“And the Icebound, don’t forget about those fuckers.”
I drop what’s left of the twigs I’ve been breaking, sliding my hands over my face. “When did this get so complicated? Wasn’t reaping spirits enough?”
When I look up, Ban’s giving me a strange look. “You actually enjoy that shit?”
“Enjoy feels like a stretch.” I sigh, leaning back on my hands. The silence surrounds us, the critters in the forest smartly avoiding our campsite. Ban makes an icicle in his hand, and he seems to be using the little blade he keeps at his hip to whittle it. I’d nearly forgotten he carries a knife with how little he uses it.
I almost don’t ask him, but the question has been burned in the back of my mind since Tressa. It seems unlikely now, given what I’ve seen since our paths crossed, but I can’t stop myself from asking anyway. “Did you sleep with the Mad Queen?”
He cusses, missing the icicle with the knife and stabbing his hand. A speck of black blood bubbles against his pale skin before he tosses the icicle into the fire and shoves the knife back into its sheath. “Where did you get an idea like that?”
“From Davina,” I reply, and even now, saying her name feels strange. It feels too… ordinary after all the chaos she’s brought upon the world. “In Tressa.”
“Why was she speaking about me in Tressa?”
Pursing my lips, I replay her speech word for word in my head:You don’t think that's the last time I had an update, do you? That ice boy of yours, Ban? He can be bribed with some pretty coins and a bit of frost. Such a pretty, pretty boy.
“She alluded to the idea she paid you for sex.”
He sneers, turning his full attention on me. “And you think so little of me that you believed her?”
“I had to wonder,” I reply evenly, refusing to be bothered. “She said money and frost could bribe you. Can it?”
Scoffing, he looks away with a shake of his head. For many moments, I don’t think he’s going to respond at all. “I slept with Davina a few times before I was turned into an ice mage. She was Lady Hartsell back then.Neversince.”
Narrowing my eyes, I try to think of Ban’s interactions with the Mad Queen. We only crossed her once as a group, and it led to our transformation. She put the four of us in cages in her dungeons and tortured us one by one: first, myself, then Ray, Ban and finally Lucius. Ban riled her up, and when she finally got to Lucius she stabbed at his eyes until he lost his sight. Ban’s scars are deeper than mine or Ray’s, but she really took out most of her anger and hatred on poor Lucius.
There were no signs that they knew each other. Maybe she didn’t remember him at the time, or he was so inconsequential she didn’t want her court to know that they were ever together.
“I can’t imagine sleeping with her,” I say seriously, shooting him a look. His expression is grim, and I don’t see that changing. “What drove you to it?”
“Madness,” he replies dryly, shrugging a shoulder. “And coin. I was poor, flat broke once my parents died. I made my way for some years, but I was a decent-looking teen and she wasn’t that much older than me. It went on for some time until she started courting the King of Diamonds, and then I was no longer of use to her. Later, I tried to cross Icicle Pass and died.”
I wince, Legs’s words playing through my mind. Are we really more spirit than living? I’ve never thought of it before, because the shadows make us outliers to the traditional dead. We guide them, but are we really spirits, too?
Spirits can splinter and change when left in this world for too long. Modred was an excellent example of that, and I haven’t seen his spirit in quite some time. If we are the same, we should be able to fall into the same heinous reality.
But it’s never happened, and we’ve all gone through losses since turning into Reapers.
“It was before you were born,” Ban goes on, arching a brow. “You weren’t even a thought.”
“Thanks for the reminder that you’re an old man, asshole.”
He smirks, and it’s hard to tell whether he’s masking his thoughts or not. This can’t be easy to talk about, but the disgust in his voice when he mentions Davina makes me think he’s being honest. “If you have more questions, I’m sure I can fill you in on the details.”
I groan, nausea rolling through me. “Please, don’t regale me with stories of sleeping with the Mad Queen.”
Ban begins laughing, and after a moment, I join in. It’s so utterly ridiculous it’s difficult not to not laugh. For the moment, it breaks some of the tension around the campfire, and I feel a little lighter looking toward tomorrow.
~~~
“Seventeen siblings you say?” Neve asks, looking a little pale as we get closer to the tavern. By now the beanstalk is an obnoxious eyesore, but it’s a good way to know exactly where the tavern is. I may need to mention to Dahlia that the location might be a little too obvious if they ever need to hide again.
“Seventeen,” Odette echoes, but she doesn’t sound so sure. “He’s either one of seventeen, or he has seventeen siblings, and he’s the eighteenth. I honestly can’t remember. I know their names and everything, but, well, give me a second and I’ll count–”
“It’s okay,” Neve says pleasantly, walking beside Ban. Odette’s on Neve’s other side, and I’m walking a bit ahead of them because the trio already takes up a lot of space along thebarren path. The trees might have been burned down to little more than stumps, and only the scorched carcasses remain.
Scanning our surroundings, I keep my eyes peeled for Camelot spies. I don’t know if we should be worried about Lancelot himself making an appearance, but anything to do with Camelot seems like something we should stay away from.
