Chapter 9
“I know you’re devastated, Gwendolyn, but you cannot simply storm off,” Nana says.
“Kai isn’t dead.” I feel like I’m losing my mind. Everyone insists that Kai drowned. If not for the high-heeled red shoes the queen forgot to take back, I might be convinced that I’d imagined the whole night.
But no. Kai danced with me. Kissed me. Touched me. I touched him in return. I didn’t imagine it happening, despite having imagined such things many times in my life.
The ruined red shoes taunt me from the top of the listing wardrobe where I flung them last night.
The Snow Queen knew I was getting close to breaking her spell over him. That must be why she came to take him away.
Nana takes my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “Accept it, Gwen. Kai is gone.”
“I know what I saw!” I jerk out of her grasp.
“What was that?” She huffs. “A snowstorm, in Montrace, the land of eternal summer? A woman with black hair in a red cloak kissing the prince before taking him away in a flying sleigh?”
“Yes!”
“Listen to yourself.” Her eyes search my face.
It does sound unreal. Impossible. I pinch my temples.
“Prince Kai got drunk and fell,” Nana says calmly, like I’m a small child frightened of monsters under the bed. “He hit his head on the balustrade and never woke up. It is a sad story, but these things happen. Considering his behavior recently, I cannot claim this was a tragedy for the kingdom.”
“I find it horrifying that his own mother does not mourn his passing.” I hold Nana’s gaze. She is the one to turn away, her gnarled hands twisting in a sign of her agitation. “Montrace is defenseless without him.”
“We have the Guard.”
I scoff. “The guardsmen are not kings. The queen is no longer youthful. She cannot marry and produce another heir.”
“Some women have been known to bear children at her age. It is unlikely, but not impossible.”
“Where would she look for a husband? Amongst the dukes and earls, and risk sowing internal division? Or abroad, where Kai has poisoned every alliance we once had?”
My grandmother is quiet.
“If Kai doesn’t return, the kingdom faces either a succession battle or conquest. None of us will be safe, Nana.”
“Your time sneaking away to watch him train with the soldiers has given you ideas about the way the world works,” she says ruefully.
“Don’t forget the books he gave me from the library.”
She huffs a laugh. “I used to worry when you brought home those expensive tomes. If you’d damaged one, I’d have had a devil of a time getting the money to replace it.”
“But I never did.”
“No.”
“You learned to trust that I would take care of them.” I wish she would trust me now, on the issue of Kai.
“Eventually, yes.” She heaves a sigh. “None of this makes Kai any less dead, Gwen.”
“He isn’t dead. This is a trick played by the fae witch.”
This time, when she gives me that searching look, I find resignation in her eyes.
“What are you planning to do?” she asks.
My gaze lifts to the red heels of the shoes I forgot to return to Kai’s mother. She will say I ran off to avoid punishment for ruining the clothes she loaned me. That I stole those beautiful, uncomfortable shoes.
“I will seek aid from the River Witch.”
Nana is quiet for a long moment. “I asked you to be careful once, Gwen. I am begging you now, watch your step. The world is dangerous beyond these castle walls.”
“The world inside these walls carries danger, too. There is no risk-free way through life.”
She nods thoughtfully. “Kai was fortunate to have such a loyal friend. He never appreciated you the way he should have. When you get the River Witch’s confirmation that he is dead, promise me you’ll come back, Gwen. You are the only family I have.”
Leaving through the castle gate is a strange experience. I vividly remember arriving on the back of a farmer’s wagon when I was six years old, grieving my parents and terrified of the future. How safe and strong the embrace of these stone walls felt.
Meeting Kai not long after my arrival, and how his presence became part of that sense of security I needed so badly. If a prince thought I was good enough to be his companion, didn’t that mean that someday, I’d be worthy of love, too?
His love?
Obviously, that did not happen. Self-doubt grows with each step I take away from my home, following the moat until it turns into a branch of the river where I’m headed. What if Nana is right? Am I stubbornly clinging to the past because I’m too afraid to face a future without Kai?
Nana loves me. She is the only one who ever has, and yet I’ve left her in search of more.
Despite my doubts, I don’t turn back.
The sun rises high overhead. I carry my shoes in one hand and an old pack slung over my shoulder. Sweat trickles downward between my shoulder blades, itchy in a place I can’t quite reach.
I eat an apple from the kitchen stores and a piece of cheese, and keep walking.
My ordinary shoes are made for comfort while standing for long hours on stone floors in a kitchen.
They are not meant for walking. A blister forms and bursts.
I limp the last mile, moving as fast as I can when I spy water shimmering in the distance.
At the river’s edge, I bathe my aching feet.
“Witch of the River,” I call out, feeling ridiculous. At least I’m alone. There’s no one around to witness me acting like an utter fool. “I wish to know where to find Kai, the Crown Prince of Montrace. I offer you this gift in exchange for your aid.”
I raise the shoes like I’m showing them to her, and toss them into the river.
A raven lands on a nearby branch and cocks its head at me questioningly.
“I know I look ridiculous, okay?” I grumble. The bird caws. “Don’t rub it in. I feel dumb enough already.”
I stand there for several minutes with my new friend, contemplating whether I should turn around and go back to the castle in defeat.
The raven caws again, more urgently, and flutters its wings.
Squinting, I see a wave cutting through the water heading toward the shore.
The queen’s red shoes wash up on the rocky sand.
I gape at them, astonished. When I pick them up, they’re not even wet. Anger boils my blood. The River Witch rejected my gift.
I hold them up for the raven to inspect.
“Can you believe this? I walked all this way, and she threw my offering back in my face.”
The raven leaps off its branch and flies over my head. Turning, I follow its flight path. It lands on the rim of an old rowboat a little farther down the river. Understanding dawns.
“You want me to go further out into the river?”
It just stares at me with those beady eyes.
“Okay, then. I’m not giving up.”
I tie my skirt around my hips and throw my possessions into the boat. After shoving it into the water, I pull myself inside—only to realize, as the current sweeps me toward the center of the river, that there are no oars with which to paddle.