The Ascension (17 page)

More to the point, would Gem get a chance to find out before the Winter Queen froze her solid?

“I am disappointed in you, my children, though your method of making this place
accessible
at least shows you are making some progress in your studies.”

The Winter Queen took a step towards her unruly offspring, and towards the girl who had caused so many problems with her nephew. At least that had proven to be of some use, in the end. Her eyes fixed on the so-cal ed Queen of Anachronia. It would be so much easier to
amalgamate
the Kingdoms without her in the way. Yes.

A thought sent ice spiraling up around the girl’s ankles, but it paused as another mind sought to command it. Jack, her Jack Frost, actual y stepped between them.

“You won’t hurt Gem.”

“Are you in a position to make such an
injunction
, my son? Do you think that you have the power to stop me?”

“I can try.”

The Winter Queen’s lip curled, and she looked past her son to where Gem stood.

“It seems that you have the same way with the young men as your mother. Such an
innocuous
looking thing, and yet you have them circling you looking for the slightest hint of
amorous
interest.

Chelsea…” the Winter Queen pushed her son aside easily, freezing his feet to the floor as he tried to step back into the way. “Chelsea strung my brother along,
insinuating
that she would love him before casting him aside for your father.”

With that, she looked to Henry Word, stil trapped behind his shield of ice. He was lucky that she stil needed his expertise.

“It would have been so much simpler had he not interfered. There would have been a true royal wedding between my brother and your mother, and the two kingdoms would have joined
amicably
, with none of this bloodshed. You know the worst part, though? My brother was so smitten that he ran off and found another Anachronian woman to replace her. The fool.”

The Winter Queen decided not to think about her long dead sibling. Instead, she looked to her children. Jack was busy straining against the hold the ice had on him. The Winter Queen turned to her other child. Since she wasn’t making any move to interfere, there wasn’t any need to freeze her too.

Who said that she couldn’t be kind?

“Tel me, Katherine, what is the advantage of Anachronia to us?”

“What?” her daughter demanded. “You’re in the middle of a vil ainous
oration
and you’re pausing for a
pop-quiz
?”

The Winter Queen gave her a furious look, and Kat cringed.

“Al right. I suppose it… it’s the technology, right? There isn’t much.”

“Which makes it less painful for our kind than the world you grew up in. Exactly.” The Winter Queen nodded, then stepped over to Gem, patting her
amiably
on the shoulder. “You could end this peacefully.
Abdicate
now in favor of me. Things would be so much simpler.”

The Winter Queen paused, waiting for an answer. Waiting, in truth, for the spineless little half human to fal to her knees in gratitude rather than fight. Seconds passed.

“No? Wel , it was only a question of politeness anyway. My armies are already marching, by my
edict
. A force wil fight against the Summer Court, but if they do not succeed, it is hardly important. They are a diversion. With the Summer Court too distracted to interfere, my nephew’s force wil slip through easily to take Anachronia. Dealing with the Summer Court wil then be a mere
encore
to the main performance. I’m sure that Devon wil make me proud there too.”

The hurt expression on the girl’s face was a delight to the Winter Queen.

“Oh, did you think that your presence would
engender
betrayal in my nephew? I have heard some of what you did to turn him against me, you know.”

She actual y had the
effrontery
to try and argue.

“I wasn’t trying to turn him against you.”

“Liar. Stil , you have not succeeded. If anything, it has had the opposite effect. Just the threat of separating your pretty head from your shoulders and placing it on an icicle for al to see has made him only too eager to capture your kingdom while you are away.” The Winter Queen smiled, Drawing one finger down Gem’s cheek to freeze the first hints of tears there. She heard the gasp that came from her son.

“So that’s why you had Devon capture Gem,” Jack said. “Without her there, there is no one to command the Dragon. No one to organize the defense.”

The Winter Queen nodded happily. It seemed that her son had at least some grasp of these things.

Maybe in time he would become genuinely useful to her.

“I couldn’t have attempted it without the stronger links between worlds, of course, which is why I have had to wait so very long. Stil , even if he is acting under
duress
, Devon should bring me victory easily enough now.”

The Winter Queen was pleased enough to feel playful. She nodded at one of the ice wal s, and it carved itself into a victory scene, with Devon standing over piles of fal en Anachronian warriors, ready to
exalt
her as queen of both kingdoms. She particularly liked the way Princess Chelsea’s daughter squirmed at the sight of it.

“So you did al this just to get me out of the way?” the girl asked. “You kidnapped my father to lure me here?”

“Oh, you do have an
exorbitant
sense of your importance don’t you?” The Winter Queen shook her head. “No, I stil have other uses for Henry Word. You coming after him was a bonus.”

In fact, it had always fascinated the Winter Queen that people would do things like that. Didn’t they understand how stupid it was? Didn’t they see the world as clearly as she did?

“I suppose if I ask you why you came after him,” the Winter Queen said, with the
ennui
of someone who had heard the answer many times before, “you’l say that you love him, even though you only just found out that the man is your father.” Predictably enough, the Anachronian queen nodded.

“Yes. When I started the journey here, I wasn’t sure, but now… yes, I love my father, as you must love your children.”

“Of course, though I wil love them more when they are of greater use to me. When they are loyal.” To the Winter Queen’s surprise, Gem shook her head.

“No, that isn’t how it works. It isn’t down to their
fidelity
, or usefulness, or anything else. You just love them because they are yours to love. I feel sorry that you can’t understand that.”

Anger rose through the Winter Queen then,
implacable
and deadly.

“You
dare
to lecture me? To pity me? I am the Winter
incarnate
! What are you? Some
insolent
girl with a crown gained by chance, that’s what.” She conjured a knife of pure ice, as clear as the purest icicle and every bit as sharp, putting it to the girl’s throat. “You wil hand over your kingdom!”

“No,” Gem replied.

For the briefest moment, the Winter Queen thought of kil ing her, or of simply compel ing her with magic, but then Gem’s protestations of love for her father came back to her. She whirled from the young woman, touching the ice shield that held Henry Word in his workplace and dissolving it with a thought.

Before the human man could move, the knife was at his throat.

“Wel then, if you want to be
intransigent
, we shal simply have to test those theories about love you wanted to
harangue
me with a minute ago.

Which do you love more, your father or your kingdom? Choose quickly.”

The Winter Queen smiled to see the way that the girl looked at her father. What would she choose? What
could
she choose? After al , Word was important on so many levels, the center of so many things.

Final y, the Winter Queen watched as Gem shook her head.

“You won’t kil him. He’s too important to your plans.”

“You think so? Wel , you are not.”

The Winter Queen stepped from Henry Word, letting the dagger fade. She would do this the fun way, freezing Anachronia’s little queen until she was nothing more than a block of ice, before pushing her over to shatter.

“Please,” Jack cal ed to her, obviously guessing what she intended, “Don’t do this, Mother.

There is another way. Let me marry her.”

“Be silent.” A patch of frost appeared over her son’s mouth. “You think I can tolerate her? Even as a daughter-in-law? I gave her the chance to
forsake
her kingdom, and she stood against me, now she…

what?”

The last exclamation came as something struck the Winter Queen from behind, sending her skidding over the icy floor. It took her a moment to realize that Katherine, dear, sweet Katherine, had pushed her, sliding her inexorably towards where Jack stood frozen to the spot.

“Catch, Jack!”

The boy’s broad arms spread out, enfolding the Winter Queen as she slid into his embrace. She lashed out with cold, but he stood there, absorbing it stoical y. At the same time, the Winter Queen felt a push at her hold over the ice. The frost holding Jack and the Anachronian girl fel away. She looked round and found Kat reading furiously from her book on ice magic. When the Winter Queen went to counter it, her son squeezed harder, nearly crushing the breath from her body.

“Gem, Mr. Word, run!” he yel ed. The Winter Queen saw Gem look back at him and his sister.

“What about you?”

“Go, Gem,” Katherine ordered, “I can’t hold this much longer.”

Henry Word grabbed Gem’s arm then, robbing the Winter Queen of the chance to see what the girl would choose by nearly dragging her from the hal way. They were gone before she could react, leaving her alone with her two children. With a roar of fury, the Winter Queen broke free of her son’s grip, throwing him from her.

“Ingrates!” Able to concentrate now, it was an easy matter to conjure an icy wind to rip the book from her daughter’s hands, then to step over and grab her, throwing her down to her knees beside her brother. “Traitors! I am your mother!” Kat looked up at her angrily.

“My mother lives in London, along with my father.”

Beside her, Jack nodded.

“There’s more to family than flesh and blood.”

“Yes,” the Winter Queen said, “There is ice. I wanted to give you kindness. I wanted to give you
kingdoms
. Now though, I see that I should never have expected gratitude for my
largess
.” She stepped over to her kneeling offspring. “I should have done this from the start.”

She bowed her head over Jack, giving him a motherly kiss on the forehead before he could stop her. The
infusion
of cold flowed into him, forming bridges between synapses as it worked its way into every corner of his brain. She turned to Katherine, who put up her hands to stop her. The Winter Queen caught them easily, brushing them aside almost gently.

“Don’t worry, my child. It wil be al right.” The icy touch of the Winter Queen’s lips to her forehead claimed her too. The Winter Queen straightened up and surveyed the pair of them, now regarding her with near reverence. It was as wel , in some ways, that they had no schooling in the Winter arts. Devon, for example, would have fought through the enchantment easily. Her children, on the other hand, had succumbed utterly.

“Good,” she said, ruffling their hair fondly.

“Now, you wil go and help in the battle against the Summer Court. Show me how brave you are, darlings. Fight hard against those Summer fools with their heat and warmth.” She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at a spot of dirt on Katherine’s cheek.

“Make your mother proud.”

“Yes, My Queen,” the pair of them said in unison, and headed for the door.

Resplendent in his armor, Sparks stood on the high ground above the meadow that would serve as the armies’ battlefield, watching the line of the snow creep closer. Heat crackled along the edge of it, holding it back, but the
adverse
conditions blackened and burnt the grass there. Standing beside Sparks was his mother, the Summer Queen, overseeing the arrangement of her forces below from the best view they could get without actual y becoming
aerial
. Nixies and Dryads, fairy folk and satyrs, they al stood armed and waiting for battle.

“The werewolves are here,” Sparks said, pointing as a group of wild-looking young men formed up on one side of the field in an
amorphous
clump, apparently more concerned with ease of movement than defense. His mother smiled.

“And I see that your friend from the party is with them. We should go and speak with them.” For an instant, Spark’s heart leapt, because he thought that his mother meant Gem, but as they walked closer, it was clear that it was in fact Rio standing there, swinging a sword in readiness for the fight to come. Sparks resolved to keep things
cordial
. After al , they were on the same side.

“Rio, hi!”

Rio nodded solemnly. It seemed to be about a s
decorous
a greeting as Sparks was going to get.

“It’s good that we’re fighting together.” Sparks decided to ask what he real y wanted to know.

“How’s Gem? She left with you, didn’t she? I looked for her after the party. She isn’t mad at me for dancing with other people? She said she was ok with it, but then she left.”