Midnight Frost (8 page)

“
This
is the master swordsmaker?” I asked.

“Hush!” Kian smiled.

“Hello, dears,” the woman reappeared bearing a huge platter of tea. “Have you come for something special? A gift, perhaps? A nice decorative hunting dagger?”

Kian rose, bearing himself up to his full height. He had never looked handsomer, I thought, as he assumed the noble bearing of the Midnight Knight – his jaw set, his eyes sparkling with confidence. “Madam,” he said, in his most regal voice, “I have come as a stranger to you, but I come with a purpose. You made a sword and a suit once before, I believe. Now I ask you to make that same sword for me. The sword of the Midnight Knight.”

With a clatter, the woman's tea set fell to the ground and shattered.

“The...Midnight...Knight?” Her voice shook. “Then it is true! All that I have seen!” Her cheery, bustling demeanor had vanished. She seemed younger, more powerful, more serious. “My vision! Last night I had a dream – a dream that left me waking drenched in sweat. I dreamed that the Midnight Knight would reappear – just as you have come. That he would demand a return of his old armor, his old sword.”

“A return?”

The woman's eyes were glistening with tears. “Before he left on his last mission – the Knight came to me. He said 'Arielle, hold these for me. I will need them someday.' And he left – and nobody knew what happened to him, on that final battle. He drove the last of the Dark Hordes into the Gorge, and then he vanished. But I knew he wasn't dead, I did. Not gone! No, he'd said to me – he'd be back. Somehow. And here he is again – come to take his armor.”

Arielle ran into a back room of the house, and reappeared moments later, her arms buckling under the weight of a heavy set of armor. Logan and Kian sprang to their feet to help her, but she waved them away.

“I have been crafting these chains long enough not to need any aid!” she said. “Now, my Knight, will you put these on?”

She helped Kian fasten each piece of the armor – the black chain mail, the smooth emerald-colored trim – to his body. She placed the visor, covering his face, upon his head, scrubbing the opal gemstone upon the head until it shone. “It fits perfectly,” she cried, as Kian raised the sword above his head, allowing it to slice effortlessly through the air. “Hansel, look!” As she shouted, an old man came scurrying in.

“It is!” he cried. “You were right!”

“Hansel told me it was just a dream!” Arielle wiped away her tears on her husband's tunic. “But I told him – it was a vision! You look just like him – as he was....all those years ago. I knew it even before he put on the armor. His heart. His spirit. I knew from the moment I saw him...the Knight's magic. I knew he'd never leave me, my Knight! I knew he'd come back – in times as troubled as these. To give hope to the people of Feyland – at last!”

I couldn't see Kian's face from beneath the visor, but I imagined he was as surprised as we were. We had expected to perform a deception – a necessary one, but a deception nonetheless. Instead, Kian was being told that he
was
the Midnight Knight.

“I never thought I'd see the day!” Hansel was weeping, too. “But if you are the Knight, then you will need...” He led us all outside into the garden. “Your steed! Steel!”

On command, an enormous noble horse, his coat marbled white and grey, bounded towards us. He stopped right in front of Kian, bowing his head.

“Steel! Your master's returned!” Hansel said. “After so long...he recognizes you still!”

Logan and I looked on in wonder as the horse nuzzled against Kian's arms.

“Don't let us detain you!” Arielle helped Kian into the saddle. “Go – go and fulfill your destiny! Save Feyland!” She squeezed Kian's hand tightly. “I always knew you'd come back.”

Hansel patted Kian on the back. “It has been an honor, my Knight.”

“Care to join me, Breena?” Kian extended a hand, and I leaped onto the back of the horse, trying to force my arms around Kian's thoroughly uncomfortably metal waist. Logan morphed into a wolf and ran alongside as we set off.

“Can that woman really have known the Midnight Knight?” I asked. “If he lived so long ago...”

“That village,” said Kian, “is called Everlast – and time and death have never touched it. Its magic is strong – nothing can harm those who were born on the mountain. I think that woman really did know the Midnight Knight – certainly, all the stories about him say that his armor was indeed made by the Forger of Everlast.”

“And you don't think...what she said...?”

Kian shook his head. “She believes in the story,” he said. “Like I told you – she's waited her whole life for the Knight to return to her, and she wanted it so badly that she believed me straight-off. It was the power of the story – nothing more.”

But as I clung tight to Kian, I felt that this wasn't true. Something in my magic – the voice of the old queens, their power – told me that there was more to Kian, more to the Midnight Knight, than a mere story.

Chapter 8

T
he next step was to gather allies.

“We need more of us,” Kian said as we rode onwards, “more fairies that claim their loyalty neither to Summer nor to Winter, but to peace as a whole, to fairy unity.” He turned to me, stroking my hair. “Remember what Tamara said,” he whispered to me. “Your destiny –
our
destiny – one Feyland. United.”

I smiled, but I was unsure what to think. I knew I believed in peace – that my destiny was to unite Feyland. Yet my heart longed to return to the Summer Palace, to my own land, my own magic. I thought of my father fighting, of my beloved Court besieged, my orange blossoms set aflame, my flowers cut from their roots, salt thrown in the earth. I couldn't help but feel anger at the Winter fairies who had agreed to summon and fight alongside the Dark Hordes, even as I knew such anger would get me nowhere. I couldn't tell Kian, of course – after all, he was a Winter Prince, and I loved him in spite of that. But I couldn't help but feel unsure as Kian suggested we divert our course back to the Summer Court a second time, in order to pass through some Spring lands.

“There are dangerous roads here,” said Kian. “This land is inhabited by dragons. But my friend Jeremy has a castle here. He is in exile here – he may be able to help us, to join our cause.”

“Can you trust him?” Logan asked. “To keep your secret.”

“Jeremy is one of my oldest friends,” Kian said. “I would trust him with my life. In any case, the tale of the Midnight Knight must spread among the Summer and Winter fairies alike if it is going to work. We need to give it time to reach the ears of the fighters. If we turned up at the Summer Court tomorrow, few would notice – few would see my armor. But if we begin by making a name for ourselves in the countryside – gathering aid from our fellow warriors – then the Dark Hordes will presently hear of it. Is that acceptable to you, Breena?”

I nodded glumly. I could see Kian's point, and I knew he was probably right. Going back to the Summer Court now would be too dangerous – a suicide mission. The Dark Hordes were strong against the Summer Court – the palace was barely holding up under siege – and there was little I could do on my own to change that. My father possessed the same magic as I did – the magic of the Summer throne – my return would only put us all at risk. But, I thought sadly, perhaps it was better to risk my life, to stare down death a third time, at home with my family, rather than riding through the countryside like this, in relative safety. I couldn't get rid of my guilt, no matter how hard I tried. Was I meant to be here – in this false idyll – riding through hills and dales and valleys with the two men I loved most, while so many were dying in the heart of Feyland?

“Fear not, Breena,” said Kian, as if he heard my thoughts. “Your destiny is to unite Feyland – you can't do that if you're dead. This is the only way.”

And so I reluctantly agreed to visit the village of Vineseed, at the very edge of the Spring lands, where Kian's Jeremy was said to be in exile.

“He angered my mother many years ago,” said Kian. “When I was but a young boy, and he a much older one. I looked up to him when I was a lad. I idolized him. And then he found love...love with a girl of Summer.” He smiled sadly. “The same old story.”

“What happened?”

“He was banished from the Winter lands altogether by my mother,” said Kian. “Left penniless, a wanderer. He tried to convince the woman he loved to escape with him beyond the Crystal River, but she refused. She couldn't bear to leave her country in a time of need. And so she perished at the Battle of the Silver Bridge – alongside my father. She was standing on that same bridge when it collapsed.”

His face darkened. I knew how he hated to be reminded of that terrible day – of his mother's still more terrible choice.

“In her grief,” he said, “my mother forgave him – thinking Jeremy had suffered enough. But he could never truly return home after that. He was never really the same. And so he returned to Winter – but in name only. He build his manor on the very edge of the Winter territories in Spring – as far from the court as possible, and renounced war altogether. He would not fight for Winter – who had killed his love – and he would not fight for Summer, his mortal enemies.”

“And you think he'll fight now?” Logan asked.

“He is a brave man, Jeremy,” said Kian. “And a trustworthy one. To avenge Rosanna's death, I believe he will fight against the greatest enemy of all – war. He will fight hatred, anger, fear. He will fight under the neutral banner of united Feyland.”

And so we made our way to Vineseed.

We were not two day's journey off when we arrived at a narrow gorge in a rock – the road to the village seemed to choke off, so that we each had to go single-file through the passage. “Careful,” Kian said, “dragons are not uncommon in this part of the...”

A blast of fire cut him off, as a ball of flame went flying through the air and came to land in a smoky puff at his feet. Steel whinnied and reared up into the air.

Logan shifted into human form, grabbing a sword from the saddlebag.

We looked up, gasping with terror as we saw what stood before us. Two gleaming cat-yellow eyes, each the size of small boulders, stared down at us. A long, scaly neck reached up ten feet into the air. And a set of sharp, glimmering teeth leered right at us.

“Run!” Logan shouted, morphing into a wolf as he did so, his sword clattering to the ground.

“No use fighting!” Kian said, kicking Steel and leaning forward as Steel narrowly missed another fire-bolt. “Not with a dragon this large – we've just got to outrun him.”

My heart began beating faster as I clung tightly to Kian, willing Steel to canter harder, jump higher, as fire began raining towards us. The dragon gave a terrible, strangled roar as it whipped its tail around towards us – Logan only narrowly missing its spikes by a judiciously high jump. The dragon began flapping its wings in the air, rising up above us, its neck arching towards us as smoke ebbed from its nostrils...

“Hurry,” Kian said. “Breena, you start flying – and fast! I'll ride the horse out of here.”

“And Logan?”

Logan let off a howl as he kept running.

“Wolves are fast and agile, Breena – it's you I'm worried about. Get out – now! Two on the horse will slow us down!”

I closed my eyes and willed my wings to work, feeling my muscles ache as my body rose higher and higher into the air. I tried to avoid the dragon's flight, feinting left as the dragon whirled right. I looked down with horror as the dragon flew low, aiming straight for Kian, straight for Logan...

“No!”

The fireball just missed Kian and the horse, but hit Logan square in his hind legs. With a howl, Logan collapsed, morphing back into human form. The human Logan groaned and sprang to his feet, but it was too late. Blood was pouring from the wound.