Once Upon a Quest Read online

  I stopped, mesmerized by its beauty. The morning sun filtering through the trees glinted off its icy petals.

  It was a white rose, made entirely of snow.

  And there was something—

  My head hurt and I dropped the basket of eggs.

  I put my hands to my temples as I saw the image of a girl. A beautiful girl with a smile made of sunshine. A girl with the grace of an angel—

  “GRACE!”

  The name echoed through the forest and the force of pulling my memories from whatever chasm they’d fallen into made me dizzy. I went down on my knees and stared at the rose. Grace…how could I have forgotten about Grace?

  “How long…”

  Nearly a year.

  I wasn’t expecting to be answered. And not with a voice in my own head. I stood and looked around. “Who—who said that?”

  Kai.

  “And what’s a…is that your name?”

  Yes. Look up.

  I did and my jaw dropped when I saw a beautiful, and insanely large, snowy owl. “You…you’re not a normal owl.”

  No. You remember Grace now?

  “Yeah…I do. The white rose did it…” I looked back down at it, but it was melting. “You put that there.”

  It was the only way I knew to snap you back. You have to get to Grace.

  “You know where she is?”

  The owl tilted its head. I’m not sure, but I will help you.

  “How can I repay you?”

  Now the owl’s head turned upside down. Well…there’s a shard in your eye. Can I have it?

  “A shard?” I immediately thought about that day in the park when something had burned my eye. The day Grace disappeared. “What kind of shard?”

  It’s from the Snow Queen’s Crystal Mirror.

  “Is there a shard in Grace’s eye?”

  No. Her heart. But that’s where it was supposed to go. The one in your eye was never meant to be there.

  This owl was confusing the hell out of me until I remembered something about the park that day. I remembered… I narrowed my eyes and pointed at the owl. “That was you! You were in the park that day! You flew at us.”

  The owl bowed its head. Yes. That was me.

  “Why?”

  Why?

  “Why did you fly at us?”

  Kai tilted his head. You are Jack Frost.

  I had a thought. “Did the Snow Queen do this?”

  The owl’s head snapped back around. I don’t think I’m supposed to say. I’ve already said way too much. But I really need that shard.

  I touched my face, below the eye that had hurt that day. “Kai, I don’t know how to get the shard out.”

  The owl actually looked disappointed. Then it perked up and flapped its wings. I know someone who might. And she’s on the way to the castle!

  “Then let’s go—” I stopped. “You’re talking about in the North. Not the actual North, but the magical one.”

  Yes.

  “I can’t get there. I don’t have all my powers. And I think the shard is why.”

  Kai blinked at me. And then said, There is a coat in the Wizard’s house, one he wove. That coat and the boots you brought with you will keep you warm while you ride my back.

  I wasn’t going to argue the logistics of that. I raced back to the house. The Wizard was gone, but the coat and the boots were still there. I put the boots and coat on and then paused at the fireplace. I knew the truth when I saw the rose. I knew the Wizard had drugged me. And he’d done it with that tea.

  I grabbed the dried herbs and tossed them into the fire, not even a little surprised when a puff of black smoke billowed out of the fire and formed a skull and crossbones.

  Once outside I stopped. Kai had become the size of a griffin, or I’d shrunk to the size of a mouse. Either way, I jumped on his back and the snowy owl took me to the North.

  * * *

  I was surprised how cold I wasn’t, given I seemed to have half my powers. Kai told me the coat and the boots were how the Wizard flew when he bothered to. So maybe the combination of them kept the wearer warm.

  I could see the Snow Queen’s palace ahead, but Kai dipped lower and landed in a small village I never knew was there.

  These are humans who are indentured to the Snow Queen, Kai said. They owe her favors for magic granted. They work for her until their debt is paid. The woman you need to see is here. Last cabin.

  I moved to the cabin and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” came a voice from inside.

  I stepped in and was immediately greeted with intense heat. A fire roared and crackled in the fireplace and a woman’s silhouette was visible to the right, though her face was in shadows. “I’m sorry to barge in on you, but I was told you could help me.”

  “J-Jack?” The woman stepped closer to the fire. I knew she had to be in her fifties, evident in her graying hair. But her eyes were bright and her skin only slightly wilted with age. She wore a dark velveteen tracksuit and a sweater. Her feet were covered in thick gray socks.

  “You know me?” He slightly narrowed his eyes as she shuffled toward him.

  “Yes,” Her eyes widened and she stopped just inches from me. “Do you….” And then her expression saddened. “No. You wouldn’t.” She gave me a tight smile. “What can I do for you?”

  I hesitated a moment. “I have a shard in my eye.” I pointed to it. “I was told it’s part of the Snow Queen’s Crystal Mirror and I need to get it out. Can you tell me how?”

  The woman continued smiling at me and just before I was going to tell her she was creeping me out, she said, “You already know how. You’re Jack Frost.”

  “But not with the shard in my eye,” I pointed again for emphasis.

  She reached up with a gnarled hand and took hold of my wrist. She moved it from my face and placed it over my heart and then hers. “Here is where you draw your power, just as the Earth draws her power from her heart. What is it you think of when you think of your heart?”

  “Love. Warmth.”

  “And those are all you need to remove your shard, and hers.”

  “Hers?”

  “Your love is in the palace of the Snow Queen.” The woman squeezed my hand. “Go, and remember what I said about your heart. And hers.”

  I hugged her and her arms lingered around my neck a bit long.

  I ran outside and jumped on Kai’s back. Well? he asked.

  “Take me to the Snow Queen’s Palace.”

  Why do you want to go there? Kai turned its head all the way around to look at Jack.

  “To warm my heart.”

  * * *

  I was all too familiar with the Snow Queen’s palace. It was where I was born as Jack Frost. Kai took me to the gardens in the back where the Queen kept her ice sculpted collections. My heart nearly stopped when I saw a familiar figure in the center of the frozen pond.

  It was Grace.

  She was covered in icy crystals and glistened under the sun. But she wasn’t frozen solid. She moved her arms and she was kneeling on the ice. Kai landed softly on the ice and I jumped down and slipped. I landed on my side and pain shot up into my arm. I lay there for a few minutes, catching my breath and wondering what it was I’d just broken.

  “Jack,” came an all too familiar voice. “Well, what a surprise finding you, here.”

  The Snow Queen walked with no issue across the frozen pond, her crystal-encrusted dress spreading behind her. She left snow with every footstep. “Kai—why did you bring Jack here?”

  I wasn’t surprised she knew the owl. I’d already surmised he was one of her demons. But what she hadn’t realized, like I had, was that ice demons possessed a small but touchable piece of conscience. I’d sensed it in Kai and believed that her changing the demon into a warm-blooded animal had changed it. For the better.

  The owl bowed as it returned to its normal size and then flew into the air. “Forgive me, my Queen, but I have failed you.”

  “How?” She glance
d at Grace who was on her knees, moving snow around over the ice. She hadn’t looked up once. “I have what I want.”

  “Oh?” I piped up and slowly—and painfully—got to my feet. Normally I never had any trouble on ice. But this wasn’t normal. “You told Kai to put the shard in Grace’s heart.”

  “Without her love, dear Jack, you can’t be human. You can’t leave.”

  Grace shivered and I carefully walked over and knelt beside her. Her skin was deathly white and I knew it wouldn’t be long before the shard in her heart froze her solid. I looked at the ice and saw she was making letters. “Grace…what are you doing?”

  To my surprise, she answered me. “Must spell…answer the riddle.”

  “What riddle?” I looked at the Snow Queen.

  “What is never ending, never beginning, and made of space and time?” The Snow Queen smiled. “I told her I would make her warm again if she could give me the answer, in the snow.”

  I knew the answer, but I was sure my giving it to Grace wouldn’t remove the shard. But what would? I put my hand on her. Grace was shivering. I removed the coat the Wizard wove and draped it around her shoulders. “Think about it Grace. It’s how I always described my life.”

  She stopped shaking and slowly turned her head to look at me. “Your life?”

  “My lonely life.” I brushed my thumb over her icy cheek. “When you accepted me for who and what I am, you made me the happiest man alive. You broke the cycle of loneliness.” I took her hands in mine and to my surprise, they warmed. “What did I promise you, Grace? How long did I say I would always love you?”

  “No!” the Queen shouted.

  A smile pulled at the corner of Grace’s lips as she stared at me. “An Eternity.” And then she wrapped her arms around me. “Jack!”

  I wrapped my arms around her. “Grace…I have missed you. I love you, Grace. I love you for all eternity!”

  I felt something crack in my eye and I let Grace go. Tears streamed down my cheek and as they dropped to the pond’s surface, they reformed to make a shard of ice. I saw tears in Grace’s eyes too, and another shard formed beside mine. We gasped when the shards broke apart into dust and the dust spelled ETERNITY on the surface between us.

  The Snow Queen screamed and vanished in a whirlwind of ice and snow.

  “Jack…” Grace said as she looked at me. “You look different.”

  “Different?” I put my hands on my face. “How?”

  But I felt something was strange inside. It was the queasy feeling in my stomach at first, and then the realization that I couldn’t hear the whisper of the wind, nor the crack of the ice as it spoke. I held out my hand to make a rose and nothing happened.

  Nothing happened!

  And then I realized how freak’n cold I was!

  Damn!

  “Here, take the coat back,” Grace started to remove it from her shoulders.

  “No, you need it more.” I looked over at Kai, surprised the owl was still there. “I’m…don’t you work for the Snow Queen? I mean, shouldn’t you be with her?”

  “She fired me,” Kai spoke, and I realized it was a girl. “Looks like I’m stuck like this. And she left you two here to freeze to death.”

  I was human. I was really human! “I’m stuck like this. I think we should stick together.”

  Kai grew to the larger size. “Want a lift back to New York?”

  “Please!” Grace said as the two of us got up and carefully made our way onto Kai’s back.

  “Take us home, please. And if you’re nice,” I smiled, “maybe we can find you a nice mouse later?”

  “Nah,” Kai said as they took to the air and sailed home in the clouds. “But I would really like to try a steak and cheese sandwich.”

  * * *

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When Anthea first suggested this anthology, I’d just finished pulling my short Frost up and offering it for .99 for the Holidays. I LOVE the Jack Frost myth and wanted to write one of my own, so he was already on my mind. But the idea of a quest didn’t pop immediately. I’m a gamer (heavy Final Fantasy 14 player), so that’s where my idea of questing comes from. So I started looking into fairy tales with quests. As a kid, The Snow Queen was always my favorite. I think because the idea of having a shard of glass lodged in one’s eye and heart was just horrifying. And the fact that love could melt it away. So I started mixing the two together and came up with The White Rose.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Phaedra Weldon is a writer and mother of one. Since selling her first series, The Zoe Martinique Investigation Series to Penguin, Phaedra has continued writing in her beloved genre of Urban Fantasy. Her series include The Eldritch Files, The Grimoire Chronicles, Cast in Shadow (under a pen name which will be changing soon) and recently the first book in a new series, Oak & Ash & Thorn. Her first Epic Fantasy book will be out beginning of this year along with another new Urban Fantasy Series. Sign up here to be notified! http://www.phaedraweldon.com/newsletter-signup/

  The Goblin and the Treasure

  Alethea Kontis

  Kira had waited for this moment her whole life.

  Today was the day she would be chosen for a quest, she just knew it. She could feel it in her bones. She had seen it in her dreams. Days—weeks—from now she would come back to this very spot, brandishing the sought-after object in triumph. She would return to her village a hero, having restored the good name of the kobolds. Tales would be told for generations to come. Her mothers would be so proud.

  Three more hours of standing wasn’t going to kill her.

  Her neck ached from the weight of her helm. Her shoulders were starting to freeze up from the staff exercises she’d put them through yesterday. Despite the chill in the air, the small of her back was dripping sweat. Her right foot began to twitch.

  If this quest didn’t start soon, she might just explode.

  She took a mindful breath, willing herself to remain calm. She mentally ran through her daily morning routine, tensing and releasing each muscle group in place. As she casually lowered her head to one side and then the other, she glanced at the crowd of warriors in attendance. Some looked angry (mostly ogres and greylings). Several looked tired (mostly dwarves and trolls). The handful of fellow kobolds present looked as antsy as she was. One of the trolls had fallen asleep standing up, his deep, even breathing punctuated by soft snores. The crowd had left an empty space all the way around him, in the event that he fell over.

  There wasn’t much work these days, now that the evil queen had been defeated. It made little difference that the soldiers of the mountain races had not been complicit in the war. The queen had put them all under a spell and forced them to fight for her. When her wretched spell-fog lifted the battles had stopped, and legions of warriors on the wrong side of the fighting had been left with nothing but their own shame.

  There were jobs if you were emotionally stunted enough to sign on as a mercenary. Ogres and greylings were hired first for those spots, by reputation. Similarly, dwarves were sought after for thieving and looting—smash-and-grab operations—as they possessed both brute force and a keen eye. Trolls were most often hired for protection. They’d work for a pittance; their looming presence alone often did the trick. Piracy was always an option for those of human height or less. Pirate captains took on anyone desperate enough to trek as far as the sea. As for reputable jobs? Well, nobody wanted to hire the losers, that was a fact. That went double if you were female.

  And then there was questing.

  In the wake of unification a Council had been formed, representing the tribes north of the Upper Reaches. Every so often, this or that esteemed personage would approach the Council, in search of some precious object rumored to have been carried off once upon a time and ferreted away in the Great Mountains. It wasn’t safe or smart to give every wayward soldier freedom to ravage the countryside at will, so the Council appointed High Wizard Zelwynn to select a small band of applicants to take on each mission.

  Zelwynn
was a dragonhand. When the dragons went extinct centuries ago (supposedly), the race of beings who had served as their caretakers also died out (supposedly). Zelwynn was the last of his kind. Supposedly. That he was very old and worshiped the ancient gods of the mountains and had nothing left to lose made him wise, Kira guessed. It qualified him for his current position, anyway.

  “All stand for High Wizard Zelwynn!”

  Kira snorted at the ridiculous statement. Every soldier in attendance was geared up and ready. No one sat in full armor.

  It’s about time.

  Zelwynn appeared, the wizened man no taller than a kobold himself. His bushy white brows and beard stuck out like crystals from his dusky skin. The purple robes he wore swallowed his small frame and pooled around his feet. The blue-gray robes he’d worn at the last announcement had fit him equally as badly. Perhaps the clothes had originally been tailored for someone else.

  Someone prodded the sleeping troll with a ten-foot spear. A smart someone. Kira wondered if Zelwynn would take that soldier’s forethought into account. Should she have brought more than her mother’s sword?

  “I’m ready!” bellowed the troll upon waking.

  High Wizard Zelwynn cackled. “Indeed you are! What do they call you, soldier?”

  “Rowst!” he bellowed. (The pitch of a troll’s voice rarely dropped below a bellow.)

  “Rowst, I have just chosen you for this special quest. Step right up and select an item from my bag to aid you on your travels.”

  Was he kidding?

  Apparently not.

  Rowst the Troll did not need to step up to much of anything—even standing beside the raised platform, he towered over the diminutive wizard. Zelwynn held out a burlap sack significantly smaller that the troll’s fist, but some strange magic still allowed Rowst to reach inside, rummage around, and pull out…a bright orange wool cap.