Ulean, how do you banish a creature back to its Elemental plane? Do you know? Can you find out?
Cicely, there are ways, but you do not have the knowledge. I might be able to find someone to help you, but who knows what kind of cascade such an action might bring?
Then tell me, is it possible to distract it so we can slip by? Can we outrun it, do you think? I was searching for anything that might allow us to let this creature live. The more I examined it, the less inclined I was to attempt an attack. Not just because our chances of fighting it were pretty much nil, but because it was trapped here, like Myst had trapped the Snow Hag.
Wait . . . the Snow Hag! She was bound to the snow, and maybe she would be able to help. I made a split-second decision. Ulean, I need you to go find the Snow Hag and bring her here. She should be able to travel swiftly through this storm—it will be like old home week to her. If anybody can help us, I imagine she might. But you must hurry. I’m afraid if we try to attack the paralaxium it will destroy at least some of my men, and in the end, be destroyed. And it’s a death that might not need to happen.
I understand, Cicely. I will return as soon as I can. And with that she swept away.
I turned to the others and told them what I’d done. “It’s the only way I can see to get through this gate without a loss of life. And truth is”—I glanced back at the paralaxium—“I don’t want to kill it. I don’t know what it is I’m feeling, but I think we need to free it. We need to get through this guardian without shedding blood.”
“You make me proud to be your grandfather,” Hunter said.
Check and Fearless flashed me smiles, and I realized they, too, had been taken in by the creature. Grieve said nothing, but rubbed my back as I stood there. Finally, we stepped farther away from the creature and settled down on one of the boulders to wait for Ulean’s return.
As we huddled in the dim light flickering up from the ice, I contemplated the future without Myst. I had to keep some hope. Kaylin was gone, that much we knew. But he wasn’t dead, so at least we had some comfort there. Grieve and I would live in the unending winter, while Rhiannon and Chatter would live in a world of summer and sun. The prospect of days stretching into decades into centuries and millennia suddenly felt daunting—more than I could take in, and once again, I felt overwhelmed by the changes through which I’d gone.
But I’ll get there, I thought. Every day my life will become a little bit more my new normal. Every day my new life will become a little more engrained.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Grieve bumped against me, his voice soft and soothing. “You seem a million miles away.”
“Perhaps I am.” I cocked my head to smile at him, then took his hand. “I think it’s just . . . shock. The shock of this war, the culture shock I’m going through, the physical shock of the transformation. It’s enough to send me spinning, and sometimes, when we pause long enough for me to listen to my thoughts, I feel like I’m sliding into a deep hole, unable to sort out all that’s happened. If we defeat Myst, I’ll have the time to puzzle out who I am and what I’m doing. Until then, I feel like I’m making things up on the go.”
“Flying by the seat of your pants, so to speak?” His eyes twinkled then, the stars shimmering softly within the luminous black void. “And yes, when—not if, but when—we defeat Myst, then you will take time to rest, to learn more about the life you’ve entered.”
“Lainule tried to warn me. Several times she warned me that if I was successful, things would never be the same. I didn’t understand what she was talking about, and of course, she couldn’t tell me.” I worried my lip, wishing once again that the former Summer Queen was still with us. She’d been a fountain of strength, and even though I thought, at times, that she was hard and cruel, now I understood why she had been the way she was.
“What would you have done if she had been able to tell you? Do you know? Would you have let her die? Or . . . would you have gone through with it?”
The question had run through my mind a thousand times in the past month. By finding Lainule’s heartstone and returning it to her, I’d not only saved her life, but I’d set into motion the events leading to Rhiannon and me being crowned the new Fae Queens. When I thought over the alternative—Lainule dying, with no one to take her place—the answer was obvious. Though a little part of me still rebelled, still wished I’d never returned to New Forest.
“That’s not a fair question, and you know it. I may have had the illusion of choice, but there could be only one outcome when you think about it.”
Grieve laughed. “You always had a choice. You could have said no and walked away.”
“But what kind of person would I be if I’d have done that?” I glared at him. My love was boundless for the man, but sometimes I wanted to clobber him.
“You would have been the kind of person who could never have successfully taken the crown. You’d have been more like Myst than like yourself. You think Myst would sacrifice her own future for anybody else?”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder then, and pulled me close. “I love you, Cicely, because of all your flaws and all your wonderful attributes. I love you because there would never have been a question in your mind as to what you should do. You had a choice, yes—you did, regardless of what you think. But you chose this path. You chose the harder road.”
“And am I now all the better for it?” I thought of all the permutations of what might have been, but they were so much fodder for fantasy now.
With a deep sigh, I swept the whole conversation away. “It’s too late in the day for philosophical musings. We’re in the midnight of this battle, and we just have to hold on till morning. Best to leave the musings for after—for when we look back and say, ‘Do you remember when we were sitting in the cave, waiting for Ulean to help us with the paralaxium?’ Then we can decipher the web that brought us here.”
“No ghosts of the past, then, while we wait?” Grieve brushed my lips with his but stopped as Lannan sauntered up. “What do you want, Altos?”
“I wonder, the guards are keeping watch, but the question remains, does Myst know we’re here? Why aren’t we dismantling that beast? My men will not be harmed by the kiss of cold.” The look on his face told us he thought we were making a mistake.
“That beast is a creature from an outer plane, and I don’t really think it’s wise to go killing it off if we can help it.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Lannan, you are not so far up on the food chain that you have no enemies. If the paralaxium’s people—or whatever you call them—find out we killed an enslaved member of their tribe, we’re all on the shit list. And while you vampires won’t be destroyed by the cold, even I am not immune to that bone-chilling touch. What if they came to New Forest and rampaged through the town?”
Lannan let out a harsh, short laugh. “Cicely, by the time we’re done, New Forest will be empty. Myst and her freakshow parade drain the life from the city even while we’re sitting here twiddling our thumbs. By the time this war is over, the town’s going to be dead. Do you understand? People are dying right and left.”
Grieve broke in. “I thought that shouldn’t bother you, considering how little regard you seem to have for anyone not part of the Vampire Nation.”
“Wolf-boy, watch your manners. You may be a king, but I’m Regent and blood brother to the Emissary. We are both nobility.” Lannan crossed his arms, staring with open hostility.