CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Garrick was on his feet, hunting knife in hand, before the door even swung open that morning. I was moved by Garrick’s protective gesture even if we both knew it was futile. But it wasn’t Nerissa or Preston—at least, not at first. A guard entered with a tray of food, leaving it wordlessly on the bed beside me.
My stomach churned.
“You should eat,” Garrick said. “Restore your strength after fighting that demon.”
“What about you?”
Hesitating, Garrick sat on the edge of the bed, keeping plenty of distance between us. But despite our efforts, neither of us managed to do more than pick at the food.
When footsteps approached again, Garrick leapt to his feet, knife firm in his grip.
The door swung inward, and Preston’s piercing eyes immediately darted between Garrick and me. A derisive grin overtook his features. He stalked into the room, sniffing. “Garrick, you stink of human—and mortal, you smell of him.” He shook his head. “The fact that you can even bear to touch her...” He trailed off, flicking his fingers without even sparing Garrick another glance.
Stiffening, the wolf shifter lowered his weapon, his expression melting from fury to cool indifference. I sucked in a shaky breath. He was under Preston’s control now.
“You should know better, Fiancée,” Preston continued, stepping even closer to me, his presence looming. Though my heartbeat picked up, I refused to let my growing fear show on my face, instead setting my jaw and forcing a mask of calm in place. “No one touches what is mine.”
“I don’t belong to you,” I said, standing slowly. “I don’t belong to anyone.”
“Garrick,” Preston snapped. A single gesture from the king had Garrick reaching to gather his hunting knife and stalking toward me. There was no sign of the man I knew. He seemed like a mere husk, a puppet forced to do Preston’s bidding, as he seized my wrist and twisted me around until my back was to both men.
My heart twinged. I’d expected Preston to inflict some sort of hurt on me—I hadn’t anticipated him using Garrick to harm me.
Still, I didn’t resist, didn’t cry out. I couldn’t let Preston know he was winning, couldn’t let him gain a single more ounce of pleasure out of my suffering. He could enjoy watching Garrick harm me with his knife, but he wouldn’t hear me sniffle or beg.
I fought the urge to tremble as cool metal pressed against the skin at the base of my neck, hesitating before slicing downward through my tunic. The sound of tearing fabric rang out in my ears too loudly in the quiet, and cool air nipped against my back. I ground my teeth together at the first press of the tip of Garrick’s knife, the first well of warm blood, the first sting of breaking flesh. Tears burned the back of my throat as he worked slowly, methodically, one firm hand on my waist.
This isn’t him. This isn’t him.
Closing my eyes, I reminded myself of the ways I’d pretended back home when the cutting words of others had hurt, and I’d refused to let them see. The complacency I’d settled on my face. The distant places I’d let my mind wander. Once, I’d gone back to times when my stepfather had been alive and home had felt safe and loving, or I’d daydreamed about the next dress I’d create.
This time, I was back in Garrick’s arms, cradled against his chest and listening to his heartbeat as we huddled together for warmth in that cave, back when we’d still been on the run from Preston and Nerissa. I was under the stars again, studying the constellations, listening to Garrick share their stories. I was training with him, learning how to defend myself while silently appreciating his smooth, graceful movements, all the while knowing that as long as I was near him, I was safe.
I tensed every muscle in my body against the pain growing in my back, not wanting Preston to see me tremble or flinch away. More blood trickled down my back, wetting the end of my ruined tunic. I counted breaths, trying to keep the memories in the forefront of my mind, warm and soothing and vivid. Someday those memories will be my life again, I vowed.
At last, Garrick released me, and I turned, holding my tunic to keep it from falling off my shoulders as I peered at Preston defiantly. I couldn’t tell from the look in his cold eyes if he was satisfied or angry at my lack of reaction. Out of the corner of my eye, Garrick breathed heavily as the bloody knife and his shoulders slumped forward. I refused to glance at him to gauge his reaction or see if Preston still controlled him. Devastation or indifference—I wasn’t sure I could bear either expression in that moment.
After a long, silent moment, Preston narrowed his eyes. “I’ll send Aspen to help you clean up. Hurry. We will return to Northelm to announce our engagement. There’s no time to waste.”
Back throbbing, I didn’t respond or even move my head. I simply stared at him, praying he could read the silent challenge in my glare. But if he saw it, he didn’t react at all.
“Come, Garrick,” Preston snapped, and he swept out of the room, Garrick trailing rigidly.
The door slammed behind them, and I was left for a few minutes in blissful silence, able to sink on my bed and breathe deeply, forcing back my tears. Unfortunately, my solitude didn’t last long, and a knock on the door forced me to stand and shuffle forward to cautiously pull it open.
Aspen was perched on a guard’s shoulder, her arms crossed and her expression crinkled. There was a heavy bag hanging from one shoulder, though I couldn’t possibly fathom how something small enough for a pixie to carry could hold anything that would help me.
As soon as her dark eyes noticed my disheveled appearance, she stood hastily, the weight of her swinging bag making her stumble a little. “Would you let me in, Your Majesty?” she asked, gesturing toward my hand.
With one still awkwardly holding the back of my tunic together, I extended my free hand and let Aspen drop down into it. She stood there for a moment, blinking up at me, before shooing me forward. “Get inside, close the door. We have work to do, Florentia Silverfrost!”
I hastened to obey her command, kicking the door shut with my foot. “Ren.”
“What?” she asked.
“Please call me Ren.”
The pixie smiled up at me. “Very well, Ren.”
As soon as I’d settled onto the bed, Aspen hopped out of my hand and onto the covers, tugging the bag off her shoulder. “You might want to slide over a little,” she said without any preamble.
Frowning in confusion—the tiny pixie had plenty of space—I did as she asked, moving closer to the edge of the bed.
In a blink, the pixie I’d been studying vanished, and a full-grown woman sat beside me in her place. She appeared exactly like Aspen—smooth, dark skin, glittering eyes, and bouncy curls. Even the bag she’d been holding had grown, now resting in her lap.
I gaped. “How—what—I don’t understand,” I spluttered.
Aspen laughed, the sound light and airy. “Have you never heard about pixies’ ability to shapeshift?”
“Then why do you spend so much time in a little body, being carried to and fro?”
Aspen fluttered her lashes. “If you could be ferried about all day like royalty, wouldn’t you choose to be?” When I merely continued to frown, she waved a hand and laughed again. “My smaller form is my natural one. Being pixie-sized is most comfortable for me.” Her expression grew solemn. “Now, turn and let me see your back.”
“I figured you would hate me,” I choked out. “You’re only doing this at the king’s bidding, aren’t you?”
Aspen shook her head. “If you mean because of what you did to Isolde...” She rolled her eyes. “She wasn’t my friend. She was a notorious court gossip, and with her access to every corner of the palace because of her healing magic, she was a useful informant. But truthfully, I tolerated her. She didn’t have an unselfish bone in her body, and her cruelty goes against a healer’s nature.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise, but Aspen gestured impatiently for me to move.
Turning to the side, I allowed her gentle fingers to pull my ruined tunic away from my body. A sharp intake of breath told me that she was horrified by whatever she saw.
“King Preston is a wretch,” she practically snarled, the most hostile I’d ever heard the pixie’s sweet voice turn. “Why did he do this?”
“I—” I hesitated, swallowing. If Aspen had no qualms about speaking ill of the king, then surely I could trust her. Right? “He promised if he could smell Garrick on me, there would be punishment. Garrick was tasked with spending the night here as my guard, and I woke him when I had a nightmare. He came to comfort me, and...”
“And this was the king’s sadistic retaliation,” Aspen muttered. “He and Nerissa set this up in order to entrap you. They expected this to happen. They love to play mind games and set the board so their victims always lose. And then he carved into you.”
“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—their emblem. 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 carve Preston into 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’t my hunter,” 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 humans that way. 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 any of 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 as Garrick 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.”
My heart throbbed in my temples. “They don’t use it often, do they?”
Aspen shook her head, mouth tightening into a firm line. “They prefer to slowly torment the ones they want to punish rather than give them swift deaths.” She gestured to me. “It’s why they’ll taunt you, play mind games with you, treat you like their plaything, and use others to hurt you long before they’d ever use their own magic against you.”
I swallowed thickly. “And yet, you’re here—serving them?”
Aspen glanced down at her swinging legs. “At first, I thought they were the heroes everyone claimed they were. But as the years passed, I saw their cruelty against humans and fae alike. They’re bloodthirsty and selfish, but you already know that. I’ve stayed as a spy, trying to help the mortals enslaved here like your father once did, and hoping to gather information to use against them. To condemn them so even the Silverfrost citizens would agree the siblings must be dethroned. But Preston and Nerissa have also mistreated the fae here, and a growing number of citizens are becoming more and more dissatisfied. It’s made my mission of gathering rebels together quite simple over the years. We have amassed numbers in your absence, biding our time in hopes we can organize a coup.” She studied me, eyes piercing. “I was also waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me? When we first met, you said I was a weak human you didn’t think could be a Silverfrost.”
Aspen shook her head. “I said that some people thought that, for Isolde’s benefit. I didn’t want anyone to know my allegiance was with you and not King Preston and Queen Nerissa. Anyway, I tried to search for you on my own, but I can’t remain in any form but my natural one for very long. And a tiny pixie can’t travel far distances in secret all that well. Instead, I started to send Garrick out to nearby human towns to search for you. Not to tell you who you were or bring you to Silverfrost, but more to ensure you were all right, safely away from the fae...at least until we rebels were ready to talk to you about your origins.”
I recalled the way Garrick’s eyes had latched onto me that first night across the ballroom, the way he’d seemed enthralled by my unusual hair. He’d known. He’d known who I was all along.
“He didn’t tell me,” I said. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Well, he wouldn’t have been sure who you were, not right away. And then everything went wrong,” Aspen said, wringing her hands. “We’d hoped to eventually share information with you while you remained safely in the human world, but the night Garrick met you, when your brother gave you to the king and queen...”
I cringed. “I was brought to Silverfrost before I was ready.”
“Garrick did what I would have wanted him to do—tried to take you to the sanctuary of another, kinder fae kingdom. You could have hidden in Ashwood for years, if needed, until we had a solid plan and were ready to reveal you to Silverfrost as our true queen. But unfortunately, the royal siblings control him. Because of this, Garrick was never supposed to travel with you...only to find you, simply because he’s our best hunter. We’d agreed that when the time came for you to leave the mortal world, we would send someone who couldn’t be controlled to bring you to our kingdom.”
“How did that happen? Preston and Nerissa’s ability to control Garrick, I mean?”
“In those early days, Garrick—like me—thought Preston and Nerissa were heroes. Garrick’s entire family had been visiting the castle the night of the slaughter. They died alongside the Silverfrosts. Garrick was only a boy, and he felt it was his duty to his family to pledge himself to our new king and queen, as if serving them was the best way to avenge his family’s deaths, since the demons can’t ever be killed, and can only be banished back to the underworld without Silverfrost blood.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s why they can control him without glamour.”
Aspen nodded slowly. “It is a blood oath, the most powerful oath one fae can make to another. He gave them his life—quite literally. Whenever he’s in close enough proximity to either of them, they can control his body, even his words. His vow to them can only be broken in death.”
My mind whirled. No wonder Garrick had said I couldn’t save him, that he was doomed to serve them forever. “There’s no other way out?”
She shook her head sadly. Regretfully.
“There’s something else you should know,” the pixie added, casting a glance across the room, toward my bed where my tray of food rested. “In food, forget-me-nots don’t affect you the same way. You can consume a small amount of the flowers without feeling pain, but once digested, they destroy your ability to access your magic, the same way they do if they touch your skin. Preston and Nerissa have been drugging you.”
My eyes widened. “How do you know this?”
“I tasted a bite of your food when I was in your room back when Isolde healed you. I couldn’t shift for hours. Unfortunately, I don’t always have access to your rooms, and the king and queen only allow certain servants to bring your food. I can try to sneak some food to you from the kitchens, but when I can’t, you’ll still need to keep up your strength.”
I frowned contemplatively. “I’ve managed to access my magic sometimes even while eating their food.”
Aspen nodded. “We’ll find a way to overcome them. I think—”
A sharp knock interrupted us, and Aspen scowled.
“It’s time,” the muffled voice of a guard said from the other side of the door. “The king and queen are returning to the castle, and they’ve summoned you to leave immediately with them.”