I then vowed to kill the Frost King, put an end to my suffering, and return home. But over the months, something changed. I learned Boreas was not so rigid or callous as he first seemed. As we spent time together, he offered me pieces of himself, and I accepted them with the sole intention of fashioning them into blades, sliding them into all the soft parts of his body. But he gifted me those pieces. And that changed things. It changed everything.
Fool that I am, I was lulled into forgetting who and what he was. The almighty Frost King sent me away to die, and I went, because I had forgotten how to fight.
It shames me. I have always fought. I have never given in. Always, I have pushed through darkness and cold, toward a fire I cannot see. Why did I stop? Why did I continually make myself smaller, less than?
If I am going to die, it will be on my terms. On my feet, not on my knees. And I would rather leave this world knowing I took the Frost King with me.
“Get up, Wren.” The voice is mine. “Get up.”
My joints ache, and my wind-chafed skin stings painfully, but I manage to crawl out from the burrow and push to my feet, using a fallen tree for support. After days spent curled in a ball, it hurts to stand.
Yet there’s a fire in me. It pushes me into a stumble, then a walk, and I keep walking, retracing my steps, clambering over fallen trees and tracking the changes in elevation.
By the time the citadel comes into view, it is dark. The turrets twist against the mountain, black on black. The wall rises in height as I near. It is a cold, unforgiving, and unwelcoming place. It has never, not once, felt like home.
Keeping to the shadows, I seek out the hole in the outer wall near the practice court and crawl through on hands and knees. From there, I shuffle toward to the north wing on trembling legs, locating the third floor, second window to the right. When I had first arrived, Orla had been more than happy to point out the king’s bedroom for me. As luck would have it, a dead tree leans against the wall of the citadel, and it is tall enough to allow me to reach the window I seek.
A crack at the base of the trunk serves as an adequate foothold. Reaching for one of the lower boughs, I haul myself onto the branch despite my fatigue, fighting the nausea roiling in my belly. Shadows shield me from the guards who patrol the wall, and from those completing their rounds below.
Searching out the next handhold, I drag myself higher. Up, up, until I’m balanced on the highest branch, my face inches from the window. Moonlight slants against the glass, tossing my reflection back at me.
I do not recognize this woman. Dark, crescent-shaped bruises circle bloodshot eyes. Her hair hangs in oily clumps, unbrushed and unwashed. The scar, however, is familiar: a savage mark upon her face, a reminder that the past is never truly gone.
A gentle push against the windowpane, and it swings open, generously unlocked. Overconfident prick that he is, Boreas wouldn’t expect his wife to climb through the window with murder on her mind.
The king’s quarters are thrice the size of mine, with multiple doorways leading to rooms beyond sight. The king himself is a dark shape rising from his bed. He sleeps on his side, hair fanned black across the white pillows, the blanket pooling around his waist. The wide span of his back—pale skin and paler scars—all but glows.
Steeling myself, I approach his bedside. In the blurred shadows, I could almost convince myself he is a man, mortal, were his face not chiseled to perfection. I hold the power at last, and I have come to set myself, my people, free.
His spear is nowhere in sight, but that is to be expected. His dagger, however, rests on the bedside table. The hilt cools my hot, sweaty palm. It is firm where I feel unstable.
In one seamless motion, I slide the weapon free of its sheath, the tip kissing the base of his throat.
His eyes snap open.
Blue, blue, blue—
It takes half a heartbeat for clarity to replace the sleep in his gaze. Surprise settles in the lines of his hauntingly beautiful mien. “Wife,” he murmurs.
My hand flinches. “Don’t call me that.”
His chin lifts a fraction as he searches my face. “But that is who you are. My wife.” As usual, he keeps his reaction under careful guard,though the crease between his eyebrows reveals his puzzlement. “I thought I sent you away.”
I lean into him, one of my knees pressed into the mattress for leverage. “It’s going to take a little more than a bit of wind to stop me from completing my task.”
“And that is?” Calm. Frightening calm. Since opening his eyes, he has yet to blink.
“I think you know.”
A slight nod, as if conceding a point. “Killing me.”
I bare my teeth as my stomach lurches in warning. I pray I do not retch. “Why do you look unsurprised?”
“That you have decided to kill me?” He inhales a slow, deep breath. “I knew you would make an attempt. You harbor much anger toward me. I knew that eventually it would take control.”
“If you knew,” I demand, “why didn’t you stop me?”
The dark fringe of his eyelashes lowers to shield his gaze from mine. “You remain here against your will. I took that choice from you, but I did not want to take away your autonomy.”
