I SAT IN MY room with Eeira to have the privacy of our conversation. Gulbrand had sent two guards to stand by my door like he informed in his conversation with Calder, but all I could seem to think about was ours--what little we did say. But I knew that had to be put to the side right now when I needed to know so many other things about my past.

"Why did the frozen queen kill my parents and my sisters? What was her problem with them, with me?" I questioned Eeira, my voice cold and cross.

"The frozen queen Sylvi is a very tortuous witch," Eeira replied as she sat down in the velvet chair next to mine. "She has wanted power for a very long time, and by their murders she was able to get that. At least for seventeen years until you were found."

"You mean the kingdom and the realm, she was able to take all of it?"

Eeira was hesitant. "Yes and no. She was able to achieve the title of the only fey ruler in the realm, but she didn't have any control of the west side. It was your uncle Magnus who survived and was left to run your kingdom until one day you could claim the role as queen. He didn't take position of the throne because you were still alive, only kept things in order and at peace with the realm," she explained.

"He banished Sylvi and her knights from the kingdom until your return. That is how we have all remained safe for so long. Any treaty is sacred to the fey and if broken leads to either permanent exile in the ephemeral world. . .or death, by the hands of the Clan. Magnus was killed a few years ago by unknown sources during a lone journey."

"If the banishment wasn't lifted then why did her knights come for me?" I questioned. "Linnea said it was my powers, that by freezing Blane I somehow. . .awakened them and it was a beacon straight to them."

"The treaty kept Sylvi from entering the west, but it could not keep her from searching for you all these years," Eeira said. "The reason Hanir and Linnea were assigned your protectors was because their heat kept your cold dorment, among other things. They brought you to live in Arizona where it never snows, kept you away from ice so your powers wouldn't flare, and. . . protected you from ephemeral boys which wasn't as perfected. When your magic was unleashed the force boomed over all the realm, and that was how we all knew it was you. As did Sylvi."

"What, you're saying it was like an earthquake, or an explosion?" I questioned, that information seeming a little far fetched to me.

"You are an Arnesen, Eerika," Eeira reminded. "Your powers are far stronger than any of the frost fey, even the frozen queen. Your lineage has been the life force of this realm for centuries. Your power is connected to the forests, the mountains, even the creatures that strive here. Without you the realm would surely die away much like the north has."

"If the banishment wouldn't be broken until I came back then why did the knights try to kill me? If I was dead it would still be forced," I inputted.

"If you were dead there would no longer be a treaty," Eeira corrected. "Sylvi could finally take the place of the frozen queen over all the realm, and not just the north."

"Her faery guards were looking for me in the forest when I arrived," I informed her. "Calder and I overheard that she sent them. But if the treaty is void now why doesn't she just come for me herself?"

"We believe she's waiting out, thinking or even hoping that you will come to her if the knights haven't taken you before then. I think her motives quickly changed once she learned you escaped the iron knights and were brought here. She knows you will have an anger and pain boiled beneath you over what she has done to your protectors and your family. She will gladly use that to who only knows what advantages."

I tried to keep my voice from quivering. "What made her like this? What caused her to hate my family so much?"

Eeira took a long pause, as if trying to recollect a story.

"There are things that back in the beginning days of the Vinter realm were very different than they are now. It was once called the Netherly realm, where both the east and west of the fire and frost kingdoms lived in peace with one another. The ephemerals knew of us, and both the worlds were entwined."

The Netherly? The humans knew of the fey? Why hadn't Calder told me any of this? And what does this have to do with Sylvi? I thought.

Eeira went on, "Years ago, long before the uprisings, both fire and frost fey would separately visit the ephemeral world during the summer and winter solstice to engage in sexual affairs with the humans. They never kissed, and the fey never spoke a word of love or they would have been bound to them as they are to the other fey. But all of this came to an end when the human world started to grow and flourish in technology. The affairs strangly began producing ephemeral-fey children who were resistant to iron and some that held a power to it along with their ice or fire abilities. The Clan were five of the first, and your protectors were two of the race as well. They never had the power over iron, but held the resistance."

I would've fallen out of my chair had I not been gripping onto its arms so tightly. I put the pieces together, and my words came out tempestuously.

"Sylvi is one of them too. That was how she killed my family."

I recalled the vision I'd seen just hours ago, watching her run an iron spike through my father and stabbing my mother and sisters with her conjured shards. I squeezed my eyelids together to try dissolving it all and stay focused.

"Yes," Eeira confirmed sadly, "Her mother was a frost fey and her father was an ephemeral. It was an entirely new kind of breed, and the ones who held the iron power soon became a threat to the full-blooded fey. Most of them contained no logic or reason and didn't obey orders, so they began slaughtering the normal fey and poisoning the land. After time passed your grandfather Udom who was king at the time finally felt it necessary to take action for the safety of the Netherly."

My breath hitched in my throat, and I gave a hard swallow to keep down the bile. "What happened to all of them?"

Eeira's eyes then grew tired, and she hesitated with her words once more. "All of the half-breeds with the iron power were executed, including Sylvi's mother and even her father. The ones with the resistance lived on among the full-bloods, though some of them aged who beared a human soul like the Clan. A treaty was declared that none would fondel in affairs with the humans again, and it was obeyed. Then the Clan of the Rim was formed to keep the order of the realm and provide wisdom and descisions to the Arnesens."

I imagined the scene in my head, innocent but brain-corrupt children and adults being murdered, and I shivered.

"A century later the uprisings began, where the fire fey wanted to secede away from the peace and unity with the frost kingdom, and be the only fey left of the Netherly," Eeira told me. "Your father who had then taken the throne declared war agaisnt them, and in the end it is as Calder told you. Hanir and Linnea were the only ones left. Asger proclaimed the new name of this world as the Vinter realm, and the fire fey are now forgotten."

"But what does that have to do with Sylvi? She has the iron powers. She should've been executed too," I pointed out, not seeing any of the logic in the story that referred to her.

"No one ever knew of her existence until several years after the uprisings had ended."

"How? How can a child, especially a faery, be the only one to escape murder out of so many?"

"We believe she had been hiding in the north all that time, creating an army and a kingdom of her own. Her wrath started when two iron guards invaded the castle one night and killed your grandparents. Luckily your father was able to save Magnus and himself along with your mother and sisters. Vowing to avenge his parents he went to the Clan for help in finding the being responsible, and they led him to a seer residing in the snowy hills."

Eeira paused then, and there was something etched on her face that made me nervous. I held my breath.

"There she showed him a prophecy of the future, which was of you."

I nearly gasped. "Me?"

"Yes. The seer told your father that your mother was pregnant and the child would be you. She spoke of your family's fates, how Sylvi wanted a vengeance over the Arnesen race for your grandfather killing her parents and her kind. She prophesied yours as well. You would grow in the human world until the seventeenth year of your life, and then you would return to defeat the frozen queen, and bring back peace to the realm forever. Though we were hoping to have kept you hidden for a longer time until you were ready, her words turned out true.

But Asger didn't believe the sidhe woman, and returned to the castle to tell the Clan and his wife what foolishness he had witnessed. The Clan agreed with the seer, and your mother told him she discovered during his journey that she was indeed pregnant. Your father was troubled to the point of near madness trying to discover a way to change the fate, but as you know he never succeeded. Sylvi continued to grow her iron army and even gained traitors to the kingdom, and after several attempts of attack between both sides, Sylvi accomplished part of her plan."

I tried to take in all that I had just learned, and I felt dizzy with my brain spinning like a top. I wasn't sure wether to pass out or throw up, but I honestly felt like doing both.

"So everyone expects me to kill her?" my words mumbled out, and I couldn't bring myself to look Eeira's way any longer.

She said nothing for what felt like forever instead of a few moments, before rising from her chair and comfortingly squeezing my shoulder.

"It's very late now Princess. Try to get some sleep. We shall talk more tomorrow."

With that Eeira exited my chamber, leaving me in the dim light of the candles and fireplace that crackled seemingly loud into the silence.

My chest felt tight. The history of this world was so dark, so full of bloodshed and my family seemed to be at the head of it all. The queen wanted me in her clutches, either my body dangling on an iron sword like my family or something far worse. And I was supposed to kill her so that wouldn't end up as my fate.

I thought the entire conversation over. Sylvi did rip my parents and the first seventeen years of my life from me that I could've had, but I didn't know if even that could be a reason to do what they were asking of me. Killing Blane still burned in the core of my fresh memory, and one thing I knew was that I couldn't do anything like that again. I couldn't stain my hands with any more blood.

If I was expected to lead the kingdom and realm the same way my father and grandfather did, with countless murder and war, then I wasn't the princess they were hoping for.