“Why is the queen such a bitch?”
“Language, Hellion,” I snap. “We can’t say things like that.”
Val’s spoon freezes halfway to her mouth. Actually freezes. She has to shake off the frost and lower it to her lap. Luckily, no one else notices.
“I don’t get it.” Katja sighs. “She does nothing to help. Winter never ends. Food’s short. You’d think a queen would lift a finger to come to our aid, open trade routes, send supplies. Something.”
“She abandoned us.” Mika speaks so rarely that we all just stare.
The silence stretches into tension the same way my muscles do at what trouble these words of discord could land us in. But I should know better than to fear our princess’s reaction.
She breaks the stillness with a whisper. “She wasn’t always like that.”
Every head turns.
“I met her…before.” Val straightens her moonstone necklace with deliberate calm, masking the lies she needs to keep spinning.
When she gave me the safe version of her story the other night, there was so much left unsaid between her words. I can only imagine how hard this is for her. I wasn’t sure she would be comfortable enough to share with the rest of them, but I’m glad she is.
With a steadying breath, she begins. “When I was younger, my family visited the summer palace. We were part of a trade envoy; wealthy enough to get invited inside the gates back when they were more open.”
“Youmetthe queen?” Aili breathes.
“Hush, Aili. Let her tell it,” I murmur, eager for any more kernels of truth I can glean from whatever she’s willing to share.
“She was radiant. The woman she was back then was no Ice Queen. Yes, she always had incredibly powerful ice magic, but she used it to make the most intricate ice sculptures I’ve ever seen. Delicate birds that looked like they’d take flight, towers of lacework frost that caught every glint of sunlight, reindeer leaping over hedgerows. They sparkled in the sun even as they melted away. And her smile… I used to watch her turn that loving smile on her husband and stepdaughter and think how lucky they were.”
How luckyshewas…
I’m glimpsing a love for her family that I never imagined. Why did I never picture a glowing young princess who loved her parents and admired ice sculptures? I only ever imagined a spoiled Point Fae who never wanted for anything. But it’s clear there was true love in her life, real joy. And it’s clear in the acheunder her voice now that she feels the loss of it keenly. Not just her father’s death, but her stepmother’s love being taken away.
I want to claw back time and hold her through the pain.
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same queen?” Juani asks. “I’ve never seen her smile.”
Recent portraits and news flyers only ever show a severe face, the slash of her mouth a hard line against gaunt cheeks, that streak of white stark against her black hair.
“She used to. She used to read aloud to the court children, too,” Val says softly. “Really, she was reading for one little girl in particular. She always picked the little girl’s favorite books to read.”
Her expression is careful, but I hear the truth. One little princess.Her.
“Sounds like a better queen than the one we’ve got now,” Katja says.
“She was.” Val’s nod is sad.
Hugo crawls out of my pocket and onto the table with a soft grunt. Listening.
“What happened to her?” Johannes asks.
Val’s fingers tighten in her skirt. She doesn’t look up. “The king died.”
It’s a simple statement—the easiest answer—but I can hear the bottled-up pain pressed into those three words.
I remember the headlines. The mourning. The pictures of a princess shrouded in her veil.
“How did the king die?”
“Aili—” I cut off my rebuke of the blunt little grump when Val shakes her head.
