The Fairy Letters: A FROST Series(TM) Novel (3 page)

How
strange that such a recollection would come to me now! How strange to think of
my mother – my mother the woman who outlawed love in the Winter Kingdom, and
imprisoned those who dared let it rule their lives. My mother who thought even
love for her son was a sign of weakness and danger – she had once been in a
love-match with my father. She had once allowed herself to succumb.

And
then he had died on the battlefield – in a war that Flametail's passions and
Redleaf's jealousy had all helped start – and my mother, in her mourning,
decided that she would never love again. That nobody would ever love again.

And I
listened to my father and my mother that night, and wondered what love meant –
this strange thing talked about in such hushed tones, that had so hurt Redleaf,
so frightened my mother.

And I
thought once again of your eyes, and the power of that magic that sent me
reeling. And then, for the first time in my life, I had a glimmering of what
that love might be.

Letter 3

My Dearest Breena,

So my
first meeting with you coincided – fate, is it not? - with my first encounter
with the dangers and the beauties of love alike. But of course I was too young
to understand love. Love came a few years later – you were but three (but you
grew, as fairy children grew, into a creature of great agility – you could walk
and talk and chatter!) and I was eight, and already (if I may say so myself) a
reasonably strapping sort of lad. The tensions after the first Spring Rebellion
had subsided, and Summer and Winter seemed to be in a much less tenuous
position – at least for the time. Contact between our two regions was far more
frequent, and as a gesture of good-will I was invited as a guest of honor to
spend the summer at the Summer Court.

Thus
began our first conversation. Perhaps you remember this – perhaps you have
dreamed it in a dream. I know that your family did their best to make you
forget this time in your life – perhaps you tucked this memory away somewhere
deep within your soul. If so, I hope that my words can remind you of that
idyllic time – when we were children, wandering the bowers and trellises and
grassy mazes of the palace grounds. We had so many simple pleasures in those
days – games that we learned just as we learned new words. Your mother and
Redleaf may have been at loggerheads, struggling with each other for ascendancy
– your father Flametail may have been absent from the throne as he resolved
these questions of romance (much, it must be admitted, to my mother's distaste
– when I departed for my summer at the Court she adjusted my chain mail and
sighed that “such ribald revelry is distinctively
mortal.
That's what
comes of having humans in the Court, I suppose – the great heroes of old, like
Queen Tamara, would never have stood for it!) Yet you and I knew none of this.
We did not know of wars, or tensions, or sectarian strife. We knew only that
there was nothing in the world more beautiful than those vast and leafy
gardens, where you and I indulged in all our sylvan fantasies. We used to play
a game of tag – for, while your legs had just learned walking, your magic
carried you at great speed, and my wings had not yet come in to give me an
advantage.

We
played all sorts of games – games, I imagine, not dissimilar to the ones you
would have had played if you had grown up like a normal, human child. We played
hide-and-seek in the rose-garden, often bringing the servant children into our
games (much to the displeasure of the older, more serious household staff). We
even engaged in a bit of rough-housing; although I must admit I was far easier
on you than I now know was necessary, for I was still convinced that no fairy
girl could ever beat a boy “fair and square.” But the game I remember most
vividly of all was a game that was reserved for us alone, one that we never
shared with the other children amusing themselves at Court.

It
all began one day with a joke. We had decided to sneak away from the other
children – a shared smile was all it took for us to establish that for some,
unnamed reason, we wished to be alone – and during one of our customary games
of hide-and-seek we vanished through one of the maze-like hedges into a secret
recess you and I had discovered only a few days before. Everywhere on the
palace grounds was beautiful, but this place surpassed them all. Rich fruits,
their nectar scented and glistening upon the ripened skins, filled the air with
an intoxicating fragrance; bright flowers of red and orange and gold made the courtyard
resemble nothing so much as an impassioned sunset.

“I
want a fruit!” you cried, jumping upwards and stumbling to the ground. “Not
fair – haven't got wings...”

Neither
had I, I must admit, but at eight years of age I was well able to stand upon my
toes and reach one of the lower-hanging fruits.

“Which
one have you got?” you asked me, craning your neck to see.

Feeling
(I must confess) rather mischievous, I hid the fruit behind my back, feeling
its nectar stain my palms. “Guess,” I said. “If you guess right, you get the
fruit. If not...” I licked my lips in mock appetite.

You
fixed me with a penetrating stare that your small stature did little to
alleviate. “Fine,” you said, pursing your rosy lips. “It's a....star fruit.”

My
eyes opened wide. “Right you are!” I said, handing you the ripe star fruit. You
smiled and snapped the fruit in two, offering me half. (“But I still won!” you
were sure to remind me.)

Having
displayed mastery of the game, you decided that I would have to earn my keep
likewise. “Close your eyes and lift me up,” you demanded, with such certainty
that even a mortal would be able to tell that you had the bearing and make of a
queen. I complied, and you picked a fruit of your choosing from the branch,
bidding me to make the same guess.

I guessed
correctly, and thus our game of wits began. For days thereafter, we made a
habit of stealing away to the various orchards and gardens of the Feyland
gardens, making each other guess as to which flower, which fruit, which
precious stone we were holding. We were not always correct (and I was, I am
proud to say, right quite a bit more of the time – I was, after all, an older
and more developed fairy), but we often were, and it was when our minds met –
when you were able to read my thoughts and I yours, that the game was the most
fun.

I did
not know at the time what our connection signified. Our game was our secret –
and it was just as well – for had I told my parents what you and I were able to
do they would have known immediately that the bond we shared was not mere
childhood friendship, but the nascent buddings of true love. For, Breena, only
true lovers are able to join in this way, to hear each other's thoughts with
such simplicity and ease. And while my father would, perhaps, have been
overjoyed to hear that I had forged such a bond with the princess who was to
become (unbeknownst to me), my intended, and my mother would have been far more
wary. After all, she knew – a political match and a love match were two very
different things, and while when the two combined (as they had with her and my
father) they could be wonderful, they could also be dangerous. Perhaps better,
then, that she did not know. For when at last the time came for me to hear the
news that my mother and father had been whispering about behind my back – the
autumn after the summer I spent at your Court – my mother and father had no
idea that the information that they were about to recount to me would cause me
anything more serious than curiosity – for what does an eight-year-old boy know
of love and marriage?

I
knew that the day upon which our engagement was to be announced to me was not
like other days. My fencing-master's services, so often engaged early in the
morning, had been unexpectedly canceled, and instead I was invited to breakfast
with my parents, an occurrence so rare that I could remember only one previous
instance – that of the birth of Shasta. My serving-woman and valet dressed me
in the most formal regalia they could find in my tiny wardrobe – stiff and
rather uncomfortable starched fabrics that gave me the restrained bearing of a
toy soldier – and escorted me (bowing and curtesying all the way) to the Great
Hall in which my mother and father sat dining.

The
Hall, enormous when full of foreign dignitaries, seemed positively cavernous
when it held no inhabitants other than my father and my mother, each of whom
sat at one end of a long wooden dining table clearly intended for at least
sixty. My footsteps echoed throughout the hall as I – nervous and thoroughly
itchy from my formal attire – proceeded towards them.

“Sit,
son,” my father said jovially, motioning to a chair equidistant from that of my
mother and my father. The valet pulled out the chair for me and I sat, looking
back and forth from my mother to my father (each of whom seemed miles away from
me), waiting for someone to explain what all this was about.

My
mother's normally placid face revealed a smile, one that was echoed and
transformed into a beam upon the face of my father. “We have some exciting news
for you, young fellow,” he said. “You might not find it exciting now – little
roguish scamp that you are – but I promise you, in good time you'll realize
quite how exciting it all is.”

“Come
now,” said my mother, “don't intimidate the boy!” But her face betrayed her pleasure.

“Not
much of a boy anymore, is he?” said my father. “Not after this.”

My
mother gave a small sigh. “And to think – he's only eight years old.”

And
then my mother did something that – Breena – I confess is indeed the most
surprising thing she has ever done in the whole of her life. She stood up,
impulsively, from the narrow-backed chair on which she sat, and rushed across
the length of the table towards me, enveloping me in her arms. “My boy!” her
lips released far more emotion than I had hitherto known from her – and more
emotion than, with the exception of my father's death, I have seen from her
since. My father too – surprised but pleased by my mother's uncharacteristic
outburst – strode over to me and wrapped his great, ursine arms around my frame.

“But
what is it?” I asked, increasingly desirous of learning what on earth had
caused this mysterious change of behavior in my family. “What has happened?”

“You
remember your time at the Summer Court, do you not?” my mother asked. “And of
the children you played with there?”

“You
remember the Princess Breena?” my father cut in.

“Yes,”
I said, and my mind flickered back to those idyllic days in our secret orchard.

“You
liked her, did you not?” my father asked. “As a playmate – she did not perturb
you?”

“No,”
I said. “Not at all – in fact...” But I stopped my sentence short. I knew from
my mother's reaction to Raine and Redleaf that she was none too keen on special
affection between women and men – her own weakness for my father to the
contrary. “She's quite nice,” I finished my statement neatly.

“Well,
I'm certainly glad you think so,” said my father. “Because you'll be seeing a
lot more of her from now on.”

“Is
she coming to visit?” I tried to conceal my excitement.

“Not
exactly,” said my mother. “Rather, my dear, I am proud to say that we have
managed to make a most excellent royal match – one that will do proud the
houses of Summer and Winter alike!”

“A
match?” I furrowed my brow. “You mean, like a...”

“A
marriage!” My father could contain his excitement no longer. “A real royal
marriage. We have made the necessary arrangements with the Summer Court, and
they believe that the most strategic way to ensure peace between our two
kingdoms is to have their heiress marry you – uniting our kingdoms. The two of you
will be brave and strong – you will rule equally an undivided kingdom, just as
it was in the oldest fairy days, when Winter and Summer and Spring and Autumn
were one single united Feyland, and there was peace throughout the land.”

“If
the pixies hadn't meddled,” my mother added waspishly. She loved to read and
hear about the stories of the great Undivided Kingdom, and it was a singular
affront to her fairy pride that, some two centuries ago, a devious pixie prince
had persuaded the brother of the reigning Fairy King to assassinate the
reigning monarch and take over Feyland for himself. The resulting struggle
between the king's son and his traitorous brother had led to a war that only
dividing up Winter and Summer territories to the king's brother and son,
respectively, could resolve – a war that, while so long ago that many fairies
didn't believe it had ever occurred, still rankled deep in my mother's
patriotic heart.

It is
funny to think, Breena, how you grew up reading about the American Revolution
and the War of 1832  the three world wars and other such events (of which, I
confess, I know little) about your world, and yet were raised with no knowledge
of the lore of the kingdom to which you, by your blood and your spirit, more
truly belong!

“Well,”
my mother said, “hopefully your match will be strategic and fruitful.
Love-matches are, as you ought to well know, not part of the equation –
nonetheless, I confess that I am glad that you have some fondness for the
Summer girl, for as dangerous as passion can be, neither your father nor I
wishes to see you matched to someone you find odious.”