Queen of Summer's Ice (Book 2)

Chapter 14

     Alagan's eyes went staring some place behind me, searching through the memories in his brain. "Glacia was seventeen when she visited the Spring court with her mother - Nia. They were there for vacation or some reason, it doesn't matter. The point that matters was that Glacia managed to catch the eye of the Spring King - Owen - who was married to a human that I don't remember her name. And one thing lead to another," he motioned his hand in the air around his face, "And then I was born."

     He's just as old as Glacia, if she was practically a child when she got pregnant with him. A young adult who knew what she was doing though. There were certain tonics she could have drank to get rid of the pregnancy, many royals do it all the time, but she wanted the bloodline of a king. I guess she was born wicked after all, I always wondered. And she must have known about Jules, his history, and tried to recreate it. Not once, but twice.

     "Owen would have wanted to kill you - kill her - once he found out she was pregnant," Nazim said from my side.

     "She kept it hidden, even from her own family. And then when nine months came around and she saw I looked nothing like a winter, she convinced a farmers family near the spring and winter boarder to keep me."

     He paused to take another sip of his wine, a deep breath, and then he continued, "My first memory of her was when I was five or six, she sent word to my care takers to send me into winter by my self. I remember being so cold that I thought I was going to lose my hands. It got worse from there. Glacia did not greet me, did not comfort me, all she asked was that I control the coldness around me. 

     I was confused at what she wanted of me - but I tried. I thought of the cold and nothing but the cold. Yet nothing happened. She grabbed my face in between her hands and looked at me, I remember thinking to myself I had never seen bluer eyes than hers. She did not abandon me into the cold, even though I failed her little task, instead she made me follow her home. 'Perhaps you just need practice,' she said," Alagan shrugged lightly, "Maybe it was the small specks of blue in my eyes that gave her some kind of hope that I would come into my powers."

     The image of a little boy, scared and alone on the winter boarder was clear. I could see him shaking as his dark skin turned pale with cold, on the verge of frost bite as a young beautiful woman came strolling up to him. And instead of a formal greeting, I can see her inspecting him like an animal and not a son, to see if he was worthy or not to live. 

     "No one questioned Glacia for having a new servant child from spring, it was common back then to sell servants within each season. It was sort of like an undiscussed peace offering."

     "It sounds like slavery to me," I didn't mean to say it, but the thought of slavery always made me cringe.

     "Slaves don't get paid for working, servants do," he replied. But there was a strain to his eyes.

     "And were you paid?" Nazim said. Alagan just looked at him, with a humorless smile and continued his story.

     "We would practice every day in the farthest caves, where no human dared to go because of its danger. But she was disappointed every time no ice came out of me, and after a year of me continuing to disappoint her, Mothers patience was lost. We stopped going to the cave, she stopped caring about me all together. Without me having powers, I was useless to her. But I was young and stupid, and I continued to fight for her attention when it should have dawned on me that I was still her son, and sooner rather than later, everyone was going to notice when I stopped aging. 

     So when I was sixteen, still a young and stupid boy, Mother gave me a task to go to each and every season by myself and deliver invitations to the Kings and Queens for the traditional winter ball celebrating the first full moon of the new year."