Behind him, Unseelie fey crowded into the room, and roars of fury and outrage filled the chamber when they saw the dead prince. Fey were screaming and crying, tearing at themselves and each other, demanding vengeance and blood. Dazed, I realized the Unseelie were outraged at the murder of a Winter prince in their own territory. That someone had dared slip in and kill one of their own, right under their noses. There was no sorrow or remorse for the prince himself, only fury and demands for revenge at the audacity of it. I wondered if anyone would truly miss the eldest prince of Winter. Rowan stood over Sage’s body, his expression eerily blank as he stared down at his brother. Amid the roars and cries of the fey around us, he regarded his sibling with the curiosity one might show a dead bird on the sidewalk. It made my skin crawl. Silence fell over the room, and a chill descended like an icy blanket. I twisted in my captor’s grasp and saw Mab standing in the doorway, her gaze locked on Sage’s body. Everyone backed away as she entered the throne room. You could hear a pin drop as the queen walked up to Sage’s body, bending down to touch his cold, frozen cheek. I shivered, for the temperature was still dropping. Even some of the Winter fey looked uncomfortable as new icicles formed on the ceiling and frost crept over skin and fur. Mab was still bent over Sage, her expression unreadable, but her mulberry lips parted and mouthed a single word. “Oberon.”
Then she screamed, and the world shattered. Icicles exploded, flying outward like crystallized shrapnel, pelting everyone with glittering shards. The walls and floor cracked, and fey screeched as they disappeared into the gaping holes.
“Oberon!” Mab raged again, whirling around with a terrifying, crazy look in her eyes. “He did this! This is his revenge! Oh, Summer will pay! They will pay until they are screaming for mercy, but they will find no pity among the Winter Court! We will repay this heinous act in kind, my subjects! Prepare for war!”
“No!” My voice was drowned out in the roar that went up from the Unseelie fey. Twisting out of my captor’s grip, I staggered into the middle of the room.
“Queen Mab,” I gasped, as Mab swung the full brunt of her terrible gaze on me. Madness warred with the fury in her eyes, and I shrank back in terror. “Please, listen to me! Oberon didn’t do this! The Summer Court didn’t kill Sage, it was the Iron King. The Iron fey did this!”
“Be silent!” hissed the queen, baring her teeth. “I will not listen to your pathetic attempts to protect your wretched family, not when the Summer King threatened me in my own court. Your sire has murdered my son, and you will be silent, or I will forget myself and give him an eye for an eye!”
“But, it’s true!” I insisted, though my brain was screaming at me to shut up. I glanced around desperately and spotted Rowan, looking on with a faint smile. Ash would back me up, but Ash, as usual, wasn’t here when I needed him. “Rowan, please. Help me out. I’m not lying, you know I’m not.”
He regarded me with a solemn expression, and for a moment I really thought he would come through, before a corner of his mouth curled nastily. “It isn’t nice to deceive the queen, Princess,” he said, looking grim apart from the sneer in his eyes. “If these Iron fey were a threat, we would have seen them by now, don’t you think?”
“But they do exist!” I cried, on the verge of panic now. “I’ve seen them, and they are a threat!” I turned back to Mab. “What about the huge, fire-breathing iron horse that almost killed your son? You don’t think that’s a threat? Call Ash,” I said. “He was there when we fought Ironhorse and Machina. He’ll back me up.”
“Enough!” Mab screeched, whirling on me. “Half-breed, you go too far!
Your line has already robbed me of a son, and you will not touch another! I know you seek to turn my youngest against me with your blasphemous claims of love, and I will not have it!” She pointed a manicured nail at me, and a flare of blue-white shot between us as I stumbled back.
“You will be silent, once and for all!”
Something gripped my feet, holding them fast. I looked down to see ice creeping up my legs, moving faster than I’d seen before. In the space of a blink, it had flowed up my waist and continued over my stomach and chest. Icy needles stabbed my skin as I wrapped my arms around myself, just before they were frozen to my chest. And still, the ice came on, creeping up my neck, burning my chin. Panic gripped me as it covered my lower jaw, and I screamed as ice flooded my mouth. Before I could suck in another breath, it covered my nose, my cheekbones, my eyes, and finally reached the top of my head. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs burned for air, but my mouth and nose were filled with ice. I was drowning, suffocating, and my skin felt like it was being peeled away by the cold. I wanted to pass out, I longed for darkness to take me, but though I couldn’t breathe and my lungs screamed for oxygen, I didn’t die.
Beyond the wall of ice, everything had fallen silent. Mab stood before me, her expression torn between triumph and hate. She turned back to her subjects, who watched her with wary eyes, as if she might lash out at them, too.
“Make ready, my subjects!” the queen rasped, raising her arms. “The war with Summer starts now!”
Another roar, and the minions of the Unseelie Court scattered, leaving the room with raucous battle cries. Mab spared me one more glance over her shoulder, her lips curling into a snarl before she walked out. Rowan stared at me a moment longer, snickered, and followed his queen from the room. Silence fell, and I was left alone, dying but unable to die.