion – but I had not yet embarked
upon a military campaign. I felt a subtle thrill at the promise of leaving the
palace grounds – the boyish desire for adventure rose up in me, and I beamed
with pride at my father's trust in me.

“You're
getting big now,” he said. “A strapping lad like you is ready to see some real
action!” Yet as we rode through the snowy drifts his tone grew more somber.
“Yet don't forget, my boy,” he said, kicking his heels into the side of the
horse, “this is no game. These are real fairies we'll be fighting, flesh and
blood – we must never lose sight of that. This is nothing to make sport of. You
may have won against your fellow lads in fencing – but this is different. There
is a sacred magic in killing – solemn and deep, and not to be made light of.
Can you remember that, my boy?”

I
nodded. Listening to my father – his gravelly voice, his noble countenance,
made me feel braver, somehow – stronger. Watching him ride across the
snowdrifts, his back straight and his gaze straight and sure, I felt that I was
watching not a mere fairy, but rather the ideal of a fairy warrior – everything
a fairy ought to be. He was brave and sure of himself, but unlike knights like
Flynn, whose skill in battle is matched by a vicious love for killing, he never
sought to kill in vain. War was serious business, he told me – never forget
that. It is a lesson I cannot forget, not when he is gone from me now, and my only
memories of him are tinged with such pain and bitterness.

We
reached Juniper by nightfall, and the sky blushed crimson and yellow. “See that
sky,” my father said, pointing upwards. “Is that not a beautiful sky?”

“Yes,
sir,” I said.

He
smiled. “That's what we're fighting for, Kian, my boy. We're fighting to
protect it – that gorgeous sunset that you can see only in the Winter lands,
that pink, that gold. We're fighting to protect all the beauty around us – the
snow that's so white it shines when the light hits it, and the scent of the
fir-trees all through the forest, and for the kindly, noble wolves that live in
the forest. We're fighting for our frozen lakes and the right to skate across
them – we're fighting for the juniper berries that surround this very village –
can't you smell them?” He gave a deep sigh. “I love this land, Kian, and I hate
to see it torn apart by war. But Summer's hold on the Spring lands has gone on
long enough – they're ours by history, and most Spring fairies would say so
too. These are our lands. Our people. Be proud of them, Kian, for they are a
part of you.”

He
clapped me on the shoulder. “For they, Kian, are proud of you. You have grown
into a brave young man now, and everything of which I have spoken – all this
land – looks to you to protect it. The leaves whisper your name, and rustle
when you pass them by. The snow glimmers brighter under your feet. The wolves
howl as you pass. They are all counting on you, my boy. And they are all proud
– as proud as I am. Knowing what you can accomplish. Knowing all that you can
be.”

He
later trusted me with another task – to lead in the rebuilding of some of the
Spring outposts that Summer fairies had destroyed. I spent three months in the
Spring lands under my father's command, leading not war but construction –
supervising the rebuilding of military fortifications alongside houses for
those refugees whose homes had been destroyed in the war. I think my father
assigned me to that post for a reason. He knew, as my mother did, that I would
one day be called upon to be a great warrior. But he wanted more for me than
bloodshed. He wanted to spare me that as long as he could – he wanted to call
upon me to be a hero in other ways, in ways that perhaps were more suited to my
temperament (before anger, hate, and bitterness froze my heart against such
desires for mercy). He wanted to show me that a good king does not only tear
down, he also rebuilds. It is this lesson that has stuck with me the most, and
it is this lesson that inspires me to think that one day, you and I can carry
out his great work – rebuilding this land that we both love so dearly, building
homes for the dispossessed, schools for the children who have been orphaned,
farms for those with no means of sustenance. Just as my father taught me to do.

To
write thus of my father now brings tears to my eyes. How I miss him – even now
– how I long for that sure, steady man who made me feel that I was strong
enough to bear the burden of this war. He was right, of course. Right about my
love for the land – a love he and my mother and I and Shasta all share. I
cannot pass the snow without taking in my breath at its beauty. I close my eyes
in the forests to take in the intoxicating scent of the pine trees. But my love
for the Winter lands is mixed with my love of Summer – love of the bright
fruits and the ripe nectars and the purple flowers and the ivy and vines that
trail up and down the sun-dappled rocks. I feel almost as much as a call for
the land that you love – rich and fertile and burning with life – as I do for
my own. It is my love for you, Breena, that calls me thus. It calls me to the
land that you love, for I cannot look upon Summer as an enemy – look upon its
lands and rotten and base – when I see them through your eyes. I see the land's
beauty and I dream of a day when Summer and Winter are united once again in a
single land of unsurpassed loveliness, when the smell of fir trees and the
smell of bougainvillea flowers mingle in the single fragrance of peace.

I
have, once or twice, gone up against your father in war – he would lead a
regiment against one of mine. And I am grateful every day that neither of us
was the clear victor in these battles – that both of us were able to escape
alive. For although I was angry with Summer – and although I bore particular rancor
against Flametail for his role, however inadvertent, in exacerbating the war –
I nevertheless know what it is like...the pain of losing a father. I could not
bear to make you shoulder that burden, too.

Letter 10

My Dearest
Breena,

Since
my last letter, you have been on my mind constantly. I have thought of little
but those attributes which so attracted me to you at first – your incomparable
beauty, your inflexible strength, your courage and love for this country which
has become your own. In you I see the best of Winter and Summer alike – the
power and willingness to sacrifice that I saw and admired in my mother, and the
power and willingness to love that I saw and admired in your father. You,
Breena, are the best of both worlds – the culmination of all fairy traditions.
The warmth of Summer and the cool of Winter – the passions of humanity and the
power of Feydom – all this do I think of when I think of you. Who but you could
be so lovely, so strong? Who but one such as you could be my bride?

And
yet, thinking back to the stories that Raine once told my mother of the Summer
Court – I fear for you. I remember what she said of its intrigues, its terror.
Wort or no Wort, I know that there are several courtiers whom I imagine wish to
do you harm, for surely not all of those fairies have renounced their loyalty
to Redleaf and her treacherous ways! How can a place of such great beauty be a
place of such great danger? Do the two go hand in hand, do you think – must all
good things be twinned with bad? And, if that is the way of the world, then I
hope and will that the bad – our parting – will at last be twinned with the
good: this peace for which we both so tirelessly work.

Yet
I find myself strangely grateful, thinking of you at the Summer Court without
me, for the presence of Logan the Wolf. Now I will not deny it, he and I have
had our differences. How could he resist, after all? Your beauty, your
kindness, the magic about you – how could anybody fail to fall in love with you
at first sight, let alone over a course of years spent together in the bounds
of friendship?

I
have perhaps not served Logan well. What else can you expect, my dearest
Breena? He may be a good and strong Wolf Prince – in my less jealous hours I
find myself unable to deny that he is one of the bravest princes ever seen in
the Wolf clans of the North, able to live both in our world and in the human
world with incredible skill and intelligence. But simply because I acknowledge
his good qualities – indeed, precisely because I
do
acknowledge them – I
cannot forgive him the love he bears you, although I do understand it. I fear,
sometimes, that he will take you away from me – that your warm friendship, your
unhurried bond, forged over time together, will one day prove more attractive
to you than the torment and the turmoil that seems to characterize our time
together. Perhaps I am wrong – I hope I am! But I cannot, in my jealous, loving
way, turn back that fear from my heart.