The Sword of Light by Shannon West

Pavel returns to the Ice Kingdom to live his fairy tale romance with his handsome Quendi, Lord Juul, and he brings his younger brother, Sergey, with him. The young Sergey is overwhelmed at first by the luxurious palace, the glittering lords and ladies, and the gorgeous Ice King himself, but as the years pass, he begins to feel at home among the savage, beautiful and warlike elves and their snow-filled world.

Sergey isn’t like his handsome older brother Pavel. He doesn’t have Pavel’s magic for one thing, nor his healing skills. Instead, he spends time in the old Necromancer’s tower room, surrounded by books of magic and jars filled with strange potions–even if the books all seem to hate him, even refusing to allow him to take them off their shelves, and his experiments with the ancient Necromancer’s potions all end in disaster. Then, one dark night, after Sergey finds an obscure handwritten book of magic and decides to try out a spell, he accidentally conjures a long-dead king–putting his life, and that of all the Quendi, in jeopardy.

Infernal magic, an epic romance, spell-binding conflict, and endearing characters all combine in this rousing adventure story based in the Quendi world of fantasy and magic.