“Where you been, year after year, while the shanties get ignored?” she asks.
I need to take back control of this situation, need to turn it back in my favor. “King Midas ignored you, but I—”
“You ignored us too,” she says, making my advisors gasp that she dared to cut me off. The crowd seems to take a step forward, the energy in the air spiking with something ugly.
“While you’re warm in your palace, do you know how we live? How we die from cold and hunger?” she demands. “No, you’re just a snow bitch pretendin’ to care. I don’t want your flashy tricks. We wantrealhelp!” she cries.
She ends her rant by spitting on the ground, and even though it doesn’t land anywhere near me, I feel as if she spat in my face.
My guards surround her in an instant and begin dragging her away, but she just gets louder, more belligerent, her children adding to her shouts with their own wails and screeches.
“Don’t touch me!” she hollers before she turns her vehemence to the crowd. “Don’t take the bribes of the Cold Queen so she can feel better when she sleeps in her gilded bed!”
Whatever else she says is drowned out by the crowd as she’s yanked from the square.
Beneath the table, my fingers have curled into fists. I slice my gaze over to my advisors, feeling my anger simmer. “Bring the next person forward. I want to get this over with,” I order.
Wilcox shoots me a look of concern, though I’m not sure if it’s for me or the shifting crowd. Some of them are laughing and cursing at the woman as she’s dragged away, but most are watching, thinking about what she said, flinging dubious expressions at me like spoiled fruit.
They’re considering whose side to be on.
“Next!” a guard barks.
But no one steps forward.
The gatherers have gone guarded, angry. Watching me not with reverence or awe, but with hostility. Not one of the threadbare people comes up to take my offerings.
My mouth tightens.
“Time to leave, Your Majesty,” Uwen murmurs beside me.
“I refuse to let this mob dictate what I do,” I snap.
Jeo comes around to whisper in my ear. “Look at them, my queen. You’ve lost the crowd. They’re looking at you like they want to rip you to shreds. We need to go.”
My eyes dart around, and I realize the truth of his statement when I see the people moving in closer, ignoring the guards’ shouts to back away. The energy has changed in the blink of an eye, as if they were just waiting for a reason. The air is brewing with threat, dirty hands fisting, cold cracked lips pulling into sneers.
“Fine,” I bite out, conceding to retreat, though it irks me.
Foolish, ungrateful lot. How dare they snub their true queen!
I rise from my chair, refusing to look flustered. With Jeo at my side, I start to walk back to the carriage, but as soon as I do, the crowd begins to shout, heckle, hiss. As if my retreat broke the tentative speculation.
Eight guards surround Jeo and me as we walk to the carriage, and my saddle grips my arm, urging me to walk faster. My heartbeat races when people begin to hurl things at my guards, my own gifts being thrown back at us, items clanging against my soldiers’ new armor.
My men close in while Jeo flings his arm protectively over my head, making sure that nothing hits me. I duck down, steps quick as we rush forward inside our wall of steel and strength. Soon, we’re ushered inside the carriage, and the driver lurches forward the moment the door is shut.
The shouting is louder now, a dull roar emitted from hundreds of malcontent mouths. I flinch when things are thrown at the carriage, something hitting and nearly breaking the window.
Jeo is wound tight, his movements jerky as he yanks the curtains closed while he still holds an arm over me.
I shove him away, vexation filling me, anger piercing through like splintered ice at how quickly the tables turned.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I cut him a look. “Of course not! All my efforts were just wasted,” I hiss out of the corner of my mouth. “I spent the last hour handing all of that out, and now, these ungrateful rats think that they can rebel againstme?”
My mind spins with what to do as the carriage rolls on, putting more and more distance between the angry mob and me.
