“I have all the authority,” I cry, poking his chest hard with my forefinger. He rubs at the spot in bewilderment. “I’m not a coat to hang on a hook and forget about. I am your wife. I live here, I eat here, I sleep here. So yes, if I decide to save this man, I will, and you can do nothing about it.”
“You don’t know who this man is,” he growls, infiltrating my personal space. My back hits the wall. The scent of cedar enfolds me, dizzying and clean beneath the blood clinging to his torn uniform. “He could have come here with the intention to kill me, or you. It could be a trap.”
Oh, of all the ridiculous things I’ve heard, this tops it. “I suppose you’re right. With all the blood he’s lost, why, I would expect him to leap up any moment and stab you in the heart.” That cold, unfeeling heart, which I will pierce soon enough.
A small groove indents the skin between his black eyebrows. “You mock me.”
“Of course I mock you!” I cry through disbelieving laughter. “Even if he came here to kill you, he wouldn’t succeed now. He is barely alive as it is!”
“That is beside the point,” he tosses back. “If one person has managed to breach the Shade, who will be next? A force grows, one that I’m not sure I can fight for much longer.”
“Say what you will,” I retort, “but I will never turn my back on someone in need, not even you.”
The last part slips out unintentionally.
The Frost King opens his mouth. Then, as if my words finally sink in, he closes it. An awkward silence descends. Did I mean what I said? Absolutely not. Honestly, I’m baffled as to why I uttered the words.
“Wait,” I say. “That man breached the Shade? I thought only the dead could cross into the Deadlands.”
He rubs a gloved hand over his jaw, smearing more dirt. “That is true, were the Shade intact.”
“What?”
He leads me back into the infirmary. Alba and her apprentices have made themselves scarce, which is probably for the best. Striding to the wounded man’s side, the king pulls back one of his eyelids, and I gasp. The eye—pupil, iris, sclera—is entirely black.
“See this?” He gestures to what I thought was frostbite, but upon closer inspection I notice the black patches are actually locatedbeneathhis skin. They appear alive, twitching and curling into amorphous shapes.
My gut tightens at the wrongness of it all. “It looks like he’s turning into a darkwalker.”
“That is exactly what’s happening.”
It’s wrong. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. A darker patch blooms beneath the man’s chin, then fades. “What will you do with him?”
“He must be killed. I will tell Alba to give him nightshade. It is poison, but it will not pain him.”
It’s more than I expected from him.
“Speaking of darkwalkers.” I peer at him expectantly, unwilling to give ground. “Any news of our shadowy friend roaming the citadel?” Days have passed since I chased it through the labyrinth of this place, but it is not something I will soon forget.
“No,” the Frost King states. “None.” He pinches the top of his nose, eyes squeezed shut.
“Has a breach occurred before?”
“The protections are the strongest in my power. Nothing enters without my knowledge. Nothing.”
Yet something did.
My attention lowers to the nasty gash across his left forearm, his ripped sleeve. He doesn’t seem to notice the blood seeping out. “You’re hurt.”
“I’ll live.”
He will. And yet I find myself saying, “It could become infected. I can clean it for you.” I don’t know where these words come from. As far as I’m concerned, the wound can fester. And yet, he came for me at a time of grave peril, when I might have died from the hurts sustained from the attack, and I have not been able to forget it. “It won’t take long.”
He shifts his weight. And just like that, I’ve made the Frost King uncomfortable. “This won’t grant you favors, wife.”
As if I care for favors. Brushing past him, I call over my shoulder, “This way.” Just as I know the sun rises in the east, I know he will follow. The king can deny it all he likes, but he is curious of me. And some small, twisted part of me is curious of him, too.
“Sit.” I gesture to an empty cot.
