The Book of Faeyore (4 page)

          Before I could respond to this bizarre outburst, Logan had vanished out the door.

          “What happened?” Annie’s voice came down the stairs. “Where did Logan go?”

          I shrugged.

          “Gosh – what a day!” Annie sat down next to me on the couch. “I rang up all the delivery companies in town – but none of them had an Alistair on the books. And none of them said they’d sent
anyone
over to us at all yesterday! I went through all the delivery companies in the Yellow pages.”

          “What?”

          “I even called up the guys at the local Renaissance Faire – and nothing! No Alistair. No delivery.”

          “Wait…” I looked up, perplexed. “You said he delivered something yesterday?”

          “Yeah – the cute guy from yesterday! Don’t tell me you forgot!”

          I looked down. What had I forgotten? “Yeah, I guess…something about an Alistair. That sounds familiar. You opened the door for him…”    

          “You were there, Breena! You picked up the package, remember? We looked for it for hours.”

          “That can’t be,” I said. “I don’t remember any package.”

          “Really, Breena,” said Annie, sighing. “You’re so absent-minded. All you do is read your books and walk around in the woods – you’re going to go crazy if you’re not careful.”

         
Was I going crazy?
Something felt wrong to me – very, very wrong.

          Instead of going to my room, I went up to my mother’s office. Whenever I was feeling blue, or lonely, or sick, I liked to go read the fairy tales on her library walls. But today, something else attracted me. My mother’s latest large-scale art project: a huge canvas on which a beautiful library was painted. I gasped as I marvelled at the marble floors, the ten stories of books, one on top of the other. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen. And, I thought, it was strangely familiar. Had I been to this place before?

          I looked more closely at the painting. As my eyes travelled over the canvas, I felt my gaze turning to the book at the center of the painting – almost involuntarily, I leaned in closer. It was a burgundy book, a golden F emblazoned on its spine. And it looked as though it were burning. Something within me compelled me to reach out and touch it – something was calling to me.

          I touched my fingers to the spine.

          And there I heard a voice – a voice that sounded like it was coming from a million miles away.

          “Faeyore.”

******

          Another world, another time. A land beyond a river that sparkled so brightly that its denizens swore it was made not of water but of liquidated jewels. A palace surrounded by bright red and orange leaves, the crisp yellow foliage of autumn. Cool air blew from the north, carrying the smell of nutmeg and cinnamon and fresh apples through the air. And in the heart of a palace, a young man with tanned skin and golden hair knelt before his Uncle, a noble-looking gentleman with kindly austere eyes. The Duke of Autumn Springs.

          “Did you deliver the package?” The Duke peered at his nephew through a monocle.

          “Yes,” said Alistair, bowing low. “It was difficult to cross over into the mortal lands, but I managed. I knew how important this mission was.”

          “Good.” Alistair’s uncle nodded to himself. “But you shouldn’t have let her see the book – it was too early.”

          “She forgot it, Uncle, don’t worry. The forgetting potion was in the packaging. She got the potion into her fingers through the skin. She forgot about it as soon as she had opened it.

          “And her friends?”

          “The book was invisible to anyone who was not Fey. We don’t have to worry about them.”

          “What about the Wolf Fey, Logan? He could see the book?”

          “He should forget soon, too. I used a separate potion on him – I embedded both in the wrapping paper.”

          “Your alchemy has improved tremendously, nephew. For someone so young as you are, it is truly remarkable. The Summer and the Winter Kingdoms will both be fighting over your talents before long.”

          Alistair’s face broke into a wide grin. “Thank you, Uncle,” he said. “Now, may I go? There is much I must attend to; I have found a young Summer Knight wandering in the forests from Autumn Springs. He is a good man – he has offered to teach me to fight!”

          “A fighter, you?” The Duke looked dubious. “But your calling is in alchemy.”

          “Rodney says I have natural skill,” Alistair insisted. “He isn’t even asking for money - I have promised to teach his sister alchemy to keep things fair, but he is a noble friend, Uncle.”

          “As you say,” said the Uncle. “But there is one more thing. Come here, my dear boy.” He waved a hand before Alistair’s face.

          “Uncle, what are you….” But Alistair’s expression turned swiftly from shock to blankness.  A dull, vague expression came over his features.

          “Yes, Uncle?”

          “I hate to do this to you, my boy, but you must forget. Forget everything about the mortal lands, about the girl Breena and her friend Logan. If you remember – or if
they
remember before they are supposed to – it will alter their destinies. We cannot let those destinies, decreed by prophecies of old, become forfeit. Feyland needs them. Feyland needs you. It is a pity she was able to find the book after all – but thanks to you, we have set the path right again. That is our destiny, Alistair. As the one kind of Fey in Feyland who still hold to the ancient magic, we must ensure all goes according to its rightful path.”

          “Yes, uncle.” Alistair nodded automatically.

          “Very good,” said the Duke, and clapped his hands.

          Immediately Alistair’s eyes returned to their customary sparkle.

          “Now go, my boy! Go fence with your new friend!”

          Alistair bounded off happily. But the Duke remained sitting, an expression of concern on his face. He had staved off one potential disaster – but so many more awaited him. The Summer Fey, the Winter Fey, their wars.

          Not to mention the pixies…

R R R

The Bitter Frost Series of Frost begins with Breena, Logan, and Alistair in

·
  Award-winning Finalist in Multi-genre Fiction (2011 International Book Awards)

·
  Award-winning Finalist in Women's Literature (2011 International Book Awards)

Read the YA Fantasy Series about Strong and Beautiful Fairies that have won 2 International Awards in Fiction...
"Loved this book and am so excited to see what happens in the next one. I have a feeling that Mrs. Gow will be the next it author."
- Amanda Drost, Broken Arrow
"This is my first novel by Kailin Gow and I promise it won’t be the last! She has a wonderful way of capturing the reader from the start and easily transports them to an interesting and fascinating world of Feyland where fairies, pixies and werewolves exist – a beautiful place where magic is normal and necessary, and a place where humans normally cannot survive."
- Theresa, Just One More Paragraph
"OMG…this series just keeps getting better! I absolutely love this series. I love reading Kailin’s books."
– Jamie Johnson, Fantasy Book Chick blog
"I love Kailin Gows books and Frost Kisses is no exception. She is an amazing author who can weave her magic so throughly that you feel as if you are there."
- Jessica Bolton, Book Rock Goddess
"I have to give the author credit – Love Triangle – very different. What I mean by that – not typical. The author makes it where it will just shock the sh*t out of you. I can’t really explain it with out giving it away. The only hint I can give is that it doesn’t go down the way traditional love triangles go. I think the author was very bold and for that, she made me a fan."
- Sunny
"This needs to be a TV or movie series. I love books and this one effected me so much! The story makes you feel like your in the series. I would watch this any day!"
–

Christina Rossner
All her life, Breena had always dreamed about fairies as though she lived among them...beautiful fairies living among mortals and living in Feyland. In her dreams, he was always there the breathtakingly handsome but dangerous Winter Prince, Kian, who is her intended. When Breena turns sixteen, she begins seeing fairies and other creatures mortals don t see. Her best friend Logan, suddenly acts very protective. Then she sees Kian, who seems intent on finding her and carrying her off to Feyland. That's fine and all, but for the fact that humans rarely survive a trip to Feyland, a kiss from a fairy generally means death to the human unless that human has fairy blood in them or is very strong, and although Kian seemed to be her intended, he seems to hate her and wants her dead.
This edgy tale about beautiful and dangerous fairies, based on Dutch lore, will leave you breathless...
THE FROST SERIES by Kailin Gow
The Book of Faeyore (Bitter Frost #0.5) - Prequel Novella

Bitter Frost

Forever Frost
Silver Frost
Frost Kisses
Midnight Frost
Frost Fire
Spring Frost - Available for Pre-order in Paperback, Kindle Version - April 9, 2012
Companion Series to the Frost Series:

THE WOLF FEY SERIES

The Wolf Fey
The Red Wolf
Wolf Magic - August 2012
THE FAIRY CHRONICLES

The Fairy Rose
The Fairy Fair
Pixies Vs. Fairies
 
Separate Novel, but Best Read After Silver Frost

The Fairy Letters: Letters from Prince Kian to Queen Breena

******************

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EXCERPT

From

T
he dream had come again, like the sun after a storm. It was the same dream that had come many times before, battering down the doors of my mind night after night since I was a child. It was the sort of dreams all girls dream, I suppose – a dream of mysterious worlds and hidden doorways, of leaves that breathe and make music when they are rustled in the wind, and rivers that bubble and froth with secrets.
Dreams
, my mother always told me,
represent part of our unconsciousness – the place where we store the true parts of our soul, away from the rest of the world.
My mother was an artist; she always thought this way. If it was true, then my true soul was a denizen of this strange and fantastical world. I often felt, in waking hours, that I was in exile, somehow – somehow less myself, less
true
, than I had been in my enchanted slumber. The real world was only a dream, only an echo, and in silent moments throughout the day it would hit me:
I am not at home here
.

I would shake the thought off, of course, dismiss it as stupid, try and apply my mother's armchair psychoanalysis to the situation. But then, before bed, the thought would come to me, trickle through the mire of worries (boys, school, whether or not I'd remembered to charge my IPod before getting into bed, whether or not my banner would be torn down yet again from the homeroom message board) –
will I have the dream tonight?
And then, another thought would come to me alongside it.
Will I be going home again
?

And the night before my sixteenth birthday, the dream came again – stronger and more vivid than it had ever come before, as if the gauzy wisp of a curtain between reality and dream-land had at last been torn open, and I looked upon my fantasy with new eyes.

I was a fairy princess. (When waking, I would chide myself for this fantasy – sixteen-year-old girls should want to start a fruitful career in environmental activism, not twirl around in silk dresses). But I was a fairy princess, and I was a child. I dreamed myself into a palace – with spires reaching up into the sun, so that the rays seemed to pour gold down onto the turrets. The floors were marble; vines bursting with flowers were wrapped around all the colonnades. The halls were covered in mirrors – gold-framed glass after gold-framed glass – and in these hundred kaleidoscopic images I could see my reflection refracted a hundred times.

I was a toddler – perhaps four, maybe five years old, decked out in elaborate jewels, swaddled in lavender silk, yards and yards of the fabric – the color of my eyes. I hated the color of my eyes in real life – their pale color seemed to make me alien and strange – but here, they were beautiful. Here, I was beautiful. Here, I was home.

The music grew louder, and I could hear its melody. It was not like human music – no, not even the most beautiful concertos, most elaborate sonatas. This was the music that humans try to make and fail – the language of the stars as they twinkle, the rhythm of the human heart as it beats, the glimmering harmony of all the planets and all the moons and all the secret melodies of nature. It was a music that haunted me always, whenever I woke up.

Beside me there was a boy – a few years older than I was. I knew his name; somehow my heart had whispered it to my brain.
Kian
. All the palace around me was golden – with peach hues and warm, pulsating life – but Kian was pale, pale like snow. His eyes were icy blue, with just a hint of silver flecked around the irises; his hair was so black that ink itself would drown in it. He seemed out of place in the vernal palace that was my home – out of season with the baskets of ripe fruit that hung down from the ceiling, with the sweet, honey-strong smell of the flowers. But he was beautiful, and all the more beautiful for his strangeness.