Episode One Hundred Six

COAT OF WINTER

Arion takes the lead. He turns right, then left, then right again. We turn so many times, deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, that I quickly lose track of any sense of direction. Thank god he's leading the way. We'd be lost immediately without him.

"Do you know how to get to the Forbidden Garden?" I ask him.

I'm sandwiched between him and Bran.

"Most of us know the general direction, but the garden will only reveal itself to those who have been invited or to those who it covets."

We keep walking. I strain my hearing for any movement beyond the tall hedge rows. Here they must be at least seven feet high. They tower over even Bran.

"Do you hear or smell anything?" I ask him.

He gives me a nod. "We're close."

My heart spikes in my chest.

"Is it just her? Is she with another army?"

"She has only the one army," Arion explains as he peeks around a corner in the hedges and as he does, a vine as thick as a jungle snake leaps out of the hedge, twinning itself around him, locking his arms at his sides.

Bran grabs Arion's leg as the vine tries to yank him back.

"Don't let go!" Arion says with a growl.

"I won't if you fight your way out!" Bran plants his feet.

"That's rather difficult when I have no use of my arms!"

"Will you two quit bickering?"

I get around Bran and hold up my arms.

"Jessie," Bran warns, teeth gritted as he fights at the plant.

The more I do this, the easier it is to identify my magic and grab hold of it, harnessing it. It's almost embarrassing how hard it was at one point, how I thought I would never control it.

The air immediately takes on a cold snap and the leaves of the vine circling Arion's body first turn brown, then frost over.

The chill seeps into my bones but it's the kind of cold that feels like home.

The vine cracks like split ice, then shatters.

Arion falls to the ground, sucking in a deep breath.

"She's near," Bran says, his eyes moving over the hedges.

"How near?" I ask.

There is a crack to our left.

Arion hurries to his feet, sword drawn.

Another crack. A rustle of leaves.

The hedge row beside us gives a giant, heaving tremble.

And then it uproots itself, branches twisting and curling until it takes the shape of a man.

"That can't be good," I mutter.

"Run!" Arion yells as, down the line, a dozen more hedge people emerge.

Arion takes the lead again, racing through what remains of the labyrinth. My breath huffs out, lungs burning. I'm no summer court soldier, no immortal vampire. I'm no runner.

A vine snaps out. Arion lances it off with the swing of his sword. We keep going, the hedge men close behind.

"What's the plan?" Bran shouts.

"Get away!" Arion yells back.

That's no plan.

We stumble into the center of the labyrinth and the hedge men line up behind us.

And there, standing in front of a giant, gurgling fountain is the Summer Queen.

Flowers are blooming chaotically at her feet. A daisy rising up, petals unfurling, then shriveling up a second later, only to be replaced with a buttercup, then an iris.

All around her, summer is blooming and dying.

The queen is standing with her hands clasped in front of her, her back straight. She appears powerful and regal, but it's impossible to ignore the sheen of sweat on her forehead, the wild tangle of her hair.

I know how much effort it took me to control her army with my voice. How much effort is it taking her to control her hedge men?

"We could have found common ground, Jessie." Her voice carries above the gurgling water.

"That wasn't possible. Not when you wanted to steal power for yourself."

Bran and Arion break apart, forming a half circle with me at the head.

The queen snaps her fingers and the hedge men march forward. They're taller than all of us, wider too, and they quickly have us scooped up in the wide span of their arms.

Two take Bran. Two more take Arion. One wraps its arms around me like a bear hug, locking me in place. A vine whips out, clamping over my mouth, stealing any chance I may have to use my voice.

Bran struggles. Arion tries to hack with his blade.

The queen stalks forward.

The closer she gets, the easier her struggle is to see. Eyes bloodshot, bags beneath. Her skin has a sickly pallor to it.

She starts to speak, to tell me all the reasons she deserves power and I don't. She tells me how I've made a terrible mistake. That I should have married Maven and bowed before her.

And I realize as the hedge man's grip slackens, as the queen takes a raspy breath, that while she holds the title of queen, she is just a girl, just like me, desperate for power over her own life.

But she holds no power over me.

The queen cuts herself off and her eyes dart to my forehead.

The ice crown is light but I sense it's presence just the same.

When I wear it, I feel whole.

Hope spreads through my body.

Crystal blue light softens the darkness around me.

The leaves of the hedge man curl up on themselves, then glisten with frost, before pulling free of the branches, flitting away.

When he is barren, when he wears the coat of winter, the hedge man opens his arms and lets me walk right out.

The queen's mouth drops open.

Thundering footsteps sound through the labyrinth.

The ground trembles.

"No," the queen says, sensing the inevitability of it all. She stumbles back as the branches around the labyrinth's center part for the herd of Autumn beasts.

"No!" she shouts. "No!"

The beasts barrel through what remains of the hedge men, shredding them limb from limb.

Soon Bran is free. Then Arion.

The queen motions with her arm, lashing out at me with the thorny vines of a rose bush.

My barren hedge man steps in front of me, taking the brunt of the rose's wrath.

" Surrender ," I say.

The queen immediately sinks to her knees. Her shoulders shake as she fights it.

I see her resolve crumble.

She was so desperate to restrain me with her power, to show her might, that she forgot one important thing: all of the seasons exist here, in the same space, present in some way at all times. The seed buried in the frozen earth of winter. Sprouting green in the spring. Blooming bright in the summer. Casting its seeds again in the autumn.

The hedge man, too, is all seasons.

The whole point is to find that balance in all, for all of us to hold equal power.

" Do not fight ," I order.

Ice crystals form along my arm.

Snow falls softly between us.

Arion comes over carrying his sword in his hand.

"Arion," the queen begins. "This is not who you are."

"You ordered me to kill my own mother." His voice shakes on the word mother and I can't help but think he has years left of healing and grieving.

"She betrayed us!" the queen goes on. "She birthed a bastard! Then tried to start a war!"

Arion hoists his sword up.

"Don't do this," she says.

"You could have had anyone do your dirty work. But you made me do it. You created this monster, did you not? And the dirty work isn't quite finished."

"Arion, no?—"

He jabs forward with his blade, sinking it into her heart.

Her eyes get big and her body gives a violent shake as blood gushes from the wound.

Her gaze loses focus, but she tries finding me just past Arion.

"You…remind me…of her," she says and smiles, blood splattering from her mouth. "I don't…know…if that's…a good…or bad—" And then she falls back into the earth, her eyes slipping closed.