Frost Kisses (Bitter Frost #4: Frost Series) by Kailin Gow

the Autumn lands. Instead the lands here were bright and airy – the blooming and blossoming of spring was all around us.
    “I know this place,” said Kian. “I used to come here as a boy. It is a long way from the Summer Palace – but it is a way I can recall!” He took my hand. “Come with me!”
    And together, without our horse now, we sprinted onwards.

 
    Chapter 10
     
     
    W e looked around as we ran. This was the heart of the Spring lands, a place I had visited most rarely of all in my sojourns around Feyland. Here there were many waterfalls and springs – crystal clear and sparkling like rare gems. The flowers here grew in multitudes – many fields filled with sprigs of purple lavender and pathways bordered by bright, pert daisies. There were roses, too – bushes red and white and pink – and among the leaves I could see the buzzing of ladybirds and the hopping to and fro of tiny rabbits, who twitched their noses at us as we passed. This place was full of life, as the Summer Court was, and yet the life was not as ripe, not as fecund as it seemed in the gardens of the Summer Court. Rather, everything here seemed new and exciting: everything was just beginning. The rabbits were newborns – the flowers had just bloomed. A sense of peace washed over me with the scent of the apple blossoms.
    “It's so beautiful here,” I said, looking around. “I don't believe I've ever seen a place like this before.”
    “I know it well,” said Kian. “In my boyhood, before the war, my mother used to take me and Shasta here to play. We had a palace here – only it wasn't big and cold like the palace we lived in. It was a beautiful place: a wooden house with bowers of blossoms running all up and down the house, so much so that you couldn't even see the frame. Shasta used to clamber down the trellis to run wild through the night – she was always the mischievous one. She didn't have the responsibilities of being a future ruler...” He laughed. “But regardless, it was a wonderful time. The palace was destroyed in the war, of course. But this place hasn't seen as much war-damage as the rest of Feyland. It's largely been left behind – technically under Winter control, but most fairies who live here don't identify as Winter or Summer or anything in between: they live peacefully away from trouble.”
    Could it be, I wondered? Was there anywhere in Feyland free of the ravages of war? If there was such a place, I thought, the Spring lands sounded like it.
    “There's been a big battle over Blossom Valley,” Kian said. “That's the heart of Spring Country, and it's war-torn. But these are the Bloom Hills, and nobody bothered with them – probably because they're so remote. They're of no strategic importance.”
    “But this place…it’s so beautiful!” I inhaled another breath full of the sweet floral scent.
    Before Kian could answer, we were interrupted by a low growl from behind us.
    “What the...” Kian and I turned around, only to see an enormous black wolf – the size of a bear – snarling at us with bared teeth.
    “Stand back!” I cried. This must be one of the werewolves of Feyland – no ordinary wolf could be this large. And as far as I knew, all the werewolves were under Logan's command; he was their leader, and the captain of the Wolf Guard that had made an alliance with the Summer Court when we were engaged. “Stand down!” I cried. “By the order of the Summer Queen.”
    This didn't seem to have much of an effect. The black wolf continued to snarl – its savagery apparently not tempered by my royal command.
    “Figures we had to find the defector,” I muttered, raising my sword in defense.
    Yet before the wolf could pounce another wolf leaped from the shadows – a wolf, slightly larger than the black one, with a smooth grey pelt the color of silver. This second wolf attacked the first one, baring its ivory-colored teeth with a ferocious look that made it clear that he meant business. As the