I pushed the double doors to the balcony open and I took a deep breath of fresh air as I walked out onto the large ledge and went straight to the railing. As far as the eye could see there was every colour of trees and a few small cities. A gentle breeze blew my hair to the side and I used a hand to brush it behind my ear. After a few slow, deep breaths, I finally managed to find peace with the news I had just discovered.

Not only had they put me in a corset dress, but then they dragged me to a conference room and demanded answers from both Erik and myself. Erik then told me something I would never have thought was possible - he wasn't human. I felt both betrayed and in shock that my dead, human boyfriend was neither dead nor human.

Erik didn't state his species, but he said he was from Kaldur and that he had been searching for me his entire life. Despite the fact it wasn't his case to make, he suggested to Roman and Kieran that I be taken back to Kaldur and resume my rightful place as the Princess of Winter.

If that thought wasn't sickening enough, that me, a murder could hold down a throne, Kieran gave me all the answers I had ever asked for. Ankou was the king of Kaldur over 300 years ago and he was the bringer of cold and death. The young ruler had the ability to control life itself and humans knew him as the Grim Reaper. He could take any form and at the snap of his fingers, he could end a life.

The legend goes that Ankou went to the human world, as he did every winter solstice to begin winter. Ankou used the same old cart for his travels as he went through a small town. Along his way, he was stopped by two drunk men. These mortals did not realize the old man was not what he appeared to be. They threw stones, called names. The men broke Ankou's cart before running off. A third was with the two drunk men, a girl who showed kindness to the King despite knowing nothing about his status or what he was. The girl fixed his cart with an old piece of wood and her own shoe lace. After apologizing for the men's behaviour, she offered Ankou the only money she had.

Ankou saw something in the human girl and instead of taking her money, he rewarded her kindness with a gift that no human could imagine. With a single touch of his slender hand, he had gifted her with the essence of a Fae. Her hair would turn white as snow and she would be given all the abilities the King of Winter had.

He let the girl leave and return home, planning on going to her and bringing her back to his kingdom the next morning in hopes she would rule beside him. While she left to go home, Ankou found the brothers who had broken his cart and cursed them and their entire family to death. Little did the King know that his new queen and the boys who had been so cruel were blood.

The next morning when Ankou came to collect the girl, he found her sobbing on the floor over the loss of her family. He had loved this girl, the only one who ever showed him true kindness and he had broken her heart. Overwhelmed with what he did, Ankou never returned to his throne and the Kaldur royal family disappeared from history.

When Kieran had finished telling me the legend of Ankou, I could see things clearly. Everything made sense for once. I had once been human, I wasn't responsible for the death of my family, but I was the bringer of death.

As I stood out on the balcony, overlooking the scene before me, I realized I had no home to go back to. The human world was not for me anymore. If I returned, I would only bring death and destruction to this world and the one I called home. I may not be ready to take the Kaldur throne, but it had been Autumn for far too long and the snow needed to fall.

With a clear conscious and steady hand, I knew what I had to do next. In the morning I was going to travel to Kaldur and find out what happened to their last King, to my creator. 

I should point out that I did not create the Ankou creature nor the story of the broken cart. I did add my own flare to it, but it is a character in Breton, Cornish, Welsh, and Norman French Mythologic fairy. 

While I do know this chapter is a bit shorter (and slightly rushed [as is the next one]) I still hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please vote and/or leave a comment.