Desert Tales: A Wicked Lovely Companion Novel

CHAPTER 17

As Rika approached her house, Donia felt a twinge of envy. The former Winter Girl was holding the hand of a mortal boy. Like the Summer Queen and her mortal, Rika had someone at her side. Of late, even the Dark King had found a way to be reunited with the one he loved. It was only the High Queen and the Winter Queen who were without partners, and even the High Queen had found some affection. For her it was creating a son. So in reality, it was only Donia who remained without love, just as she had been when she was the Winter Girl. For a person who had risked everything for love, who had lost her mortality and then almost given her life for the one she loved, being deserted seemed an unreasonably cruel fate. It wasn’t that Donia wanted any of them to lose their loved ones—she wasn’t so heartless as her predecessor—she merely wished that she wasn’t without her beloved. Keenan was and had always been the one faery she couldn’t have, a faery who had only claimed his court because he’d found his rightful queen. A queen who is not me.

Many years ago, Donia had dreamed that she was the one he sought. Like Rika and numerous others, she’d thought that loving Keenan would be enough to break the curse that bound him. She’d believed that love really could conquer all. Now, she knew better. Maybe for Rika or the other former Winter Girls, there would be happy futures. Donia hoped so.

She smiled as she stood in the open doorway with Sasha, her white wolf, beside her. She lowered her hand to caress her constant companion behind his ears. He leaned against her affectionately.

At the foot of the stairs to Donia’s house, Rika stopped, let go of the boy’s hand, and stepped forward. Even now, so very crushable in front of a regent, the former Winter Girl stood unbending. Donia smiled at how familiar Rika’s posture was: that strength was what had enabled them both to survive the curse.

“Hello, Rika.” Donia’s words were accompanied by a white cloud of frozen air.

“Sister,” Rika greeted. She ascended the steps and held open her arms.

The boy stayed on the sidewalk behind her. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and shivered, but his gaze didn’t leave Rika.

“Sisters always,” Donia promised as she embraced Rika. They shared no blood, but as with the rest of the former Winter Girls, there would always be an affection between them that no one other than a former Winter Girl would understand. Carrying ice and snow inside a body not made for such pain wasn’t something that could be explained—nor would those who’d experienced it want to try to describe it. Some experiences were not meant to be spoken.

When Rika stepped back, she said, “You look healthier.”

Donia shrugged delicately. “Ruling suits me better than . . . the other. Carrying the curse of Keenan’s mistakes was unpleasant.”

Rika shook her head. “We both survived though.”

“And Beira didn’t.” Donia felt the storms fill her eyes and knew that they were snow white. A gust of icy air radiated from her skin, causing the trees to shiver and snow to fall from their branches in a brief flurried snowfall. Being around the other former Winter Girls stirred memories and emotions that they’d all rather forget. She suspected that was why they so rarely saw each other. Beira’s curse had made so many people suffer, and it was harder to deny those memories when the person in front of you had similar ones.

“I’m glad she’s dead.” Rika shivered again.

Donia tried to keep her own chill reined in as she said, “She won’t ever hurt any of us again. I’m the queen now.”

“Was it horrible? Her death?”

Truthfully, Donia hadn’t expected that question, but she wasn’t surprised. Beira had devastated a lot of lives, and few faeries mourned her passing. No one had sought Donia out for details, and few faeries would be so bold as to ask for details from the reigning queen.

“It was,” Donia said softly. She had lived for almost a century, but the day Beira had died and Donia had become Winter Queen was one of the memories that she still dreamed about more often than she’d like. Sometimes in the remembering, it felt like the moment was trapped forever in the now, as if—like the day when Donia had lost her mortality—it would never be an experience that she could relegate to memories.

The floor is already covered in spikes of ice; the furniture is well past broken. In the midst of the destruction, Beira stands like a beautiful nightmare. Despite the horror she has inflicted, Beira has always been lovely, dark hair and shocking red lips contrasting with the extreme pallor of ice.

She tilts her head inquiringly. “Do you think they’ll be more upset if you’re dead or still suffering?”

Donia is bleeding and exhausted, trying to rescue Seth—the mortal that the new Summer Queen loves. The boy is a strange one, brave in the face of the embodiment of Winter even after he’s had one of his facial piercings ripped out. His dark hair falls over his face, hiding his expression in the moment.

“Decision, decisions,” Beira murmurs as she walks over blades of ice, slowly and gracefully, as if she were entering the theater. She looks at Donia and Seth, trying to decide whom to torture next.

After a moment, she pulls Donia up by her hair and kisses both cheeks. Her frigid lips leave frost burn on Donia’s skin. Being the Winter Girl gives her some tolerance of the ice, but Beira is Winter. Since the last Summer King died over nine hundred years ago and the then newborn king was cursed, no one has been able to stand against her.

“I believe I already told you what would happen to you, dearie,” Beira whispers, and then she seals her lips to Donia’s. The ice pours from the angry queen’s lips into Donia’s mouth. In moments, she will be frozen alive.

She doesn’t see Seth until he throws himself at Beira.

The furious Winter Queen drops Donia, but she doesn’t understand why until she sees the rusty iron sticking out of Beira’s neck.

With surprising strength for a mortal—especially an injured one—he’s attacked Beira, and the Winter Queen is not amused. She lashes out at Seth with a burst of ice and cold; the force of it slams him into a wall. Beira follows him in that too-fast-to-follow way.

“Do you think that little trinket will kill me?” She digs her fingers into the skin of his stomach and—using his ribs as a handle—jerks him to his feet.

He screams over and over, awful sounds that make Donia tremble, but she can’t help him. She can’t even lift her head from the floor. The mortal has risked his death to help her, but even that seems too little, too late. She feels the ice that Beira has exhaled into her body. It’s killing her.

Beira removes her bony fingers from Seth’s stomach, and he slides down the wall, slumping in a boneless pile.

Donia struggles to crawl to him as the ice slides down her throat, choking her, filling her lungs. She’s not sure what she can do, but she wants to save him.

Beira doesn’t attempt to stop her, but she doesn’t need to. Donia has barely managed to move. Her vision blurs, and she closes her eyes.

Donia has no idea how long she is motionless on the floor. She opens her eyes when a burst of heat stirs her.

Aislinn is there. The girl is no longer mortal. She’s the queen that Keenan sought, and she’s at his side now. They’re both glowing so brightly that it hurts to see them. The newly ascended Summer Queen is holding Beira’s arms as Keenan leans closer, his lips almost touching Beira’s mouth.

Then he just breathes.

Sunlight pours onto her like some viscous fluid.

The Winter Queen struggles to turn her head and can’t. She’s held in place by the sunlit hands of the Summer King and Queen as she chokes on sunlight. The heat burns through Beira’s throat; steam hisses from the cut.

When finally she is limp in their hands, Keenan steps away, and Aislinn lowers Beira’s body to the floor.

The faery for whom Donia had long ago surrendered her mortality has killed the Winter Queen. He’s broken the curse, found his queen and claimed his power. As he kneels at Donia’s side, she wants to flinch from the heat of him even as she wants to kiss him one last time before death claims her. Instead, she becomes the new Winter Queen.

“Yes, Beira’s death was horrible,” Donia said. A tiny snow shower formed around her. Snowflakes fluttered to the ground like butterflies—slow and gentle in contrast to the remembered anger filling her now. She would say more, but not in front of a mortal.

“Good.” Rika’s expression held the sympathy that told Donia that the faery heard more than the words Donia had uttered. Then Rika added, “Now, if Keenan suffers a bit, all will be well.”

When Rika turned to her mortal, Donia fell back to the memories. The moments after the last Winter Queen’s death were the hardest part of that day.

Keenan kneels on the floor and pulls Donia into his arms.

She has to cough before she can speak. “Beira really dead?”

He smiles, looking like every dream she’s denied having. “She is.”

“Seth?” It hurts to talk, her throat raw from the jagged pieces of ice she’s swallowed.

“Seth’s injured, but not dead.” Keenan strokes her face, gently, as if she’s something delicate and precious, as if she’s the one who will share his throne. Sunlit tears run down his cheeks and drip onto her face, melting the ice that still clings to her. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought we were too late.”

Even after all that had happened, Donia still believed that the Summer King was worth the pain, worth the curse, worth the death she thought she’d know that day. She had believed that for decades, but loving Keenan didn’t mean she was blind to his faults. He was the careless, forgetful Summer. Even when he wasn’t being willfully manipulative, he was still the embodiment of a season that thought first of pleasure and rarely of consequence—and whatever he’d done now had sent one of the former Winter Girls to Donia’s doorstep.

She stepped to the side to allow Rika and her mortal to enter the house. She looked out into the street beyond her yard, where the world looked like summer. It was a visible demarcation, the line between the two seasons. Out in the world summer was growing, but within her yard it was always winter. He had his Summer Garden, and she had her Winter Garden. Their courts still needed a home when the other held sway over the world. Donia took a moment’s comfort in the beautiful landscape—frost-covered lawn, trees bowed under the weight of snow and ice, unmarred fresh snow glistening.

Love doesn’t mean being under his control. It doesn’t mean giving in to his every whim or wish.

A former Winter Girl, especially one who had fled to the desert years ago, wouldn’t come here to the home of the reigning Winter Queen without serious reason. Donia focused her attention on the summer street, and her wintery climate expanded beyond her yard. New buds on the trees froze as she looked upon them. I won’t surrender all of my power for you, even now, she silently swore to the Summer King, who would no doubt be darkening her door soon. I am your equal now, Keenan. Come fight with me.

Then with the solemnity of early winter mornings, Donia turned away and resolutely closed the door.