Chapter 5
When Dalla put her arm in Kolfrosta’s again, the wassail had gotten to her head a bit. This part, surely, was where she’d be led to be killed. She wished she’d had more to drink before going to her execution.
But why would Kolfrosta prolong Dalla’s death? The question weighed on Dalla. The lovely array of desserts could hardly be followed up with a torture session. Dalla held back an absurd laugh as she remembered a fairy tale about children who were fed sweets and then eaten. Surely not that, either.
There had to be some point Kolfrosta needed to get across before committing the murder.
Dalla expected the maze of hallways to lead them somewhere new. It did not. Before she knew it, she once more beheld the great, decorated pine tree in the main hall.
The baubles were even more fascinating up close. She’d thought they wavered like dewdrops, but images flashed in each one, too quick to grasp.
Kolfrosta released Dalla’s arm and plucked one of the baubles from the tree. Dalla took it from her.
The bauble was heavier than Dalla expected and icy to the touch. Dalla kept her hold firm and brought it close to her face to see better.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Drop it,” said Kolfrosta.
“What?”
“Drop the bauble,” Kolfrosta repeated.
Dalla swallowed. Was this some sort of test to see if she would destroy something so beautiful? Would dropping the bauble make it explode and kill her instantly?
Well, there were worse ways to die. She dropped the bauble.
It shattered on the ground, and suddenly Dalla was transported somewhere else.
The castle room where royalty met with important contacts was not as well-known to Dalla as some of the other rooms in the castle. She’d never been allowed inside before this year. It was for the sovereign’s use only.
But she recognized the room, nonetheless, for the tapestry of a king with his hands on the shoulders of a gaunt man.
Rays of sunlight radiated from the king’s form, and the gaunt man was dressed in tatters, fallen to his knees as though lacking the strength to stand.
The idea was, she suspected, that the king granted the gaunt man some imagined magic of the royal touch to restore his health.
But it looked to her like the remaining life was being sapped from the gaunt man into the king’s healthy form.
In this royal meeting room, the summer fairy sat in the chair usually inhabited by the sovereign, and Dalla sat in one of the chairs reserved for visitors. She held the hand of a man seated next to her—her father, she realized. Her view was that of her mother’s.
“This is the full list?” Puck asked. He frowned at a scroll pulled taught between his hands. “I expected fewer than this.”
“Not the Wolves this year,” said the king. “They were late with their taxes.”
“And the Bears disrespected us when they visited last October,” said the queen, coldly.
“What about the rest of them?” Puck asked. “The commoners?”
The king waved his hand dismissively. “The usual.”
“Understood. I’ll try to make it unnoticeable.” Puck stood. The green pendant at his throat pulsed with light. “I will see you at the summer solstice, Your Majesties.”
Dalla’s parents nodded, and Puck disappeared in a cloud of pollen.
The vision ended there. Dalla shook her head, clutching her own arms. Inhabiting her mother’s consciousness was ungrounding.
“What do you know about him?” Kolfrosta asked.
“Puck?” Dalla said. “I know he is your summer counterpart to the seasonal cycle. He helps with the crops. On the summer solstice, we celebrate with him and then you come and kill him for the year. And then on the winter solstice, he’s…reincarnated, I guess, and he comes to you and kills you.”
Dalla had never witnessed this death; she’d only observed Puck imbibing excessively on human wine, dining to his heart’s content, receiving presents and prayers like a god the last day of his half of the cycle.
“Revisit that second point,” said Kolfrosta. “He helps with the crops? Is that what you saw just now?”
“I don’t understand their conversation,” Dalla admitted. “Or why he was sitting in the sovereign’s chair. When he met with me, I sat there, and he had no problem with it. We did not discuss anything of consequence.”
“Did you not?”
“It didn’t seem so,” said Dalla. “He asked me about my plan for this year’s harvest. I told him to support all of the staple crops—we need it. We have had some rough years lately.”
It was hard to talk with Kolfrosta watching her, rapt, but Dalla pressed on.
“He told me his magic was not strong enough to make every crop flourish. I asked if he could spread out the prosperousness of certain vital crops—potatoes and wheat and whatnot. He said yes. And then I asked him if he knew a way to stop you from taking my younger brothers after you kidnap me. And he said he had nothing to do with that and could not help.”
Kolfrosta smiled at this last part. “Did he follow through on his promise about the crops?”
Dalla hesitated. “He did, but I could tell he was displeased during our conversation. Not like the one from my mother’s memory.”
Kolfrosta approached Dalla, and Dalla stepped back. She was close, as though she meant to touch her. Dalla felt for the dagger under her cloak.
If Kolfrosta noticed Dalla going for her dagger, she made no move to stop her. Instead, she reached with both hands for the sides of Dalla’s head. Dalla forced herself to be still.
“May I?” asked Kolfrosta, and Dalla suspected she was asking permission to do more than touch her.
The proximity unarmed Dalla. They were close enough to kiss, and Dalla badly wanted to.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Kolfrosta placed her fingers gently on both sides of Dalla’s temples. Dalla closed her eyes as Kolfrosta pressed her forehead against Dalla’s. Kolfrosta’s breath came in light puffs, smelling of wassail and cinnamon.
What happened next was something like an unspooling.
A sensation like a wound ribbon being pulled out of Dalla’s ears—not painful, but slightly uncomfortable.
And then it was over. Kolfrosta stepped back and extended her arm.
A mist rippled around her fingers and coalesced into more and more of a sphere until it resembled the other baubles on the tree.
“You speak the truth,” Kolfrosta said. She handed the bauble back to Dalla. Dalla peered down at it, seeing flashes of the tapestry, and realized this was her memory, contained.
Which meant the other one had been her mother’s actual memory. Kolfrosta had put her forehead to her mother’s forehead and extracted it, the same as she did for Dalla.
Something about this made Dalla ill. She still held the memory in her own head, at least, but who knew what the fairy was capable of if she could take anything from Dalla’s mind like that? What secrets about Dalla’s family did Kolfrosta know?
Did she know things about Dalla’s own family that Dalla didn’t?
Dalla set the bauble on the tree, disturbed by its existence. The memory she’d watched played over in her head. The way her parents seemed cold, righteous, like they’d been wronged and they were going to do something about it.
“The Wolves and the Bears,” said Dalla suddenly. “They were talking about the other nobility, referring to them by their sigils. They were asking Puck to…punish them for not being obedient enough. By making their crops suffer.”
“And keeping the poorer farmers beholden to assistance from the nobility by killing their crops. Yes.”
“So, Puck was really asking me who should live and who should die this year. How bad the harvest should be.”
Dalla clutched her stomach. The sweets were not sitting well anymore. Her breaths were coming too fast, and her heart rate was spiking. One of her attacks, and she was about to have it in front of a fairy murderer.
“He was,” said Kolfrosta. She placed a firm, grounding hand on Dalla’s shoulder. “You don’t approve, I see.”
“Of course not,” Dalla choked out.
“I am sorry to have upset you,” said Kolfrosta. “I will have you taken back to your rooms.”
“Is that all?” Dalla gasped. “You’re not going to kill me?”
Invisible hands nudged Dalla toward the east staircase once more. Kolfrosta said something, but it was almost too quiet to make out. It sounded like, “I am not a murderer.”