Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
Scarlett
I only remembered flickers.
Russet hair and a cruel smile. The sound of ice cracking. Terrified realisation that came a second too late.
After that, everything happened in a rush: a haze of panic and confusion as hands reached out, not to help me, but to push me—
I tried to scream, but water flooded my mouth instead. And there was nothing I could do as I dropped like a stone, my heavy clothes dragging me under.
Desperation gave me strength as I tore off the furs and kicked towards the distant surface. Only when I reached it—
It wasn’t there.
I could have cried then. Could have wept and raged at the thick, translucent barrier above me, at the unbearable closeness of the sky.
Footsteps thudded overhead; my brother was moving, but I couldn’t see him. I slapped my palms frantically against the ice, trying to break through even though I knew it was useless. Roran clearly knew it too, because the echo of his boots grew fainter.
My only hope was for someone to rescue me. For one of my guards to dive in and pull me from a watery grave.
But there were no guards. My brother had sent them all away.
I swam frantically, searching for the hole I’d fallen through. I didn’t even know if I was going in the right direction, but I tried anyway, propelling myself forward with increasingly numb arms. My lungs were burning now, begging for air.
But there was no air. There was no escape.
There was only cold and silence.
Strangely enough, I no longer felt afraid. It was almost peaceful, the panic and fear dissolving as I sank slowly beneath their reach.
How nice it would be, I thought dimly, to close my eyes and drift.
But just as I prepared to stop fighting, I saw her .
The girl was directly above me, kneeling on the other side of the eerie blue ice. She was as cold and infinite as the frozen lake that would become my tomb, and it was impossible to tell whether she was flesh and blood at all. If it hadn’t been for her halo of long red hair, she would have been indistinguishable from the snow around her.
Even in my delirium, I knew that what I was seeing wasn’t real. In the throes of death, my mind had summoned the only comfort it could: myself.
Except I had never looked so beautiful or terrible in life. It was like staring into a distorted mirror image: wrong in every way, yet achingly right. Was that what my drowning self looked like, lips tinged with blue and all warmth leached from my veins?
My doppelg?nger placed a corpse-white hand against the ice. As if in a dream, I raised my palm to meet hers—
A thunderous boom sounded as the surface split apart. Ice cracked and rained down around me like a million shards of glass.
And I breathed .
It was night by the time someone reached the frozen lake. When they rushed over to where I lay, motionless on the ice.
I was only vaguely aware of the man’s presence, his words muffled, as if coming from a vast distance. But I did notice when I was wrapped in fur and lifted, gently and firmly, into a pair of strong arms.
Those arms held me close as I was carried across the icy plateau and into the grey stone palace of Kalure. Surely the court had discovered I was missing by now – and yet when we reached the doors of the great hall, I heard the unmistakable sounds of laughter and music. No one inside had bothered to cancel the revelry, to feign even the appearance of concern.
If it had been one of my half-brothers, the nobles would have offered their assistance as a way of currying favour with the emperor, and no expense would have been spared in the search. For me , though . . .
‘Put me down.’ My voice was hoarse and barely audible, but the order was clear.
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘Put me down,’ I repeated, and this time, he obeyed.
Clutching his tattooed arm for support, I waited for my surroundings to right themselves. It took a moment, but slowly everything came back into focus – including the Artisan, his mismatched eyes piercing right through me.
If I could have flushed, I would have. I had seen Severin around the Ravalian Court, but always from a distance. And he had never looked at me like this before – really looked at me, as if I wasn’t Zandri’s daughter or a princess, but simply a young woman. A young woman he was still standing awfully close to.
‘Did my mother send you?’
He nodded. For a second, I thought his face held a glimmer of concern – concern that went beyond whatever orders my mother had given him. But that softness quickly disappeared, leaving smooth perfection in its wake.
‘Let me escort you to your chambers, Your Highness,’ he said, his voice rich and melodic. ‘I can summon a healer—’
‘I don’t need a healer.’
A dark eyebrow rose.
‘I’m perfectly fine,’ I said, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. ‘And I have no intention of going anywhere. I intend to face my family – on my own.’
Severin’s gaze swept over me once more. There was something strange about his stare – something assessing I wasn’t sure I liked. But he inclined his head and said smoothly, ‘As you wish, Princess. I’ll be nearby if you need me.’
‘I won’t,’ I said immediately.
His lips curved. ‘We’ll see.’
Without waiting to be dismissed, he turned on his heel. I watched him for a moment, wondering if Severin was right – if I should retreat to my chambers. But I shook off the thought. I’d be damned if I let Roran believe I was afraid of him.
Setting my jaw, I pushed open the carved doors.
The great hall spanned before me, its wooden tables piled high with meats from the ceremonial hunt. Courtiers gathered around those tables, men and women who I had known for years, but out here, dressed in heavy clothes and adorned with weapons, their veneer of civility had been stripped away.
As I stepped into view, the music abruptly stopped. Murmurs spread through the hall as everyone turned to stare. I must have been an unusual sight: barefoot and waterlogged, my hair framing my face in snake-like tendrils.
I kept my head high as I walked between life-sized sculptures of our ancestral kings, all poised to cut down their enemies. Emperor Kalias had commissioned them himself: he was fiercely proud of reclaiming the North and dragged the court back to Kalure once a year to live a simpler, harder existence. He believed his people had become soft since relocating to Ravalia, reaping the benefits of the fertile soil and forgetting what it was to struggle against the elements.
I like the harshness of Kalure, he once told me. It separates the strong from the weak. Here, survival isn’t a right. Survival is won.
Not that we were supposed to hunt and kill each other , but with my body drifting beneath the ice, no one could have linked my death to Roran – and there would have been one less sibling to threaten his position as heir to the Ravalian throne.
‘What is the meaning of this?’
The demanding voice was instantly familiar and entirely unwelcome. It was a monumental effort to keep my expression unreadable as I faced my stepmother, who was reclining on an austere throne, warm and rosy-cheeked in her furs.
‘It looks like she fell into the lake, Mother,’ Roran cut in. The sound of his voice was enough to make me feel sick; my fury was almost overpowering. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was too dangerous to let her roam the grounds?’
The empress regarded me disdainfully. ‘Is that what happened?’
Roran’s handsome face was impassive, but his jade green eyes were so sharp they could have cut stone. He was daring me to contradict him.
‘Yes,’ I said, forcing the word past my numb lips. ‘That’s what happened.’
Empress Ivalene smiled thinly. I had no doubt she knew the truth – perhaps she had even encouraged Roran to attack me. My father’s decision to include his bastard daughter in the line of succession hadn’t made me popular.
‘Foolish girl. Take her to the infirmary,’ Ivalene instructed the guards, ‘and don’t let her out of your sight. We don’t want a repeat of this idiocy.’
I turned away from the dais – but not before I saw the satisfied gleam in Roran’s eyes. He might not have succeeded in killing me today, but he would try again.
The thought didn’t bother me like it should have. If anything, I welcomed the challenge – and the opportunity to outwit him. How satisfying it would be, to watch his head cleaved from his shoulders. Even more satisfying, if I was swinging the sword myself.
I smiled as I passed the nobles, who parted respectfully but whispered behind their hands. I assumed they were muttering about my dishevelled appearance or my interaction with the empress. It was only when I reached the mirror-lined corridor that I understood.
In the glass, a drowned girl was reflected back at me. The girl I thought I’d imagined in the ice.
She was no illusion now. She was real, and she was staring at me with knowing blue eyes—
Except mine had been green.
With a rush of horror, I raised a hand to my cold cheek. There had been a moment under the ice, just a moment, when I’d thought . . . I’d thought I’d stopped breathing.
What had my mother said once? Death lingered .
The proof was there in the whiteness of my once-olive complexion. The unnatural chill to my skin. The strange colour of my eyes – the same colour as the water that had filled my lungs and stilled my heart.
Because I had died in that lake.
Only for me, death wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning.