Free The Fairy Letters: A FROST Series(TM) Novel by Kailin Gow

Listening to my father – his gravelly voice, his noble countenance,
made me feel braver, somehow – stronger. Watching him ride across the
snowdrifts, his back straight and his gaze straight and sure, I felt that I was
watching not a mere fairy, but rather the ideal of a fairy warrior – everything
a fairy ought to be. He was brave and sure of himself, but unlike knights like
Flynn, whose skill in battle is matched by a vicious love for killing, he never
sought to kill in vain. War was serious business, he told me – never forget
that. It is a lesson I cannot forget, not when he is gone from me now, and my only
memories of him are tinged with such pain and bitterness.
    We
reached Juniper by nightfall, and the sky blushed crimson and yellow. “See that
sky,” my father said, pointing upwards. “Is that not a beautiful sky?”
    “Yes,
sir,” I said.
    He
smiled. “That's what we're fighting for, Kian, my boy. We're fighting to
protect it – that gorgeous sunset that you can see only in the Winter lands,
that pink, that gold. We're fighting to protect all the beauty around us – the
snow that's so white it shines when the light hits it, and the scent of the
fir-trees all through the forest, and for the kindly, noble wolves that live in
the forest. We're fighting for our frozen lakes and the right to skate across
them – we're fighting for the juniper berries that surround this very village –
can't you smell them?” He gave a deep sigh. “I love this land, Kian, and I hate
to see it torn apart by war. But Summer's hold on the Spring lands has gone on
long enough – they're ours by history, and most Spring fairies would say so
too. These are our lands. Our people. Be proud of them, Kian, for they are a
part of you.”
    He
clapped me on the shoulder. “For they, Kian, are proud of you. You have grown
into a brave young man now, and everything of which I have spoken – all this
land – looks to you to protect it. The leaves whisper your name, and rustle
when you pass them by. The snow glimmers brighter under your feet. The wolves
howl as you pass. They are all counting on you, my boy. And they are all proud
– as proud as I am. Knowing what you can accomplish. Knowing all that you can
be.”
    He
later trusted me with another task – to lead in the rebuilding of some of the
Spring outposts that Summer fairies had destroyed. I spent three months in the
Spring lands under my father's command, leading not war but construction –
supervising the rebuilding of military fortifications alongside houses for
those refugees whose homes had been destroyed in the war. I think my father
assigned me to that post for a reason. He knew, as my mother did, that I would
one day be called upon to be a great warrior. But he wanted more for me than
bloodshed. He wanted to spare me that as long as he could – he wanted to call
upon me to be a hero in other ways, in ways that perhaps were more suited to my
temperament (before anger, hate, and bitterness froze my heart against such
desires for mercy). He wanted to show me that a good king does not only tear
down, he also rebuilds. It is this lesson that has stuck with me the most, and
it is this lesson that inspires me to think that one day, you and I can carry
out his great work – rebuilding this land that we both love so dearly, building
homes for the dispossessed, schools for the children who have been orphaned,
farms for those with no means of sustenance. Just as my father taught me to do.
    To
write thus of my father now brings tears to my eyes. How I miss him – even now
– how I long for that sure, steady man who made me feel that I was strong
enough to bear the burden of this war. He was right, of course. Right about my
love for the land – a love he and my mother and I and Shasta all share. I
cannot pass the snow without taking in my breath at its beauty. I close my eyes
in the forests to take in the intoxicating scent of the pine trees. But my love
for the Winter lands