Chapter 12 #2
The queen’s face remained impassive, but her gaze drilled into Sylvi with the weight of all the monarchs that had come before her, her metal-tipped fingers scraping the stone table.
“Don’t insult me, girl. I don’t question the fact you were attacked—there are ample witnesses who saw my son carry your blood-soaked body into the palace last night.
Maelis also provided her testimony before the council earlier this morning.
The validity of the attack is not what concerns me. ”
She sucked in a long, steady breath. “What I find troubling, Captain, in addition to your audacity to walk through the halls of my palace as if nothing happened—an act that will surely fuel the unrest further, as Lord Kaelven pointed out—is the fact that even our most accomplished healer can’t explain your recovery other than to propose the outrageous theory that my son somehow healed you with his magic. ”
She tapped her nails on the table. “I know the power that runs through his veins. It’s the same power that runs through mine.
He couldn’t have healed you. So, Captain, perhaps you would care to explain to me not only why you thought it wise to parade yourself down these corridors when I have the whole of Isenheim outside my palace walls demanding answers for the vicious attack against four of their own, but how it’s possible a common fae like yourself has managed to heal overnight from wounds that should have left you bedridden for weeks? ”
Sylvi swallowed hard, her throat flexing with the effort.
My throat bobbed as well, the air in my lungs feeling constricted, as if a noose was slowly tightening around my neck.
Sylvi parted her lips, but I stepped in front of her.
“If blame must be cast, let it fall on me. I stand by my actions. I will not allow the captain to be shamed for surviving the attack, or for choosing to face this council, despite still healing from her wounds. Yes, her recovery has been…unusual. But I used my magic to lower her fever. It’s possible that—”
“Enough.” My mother’s eyes met mine, the depths of her shrewd gaze churning. “Using ice magic to temper a fever is one thing, Son of Ice. But you don’t possess the power to heal others. You and I both know that ability does not run in our blood.”
The council members stirred, voices whispering things I didn’t care to know. Sylvi’s gaze shot to me as well, and the fear in them warned me that this conversation was a raging sea I needed to navigate with extreme caution, lest I drown us both in its watery abyss.
The truths I had begun to uncover in the archives…
The vision the crone had given me. The way Sylvi had healed, the white streak in her hair, the way the tether between us had begun to vibrate in ways it never had before—this wasn’t just uncommon; it was forbidden.
The idea that magic could lie dormant in the blood of common fae, that the gods could have once bestowed power beyond the reach of royalty, would shatter the hierarchy.
It could crumble the monarchy. It would mean the divine right we’d used to rule was built on hidden truths. On suppression. On lies.
My mother was right, we didn’t possess healing magic, but admitting to any of those things, to my theories about the shifter-fae, would sentence Sylvi to death.
Even if my mother found it hard to accept my claim, there was no denying the truth of Sylvi’s healed injuries.
The mere idea that common folk could possess such power…
Gods, the repercussions of such theories would threaten my mother’s power.
If common folk began to believe that they too could wield magic—worse still, if they started to wield that magic—then our whole kingdom would topple.
I couldn’t speak of it. Not here. Not when one misstep would see Sylvi executed and me beside her. I wouldn’t put it past my mother to murder anyone in this room for even bearing witness to such heresy.
So, I lied.
Or rather, I leaned into the edge of a truth that wouldn’t kill us. “If not my magic, then what, Mother? Are you suggesting Sylvi healed herself? That she possesses her own magic?”
“Watch your tongue. What you speak of goes against what the Gods have decreed.”
“Of course it does,” I spat. “Sylvi is common fae, Mother.” I met the gazes of every council member, silencing whatever thoughts were brewing in their minds.
“Why are we even questioning this? Perhaps my magic didn’t heal her directly,” I said slowly, as if testing a new theory, “but we know ice can preserve flesh, it can slow down its decay. My magic could’ve suppressed the infection her body was fighting.
Coupled with Maelis tonics and her potent poultice, perhaps it was enough to promote rapid healing. Or maybe it was just…damn luck.”
The queen’s eyes glittered with suspicion. “Luck?” she repeated.
I met her gaze, my voice turning to steel. “Would you rather tell the townsfolk Sylvi, a common fae, was able to speed up her recovery? How would you like to explain that away, other than to suggest common fae could have magical abilities of their own?”
The room fell silent.
“We wouldn’t have to explain anything,” Lord Kaelven said, “if she…succumbs to her injuries.”
The words had barely left his mouth before I was across the room.
Frost exploded in my wake, coiling through the air like a living nightmare.
A pulse of raw, volatile power cracked the stone beneath my feet as I grabbed the bastard by the throat and slammed him into the wall.
Crystalline shards of rime webbed outward from my palm, spreading across his skin as ice bloomed over his jaw and up his cheeks.
He clawed at me, gasping.
“I will kill you,” I growled, my voice a guttural thing torn from the depths of my soul. “I will turn your blood to ice and shatter your spine where you hang for threatening her life.”
Gasps erupted around the room. Panic followed.
“Jack!” my mother barked. “Enough! You will release him at once.”
I didn’t need to look at her to know she was summoning her own magic. The magnetic pull of her power rippled like static energy before a lightning storm. She cast it toward me like a projectile, but it stopped. Her magic hit my aura and disintegrated.
A collective inhale shook the room. Her power hadn’t even made a dent.
“Jack…” she whispered, something almost foreign in her voice, something close to fear.
I didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. My grip only tightened. Frost curled over Lord Kaelven’s lips now, his breath coming in ragged, cracking gasps.
“Jack.” Another voice. Softer. Kinder. I turned slowly, meeting Sylvi’s eyes. There was no fear, no anger. Only calmness. “Please,” she said softly. And with that one word, Sylvi pulled on our tether, and I obeyed, uncurling my fingers and releasing the asshole’s neck.
I exhaled, and the frost pulled back like a low tide. Kaelven slumped to the floor, coughing, his face ashen. I turned to my best friend and blinked, realizing I’d nearly killed the chancellor in front of my mother, the council, half the kingdom’s court…for Sylvi.
Lord Kaelven continued clutching his throat, frost still clinging to the fine hairs of his beard. No one moved to help him. No one dared. My fingers still tingled with the remnants of my power, and the room stood suspended in a hush, awaiting my next move.
“I wasn’t suggesting we should kill her,” Lord Kaelven rasped from the floor, dragging in air like a fish out of water.
“Simply that we fake her death. If the townsfolk are made to believe their own people killed the queen’s captain, unprovoked, your actions, Your Highness, would be justified.
It might even make them fearful of further repercussions.
It might be what we need to yank out this rebellion from its foundation before its roots sink even deeper. ”