AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He forced Garrick to do it,” I breathed.
Aspen hissed words under her breath that sounded like they were in another language, but her harsh tone told me they were likely a string of foul curses. “It’s the Stormclaw emblem—theiremblem. Claws and snow.”
“Stormclaw? Was that their name before they took Silverfrost and ruled for the dead family?”
I heard Aspen rummage through her bag as she hummed her assent. “He’s essentially marked you as his,” she practically spat.
I stiffened, imagining the bloody cuts on my mid-back and what they represented. It was as vile as if the king had forced Garrick to carvePrestoninto my flesh. “I don’t belong to him,” I said, echoing my earlier claim before the royal had hurt me.
“No, but as long as he thinks you do, he will make your life a living hell.” Aspen paused. “This may sting. I’m going to clean your wound first, and then I’ll use a concoction my people swear by. It won’t be enough to prevent scarring, but you’ll feel relief instantly.”
I was quiet as the pixie worked, cleaning the blood off my skin and then applying something cool and sticky to my wound. “That smells like...honey.”
“Because it’s made with honey. It’s mixed with plenty of natural ingredients found in our land—which is the source of our magic, after all—and then it’s pixie-blessed. Or, that’s what we like to say. Pixies don’t technically have magic beyond shifting. I suppose the gods thought changing our forms at will was enough power. We can’t use glamour either. Really, we are just another type of fae shifter, like your hunter.”
“He isn’tmyhunter,” I protested, as the pixie reached for the sleeve of my tunic, pushing it up to reveal my bandaged arm.
As she unbound the gauze and cleaned the cuts, a coy tone seeped into Aspen’s words. “Isn’t he? Transforming into his wolf form and killing the humans attacking you in the arena. Slipping you a forbidden knife for your encounter with that underworld creature. And holding you when you were troubled by a nightmare?”
While Aspen finished rebandaging my arm, I picked at a loose thread in my leggings with my other hand, feeling heat rush to my cheeks. “And through all of that, he’s never indicated his feelings go beyond friendship and loyalty to someone he believes is his true queen. Besides, no fae in Silverfrost seems to view humansthatway. And he belongs to Nerissa.”
Standing, Aspen withdrew a fresh tunic from her bag and set it in my lap. “Change out of that bloody tunic so I can burn it,” she ordered.
As I obeyed, tossing her the destroyed one before slipping the new one over my head, Aspen crept toward the hearth, adding fresh logs and stoking the fire back into a steady flame. “He belongs to Queen Nerissa in the way you belong to King Preston—which is to say, he doesn’t love her, and he never will. You know that as well as I. He is as much a prisoner as you or anyof the human slaves they keep at the castle.” She fed my old tunic into the fire and then turned, crossing her arms. “As for fae loving humans...how else do you think you came into existence?” A smirk tugged on her lips.
I shrugged. “Somehow a Silverfrost and my mother must have met, but it all seems to be a mystery to everyone.”
Aspen’s eyes glittered. “I need to shift. If you let me sit on your shoulder while we still have time, I can share what I know of your story.”
As I settled into the armchair by the fire, Aspen transformed into her pixie form. She hopped into my palm, allowing me to set her on my shoulder.
“I was a servant in the palace before the Silverfrost family was massacred,” Aspen explained, “and I attended both your father and mother. I know more of their story than anyone else left alive, it seems.”
She leaned back, her eyes growing distant as if seeing images from moments long since passed. “Your father was Ashton Silverfrost, beloved second-born to the king and queen, and promised to a fae woman at court. But your father had a rebellious streak and a romantic heart. He dreamed of a love match rather than a political one, and he had a tender spot toward the humans enslaved in Silverfrost. He was one of the few who disagreed with the ways humans were mistreated and looked down upon as inferior, and in fact...he secretly helped many of the humans in the castle escape. It was on one such excursion, returning some mortals to the human world, that he met your mother.
“I’ll never forget how he spoke of her when he returned. I was his confidante, for he knew I alone sympathized with his views and did what I could to help the humans. I’m not sure what gave the prince such a tender, kind heart when so many of his kin were vicious and proud and cruel. Unlike shifters such asGarrick and me, who understand what it’s like to be viewed as weak and inferior, he had powerful magic and glamour. He was beloved among the people of Silverfrost and renowned for his magic. He could call upon the earth itself, shifting it and causing dangerous earthquakes and rockslides. He could snuff out all light with a single breath, immersing his victims in darkness.
“And yet, he had no stomach for war and conquest except when forced into it to protect his people. While his parents plotted ways they could use his powers to claim the other kingdoms of Brytwilde for Silverfrost, your father only dreamt of ways he could leave his responsibilities behind. He even spoke of abandoning the fae world and glamouring himself as a human to live among mortals.
“I think, had things not happened as they did, that’s what he would have done. He and your mother would have happily raised you in a quiet mortal town.”
“But that’s not what happened,” I said sadly.
Aspen shook her head. “Your parents continued to see each other in secret. They pledged themselves to one another, even though your father was betrothed to someone else and your mother’s family was so terrified of fae she dared not even introduce her sweetheart to them. They bound themselves to one another not in a traditional marriage, but in the only sort of way they could, speaking their own vows in solitude and promising themselves to each other.
“Your mother feared scandal when your father sent me secretly to her town to see to her, and I told her she was with child. Her townspeople wouldn’t understand—they thought of her as a single woman, and her pregnancy would have ruined her reputation and cast her out from her family home. So your father and I made plans...plans for both your parents to escape their lives.”
Aspen sighed. “Sometimes, your parents were a little reckless in love. Your mother ventured into fae territory and was visiting your father when the attack happened. To this day, I don’t know who opened the entrance to the underworld, though I have a suspicion it was Ivy Stormclaw, a woman who’d been betrothed to your father, and a relative of Preston and Nerissa, no less. Your mother confessed to me that she believed Ivy had spied the two of them together. Somehow, I think she manipulated your father into opening the door, threatening someone he loved. What she thought would happen or how she believed she herself would survive an onslaught of demons is anyone’s guess, but jealousy is an ugly thing that doesn’t always know reason. She didn’t survive to share the details of what happened.”
Aspen swallowed. “Your father stayed behind to fight with your family, to ensure we had time to escape, while he tasked me with helping your mother to safety. I traveled with her all the way to the border between fae and mortal lands, and there we said our goodbyes. But I returned to nothing but bloodshed and horror. The underworld creatures killed every last member of your family. I arrived just in time to see the Stormclaw siblings enter the castle and rally the remaining survivors, subduing the demons. By then, all the Silverfrosts, including your father, were dead.”
Bitter tears burned my eyes for the courageous man I’d never met.
“Before they all died, one of the Silverfrosts must have managed to partially close the door. But it wasn’t enough—not when we’ve watched the entrance weaken for over two decades’ worth of winter solstices. Without a surviving member of the family to seal it each year, it continues to open wider, letting more and more creatures into our world.”
I heaved a sigh. “And then, once they swept in to secure the demons, Preston and Nerissa were hailed as heroes.”
“It’s still a mystery to me how they overpowered the demons alone when the entire Silverfrost family failed.” Aspen’s eyes were dim with sorrow. “But their magic is quite strong...a sort that I suppose is a worthy match against an underworld creature’s powers. Their magic is, quite literally,death. I’ve seen them peel the skin off a victim’s bones with a simple touch.”
