18. aftermath

The morning sun of dawn seeped its way up the parallel trees until it was shining through the willow tree.

Catori was placing flowers and herbs into the square-shaped hole in the ground where Aerwyn was to be buried. The Fae had a small cemetery behind their cottages only a quarter of a mile out. It was in a small clearing in the forest where someone had been designated to shovel Eira's snow away from the gravestones ever since she had brought them her ice.

There were only a handful of gravestones, which surprised Nyx since she had heard of so many people's deaths since Eira took over the Kingdom. What she did not know was that those killed by the Ice Queen had their bodies disposed at sea, since the Queen had an overwhelming lack of respect for the dead as well as the living.

While there were a few buried fae that were executed by Eira and had been found soon enough to take them back to that cemetery and bury them, most of the graves were fae who had died from accidents or general illnesses throughout the years. The gravestones were large pieces of rock that had been shaved down until they had a flat enough face to write on with a smaller piece of rock, thanks to the earth Fae.

Aerwyn's grave was right next to the boy who had been killed not long before. The dirt on his grave, freshly dug and covered, was darker than the dirt on the ground due to having just been dug. There were blue flowers and some stones sitting on top of his grave.

Nyx was standing next to Alastair, Caspian on the other side of her, along with the others. All the fae gathered around the grave, their heads hung low as they watched Catori bless the dirt. Then, a few stronger air fae came and carried Aerwyn's coffin made of expertly weaved sticks that were laced so well there were no openings where one could see the body inside.

The air fae gently lowered the coffin into the grave, stopping to stand over it and look down respectfully into the grave. Catori kneeled and placed an amethyst and an aquamarine stone on top of the coffin. The blue flowers and other crystals in her hand were to be placed on top of the dirt.

Lining up, each fae went by and said blessings over the grave, most of them having to wipe their tears as they walked away solemnly.

Nyx looked over to Al. The fae had not said a word all morning, although everyone was seeming to nervously look at her the way a child looks at his mother when he's upset. Alastair kept her head bowed, dull red eyes staring into the grave at the makeshift coffin.

Al wanted to cry, but she had cried over so many deaths over the years that her eyes simply refused. Oh, how she cried on the inside, though. How her blood wailed within her, how her skin burned with grief, how her heart crushed over and over again with each beat it reluctantly took. She was walking pain, and no one knew.

Except for Nyx. She did not have to see tears to know someone was sad. She could feel Alastair's feelings in her stomach. No matter how much the fae ignored her and kept the air cold and still between them, she knew there was a connection between them that allowed her to feel the fae's feelings like no one else.

They moved up in the line that they were at the very end of. Nyx turned to Alastair and pressed a gentle hand at her upper arm, restraining her gasp upon feeling how burning hot her skin was. Alastair's troubled eyes flickered to her threateningly, and she calmly took her hand away upon feeling the heat greaten.

"I know you are feeling... a lot of things right now," Nyx told her quietly. Her eyes flickered down to the cut on the back of her knee that had been bandaged with moss. "But please don't blame yourself."

"Do not tell me how to feel," the fae snapped, a twinge of orange sparking in her eyes as she kept them glued to the grave.

"Stop blocking me out like that," Nyx snapped back quietly, making sure Caspian's nosy self did not hear. "My intentions are not bad, like you always seem to think they are."

Al shook her head and rolled her eyes, looking over through the trees where she could see the sun rising through them.

Nyx stared at the fae who refused to look at her, trying her hardest to unwrap the intricate puzzle of a creature she was. She was one of the most frustrating people she had ever met, yet no matter how bruised Nyx's knuckles got as she tried to knock down those invincible barriers fortified around the fae, she never lost the willpower to gaze at the beautiful fae, even if she had to admire the beauty from outside her untrusting strongholds.

The fae looked paler than usual, and she was slightly trembling from the coldness of the air around them, quickly swatting away the stray snowflakes that drifted from the clouds huddled above them and onto her skin.

"Are you feeling any better?" Nyx questioned as the line moved up. She noticed Caspian's ear bend backwards towards her slightly, and she cursed the fae for eavesdropping.

The fae closed her eyes, her jaw tensing visibly. "If you don't stop pestering—"

"For God's sake, Al, I'm not trying to bother you!" Nyx exclaimed much louder, causing a few of the fae nearest them to turn and look between her and Al curiously. She pressed, "Why do you have such a fit every time I try to get anywhere near you and your swinging pendulum of bloody emotions?!"

"Because I am fire!" Alastair roared suddenly, turning sharply to the girl. Her eyes were blazing now, and Nyx took an instinctive step back at the sight. Alastair noticed this, and her eyes dulled, looking the girl up and down as sadness crossed over them. The ends of her ears drooped, but her voice still dripped rage as she spoke, "I burn up anything near. And if you have even a shred of intellect in that human head of yours, you would stay away from me."

Her last few words were spoken with venom that ripped through Nyx like poison. The fae turned and began walking briskly away, still too weak to fly. Nyx watched her and so did everyone else, including Caspian who had shamelessly watched the frictional encounter.

"Don't pay any mind to her when she's like this," the water fae whispered, watching Alastair storm off into the woods, her wings tensed closely around her to trap heat.

"It's a bit hard not to," Nyx sighed, crossing her arms and pulling her stare away from the fire fae.

"Al has a habit of stressing herself more than anyone else. You can thank her father for that."

Her honey eyes glanced up to him. "Her father?" she echoed. It was news to her that Al had any familial connection at all. Nyx had deemed her as an orphan, a lone wolf who probably raised herself.

"Not my story to tell," Caspian quickly cut her off before she could press further, already knowing that was the inquisitive girl's next words. "Plus, she is weak right now, and there's nothing that creature hates more than that."

"I don't understand. She is supposedly one of the most powerful fae, but a little cut on her leg has injured her so badly?"

The water fae sighed and looked up at the snow on the tops of the trees. "That's because ice is her elemental opposite."

"Elemental opposite?"

The line moved up further, and Caspian's eyes moved to a few earth fae who kissed the top of Aerwyn's coffin lightly. "All kinds of fae have elemental opposites. Ice, which is cold, is opposite from fire, which is heat. They are each other's mutual weakness. Al is more vulnerable to ice than any of us because she is a fire fae. Eira threw an ice shard that started freezing her blood once it broke her skin. Since ice is fire's elemental opposite, a simple cut like that could have killed Al."

Nyx remembered seeing the way the cut on Al's leg began to frost over. "So, fire is Eira's weakness, as well?"

"Yes, which is why she made it a point to kill every last fire fae she could find." Caspian's eyes softened at remembering the day that Eira invaded the castle and targeted the fire fae first.

Nyx nodded slowly. "Fire and ice makes sense, but what about the other elements?"

"Well, air and water are elemental opposites because air has the power to make dry and water has the power to make wet. Earth and spirits and are opposites because earth fae rule this physical world, while spirit fae rule the metaphysical world."

"What about shifters?" Nyx quickly asked when she saw Erlin sadly pass his hand over Aerwyn's coffin before moving onward, consoled by Catori's hand on his bulky shoulder.

"Shifters and healers are elemental opposites."

"What?" She watched Caspian lightly chuckle at her inability to understand. "How does that make sense?"

"It does make sense," he calmly corrected her, his navy wings brushing her feet accidentally. "Think about it. Shifters are made to change. Healers are made to repair. Of course, those two kinds of fae are not naturally Fighters. There's not much they can do to weaken each other, but nonetheless they are opposites. The same is with earth and spirits."

"What kinds are naturally Fighters?" Nyx asked, although her brain began to work over and figure out the answer for herself.

"Ice, fire, water, and air are the Fighters. Earth, spirits, shifters, and healers are considered Pacifiers. That's what our ancestors ruled it out as, anyways. Anyone can fight, and anyone can mediate; but those distinctions are legendarily known as the Divisors of Eight."

"Sounds...confusing," Nyx mumbled as she stepped over a log. They were getting closer to the coffin, and she felt a knot tie itself in her gut.

"Ice and fire fae are the most powerful of all kinds, though. That is why no opposites affect each other as much as they, and that is why there were traditionally only ice and fire queens and kings before your bloodline of healers came along to bring peace amongst us."

Nyx thought about her father and tried to imagine his face that she had been attempting to piece together for the past few weeks. "I'm assuming Eira also targeted the healers, then?"

Caspian did not directly answer her, but he did not need too. She already knew the answer was yes by her own accord and also by the look in his peaceful sea blue eyes.

They arrived at Aerwyn's coffin. Nyx stood awkwardly beside Caspian, looking at him to see that he had his eyes closed and his head bowed. So she did the same, except she peeked her eyes open to look at the coffin coffered in flowers and crystals.

She felt grief fill her heart at the sight of the coffin. Although she had only even been aware of the Fae's existence for a short amount of time in her life, she had never felt such a fierce dedication to something. She felt a dedication to these people, to the cause she was somehow a part of.

She may have never known her father, but his spirit of healing and grace passed through her gold eyes.

♔

Things were darker than they'd ever been at the ice castle. The soldiers were getting more and more aggressive with the commoners, and Eira's torment was seeping into those of her own kind.

She sat on the balcony at the very top floor of the castle, sitting in her chair of ice, cold and cozy. She gazed out at the snowy forest and the full moon that shed light over it. Her crystal eyes, like light sapphires and diamonds, may have been beautiful, but they were as frozen solid as she was.

Her ears that came to a triangle at the tips perked upon hearing someone enter the balcony behind her. She made no movement, so assured in her fortress that she feared no obscure footfall.

"Your Majesty," she heard Praen's voice behind her. He arrived at the chair next to her and slowly sat down, his dark blue eyes shifting impishly to his Queen. His monumental cheekbones, pale and milky, glittered from the moonlight. His bangs, as white as the snow, cast a shadow across his sharp brows.

Eira inhaled deeply at the agitation of having her thoughts disturbed. She simply wished to scheme and hate in peace on her balcony. "What is it, Praen?"

"Just accompanying my lady. A Queen should never have to be alone," the stallion of a boy spoke smoothly, his white wings pressing against the icy chair as he crossed one ankle over his knee.

"A Queen should have the damned right, no less," she spat, causing the boy to flinch slightly. "You people—always berating me and nipping at my bloody robes like dogs. Can't you see there's a war to be won!"

She looked at the lad whose handsome features hardened as he looked down at his lap in shame. She scoffed and stood from her chair. Praen was barely older than nineteen; what did he know of war?

Her awesome wings glided across the smooth ice floor as she neared the balcony ledge and placed her jewelry-clad hands upon it. "That half-blood must die," she muttered the same sentence that Praen had been listening to her mutter ever since he became her servant.

"Let us kill her, then!" Praen exclaimed, standing up from his chair as well. "Let us go tonight, all of us. You have enough soldiers to get the job done."

"You see, the thing is if I let you muts off your leashes, one of you rats would slay her yourselves." She gripped the ledge so hard that it crackled beneath her palms. "I want to be the one to watch her die." She remembered the day in the forest that seemed so long ago, the day of the girl's eighteenth birthday. She remembered her hands on her neck, the look in the girl's eyes as her life was froze out of her. "I want her to die by my hand, just like her pathetic father. I want to feel her warm skin turn cold, feel the blood harden in her veins. It must be me."

Praen stared at his Queen, some sort of expression of a smile mixed with fear crossing his face. He was enthralled by Eira, utterly obsessed with every word that dripped from her lips. He stepped closer to the woman, his plump lips just beside her ear. "And I will make that happen for you, my Queen." His eyes darkened as his eyes roamed over the side of Eira's smooth face. "Just wait until the half-breed finds out what her prized fire fae did so many years ago."

Turning her face slightly, Eira eyed the eye-level boy with a smirk. "Good boy." She lifted a hand and stroked the cool, soft skin of his porcelain face. "Now, be a doll and go run me an ice bath."

Praen's jaw hardened. He felt like a fool doing such stupid tasks like running baths and cleaning her robes and tidying her room. Of course, he was honored to partake in any activity that amplified the welfare of his Queen. Nonetheless, Praen had always felt keen to the greater things of life.

He went away anyways, leaving the Queen alone on her balcony to run her ice bath in her ice bathtub in her ice castle.

Listening intently, Eira turned once she could no longer hear the boy's footsteps, walking into her large and luxurious bedroom filled with stones and robes and paintings. She eyed the various paintings of her royal family members, with their white wings and icy features. As she came to the end of the row of paintings, she reached the door of the small closet in her room. Looking around to be sure Praen hadn't returned, she carefully reached into the pocket of her white robe and took out a key. She slowly unlocked the door and pushed it open.

In the closet that was barely big enough for a single fae to stand in was a painting sitting on the floor against the wall with a cloth thrown over it. The moonlight illuminating the room, Eira kneeled down slightly and reached her nimble fingers outwards towards the cloth, and with a shaky breath she quickly yanked the cloth from over the painting.

She stared hard at the portrait, grinding her teeth together with rage as she always did. She could hear Praen's footsteps returning, so she quickly threw the cloth back over the portrait.

Before she did, though, she leaned closer and whispered with such rage and venom:

"I should have killed your mistress and that unborn bastard while I had the chance."