Chapter 23 Ban #2
I give him a jerky shake of my head that has him sighing before he moves away. That’s something else I really need Neve to be awake for. Thinking about our short exchange, I imagine when he returns to find her still asleep, it’s not going to be good.
"You've come to claim the Queen?" I asked, glaring at the figure before me. Horns aside, his is a face I’ll never forget.
Stepping closer, Andor's dark, sad eyes stare down at his daughter's dying body. “My Neve.”
“She's fading,” I snap. “She's hurt.”
Andor looks between the four of us, and I can feel the burning curiosity of Zarev and Odette behind me. "She needs the power bestowed on the reigning royal. A gift I could never give since I died. She had to be the Queen before I could pass on my legacy."
"Then give it to her now!"
Andor looks down at his hands, the anger and hate I expected to see after a hundred years nowhere to be found. “It will change her. Give her the gift her mother denied. But she’s too hurt to take any more magic right now. She must heal.”
“How?” I ask desperately, clinging to her body.
Blood is dripping down my arm, and there’s the uncomfortable grind of her vertebrae as they move with each dying breath.
I realize that, with the way her spine hangs, pulling away from her body, her internal organs are in danger as well. What do I do then?
Andor looks at me with unreadable eyes, gesturing to the two of us. “The moon gave you a gift once, Reaper. Perhaps it’s time you gift it back.”
“How do I give back magic I never asked for?”
His eyes focus on Neve again, his voice nearly empty when he speaks. “The Icebound will only speak with the true queen. If she cannot wake on her own, she must heal enough for her body to handle the gift itself. It's her birthright.”
I know Zarev didn’t follow our conversation at the time, and for now, I’ve avoided their questions because we’re trying to save Neve.
They aren’t pushing for more, but the longer she sleeps, the more antsy all of us become.
At least Odette came to the conclusion about my ice magic, and I was able to fuse her spine back together.
Gift it back. That’s what Andor said to do, and I think I understand, but it’s only an assumption.
Now we’re playing a waiting game, and although I don’t see her spirit trying to separate from her body, the longer Neve is asleep, the more I worry. Four days feel like an eternity as we wait.
“Did you ever figure out what that Icebound meant?” Odette calls across the cave. “About claiming the Queen?”
I glance her way, finding she’s leafing through Zarev’s book.
She seems to be making notes and bookmarks however she can, when she isn’t inches from thrusting her hands into the fire.
Even now, her teeth chatter. If they remain here much longer, we’ll have to find warmer clothes for her, or she’s going to get sick.
“Does it matter until someone returns?” Zarev asks dryly.
“Y-yes,” she stammers, scooting closer to the fire. He moves across our cave, taking off his cloak, and drapes it over her. The blizzard outside threatens to knock out the fire again when she speaks. “The Icebound, Ban. Tell us about them.”
I narrow my eyes, debating whether she actually found something in that book or if she’s struggling not to let her teeth chatter again. “I told you.”
“Basics.”
Sighing at her, I ignore Zarev’s curious gaze.
“They are spirits warped with despair. As far as I’ve ever known, they are spirits who remain in the north.
Usually, they are filled with regret, loneliness, or sometimes anger.
We’re used to seeing them as wraiths, which is a big reason the four of us try to send spirits in a timely manner.
Icebound splinter like a wraith does, twisting with hate until there’s little left but the beast that hid beneath. ”
She’s quiet for a beat, watching me with wide eyes. “A-and… they can appear as giants?”
Zarev’s glare nearly burns a hole into the side of my head, and I can’t look at him. There’s only one time a giant has been near both of us, and it was the night Jacob died. Didn’t Z mention something about seeing a giant before they arrived here?
“A giant,” Zarev says dryly, his voice getting a little louder.
“Huh? You’ve never said much about giants up here, Ban.
Though it seems like there are a lot of things you opted to leave out over the years.
Kind of like the two queens. The thing you forgot to mention is you knew both personally, including the psychotic one I kept hearing about. ”
I grit my teeth. He would choose now to make digs. “It was complicated.”
“So complicated you couldn’t tell any of us?” Z snaps, and I glare up at him again. “This happened because you couldn’t ask for help. We would have made the time to come here and assist the Queen.”
“Her name is Neve,” I reply in a whisper.
“Neve, then.” Zarev waved his hands in aggravation. “We would have helped if you ever decided to tell us anything that was going on! You kept your secrets close to your heart; you always have. You’re nearly as bad as Lucius.”
“You wouldn’t understand–” I begin.
A flurry of snow near the front of the cave cuts me off, nearly blowing out the flames of our fire.
Icebound. My eyes are locked on the figure approaching us, a lone individual just as he was the first night we spoke.
His cold, unforgiving eyes settle on me before shifting to Neve, who still lies unmoving beside me. She’s breathing, but that’s all. Her wounds aren’t getting worse, but they aren’t getting better, either. “How is my daughter?”
“Neve is still holding on,” I snap, glaring at King Andor. He claims he isn’t a king in the afterlife, but does someone ever stop being a ruler? Despite the solid, almost blue look of his appearance that matches the horns, the rest of him is largely unchanged. “Nothing to report”
He tilts his head, sad eyes peering down at her. “The ice?”
“It holds!” Odette calls, hurrying over. Where Zarev is wary of the Icebound, Odette is overly curious. “Ban did a good job fusing the ice to the bones and reattaching everything.”
Andor nods to her before glaring at me again. “Yet the Queen doesn’t wake. Is your ice too weak to hold?”
“You said if she did not wake after a few days, you had another idea,” Zarev interrupts, speaking before I can. It’s probably a wise choice; I’m in no mood to have Andor speaking down to me in death just like he once did in life.
Andor doesn’t seem to be giving up on the hope that Neve will wake. He says there is a story his daughter needs to hear, specifically from him, if given the chance. He needs her awake to share, so first the frozen sleep and now her injuries are keeping him from talking with her.
Or, so he claims.
I don’t know how much to believe. But after he asked me, in detail, how my body fared after being tortured in the palace dungeons all those years ago, I decided he was the real deal. When Zarev probed, I told him it wasn’t a lie. But it’s not something I’m willing to relive at the moment.
The King isn’t like a usual spirit, nor is he like the Icebound that Ronnie controlled. He has a solid body, but if I look at him for too long, he seems to fade and disappear. The horns keep him from blending in, but he isn’t translucent comparatively to most spirits I’ve met.
And he certainly isn’t mad. I’d learned the Icebound are tortured or distraught spirits who cannot pass on.
I can’t really get a read on him, but he seems resigned to his fate.
Not comfortable, but maybe adjusted? I told Z and Odette about this when we first left the frozen kingdom to seek shelter in the cave, afraid of what might happen if we stayed there while Neve heals.
Slowly, Andor nods. “Yes, there is another idea. Suggested to me by the Spirit of Winter.”
I straighten, shooting Zarev a look that he mirrors. “The Spirit of Winter?” I ask.
Andor’s eyes harden. “Yes. There used to be two, blessed by the moon who cared for the spirits who guided the dead as they passed into the next life. There is only one. Glacia. And many years ago, there was Frost.” His eyes glare at me so hard, they may as well pop out of his translucent head.
“Jack Frost, if I remember the stories properly.”
I lean back as though the spirit struck me. Jack Frost. The name threatens to throw me into the past, to a time when I lay dying at the bottom of a cliff.
It’s not the time to get stuck thinking about that now.
“Frost and Glacia,” Odette says, filling the silence when I don’t. “Frost and Glacia… Isn’t the Frostlands’ Royal Family called Glacia?”
Andor smiles, turning to acknowledge Odette.
She’s hugging herself again, now that she’s stepped away from the fire.
“That’s correct. Neve is the true Queen of the Frostlands.
A true Glacia, born from the royal blood, the ancestors of the first Icebound who would help trapped spirits pass on.
She was meant to interact with the Icebound. It is her birthright.”
When I glance at Zarev, he looks as uncertain as I feel when I speak. “A queen was meant to speak with the dead? Even if your family used to handle the dead, we haven’t seen or heard of anything like that in the ten years we’ve been Reapers.”
Andor clicks his tongue, looking between the two of us. “Reapers were not always the guards of Death. You help spirits pass on before they can fester, twist, and become something worse. Wraiths, isn’t that right? Twisted spirits who cannot move on?”
If I didn’t know better, I would think Andor was eavesdropping before he stepped in here.
“That’s what we got out of it,” Zarev replies.
“And before the four of you appeared,” Andor continues, “there had to be other ways to lead spirits to the next life. The Sandman couldn’t do it–”
“Who is the Sandman?” Odette interrupts. When Andor shoots her a look, she clears her throat. “Um, I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”