Chapter 17 Ban
Neve doesn’t try to attack me once we’re out of the shadows, and I’m not entirely sure whether that’s good or bad. Her hands fall to the snowy ground, and I take a careful step away, giving her some space.
Seeing the Mad Queen here with Lancelot is strange enough, but Neve’s still living behind a veil. Try as she might, there’s no hiding that things are amiss. Her mother isn’t the hero Neve wants her to be, and at this point, there’s little I can do to cushion the blow.
I didn’t take us too far from the palace, because I’m pretty sure we’re going to need to go back.
My gut tells me to leave and go across the Frostlands, search for the spirits I haven’t seen these past few weeks.
But there’s no doubt in my mind that Neve is going to go back when she fixes the mess going on in her head.
I lean against a large boulder, waiting for her to come around. She stays on the ground, fisting the snow, and doesn’t speak for several long moments.
Then she screams, a shattered, broken noise that almost makes me jump. She’s up faster than I expected, a large icicle appearing in her hand. Screaming, she charges at me, only a few steps separating us when she slides to a halt.
Wild, exhausted blue eyes peer up at me as she forces herself to stop, the sharp icicle grazing the side of my throat. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and she grits her teeth before speaking. “Fight back.”
“No.”
She pushes the tip against my neck, and my gaze doesn’t waver from hers. “Stop being a coward and fight me already, King Killer!”
I bend down, pushing the tip into my throat until it breaks the skin. It shatters the anger in her eyes, uncertainty taking its place. “We both know I’m not the monster you want to fight, Neve.”
She licks her lips, so close I could kiss her if I wanted to impale myself on the icicle a little more. It’s not going to kill me, but it does sting. Her gaze locks on my throat, her mouth slowly falling open. “You… your blood.”
“It’s black,” I supply, and she gives me a jerky nod. “That would be thanks to the shadow magic.”
“Y-you didn’t bleed black the first time we met.” Her brows draw together before she lifts her gaze back to mine. “It was red. All the marks my parents left–”
She cuts herself off, ripping the ice out of my skin. That stings a little more. She throws the icicle into the snow, wide eyes staring at me before she stumbles back.
Right now, she truly looks lost. More lost and confused than she looked even when she first woke up. That was blind rage, but over the week and a half that she’s been awake and has gotten some answers, it’s turned that hate into something else.
“You said I don’t know the truth, but you’ll share when I’m ready. It doesn’t matter if I’m ready. Tell me something to make me believe you are not as bad as the rest of them.”
“You’re comparing me to the Mad Queen?” I ask, scoffing. “I hate to tell you, Neve, but she killed me about a decade ago. You can thank her for my shadows.”
I drag my staff out of the shadows for effect, slamming it against the ground. A web of inky black sprouts from the spot in the ground, harmless but effective. Neve watches me with cautious eyes, her hands poised to strike me again.
But there’s curiosity in her voice too. “Lady Hartsell did that?”
“Mad Queen,” I correct again. Hartsell is a person I would rather forget. “She’s gotten into killing for sport. After the King of Diamonds died–”
“Jasper died?” she shrieks. I’m not sure why that strikes her as a surprise since it’s been a hundred years, but she quickly clears her throat and switches directions. It had to be kind of obvious when Davina introduced her new husband, right? “When did Lady—When did the Mad Queen remarry?”
Slowly, I meet her gaze and let my staff disappear into the shadows. “That’s the King of Diamonds official name? Jasper?”
“Of course,” Neve replies with a frown. “King Jasper Traum, the King of Diamonds. I… surely that was common knowledge in the past?”
“I only knew him as the King of Diamonds,” I tell her honestly.
“When did he die?” she presses, confusion flickering across her face. “Where is his brother? Surely, if Davina is that unhinged, the crown would transfer to the next living heir. Did Davina have children with Jasper?”
I just keep staring at her, because until this moment, I’d never heard most of this. “Did you just say the King of Diamonds has a brother?”
“Please,” she groans, “your lessons failed you. Even if this is history now, surely you learned it in the past?”
I glare at her, and slowly, the annoyance on her face lessens. She clears her throat quickly to try to correct it. “Oh, I didn’t think-”
“You didn’t,” I agree casually, crossing my arms. “I didn’t have lessons or schooling a century ago. I’ve learned lots of things since then, but unless it was the king or queen of this land, nothing else mattered.”
“My parents spoke about Davina’s upcoming marriage often,” she grumbles, wonder in her gaze. “Constantly. It was supposed to be a union to bring the lands together and expand trade.”
“History didn’t go in that direction.” I sigh. “She married into the Court of Cards and went mad.” My eyes narrow. “Who was Jasper’s brother?”
Her eyebrows lift. “Hans. Hans Traum. They were twins. I’m surprised this has never come up.”
An icy feeling settles over me, and it has nothing to do with my magic. “I’ve never heard of a twin before.”
“There should be a record of it someplace,” Neve says thoughtfully. “Probably in the library if we look. Even if the lands are still divided, my parents kept a detailed log of everyone in power. If Mother has ruled alone all these years, I don’t know why that would have changed.”
“No,” I reply carefully, crossing my arms. “It should all still be there. Funny how no one knows about it.”
Neve nods, but her eyes look far away. Despite her rage, we’ve veered off topic, and I can see her mind wandering. There’s a thoughtfulness in her voice when she speaks. “Maybe that’s why he was in my dreams.”
“Who?”
“The Sandman,” she says automatically, and once more, I’m lost. Somehow, we lived during the same era and have a completely different view of that time period. “Uh, that was Hans. The Sandman. And Jasper, the King of Diamonds, the oldest twin.”
I let all that roll through my head, trying to decide what exactly I’m supposed to do with it. “I assume he was alive then, last you recall?”
Neve hesitates, crossing her arms until she matches my stance. “Yes. I met him once. When Jasper came to meet my parents and court Davina, Hans came along. He mostly spoke to my father, but I don’t know what they discussed.”
“When was this? You know, relative to your…”
My voice trails off, and the thoughtfulness on her face dies. “Relative to when you stole my father from me?”
I hold my hands up, stepping back toward the rock again. As hot as Neve is when she’s worked up, I’d like to avoid getting stabbed a second time today. At least for the moment. “I know you’ll never believe me, Neve, but I didn’t kill your father.”
Her gaze ices over. “Liar. I watched him fall as you fled. Mother’s screams haunted my sleep for years.”
Wincing, I imagine that includes her frozen sleep.
She was trapped in that memory for a century.
“Neve, I’m not sure what it looked like from your perspective, but I tried to blast a barrier at them.
It deflected your parents’ magic. I didn’t intend to kill either of them.
Killing the King was the last thing on my mind; I was trying to escape. ”
Neve takes a step back, baring her teeth. “I knew you would lie. There’s no other explanation.”
Her gaze hardens, lips curling into a sneer when I sigh, blowing my hair out of my face. “Killing one of the rulers of the Frostlands wouldn’t benefit me. I had no desire to go along with their plan or to remain in the palace. I didn’t want the King dead.”
“That’s ridiculous. I felt you grab my hand; you directed the magic!” She throws her arms out wide, icy daggers appearing in her grip once more. “You, you used me–”
“I was weakened from being tortured,” I agree, reaching up to run my finger along the spot she nicked. “I knew who the Ice Queen was. I knew you had power similar to mine, so I borrowed it to escape. Your father’s death wasn’t part of my plan.”
“So you did kill him,” she hisses.
“You know that’s not what I said-”
She cuts me off before I can continue, launching one of the icicles at my head. It’s not a half-assed throw like the ones in the palace. This comes at me fast enough that I dodge instead of trying to grab it, jumping to one side before glaring at her.
“Fighting me won’t remove the threat from your palace. It never did.”
Neve screams, throwing the second icicle with less accuracy. I’m barely able to use my frost to stop this one, the throw strong enough for me to stumble back a step.
Shit. I’ve always known Neve is more powerful than her mother, but I’ve never had to really fight her. Even during her rage after waking up, I assumed exhaustion would eventually win out.
She flies across the space, using the ice to propel herself, and slams me into the rocks behind us. I grunt and grab her wrists, more ice gathering in her hands. After ripping her arms above her head, she attempts to make the ice longer to stab me all over again.
Glaring at her, I sink into the shadows. Her eyes widen a fraction when she realizes my trick, and her silent scream falls on deaf ears as we tumble into the darkness together.
Her ice can definitely still stab me in here, but getting the upper hand is important before she manages to really hurt me.
I have ice and shadow magic, but Neve is the better winter mage.
A hundred years of sleep didn’t dampen her skills.
If anything, the uncertain queen I met in the dungeons was blinded by disappointment, not lacking power.