Elora plucks it from my coat, studies the cover. It’s so old the pages cling together by mere strands of thread. “The King’s Passion.A romance?” She grins. “I didn’t know you liked romance novels.”
Color pinkens my cheeks. “I don’t, but he offered a fair price.” It is only a half truth.
“Ah,” she says, as if that makes perfect sense. Elora can believe what she wants. I’ve never given her reason to think otherwise. Since my sister rarely reads, I own the majority of the books dotted around our cottage. The solid cloth covers do an adequate job at concealing the stories tucked inside the pages. The last thing I want is Elora discoveringThe King’s Passion, or whatever my current read is.
For a third time, the horn wails, shaking the walls of our cottage.
I stare at Elora. She stares at me.
“It’s almost time,” she whispers.
I curl my hands into fists to stifle their trembling. After tonight, one less woman will inhabit Edgewood. The Frost King has taken much from me, and he dares threaten to take one more, most beloved thing. “Elora, please.” My voice cracks. “You’re all I have left.”
I bend a knee to no one, but I will beg for my sister and her life. Mine is irrelevant. I’m not one of the women being offered as the king’s sacrifice. And anyway, my scar marks me as undesirable.
“Everything will be all right.” Coming around the table, she pulls me into her warm embrace. Sage, sweet and earthy, perfumes her hair. “Tonight, after the king has gone, you and I will bake a cake to celebrate. How does that sound?”
My eyes narrow. “How can we possibly bake a cake when we’re out of flour?” And sugar. And, well, everything needed to bake a cake. Snow and rocks do not a cake make.
Elora only smiles secretively. “There are ways.”
I do love cake, but it’s not enough to banish my unease. The air is foul this night.
“I don’t like this,” I mutter.
Elora’s laughter sounds reminiscent of a windchime. “Wren, you don’t like most things.”
“That’s not true.” I’m merely selective about when I express enthusiasm, is all.
“Come.” She tugs me toward the front door, replacing the hat on her head and drawing my hood up around my ears. “Miss Millie will need help with last-minute preparations, I expect. Everything must be perfect.”
The North Wind’s welcome involves a grand feast held in his honor. In theory, there is to be a decadent meal of many courses, as if to be chosen, stolen away to the Deadlands, is cause for celebration. But the reality is Edgewood fades year by year. Nothing grows in the frozen earth. The livestock, except for a few malnourished goats, have all perished.
Thus, thisgrand feastis only slightly better than paltry. Edgewood has no massive ballroom to host the king, no suckling, spit-roasted pig or extravagant spread of candied meats or diced roots. Instead, hard, pitted evergreen berries are collected and mashed into an acidic sauce the color of blood. There is soup: salted water flavored with wilted herbs. The meat—old goat—is the most unappetizing thing I’ve seen in my life.
I hope the king chokes on it.
The fare may not be to his liking, but he doesn’t come for the food. The seven women who drew short straws, all lovely and pristine, currently gather in the town meeting hall, where a long table has been set for the evening meal, a fire warming the stone hearth. They are dressed in their finest: woolen gowns cinched at the waist; hair washed and combed and braided; long, thick stockings and tired dress shoes. They have concealed their wind-chafed skin with oils and colored creams. I smile wryly. My imperfection cannot be so easily masked.
“How do I look?”
I turn at Elora’s voice. A blue, knee-length dress I stitched years ago hugs her slender frame, and black stockings showcase willowy legs. Curled, dark lashes shield her downward gaze. That rosebud mouth twitches with nerves.
Despite my attempts to steady my voice, it croaks out. “Like Ma.”
At this, her eyes fill. Elora nods, just once.
The longer I stare at my sister, the more intensely my stomach cramps. He will take her. She is too lovely to escape his notice.
Miss Millie, a middle-aged woman who loves gossiping almost as much as she loves straying from her husband, emerges from the kitchen carrying two wooden pitchers. Bloodshot eyes and ruddy cheeks reveal her increasingly distraught state. Her eldest daughter is one of the seven. “Glasses,” she snaps at me.
I fill the drinking glasses with water. My hands tremble, blast them. The women huddle in one corner like a herd of deer in the cold. They don’t speak. What is there to say? By the end of this meal, one of them will be chosen, and that woman will not return.
Miss Millie’s youngest, a boy of twelve, lights the last of the lamps. Beyond the shuttered windows, the townsfolk gather in the square, awaiting the king’s arrival. His last visit occurred more than thirty years ago, before my sister and I were even born. He took a woman named Ada across the Shade. She was only eighteen.
As I’m smoothing the wrinkles from the white tablecloth, I hear it—the clop of hooves on stone.
The women press closer together, grabbing each other’s hands. No one utters a sound. Even their breathing has ceased. Elora’s gaze meets mine across the room.
