Orla’s silence draws my attention. Catching her arm, I pull her to a halt. “None of the Frost King’s wives has ever escaped the Deadlands, right?” Realistically, they would remain confined, and grow old, and die, forever entombed in the citadel’s halls of stone.
“It’s difficult to say for certain.” Nerves pitch her voice higher. Orla, as it turns out, is a terrible liar.
“What do you mean?”
She wets her lips. Still refusing to meet my eye.
“Orla,” I warn.
“My lady!” Exasperated. “Why do you have to be so…” Her arms flail, graying curls bouncing with the motion. “You?”
I scoff. “Are you insulting me? You know what—” I lift a hand. “Doesn’t matter. Tell me what you know about the king’s wives. And about the doors.” Because there is a connection. Something the king does not want me to learn.
We meander on, and soon reach the town. I’m not paying much attention to our surroundings as Orla says, “Only one of the king’s wives has ever gone missing. Her name was Magdalena. She was curious about the doors, like you, and spent her days exploring what lay beyond them. Then one evening, she didn’t come down for dinner. We searched everywhere, but never found her. The staff believe one of the doors took her to another realm.”
The Frost King told me the doors did not lead beyond the Deadlands.
He lied.
Orla notices the fervor in my expression. “My lady, you don’t believe that story, do you?”
“Oh, but I do, Orla.” Hastening my pace, I charge deeper into the village, a spring in my step. My task stretches before me: secure a way out, a means to flee following the Frost King’s death. Preferably, a way back to the Gray. “I most certainly do.”
“But there are thousands of doors!” she cries, lifting her skirts and dashing after me.
Then I’d best begin my search as soon as possible.
A brick road bisects the litter of shops and cottages, peaked roofs groaning under the weight of snow. The faded structures appear as apparitions, ghosts of what was once real. Sunlight poursthroughthe buildings, the wagons, the townsfolk wandering the street. Everything is tinged by a washed-out pallor, a silvery hue.
Most people push wagons filled with crates. My eyebrows lift, then climb higher. “Are those chickens?” Upon a closer inspection, I discover there are, in fact, chickens in those crates. Live ones.
“You mentioned herbs, my lady. There is an apothecary down this way.”
Halfway down the road, I sense a shift in the crowd. They stare, but they do not approach.
I tug my hood forward to conceal my face. While I wear the uniform of a servant, I worry that people may have overheard Orla’s use of my title. I’m not sure how welcoming they would be to the king’s wife, considering he has doomed them to eternal servitude.
We climb a set of stairs to a shop with a bright yellow door—the apothecary. A little bell rings as we cross the threshold. The air inside the shop is heavy with moisture, its warmth soothing the chill coating my cheeks. It smells of sage, the scent of Elora’s hair.
Green. Green all around. I’m not sure where to look first. The shop houses a myriad of flowering plants, climbing vines, jars stuffed with clumps of herbs, everything from rosemary to thyme, and entire shelves dedicated to the healing arts. After decades spent without color, my eyes do not know how to process the sight before me. Shelves hold jars of salves, bowls of dried rose petals, and spices ground into fine dusts, black and orange and ochre and red. Fat wooden buckets sit beneath the windows, bunches of long grasses bursting from their basins.
“How is this possible?” My whisper carries through the green-steeped quiet.
“The farms,” Orla says, following me through the space. “I know Alba—the chief healer—purchases most of her supplies from this shop.”
“Where are the farms?” It’s not possible. Nothing grows in the Deadlands. The Frost King’s power is far too strong for anything to thrive.
My maid wanders to a display of tins that hold dried tea leaves. “There are grounds west of here that are untouched by cold. That is where our men toil.”
“So not all of the Deadlands looks this… dead?”
She smiles at my choice of words. “I am forbidden to visit any places but Neumovos and the citadel, but yes, I have heard some parts are rather pleasant.”
I’ll believe it when I see it. For now, I peruse the vast array of tinctures, many of which are familiar. Blushwort for nausea. Smoked evergreen for aching joints.
A specter woman materializes at my left. Her height brings to mind striving oak. Her hair is flame. “May I help you?”
The leaves of the herb before me are soft to the touch. I lift the stem to my nose and inhale. Lemon and sugar.
