The Fairy Letters: A FROST Series(TM) Novel by Kailin Gow Read Free Book Online

morning, I saw before me not the events of the day but rather memories
of the days that had been. When I breakfasted, I breakfasted with you, and
tasted the berries and oranges of the Summer Court even as I ate the thick
slabs of brown bread and heavy eggs of my own kingdom. When I drew and painted
and fenced in my lessons, I imagined that the figure beside me, teaching me,
accompanying me, was not that of my tutor or of my fellow-pupils, but rather of
you – your lithe form alongside me, accompanying me, whispering to me, giving
me strength.
    But
all that was soon to change. For as I grew from a lad into a warrior, my
concerns changed too. Art lessons, at my mother and father's behest, were
abandoned for lessons in military strategy; history of Feyland lessons were
abandoned in favor of more fighting lessons. The whole tone and tenor of the
palace was different, now. Where before, the solemnity of the Winter Court had
been somber, but beautiful, now the whole palace and its grounds reverberated
with danger. A war was coming. We could feel it. My mother and my father grew
colder and more distant than ever – I rarely saw them, so locked away were they
in the royal ante-chambers, trying desperately to arrange alliances with giants
or dragons to protect their interests, trying desperately to avoid war.
    It
had seemed, at first – a brief glimmer of hope – that war could be avoided. For
the first six months after the attack, my mother and father executed some
skillful diplomacy – the Summer Court gave up its claims on the furthest
reaches of the Spring lands, which officially were given up to Winter, and we
hoped against hope that this would be enough. After all, the palace gossip went
– it was Redleaf who was our enemy, not Flametail – not that the populace of
the Winter kingdom knew that.
    “If
he can get control of the kingdom,” I overheard my mother saying once, “perhaps
this could all be averted – but he hasn't got the strength...”
    And
then, almost seven months to the day after the first attack – the unthinkable
happened. A group of Winter fairies from the regions that had been attacked –
those who had lost their brothers and sons (and even – for Redleaf's army was
merciless – their sisters and daughters) decided that a diplomatic solution was
not enough, that the peace it promised did little to honor the memory of those
they had lost. They organized a militia ten thousand men strong, and then
marched through the Summer-controlled areas of Feyland, laying waste to Summer
settlements and Spring settlements alike, and even marching straight into the
Summer kingdom, spraying the lands with silver, transforming their pain and
their loss into gallons of fairy blood. Their desire for justice became
transmogrified into a desire for revenge, such that the damage they did – I am
ashamed to say – far outstripped the damage first done to us.
    “There
is nothing we can do now,” said my mother. “The people have chosen war. We can
either ignore it – and let the populace fight uncontrolled – or we can do our
best to do the thing with honor. We must fight.”
    Her
words were like a death-knell in my heart. I may have been a soldier, but I
still remembered with such fondness the palace of the Summer Court – the
various attendants and courtiers who had been so kind to me when I was a boy –
the jovial Plumseed, the shy but ever-sweet Allison, the flame-haired Rodney.
How could I go up against them in battle? And my heart twisted in agony, too,
at the thought of you – sequestered away in the human world, your thoughts
enchanted so that they were no more of me or of our love. How, I raged to
myself, could I bring myself to hurt those whom you had loved? How could I
betray you – my beloved – in that way?
    I
confess for the first year of the war I was a half-hearted fighter. I marched
alongside my father and Shasta in battle – for her part, Shasta was a far more
eager warrior, for she had not