Chapter Two
She’s cold. She’s cruel. She already doesn’t like you—and you are dying for an invitation to her court.
The Ice Queen’s castle might lack modern amenities, but Grand Duchess Gwynira has been at the cutting edge of fashion for centuries.
Surviving a trip to the Crystal Palace will guarantee you invitations to every exclusive table in Kasther—as long as you’re willing to share the gossip.
The Illicit Lives of the Imperial Court
Anonymous
(banned in the Empire)
It was difficult to know where to begin.
The refreshments materialized, as promised, with Gwynira’s staff laying out an assortment of items to sate every hunger and quench every thirst. But when the servers had departed, leaving the six of them alone, no one touched the food.
Gwynira’s aura almost blinded Aleksi, not because it was bright but because it was so unsettled. It was a color that spoke of simmering terror, confusion, and the tiniest hint of shame.
That would not do. “First of all, none of this was your fault, Gwynira.”
She scoffed in disbelief and began pacing, shaking off Isa’s restraining hand when the other woman tried to soothe her. “I find that difficult to believe, my lord. But do elaborate.”
“I will—if you will sit.” He waited until she complied, and chose to interpret her baleful glare as an unfortunate result of thwarted nervous energy, not true ire. “Well, I suppose I was quite unconscious when this ordeal began.”
Gwynira flinched.
Naia spoke up. “We were in the infirmary, keeping watch over Aleksi. And this . . . woman came in. Blonde, blue eyes. She was dressed like the other healers, but—” Her voice cracked, failed her, and her next words were hoarse. “She wasn’t one.”
Her pain pierced Aleksi’s heart. Somehow, he knew that it was not elicited by Naia’s recollection of her ordeal, but her recollection of his.
She and Einar had spoken only in passing of those hours when they had sat vigil by Aleksi’s bedside, slowly watching him die.
Torn between acting or waiting, when either option could easily spell his end.
“She had magic,” Einar said, his jaw tight.
His gaze was fixed straight ahead, seeing not what was in front of him, but his own horrifying memories.
“Like nothing I’ve encountered before. It was as if her mind took hold of ours.
I could not move or fight, only obey her orders.
She forced me to pick up Aleksi, then led us out through the servants’ hallways. ”
“No one saw you?” Arktikos rumbled. “No one stopped you?”
“It was well-timed,” Naia explained. “Coordinated, perhaps. But even if someone had seen us, I’m not sure they would have realized anything was wrong. Her control was absolute.”
Gwynira inhaled sharply. “And so she marched you, unimpeded, right to her vessel.”
What had happened next, Aleksi remembered well. “I regained my senses on the ship,” he confirmed. “Already well underway. I was tied to a mast and surrounded by mercenaries.”
Arktikos dropped his hand almost absently to the hilt of his sword. “And the magic user?”
A cold chill crawled up Aleksi’s spine. He steadfastly refused to blink, because the last things he wanted to see painted across the backs of his eyelids were those dead eyes, set in a serenely pretty face.
She had been newly awakened. The crackling light of the Dream still surrounded her like shards of glass whose edges had not yet worn smooth.
He did not know if she had been insane before the sudden, violent manifestation of her magic, but she had certainly been a dark soul.
She had wielded her control over others with an ease that spoke of practice, and a glee that had whispered of bad intentions and worse outcomes.
She had been far too good at inflicting pain not to love it.
“She tried to suffocate Naia and Einar.” Aleksi marveled at how even his voice sounded. How calm. “She simply reached inside them and . . . squeezed. They could not breathe. I had to do something.”
“You said you were bound.” Arktikos had gone very, very still. “What could you do?”
Aleksi met the man’s guarded gaze without hesitation. “I held up a mirror, and I showed their attacker what all that pain felt like.”
Gwynira’s excruciatingly competent guard—a god in his own right—nearly recoiled. Aleksi could see the bunching of muscle in the trembling effort it took Arktikos not to give in.
“It broke her hold on Naia and Einar. Frankly, it broke more than that. She would have done anything to escape me,” Aleksi admitted. “But there is nowhere to run, not on a ship at sea.”
Gwynira rubbed her chin. “So she stood and fought.”
“Hardly,” Naia countered. “She jumped overboard.”
Arktikos cursed under his breath.
She went on. “That terrified the mercenaries into trying to kill us as quickly as possible. We managed to free Aleksi, and then Einar—” Naia abruptly snapped her mouth shut.
Gwynira froze. After all her frenzied pacing, the surcease of movement was jarring. “And then Einar what?”
“No, I meant—”
“It’s all right, love.” Einar caressed Naia’s cheek before turning to Gwynira.
He studied her for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, then tilted his head.
“The parents of the Empire have been telling stories about me to frighten their children into good behavior for generations. Most are exaggerations, at best, or outright fabrications. But one is not.” A vicious smile curved his lips.
“The Kraken is not a title of vanity. When the need arises, it can be very literal.”
Gwynira’s eyes narrowed. “Surely not.”
Einar seemed to enjoy her confusion. “Arktikos changes into a bear. My kraken form is significantly larger. Large enough to tear apart a ship when motivated, and after what happened to us, I was very motivated.”
“You turn into a squid,” she said flatly. “A giant squid.”
Einar grimaced. “It sounds less terrifying when you say it like that.”
“It shouldn’t.” Naia stepped in front of him. “Because Einar smashed that ship to pieces.”
“With the two of you still on it?”
“I am of the sea, Grand Duchess.” Naia somehow made the statement sound like a rebuke. “I kept Aleksi alive in the water while Einar carried us to safety.”
“We took refuge on a small island,” Aleksi explained, “and waited for Einar’s crew to rescue us.”
Isa made a soft noise of rueful amusement. “We did wonder about his ship’s hasty departure.”
“The Kraken will always find its captain.” Aleksi clapped his hands together. “Anyway, that is the entirety of the tale. It happened, but we are all fine, and it is in the past. Now is the time to look ahead.”
“Yes, it is.” Gwynira’s countenance had turned stormy once again, and she resumed her pacing, radiating fury like a frigid gale.
“Arktikos, get the details on that ship from the harbormaster. I want everything—passenger and crew manifests, under which flag did it sail, where and under whose authority did it dock.” She paused and squared her shoulders.
“And find out why those messages to the mainland were never received.”
“Or if they were ever sent at all,” Isa muttered.
He bowed, already backing toward the door, his hand still resting on his sword. “At once, Your Grace.”
Gwynira turned to Isa, who tilted her head, nodded, and spoke once more. “The impostor healer. We’ll need to find out who brought her here.”
Aleksi could only wish the task before them could be so easy. “I doubt we’ll have any luck with that line of investigation.”
“If they’re clever at all, they won’t be easily connected to her presence,” Einar agreed. “And if they weren’t clever, then Arktikos would likely have found and killed them already.”
Isa acknowledged his point with an upraised brow, only to immediately counter it. “While I’m sure Arktikos would appreciate the vote of confidence, there is something more dangerous than clever. There is reckless. And reckless people are impossible to predict.”
“But they are occasionally sloppy,” Gwynira added. “Especially when they believe there will be no one left alive to testify to their misdeeds.”
Aleksi could hardly argue with that.
She turned to him then, an achingly vulnerable expression clouding her features. “I apologize,” she murmured haltingly, “for the blockade. You must understand, I thought you had been murdered, and that the rest of the High Court—”
“And that the rest of the High Court was about to descend on your home in full, violent, vengeful force,” he finished. A fair assumption, since Aleksi had feared the same outcome when he had so recently lain dying.
What a strange thought. He certainly didn’t feel like he was hovering on the brink of death now. His senses were still erratic, with everything a bit brighter and louder than usual, but nothing that felt dangerous, much less fatal.
“Your friends would have been right to attack Akeisa.” Gwynira’s jaw clenched. “This should not have happened at my court, because of me.”
On that count, at least, he could set her mind at ease. “Oh, but it didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“That whoever orchestrated this abduction was targeting me, and with specific purpose. We learned that from our kidnapper before she died.”
Gwynira froze, her gaze darting back and forth without lighting on anything as she processed his words.
Isa started, and, for a moment, Aleksi thought she might move to comfort her lover.
But she stayed where she was, her hands clenched into fists, as if betraying any concern would only endanger them both.
So he laid a careful but reassuring hand on Gwynira’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault, my lady. Not in the slightest.”
It seemed to release some of her tension, and she sagged for just a moment before straightening. Then a cold, terrifying smile curved her lips. “Still. You’ll forgive me if I’m determined to find out who violated the diplomatic sanctity of my palace.”
So this was why they called her the Ice Queen. “Grand Duchess, you are terrifying. I approve.”