Spring Frost (10 page)

          “Oh no you don’t!” Alistair whipped around, his hand shooting out towards Logan’s face. Instantly Logan was thrown backwards, hurling through the air until he crashed with a sickening crunch against the stone walls of the palace.

          “Logan, no!” I cried. Logan lolled forward, blood pouring from his forehead. Kian rushed to his side, feeling his pulse.

          “He’s alive!” he called. “But weak. Alistair, you need to…”

          “He stands in my way!” roared Alistair. “He took the only thing I’ve ever loved…”

          “What are you…”

          “Enough!” An unearthly female voice silenced him, echoing through the room. We all looked in surprise to the source of this great booming voice. It was Rose, speaking in a voice that was not her own. “I said, enough!”

          Alistair shot black fire at her, but Rose walked forward, unaffected. She calmly walked towards Alistair and placed her hands around his head. He struggled and shouted, but she was undeterred. She began to sing – chanting in a melodious voice, in a language whose words I did not know. Slowly the light coming from Alistair’s eyes and fingers began to dim; a second – white – light appeared around them both. Rodney, Shasta and I looked on in shock and silence. What was Rose – little Rose? – doing?

          Alistair began to go slack, his body releasing the tension as he slipped slowly to the ground. His eyes closed and he began to hum softly, rocking back and forth. Rose tightened her grip on Alistair’s head, her chanting growing wilder and louder as she held him to her breast like a child.

          Alistair slumped over in what looked like a calm sleep. The lights – black and white – vanished.

          “What was that?” Rodney looked confused. “Rose, what did you do?”

          Rose looked at him with a vacant expression, saying nothing.

          “Logan?” I rushed to Logan’s side. “Are you okay?” As soon as I touched him I felt his electric warmth seeping through me. “What happened?”

          “Is she safe?” Logan was returning to consciousness. “Rose – is she safe?”

          “She’s right here, she’s fine. She saved you.”

          Logan opened his eyes and looked around. Rose took another step forward. She looked older than before, I noticed – her hair and skin and eyes seemed to be glowing with life and strength and power. This wasn’t the same Rose I remembered from my first few visits to the palace. This was a woman of great strength, great magic. Magic that might – I felt, somewhere deep down within me – be greater than my own.

          “Rose…” Logan looked up at Rose, his eyes wide. “I wanted to…watch out!”

          But he was too late. Alistair had sprung to his feet again and had seized Rose by the neck, a sword – stolen from one of Kian’s guards – in his hand.  He placed the metal against her throat and she cried out, struggling in vein.

          “This isn’t Rose!” Alistair spat. “But the Dark Sorceress herself!” He looked around at us. “She’s the Sorceress. She’s the reason the twin suns disappeared – she’s the cause of the destruction and death that followed. She’s the evil witch behind all our troubles – she possessed me, made me love her, made me jealous, made me crazy…”

          “No!” Rose cried out, struggling harder. “It’s not true. I never…”

          “She thinks she can possess me, make me crazy – but she’s wrong! I know the truth about her now. About her dark powers. She thinks she can just wrap me around her little finger and make me love her. Well, she can’t! I’m stronger than all that. I’m stronger than her…”

          “Alistair, please!” Rose screamed.

          “Let her go, Alistair!” Logan stepped forward.

          “Now,” Alistair said, his eyes glinting with an evil glow. “In order to remove the poison from me – and from Breena –we have to extinguish and destroy its source. My alchemical training has taught me that much. I’ll burn her! We need to destroy the Sorceress completely – make a bonfire of burning rowan oak branches and reduce her to ashes forever.”

          “Alistair!” Rose tried to scream, but Alistair tightened his grip on her throat and it came out instead in a choked sigh.

          “So,” Alistair said. “What do you say to starting a bonfire?”

Chapter 11

         
I
looked back and forth between Rose and Alistair in shock. Could what Alistair was saying be true? Rose – the Sorceress? Surely not! She looked so sweet, so innocent – surely she couldn’t be another embodiment of Clariss’ wicked power. “How do you know she’s the Sorceress?” I asked Alistair. “From the likes of it, it sounds like you’re the one whose judgement’s been clouded recently. You just attacked Logan – why should we believe anything you say?”

          Alistair smiled sadly. To my surprise, his entire expression changed. Moments before he had looked animalistic, bestial. But now his sandy golden hair shone bright; his eyes were light and clear. His tanned skin took on a golden glow. He looked handsomer than before, calmer. The look of rage in his eyes subsided. He looked, I thought, like the old Alistair whom I had previously known. Kian and I traded glances of perplexity: had Alistair been healed? Right now, he looked normal; I could see no sign of evil magic in his eyes.

          I blinked, trying to clear my eyes. Was I seeing right? The Alistair that stood before me now – sword in hand notwithstanding – looked far more like the normal Alistair than any incarnation I had seen since he had first read the book.

          “I’m sorry for my behavior…” Alistair bowed low. “Queen Breena, I didn’t mean to frighten you – or any of you! I’m doing this for your own safety. For our own safety. Just moments ago the poison finally loosed its hold on me, released its grip. But I’ve been wrong about the source. I’ve been combing through the Book, thinking that it was the Book that was poisoning me all along. But I was wrong. I’ve been looking through the Book and I stumbled on a similar potion to the one my uncle gave to you, looking for a way to cure myself. Just a few moments ago I attempted to make the potion with the secret ingredient – and it must have only just started working.”

          “But you just started fighting Logan!” I stepped forward. “Hardly, it must be considered, the actions of a fully sane man. If you did that after taking the potion…”

          “Breena, please!” Rose was calling. She squirmed against his grip, a look of terror on her face. “Breena, please help me!”

          “I was angry – overwhelmed – jealous…” Alistair looked at me. “I saw him and Rose – or at least, I thought I saw…these images…these visions…these veils over my brain.”

          “I told you there was nothing to be jealous about!” shouted Rose. “Now you let me go, or I swear by Autumn Springs I’ll give you a reason to be upset!”

          “I thought you were my Rose,” Alistair sighed. “My sweet Rose – my beloved. But now I know you’re an imposter. You’re the Dark Sorceress. The potion has liberated me – allowed me to see beyond your glamor. You think you’ve inflicted your poison in me – it brought me closer to you, at first. It made me hear your thoughts, your wishes.  Made me keep an eye on Breena so that you could sense her whereabouts. But I fought it! I used your book to fight your influence. Now I can use the knowledge I have gleaned to see you as you really are…”

          Logan let out an astonished groan. “No wonder…”

          “No wonder what?”

          Logan turned red. “Nothing – only…”

          “What is it?”

          “Rose – with me…it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t like she usually was. Like…Clariss…”

          ‘What are you saying?” Alistair turned to Logan, whipping his head around. “Is it true, then? Did Rose make a move on you?”

          Logan hesitated. “No,” he said finally. “Not a move – It wasn’t a move at all. She was only being kind. Comforting me. I was upset about what happened; she was only being caring, being kind. Asking me if anything was wrong, how I was feeling, innocent stuff like that.”

          “Innocent stuff?” Alistair looked dubious. “Are you sure?”

          “I’m sure.” Logan waited for Alistair to look away again.

          “Kind and caring?” I whispered into Logan’s ear, quietly enough to ensure that Alistair couldn’t hear us. “That doesn’t sound too much like Clariss to me.”

          Logan turned to me with a pained expression on his face. “Listen to me, Breena. Can you meet me outside when all this is over? Out in the gardens? I need to speak to you – alone…”

          “Logan?”

          “It’s important, Bree. Something’s up.”

          I nodded curtly, not wanting the others to see our conversation. “Okay,” I said.

          “And don’t leave Alistair and Rose alone together. Whatever happens – whichever one of them…it’s too dangerous, okay?”

          I sighed. “Alistair, calm down. If Rose really is the Sorceress, we’ll take care of it. Not you. We’ll separate you both and figure out what’s going on calmly and rationally.”

          Rose looked horrified. “What?” she cried. “How can you believe him? This crazy, poisoned man…”

          “Just let her go,” I said, trying to sound firm and decisive. But something didn’t sit right with me. Alistair looked so…normal, all of a sudden. And something in Logan’s face told me that he too had doubts. “Kian and Rodney will detain her – and Shasta will detain you. Fair?”

          Alistair nodded slowly, reluctantly dropped his sword. Immediately Kian and Rodney were at Rose’s side, holding her back. She looked up at me with big, confused eyes. Shasta and Logan held Alistair back.

          “She called me a
man
,” laughed Alistair. “She’d never called me that before. She didn’t think of me that way. We were friends – children together…have you forgotten when we met, Rose? Have you forgotten how old we were?”

          “I know how old we were. Children!” Rose insisted. “Alistair, you’re being ridiculous. I remember everything.”

          “How old was I?” Alistair shouted. “Tell me that! And tell me how old you were. Tell me everything – I want to see if you remember!”

          “Of course I remember, Alistair,” Rose looked like she was about to cry. “We were in the Summer Kingdom. I don’t remember our first meeting, of course – we were so young – but I know it must have been when we met for the Apprenticing.”

          I looked over at Rodney, who looked incredibly concerned. Rodney had told me this story before – after all, Rodney and Alistair had been best friends since they were both fifteen. Rose was only twelve then, about to turn thirteen. And I knew that Rose had met Rodney at her Thirteenth Birthday Celebrations – the Blossoming. All Fey had Blossomings upon  turning thirteen –it was deemed the age of the beginnings of adulthood, and they were granted access to the world of magic accordingly. It would have been the day Rose started her Apprenticing. How could she not remember something significant.

          “Besides,” said Rose, “If you’re free of the poison, why did you act like such a complete lunatic about Logan? If the poison didn’t make you do that, what did?”

          Alistair smiled sadly. “A much more dangerous poison – and a much  more common one. Love. I love Rose – I  have since I was fifteen years old.” He turned a bright red as he spoke – admitting to love in front of me or Kian, liberal Fey who appreciated the power of love was one thing, but many of the other Fey were doubtless more traditional in their worldview, and looked down on any talk of love as unmanly or ill-befitting of a high-ranking Fey. “I have always loved Rose. And when I saw her with another man – I grew jealous. Irrational. Even knowing what I do: the heir to the ruling house of Autumn Springs cannot marry anyone from outside the dukedom. I could never marry her. And I know I must marry a girl from the line. But I can’t stop thinking about Rose. Pining after her. Longing for her. Wanting her. When I saw her with Logan just now, I was driven to a frenzy worse than any poison the Sorceress could have injected me with.”