“Yes, and I appreciate the gesture, but I really would like wine instead.”
“It’s after midnight. Why do you—”
“I just need it, all right?” My face burns. There’s no other explanation. I need to drink like I need to eat, to sleep.
Another searching look. “All right,” he growls. Moving to the door, he pokes his head outside to speak with whatever staff member is stationed in the hall. When he returns bearing a cup of wine, I accept it with gratitude.
“Thank you,” I whisper, bringing the glass to my cracked lips and sighing as the liquid warms me from the inside. “Nectar of the gods.”
He inclines his chin. “Indeed.”
I remember little from the attack, but I do remember one thing: the Frost King’s low, soothing voice quieting my frayed nerves. He didnot abandon me in my time of need. I’m not sure how to interpret his actions.
I take another sip before setting the glass aside. “How did you know to come?” I ask, watching him closely for a reaction. He gives so little away—to anyone. “We were miles from the citadel. You could not have heard Orla calling you.”
He hesitates. A rare thing, this uncertainty. “The Les,” he says, “passes near Neumovos. When the spirits heard Orla’s voice, they informed me of your location.”
He does not look at me when he speaks. He watches the fire, he peers out the window, he studies the darkness clumped near the floorboards, he pins that unrelenting focus toward the door. For whatever reason, the Frost King cannot meet my eye.
My fingers uncurl from the blankets and lift to touch my scarred cheek. I’ve lived with this unsightly display for eight years, and it is all anyone ever sees. Perhaps that is why.
I drop my hand. It doesn’t matter anyway. “You’re saying you speak to the dead.”
“Their spirits. Who they were when breath flowed in their lungs.”
Against all odds, he has whetted my curiosity. “I thought you only judged them.”
“Only in extreme circumstances do I speak to them after their Judgment.”
And my attack must count as such. “So what’s the difference between the spirits in the river and those who attend their Judgment?”
He eyes one of the chairs near the fireplace. What a grueling decision. Sit, and he has doomed himself to converse with his wife, of all people. I purse my lips and wait.
He sits. The chair itself is wonderfully comfortable, with deep, sinking cushions perfect for an afternoon of reading, yet the Frost King perches on the edge as though it were constructed of the hardest, toughest planks of wood. Did he have any social interaction before I arrived? I imagine him contained to his chambers, venturing no farther than his wing.
He says, “The spirits in the river are at an earlier phase of their passing. It is there they unravel who they were and come to terms with their deaths. A spirit can take as long as it needs in the Les. It is a safe place for them, free of judgment. When they are ready to meet their final resting place, they attend their Judgment Day.”
“What do these spirits have to say?”
“They are dead,” he says stiffly. “Why should it matter what they say? It is their actions that show me who they were.”
And just like that, any feelings of warmth toward the Frost King vanish. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who so thoroughly infuriates me, and with so much ease.
In eternity, time is meaningless. There is always another year, and another, and another. But for mortals, the fear of death is very real. I hate to think the North Wind does not attempt to comfort those entering this new phase of existence.
“Maybe it matters little to you,” I say, “as you will live forever, but I imagine it means something to them, to speak of their lives and their experiences.”
“My job is not to comfort them. They made their choices, and they died with those choices. My duty is to judge how they will spend eternity. Nothing more.”
My soft sound of derision draws his ear. He still looks elsewhere. “What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“It is not nothing, whatever it is.”
“You are not interested in hearing what I have to say,” I quip, “so why should it matter what I think?”
There is a beat of silence. “What if I am interested in hearing what you have to say?”
