24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gerta
I t is one thing to see a glimmer on top of a peak and thinking it might be a palace. It is quite another to actually see the fabled ice structure up close.
Never have I seen something so formidable yet so lovely. It matches its mistress well.
“Don’t just stand there and gawk,” Wolf hisses, dropping to all fours like she doesn’t still wear her mortal form. “Ice is transparent .”
“Oh!” I tear my gaze away from the magnificence and quickly follow Wolf’s example. The snow immediately invades my leather breeches when my long coat rides up. I feel the sting of the cold through my gloves as well. However, the path Wolf crawls through gives us cover from the palace behind a long snow mound.
It’s also easier to crawl with my belongings stuffed in a snow cache Biggs made for us partway up. Hopefully, we can return to it before a new snowfall buries it all.
Behind me, my clansmen follow suit, with Biggs complaining loudly about being “just an elf.” Prince would also normally whine for such an activity, but he must be too excited with his precious Snow Queen so nearby.
“There is a servants’ entrance we can use,” Wolf says as she creates a path for me to crawl through.
“Do you think the servants’ quarters will be locked?” I ask.
“Against what? Bears?” Wolf snorts. “The Snow Queen doesn’t exactly get a lot of guests, and those of us who dare to trespass must be very clever if we want to live to tell the tale.”
“Now you tell me,” Biggs mutters. “If I get killed by a fabled vixen—” He suddenly yelps.
I look back to glare at him, and find him already glaring at Prince, who looks ready to throw him off the mountain.
“She’s a legendary beauty ,” Prince counters, “and you’ll show her respect.
“Over here.” Wolf springs from the snow suddenly and dashes toward a small door engraved into the wall of ice.
Pushing myself up with far less grace after the stress I put on my knees, I wobble toward her just as she successfully opens the door.
“The quarters where the male servants sleep are to the left,” Wolf whispers. “I’ll ensure the rest of our company gets into their positions per our plan.”
I step inside before freezing— it is just as cold inside as outside. “What if someone spots me before I can find Kay?”
“Just put on a morose expression and you’ll fit right in. And if anyone other than the Snow Queen sees you, they won’t even care, anyway. Everyone has too much of their own bitterness to pay attention to you.”
Nodding, I slip inside, letting my exhaustion show on my face.
The door opens to a horizontal hall in front of an ice wall. I go left as instructed, slipping as I go. I slide to the opposite wall and brace myself on it as I glance down the new hallway that has appeared .
It is narrow, and I see several ice doors engraved into it. But which one leads to Kay?
As if I summoned him, the man I seek rounds the corner on the opposite side of the wall. His face is downcast, but he wears the same uniform as before and appears unhurt.
Barely keeping myself from calling out to him and alerting others of my presence, I lift a hand and wave wildly.
Kay doesn’t so much as glance my way as he walks over to one of the doors and pushes it open.
I stare, a little stunned. Then I carefully slide down the hall, dragging my hand along the wall to keep from crashing onto the icy floor.
When I reach the door Kay disappeared into, I twist and slam my body into it. It slides open, and I stumble inside, into a pair of waiting arms.
I lift my gaze to find a pair of unfamiliar eyes staring at me.
“Uh, sorry.” Awkwardly, I pull away from the man who caught me, a golden-haired Gaelic who is most certainly not Kay. This one is several years older and has his hair in braids. He is wearing an elegant tunic covered in an unreasonable number of buttons. The top several aren’t secured, though, revealing a silver mark shaped like a snowflake over his heart.
The man’s eyes narrow, and then he pulls away from me. I have to stagger my legs to keep from falling.
“Watch where you’re going,” he snarls before storming past me and slamming the door behind him.
“Maybe don’t live on ice if you don’t like spontaneous collision!” I call after him.
“If you find ice so distasteful, why come to a palace made of it?”
At the new voice, I whirl around, nearly toppling over. But ice or not, I go still when I see the man who spoke those words .
Kay stands next to an intricately carved glass wardrobe. His expression is as smooth as ever, but the chill in his eyes from our last encounter remains.
“Kay?” I whisper. We seem to be alone in this room now, but I can’t make myself look away from him long enough to make sure.
“It’s Kai now, actually.”
I blink. “Are you well?”
“Well enough, considering my heart is frozen.” Kay undoes the top buttons of his uniform, unties his undershirt, and pulls them both away enough to reveal that he still bears the snowflake mark. “Or have you forgotten my sacrifice so quickly?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten about any of it.” He’s not wearing a coat despite the frigid temperature. Does the Snow Queen’s curse give him greater resistance to the temperature, or is his Bloodline Magic alone keeping him alive? “That’s why I’m here— to save you because you saved me.”
Snorting, Kay turns from me as he continues undoing his uniform buttons. “Figures.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve come to sabotage a second opportunity at a promotion.” He shakes his head at me like he’s utterly disappointed in my behavior, but also unsurprised.
I gape at him, steadying myself on a bedpost that is surprisingly not made of ice. “What do you mean? You’ve barely been here a day. How have you been offered a promotion already?!”
“I’m efficient.” Kay tugs off his uniform before carefully folding it and placing it at the bottom of the wardrobe.
“Well, congratulations, but you’ll have to decline. My clan and I have come to rescue you. ”
Kay scowls at me like I said I wanted to stab him again. “I am in no need of rescuing. I went with the Snow Queen of my own volition.”
“You went to the Snow Queen under duress. It was you or me, and you sacrificed yourself.” My words catch in my throat, and I realize with horror I’m on the verge of crying. Which is foolish, because I knew to expect this behavior— worse even.
“Yet you seek to nullify my sacrifice? I clearly wasted my life on the wrong person.”
I wince. It feels like the Kay who gave himself for me— the one who almost kissed me— is dead and gone. It’s his bitter corpse that I speak to now.
The Kay who sacrificed himself for me freed me, though, so I won’t stop until I’ve returned the favor. Releasing the bed, I carefully step forward. “You’re only talking like this because your heart is frozen. But I know how to heal it.”
Kay turns to me as I reach him, tugging off his shirt in the process. My gaze falls on the snowflake mark, glistening like ice in his veins, and my throat goes dry.
“Well?” Kay demands. “How do you think you can ‘heal’ me?”
I lick my chapped lips, drawing Kay’s gaze there. One would think that after two almost-kisses, such a discussion wouldn’t be so awkward. Instead, it feels twice as uncomfortable. Especially since the man doesn’t seem to feel the cold on his bare skin somehow. “Um, well . . .”
“Spit it out, lassie.”
My gaze drops. “True love’s kiss.”
Kay is silent for a long moment, and I dare to glance back up.
He throws his head back and guffaws— guffaws. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the man laugh before. It’s not as pleasant as I imagined it would sound when Kay finally laughed. Of course, that might be because it’s directed at me .
“I’m serious,” I whisper.
Kay stops laughing so suddenly I wonder how much of it was real to begin with or forced for social conventions. “Well, I will not be doing that , since I am going to be betrothed tonight.”
I stagger backward. “You’re going to be what?!”
“To the Queen.” Kay casually tugs on a fresh undershirt, this one with a deeper cut to display his mark like the other man’s outfit. “That’s my promotion. King consort.”
“No. Absolutely not.” I charge forward, jamming my finger on Kay’s shoulder. “You are running away with me. ”
“No, ma’am, I am not.” Kay turns to take a deep blue waistcoat from the wardrobe.
I grasp his wrist and try to tug him away. “You’re not yourself. I won’t let you make such a wretched decision while under that witch’s influence.”
“She’s not a witch; she’s my future wife.” Kay pulls free of my grip.
“She froze your heart!”
“But not my mind. I’m fully capable of making my own decisions.” Instead of grabbing the waistcoat, he reaches for black fur breeches.
I turn my back to him, trying to sort out my next steps. His bitterness was expected, but I didn’t anticipate so much resistance.
“And what’s this about you thinking we share ‘true love’?”
A tremble moves through me with the coldness that he says words that should be precious. But I straighten my spine. “You sacrificed yourself for me. And I climbed this mountain despite my fear to save you.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you are my enemy. Just one I’ve treated with civility.”
The chill of his words seeps into my very soul. To hear him deny so easily what I was growing to believe . . . What hope is there to save him without the cure? How am I supposed to climb back down this mountain knowing what fate I’ve left him to? “What about your father? Do you really intend to never see him again?”
“I intend to prove myself to him.” Kay strides past me, buttoning the deep blue waistcoat. “ You have stollen my chance to become a commander. So, I shall become a king instead.”
“King consort! ” I grip his cuffed sleeve. “You can be so much more.”
He glances back at me, his icy eyes seeming to freeze my heart. “That isn’t what you believed as a child.”
“I was foolish and meanspirited! Forget what I said then and listen to what I’m saying now .”
“That after two days of being each other’s prisoners, you think you love me and want to run away with me?” He shakes his head and strides toward the door. “You don’t even believe Gaelia and Constantinium can unite in peace. How can you consider the much more ridiculous notion of you and me?”
I swallow hard and have no answer to give. At least none someone as coldly rational as him would heed.
“Go home, Gerta. This is no place for the free-spirited.” Kay runs his hand through his short hair that needs no comb at its length. “And be thankful you didn’t get that kiss.” Grasping the icy door, he glances back at me. “Otherwise, you could never move past your silly notions of true love.”
“But—”
“You don’t want me, anyway. I have become exactly what you foretold during childhood days you were colder to me— carved from ice and badly pretending to be mortal. Except, I’m no longer pretending. I simply am what I was destined to be.”
With that, he pushes the door open and steps out, nearly colliding with Biggs, who is standing on the other side with a handful of fine clothing he must have collected during his search.
Biggs watches Kay leave before turning to me. “I found our runaway prisoner.”
I nod mutely, staring after where Kay disappeared.
“I take it you didn’t kiss him yet?”
I shake my head.
“What? Why not? You didn’t just grab him and break the spell.”
“No. I’m pretty sure true love’s kiss has to be consensual.”
Wrinkling his brow, Biggs actually looks at me. “What is it, Gertie?”
“Kay is betrothed to the Snow Queen,” I whisper, the words almost too foul to say.
Apparently, he’s a pleasant prisoner to every woman and not just me.
Biggs’ brows climb to his temple. Then he turns to stare after Kay. “That’s no good. That’s no good at all.”
I desperately blink back tears. “You’re telling me.”
The half-elf turns back to me, his eyes still wide. “Who’s going to tell Prince?”