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Prologue
Over the centuries, scholars have called Queen Elma I of Rothen many things. Some brand her a hero, some declare many facets of her life the stuff of fantasy and legend, while some still insist she ought to go down in history as a traitor. It is easy, if you have read the usual histories, to label her a monster. But if one takes a moment to study the accounts of those who loved her, most notably the letters from her husband, one can see a new narrative beginning to form.
What most historians routinely fail to understand or, for that matter, convey, is that Queen Elma I of Rothen was neither hero, nor traitor, nor figure of legend.
She was simply a woman.
Excerpt fromThe Ice Queenby Harriet Moss (1532), Cornelian Tower archives.
One
SEVEN YEARS AGO
News of her mother’s death came without ceremony in the form of a hastily scribbled note. The pageboy hadn’t wanted to say the words aloud, presumably, afraid of embarrassment or hurting Elma, whose mother was gone.
She held the letter in her hands long after the page handed it to her. Long after she read it. She sat in her favorite garden, the one with fruit trees and large firm plants shaped like artichokes, plants that thrived under a year-round sun. The stone bench beneath her was cool in the shade, her outstretched feet warming in a ray of sunlight.
You are summoned home,read the note.Your mother is dead. The king requires his heir.
You are summoned home.
Of course, Elma’s father did not write a letter of his own. No, Elma thought — the moment his wife’s last breath had passed her lips, the king would have ordered a messenger to send for his only daughter. Heir to the throne of Rothen. And thus, a messenger had arrived that morning with word ofthe queen’s passing, and upon hearing it, Elma’s pageboy scribbled a note and brought it to the garden.
So here Elma sat, finally crumpling the note in her fist.
This moment had always been inevitable. Elma knew her life in Mekya was temporary, knew that the caress of hot dry air on her skin, golden sun against her eyes when she closed them, scratchy grass tickling the soles of her bare feet — it was all temporary. She was only in Mekya for safekeeping, to stay out of her father’s way, to give him peace and quiet. To be someone else’s problem.
Until she wasn’t.
Elma had not thought that her mother would die before Elma came of age. She was only fourteen now. She had imagined returning home to her mother and father together, on the first day of her eighteenth year, as was tradition. Not with warm embraces, but with a distant formality, cold enough to fit the city of her birth.
“Your Highness?” The pageboy waited, uneasy, near the edge of the garden.
Elma shoved the note into her bodice — her dress was light and gauzy and not substantial enough for pockets.
“Don’t call me that,” she said under her breath, not loud enough for the page to hear. She was next in line to the throne whether she liked it or not.
“I didn’t quite catch that, Your Highness,” the pageboy said, his forehead shining with sweat. He clearly wanted to go back inside, where cool stone kept the heat from permeating. Out here, there was no escape from summer’s scalding touch.
Elma loved the heat. Her naturally pale skin had long since browned in the sun, her thick black hair cut short to her chin to keep her neck cool. She was born of the north, but she had bloomed in Mekya, so Mekyan she would always be in her heart.
“I said thank you,” she lied, standing. “Would you be so kind as to send a tea service to my rooms?”
“Very good, Your Highness.” The pageboy strode inside, his shoulders back, always with an air of confidence and efficiency that Elma wished she might emulate one day.
But she was only fourteen. She hadn’t yet learned confidence. She felt as if she had only just begun to know the kingdom of Mekya and its walled city of Lothyn. But she hadn’t learned who she was and still hated to be calledprincess.
Clenching her jaw, Elma slipped on her sandals. The leather was sun-warmed, and she sucked in a breath at the sudden heat. But instead of kicking them off again, like she wanted to, she marched out of the garden, away from the sun and a dry breeze in the leaves.
In a moment, she was inside, cloaked by shadows and cool air. There was no door to step through, only an arch of white stone that led into a brightly tiled vestibule. This was Orchard House, the only home she had ever known. Here, she had been raised by her mother’s cousins. Three sisters, each loving and motherly in her own way.
Elma passed through the vestibule into a corridor lined with tall arched windows, open to the world beyond. It was never cold enough in Lothyn to require glass panes or outer doors — everything opened itself to the giving sky.
When Elma came at last to a carved wood door decorated with a wreath of yellow flowers, she flung it open and went inside, self-indulgently slamming the door in her wake. She heard a muffled thump as the wreath hit the floor outside. She didn’t care. This was her room,hersanctuary.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she bit her lips, willing them to go away. She plucked the pageboy’s note from her bodice. The ink was smeared now, her sweat dampening the paper.
She read it again, vision blurred.
