Ambrosia (Frost and Nectar Book 2)

I stared at the piece of the mirror. I’d hardly moved in the past hour.

One thing I’d learned in the Court of Sorrows was that I had to be ready to escape at any moment, and that sense of urgency was skittering up my spine. With the fragment of mirror, I dropped down onto Shalini’s sofa.

I waited, staring into space at the ash gray of the human world.

On a table by Shalini’s windowsill was an aspidistra plant, its leaves withered and browned in her absence. My muscles tensed. I felt its thirst, its isolation, the nearness of death. Cocking my head, I summoned life back into the plant, and the magic sweeping over me felt like warm sunlight on my skin. The plant beamed with golden light, and its leaves shifted to green again.

I stood and stroked a fingertip along the waxy leaves. A very human choice for a plant, a tame, civilized choice.

But Shalini had a wild side, too, which was how she’d ended up in Faerie in the first place.

Next to the plant, a green book lay on the table. Under the crumbles of dead leaves, I read the gold lettering: W.B. Yeats.

I dropped back into the sofa and flicked through the pages. My gaze landed on a poem, and my heartbeat started to pound.

“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,

For I would ride with you upon the wind,

Run on the top of the disheveled tide,

And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”

My blood pumped hot. I was meant to dance upon the mountains like a flame.

We, the fae, were tempered in the fires of a mountain goddess, forged to race through the star-flecked skies. We were not born to be civilized.

We were not born to eat fucking Cheerios.

And I could never stay here without knowing if my friends were okay. After everything I’d been through, I was never taking anyone’s safety for granted again.

Torin had told me that as long as his throne was shattered, he would have no power whatsoever. So when he returned, was he returning as a king? Or had someone usurped him?

Given what I knew about the fae—that we were ruthless and vicious—I had a strong suspicion it was the latter.

I didn’t have a lot to my name right now, but what I did have was an insane lack of patience and a burning determination to keep my loved ones safe.

Wildly, I rushed to Shalini’s closet and plucked out her warmest winter coat and a pair of knee-high boots.

Fully dressed, I glanced into the piece of mirror and shouted the word Faerie.

Torin

Icy manacles bound my wrists, and an iron collar clamped around my throat. I looked down at the blood streaming from my body, the arrows jutting from my flesh. The blood had frozen on my clothes.

My soldiers had chained me to a post in the center of the stone amphitheater. Thick ice and snow covered the ground beneath my feet.

Moria and Modron stood where I’d once presided over the duels during the trials. How long ago had it been since Ava had won in this arena? It felt like centuries. At the thought of her, grief carved me open, a cold sense of loss that I’d never see her again.

Was this it, then?

The cold gnawed at my skin, and the shadows seemed to grow thicker around me, dancing over the ice like frozen spirits. When I died, I’d be severed from the people I loved.

Dazed, I scanned the amphitheater, my gaze roaming over the crowds in the stone seats. Anger whispered over my skin. This was to be a public execution of a conquered king.

On the stone platform, Moria wore a deep burgundy cloak that matched her hair and long white gloves. A smile curled her lips.

Modron was by her side. The crone was dressed in a cloak the deep gray of smoke. My thoughts snagged on what Mab had told Ava—kill Modron, and this would all be over.

An icy wind swept over the stadium, carrying gusts of snow. No one had told me yet how I would die, but I imagined it would be more creative than freezing to death. Up there with some of the threats Mab had already delivered, no doubt: eviscerated, castrated, or sealed up in an icy tree. Humans may have created beautiful art, but the fae were immensely creative when it came to methods of killing.

Seelie poured into the stands, dressed warmly in furs.

Moria pulled up her burgundy hood. Gracefully, she stepped down from the dais and crossed the snow-swept arena. I watched her, pierced by a seething hatred as she strode across the ice, the wind whipping at her cloak. If I had my magic, this would be over in minutes.

She stopped a few feet in front of me, flashing me a smile that made my blood run even colder.

“Are you going to freeze me to death, Moria?” I asked. “Is that your plan—show everyone that the king no longer has any power?”

She blinked fluttering her long eyelashes. Under her hood, her crown glinted like ice in the dull light.

“Oh, no, my dear, you’re not going to freeze. That’s what you did to my sister before you buried her in the temple. Freezing is too good for you. I want you to die terrified, screaming, and completely out of control. I want you to die gripped by real horror.”

I know she wanted me to ask her what she was going to do, to beg for my life, but I wasn’t about to, because she would never grant it.

She gestured at the crowds filling up the stands. “They’re here to witness what I will do to a demon lover. They’ll see the lengths to which I’m willing to go to protect the kingdom from those who would starve them.”

Wrath stole my breath. This was why she’d let the kingdom grow colder. It was much easier to get away with tyranny when your kingdom was at war. All she had to do was blame it on the traitors.

“You won’t last as queen,” I said. “They will see that you’re forcing people to suffer. They will find a new queen, one who will give them the spring they need.”

She stepped closer to me, her wine-colored lips by my cheek as she whispered, “But Torin, this is all your fault. I’ve helped them to understand that.”

“Why are you doing this, Moria?” Violence laced my tone.

She leaned back, her smile fading. “You may no longer call me that. The correct term is Your Majesty.”

Something gleamed at her hip under her cloak, and anger heated my chest at the sight of the Sword of Whispers. She was already a tyrant, but that sword would turn her into a completely unhinged monster.

“Why am I doing this?” she hissed. “Because you took the only thing I loved from me. My father raised me to punish my enemies. He raised me to be strong like King Caerleon and the powerful kings of old.”

“Caerleon wasn’t strong. He was a paranoid, bloodthirsty sadist, and that is exactly where you are headed.”

“His court was respected.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “I have a new friend, though, Modron. She was very lonely, you know. It was just her and the river for centuries. And now she has me.” She turned back to me with a coy smile. “She can control the river, you know? The Avon. She can make it swell.”

Ah. She planned to drown me. Less creativity than I’d anticipated.

When Moria smiled this time, she let her fangs out and licked one of them. “In the old days, the Dearg Due drank blood. But that’s considered vulgar these days, isn’t it? Our society has become so soft.” Her brow furrowed. “I was meant for this moment. This is written in the stars. This is why I went through hell as a child. This is why the gods cursed me with the agony of losing the only person I loved. It was all for this moment. This is fate, Torin. All of this has made me strong.”

No, it’s made you demented.

She turned away, climbing the stairs once more.

While I tugged on my chains, she gave a speech that echoed over the stones of the arena. One full of propaganda, all about how I loved the demons and how I’d been conspiring to destroy my own kingdom. Apparently, I’d been seduced by a wicked minx, one with horns, half animal.

As she spoke, workers were sealing up the tunnel entrances to the arena.

My thoughts slipped back to Ava. No matter what happened here, at least she was safe. With that knowledge, I could die happily enough. Orla, too, had a chance to survive. Aeron would look after her. That was the best I could hope for, wasn’t it, to die with the hope that the people I loved were safe?

I closed my eyes, thinking of Ava sleeping soundly in a warm bed. When she’d slept next to me in the Court of Sorrows, she’d snored ever so slightly. I could picture her chest rising and falling. The image made my chest ache.

A great crack of stone pulled me from my vision, and I sucked in a sharp breath as frigid geysers burst from the stones around me and river water flooded the arena. Streams erupted around me. Murky water poured in from every part of the amphitheater, freezing my feet.

Modron chanted with a strange, ecstatic look on her features. Wisps of dark magic curled from her body and into the charcoal skies.

Cold water gnawed at my skin until my toes went completely numb. Overhead, the dragon swooped beneath the stormy sky, and murmurs of fear ran through the crowd.

Moria’s voice pierced the air. “The Sinach will help to execute this traitor. Only when the demon lover lies dead, when his treason is burned from the earth, will spring return to our land.”

When the dragon landed on the stone dais by her side, I felt my gut tightening. The cold didn’t scare me, no, but fire was another matter altogether. My freezing body had started to make my thoughts slow, as though even my brain were encased in ice. Mentally sluggish, I couldn’t quite piece together what was happening. What was the point of the river water if she planned to use the Sinach?

The water was up to my waist now. Did she want to burn the top half of me?

When she barked out a sharp command, my heart skipped a beat.

On the stone platform, the Sinach reared, unleashing a stream of flames into the water. The arena seats erupted in screams. No one wanted to see this.

Slowly, through the fog of my freezing brain, I put the pieces together. She wasn’t going to drown me.

She was going to boil me alive.