At Christabel’s feast to celebrate our defeat of The Snow Queen, I am seated to Kai’s right, in a place of honor as if I’m his wife. During the princess’ speech welcoming us to her realm, he takes my hand under the table and squeezes it. I let it linger on his knee, wondering what he would do if I slid my hand higher up his thigh. How far would he let me go?
But then he smiles easily at me and returns my hand to my own lap.
The man who wanted to crawl beneath a table to taste me is gone, apparently. I may have saved his life, but only one of us can return home now, and it won’t be me.
I’ll see him safely there, of course. I need to check in with Nana. Maybe she will have advice on how to start over after everyone has decided you’re an amoral whore, and you’ve been forced to become someone stronger than you ever thought possible.
“You don’t seem happy,” Kai says later when he walks me to my room.
“I am,” I lie. How can I say,I miss the way you were when you were being controlled by a fae witch?I didn’t like the way he treated me, exactly, but I preferred his blunt pursuit over this courtly politeness.
“You’re so beautiful without your scars,” he says.
When I emerged from the underground lake, my skin was as smooth and unmarred as the day I was born. The only remaining sign of The Snow Queen’s ice knives is the streak of white above my left eye. If that had been taken from me, I might go mad, thinking the past few years of struggle and yearning were all a dream.
I duck my chin, feeling naked.
“Gwen, you don’t have to hide anymore.”
“I’m not used to being looked at,” I mumble. “I spent years trying to avoid anyone seeing me.”
He kisses my forehead. “Everyone who looks at you sees what I see: a beautiful, strong, clever woman who defeated The Snow Queen at her own game.”
Against my wishes, tears press the back of my eyelids, seeking release.
“Still a scullery maid.” I summon a watery smile and jerk my head at my door. “Will you stay tonight?”
A whore’s invitation. Kai’s brows knit together. “That would be unseemly.”
My stomach drops. I feel like I’m falling endlessly the way we did after The Snow Queen shattered her own ice palace torelease her hostages. Down and down, but instead of the warm embrace of a magical lake, all I find is a bottomless pool of dread.
“Don’t worry, Gwen. You will be handsomely rewarded for your efforts upon our return to Montrace,” Kai says, every inch the chivalrous knight, the honorable prince, the future king.
“Step down,” I whisper.
“What?”
“I’m asking you to step down as king. Let your mother rule. Our children can be her heirs. Please. That’s all I want. To be with you is the only reward I ever desired.”
Confusion etches into the corners of his eyes. There remains a white speck in the iris of his right eye, no longer silver. A scar from the shard. I find no glint of challenge there. I want to weep for the loss.
“You know I can’t do that.” He kisses my head. “Get some sleep. We’re safe now. Everything is going to be fine.”
Chapter 20
We rideinto Montrace weeks later to great fanfare. The Queen’s spell of forgetting must have broken when Kai and I defeated her at her own game. Everyone welcomes us home as if the wicked, cruel version of the prince never happened.
It’s as unsettling as losing my scars.
“Gwen!”
“Nana?” I scan the crowd, trying to locate her. She calls my name a second time and I finally spot her on the rampart walls. I slip off my horse and push through the throng, up the stairs, ignoring the protests of the armored guards, and throw myself into her arms.
“You’re alive,” she sobs. Guilt crashes down on me. I’m her only family, and like a sullen child, I ran off and left her alone.
“I’m back, Nana.” For how long?
She takes me by the shoulders and peers up at my face. There are new lines framing her eyes and her gray hair has turned almost entirely white. She’s still the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
