Ever Winter (16 page)

“I’m not doing anything. I learned my lesson with Shade. Women don’t tend to like being charmed by a faery. I only wanted to know if you love someone.”

She sank onto the edge of his bed and threw him a confused look. She wanted him to come closer again, make her forget everything. Shade was her best friend, but her feelings for Soap were turning into something she might not be able to resist. “Besides my family, and Shade of course.” She shook her head. “No. I’m not in love with anyone.”

Soap walked over to sit next to her on the bed, lifting her chin up to bring her gaze toward him. “Do you know what it’s like to love someone who will never love you back? Not the way you’d want them to?” Brisa shook her head again, tears glistening in her eyes. “I have to let her go. I don’t want to, but, she’s made her choice, though she hasn’t voiced it out loud. I feel it in every fiber of my body. I feel it burn inside me, like a volcano bursting, and it hurts, more than any dagger could.”

With that his lips were on Brisa’s and she kissed him back, feverishly as though the world had vanished and left them only to each other. His kiss felt like fire and he pulled her closer. She let him, for since she’d met him on the steps of Shade’s house, she could say she’d always known that he was going to mean something to her, more than anything she could’ve imagined or hoped to control. Giving him what he wanted was the easy part as his lips explored her skin, down her neck and back across to her lips. His kiss was intoxicating, like a drunken stupor she could not hope to break from.

Not that she wanted to. This was everything she’d wanted, hoped for. Soaps fiery scent sent chills down her body and her breathing felt stolen. He’d stolen her heart without her noticing. The way he slipped his hand around the small of her back and lifted her into his arms, shifting her deeper into the bed.

Brisa prayed that Shade would be understanding and forgive them both.

Chapter Sixteen

HOW MANY DAYS
had gone by? Shade stared out the entrance of The Great Divide as the snow flurries hurried by, whipping in the wind and landing in piles upon piles of snowdrifts. The land was all glistening white, like a million diamond jewels embedded into the earth. Time didn’t exist here. Nothing but her, Dylan and Corb. Corb was rarely there, always away with duties. Duties to who? What else existed beyond this white abyss that Shade longed to remember and forever couldn’t?

She enjoyed her time with Dylan. They had found a library filled with books, some ancient and crumbling, others not so old, but nothing from the modern world. Shade knew the literature of the current time was missing but couldn’t, for the life of her, remember a single title of a book she’d read recently. It bugged her to say the least, but Dylan would pull her away from the dusty volumes and played chess to pass the hours. His company was comforting and she never felt happier. Or so it felt that way to her.

This particular day, she was in one of the atriums, where frozen trees and flowers littered the room under ice and covered in icicles. She wondered if they were alive under all that ice. Maybe they were. It seemed not a lot died in Faerie, everything was alive in one way or another. Today, she had the urge overcome her to enter this atrium where the light illuminated the vast room from the skylights above and the flurries floated down gently, sticking to her hair.

Here she sat down on the frozen ground and began to dig. She dug and dug with nothing but her own hands and a rock she found partially sticking up from the ice until she hit the dirt under the floor. Once she got an inch down into the permafrost, she reached up and plucked the acorn-like seed from her necklace and gently laid it in the hole. Covering it up with the mix of dirt and snow she patted the site down and got back up wondering what exactly she had just done.

Staring at the spot she had buried the seed. She hoped it would come to her, her actions baffled her and she couldn’t even reason why she felt compelled to do what she’d done.
I’m losing my mind
, she thought. She turned to leave and ran right into Dylan.

“You okay? I was looking for you.” He gave her a hug and then observed the pile she had just patted down. “What are you doing? Hey, where’s that acorn charm? Did it fall off your necklace?”

Shade shook her head. “No, I buried the seed.”

Confused, Dylan glanced between her and the pile. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. I felt like I had to.”

“Do you know what that seed is for?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.” He shrugged, taking her hand in his as he led her out. Walking the halls was a favorite of theirs. It made the place feel not so enclosed. “Maybe you do know, but you just can’t remember. Like subconsciously.”

She nodded, feeling a bit foolish for her unexplained actions.

The rumble of the ground made them freeze in their steps. Was it an earthquake? She gripped onto Dylan and they both turned around back toward the atrium where they had come from.

The sound of ice breaking and shattering made them want to run, but after a minute, the noise faded and all was silent once more.

“What was that?” Shade asked.

“I have no idea. Come on.” He pulled her toward the atrium to investigate the ruckus.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she mumbled. Unsure of what they’d find. At the entrance to the atrium, they peeked around the doorway to find a completely changed room. “Oh wow!”

At that they both ran inside to find an enormous oak tree, full grown and extending its branches high up above them and out of the roof of the castle. Its grey leaves looked dusty but the overall color of it was a metallic grey. Its majestic branches stretched across the room, filling it with its reach.

“What is that?”

“It’s an ancient oak of Faerie! I’ve seen only one other before, but I can’t remember where.” Dylan wrinkled his nose as he dug through his memories, failing to come up with the appropriate one. “No matter. I just remembered that they are supposed to be sacred and offer something to those who are in need.”

“Wow.” Was all Shade could muster. She reached out to touch the smooth bark at the base and marveled how gigantic it was. How did it grow so fast? The seed she’d planted had been so tiny. “It’s beautiful.”

“What’s this?” Corb’s brash voice echoed across the cavernous room, making both of them jump. They gripped onto each other as the Ice King walked toward them and the oak tree. “Where did this come from?”

“I planted the seed I had on my necklace. I didn’t know what would happen. This tree just sprung out of it.” Shade offered. Her voice cracked as the rage on Corb’s face slowly faded.

“I see,” he answered back. He scanned the large trunk of the tree before landing his eyes back on them. “Do you know what it does?”

They both shook their heads and the Ice King sneered at their ignorance. “Good.” He turned and left, leaving them baffled at his reactions.

“What was that about? What’s he mean by that?” Shade whispered. Dylan shrugged and turned toward the great oak tree.

“I don’t know, but he doesn’t want us to know either.” He reached out to touch the tree but nothing happened. The great branches above swayed with the wind caressing its limbs.

“Maybe we shouldn’t know.”

“Maybe. Come on
.” He led her out of the atrium once more and back to the library.

Corb paced the throne room, exasperated from the discovery of the great oak tree in his atrium. He was powerless to remove it. Its magic was earthbound and older than he was. He wondered if Shade and the Teleen warrior really didn’t know what it was or what it could do. They shouldn’t. Corb’s magic was powerful enough to make them forget such things. The Teleen would’ve known otherwise, there was one which grew
as part of their cavern home.

The great oak trees of Faerie were rare and stood hundreds of feet tall. The silver metallic sheen to their bark made them stand out from all the trees around them. In Faerie, they offered sanctuary, as in, they could teleport a person anywhere they needed to go. If one simply wished for home, it would take them to another ancient oak tree closest to where their home was.

There was one ancient oak tree in the Teleen Caverns, hidden in an open cavern in one of the many vast tunnels of the underground city of Teleen. If Dylan knew about it, he sure didn’t seem to remember it. Which was just as well, Corb couldn’t risk them discovering what the tree really was: a portal out of The Great Divide.

It did, however, make him extremely nervous. There had been no way out prior to the tree springing from its roots in his atrium. How did Shade know the seed around her neck could be planted? He’d seen her ampules of memory and the acorn-like seed dangling at her throat but he couldn’t remove the charms, it was forbidden in Faerie. To try to remove them would send him flying from a jolt of power, not from Shade, but the land itself. Memory was precious. And memory charms, like hers, were indestructible unless she took them off willingly, herself.

Something must have told her about the seed. How else could’ve she known about its magic? Maybe she hadn’t known. Maybe the wretched seed had called to the earth and she must have been drawn to simply obey it. She probably had no idea why she buried it.

This revelation made Corb laugh out loud as he paced the throne room. He was still wearing his traveling gear, all black worn leather and sheaths for his daggers. Exhausted he spun to go to his chambers and rest. But Shade was standing before him, vibrant in an ethereal way. Her long white gown seemed to float slightly about her, swaying in an invisible breeze. Her long, dark hair was down, laced with frost as she watched him.

“What do you want with us?” A voice full of whisper drifted from her cherry lips. She was stunning, and for a moment, Corb was disarmed. She reminded him of Kilara so much. Her stance, her long flowing hair, though Kilara’s was a lighter color than Shade’s and she had tanner skin. Still. The beauty and power emitted from this halfling was intense and spurred his senses.

“Where is your Teleen slave?” He remarked, hoping to snap her out of her sort-of trance.

“He’s resting. I left once I knew he’d be completely asleep.”

Corb laughed, finding her amusing. “It must be a dire request to have left your true love behind in such a manner.” Approaching her, he pushed his own power against hers, testing the boundaries of her control.

She wavered, her eyes coming in to focus as she felt the prickles of his icy power. Gasping she stepped away, looking as if she just realized she was in the throne room, alone, with him. “Answer me.”

“I don’t have to answer to you. You have to answer to me. Where can I find Kilara? Where is she hiding as she slumbers?”

“Who’s Kilara?” Shade sucked in a breath and continued to step back until her back was pressed against the polished frozen wall. Its freezing temperature didn’t affect her anymore, and she welcomed its cool, solid surface.