But Swan Lake? I never head here since Ray usually deals with the friendly king, and he watches over the majority of Sherwood, too. From my understanding, he splits the area with Zarev, who sometimes makes his way to Tressa, but there’s always something in the way. Z tried to explain it to me once, but it didn’t make much sense. Neither of them has any interest in journeying to the Frostlands, so that domain is left to me.
Tressa, like Camelot, is one of those places I never plan on going. And Z’s doing his damnedest to avoid it, too. The last time we spoke, which isn’t often as of late, he kept commenting that King Midas seems to have a way of handling the dead, and there’s never a pull from the kingdom beckoning Z over the golden wall. It’s a strange conundrum considering the call of death is practically a symphony in the north, but Zarev is adamant that Tressa rarely yields any dead.
And why would he lie about that?
Ishouldstay in the north, where I know too many spirits will be waiting for me when I return. The frigid weather and poor living conditions contribute to more deaths than I’ll find in Sherwood. Even Lucius tells me that Thornton rarely has a large death toll, and a small sovereign country can’t compare to the vastness of the frigid north.
We’re supposed to split reaping evenly, dividing the continent into four. That was the idea anyway, once we understood what we had become. However, Lucius is all but a prisoner in his own home, haunted by some librarian ghost his parents took in. He hardly leaves his manor these days, and no amount of arguing changes his mind about that. Ray has his duties to his family, and Zarev picks up the slack when Ray needs to tend to his numerous siblings.
But the Frostlands? In all the years I’ve known my friends, none of them have crossed Icicle Pass as the living or within the shadows. I prefer to keep it that way. My secrets and my shame are easier to hide if they are none the wiser.
King Killer.
That’s what they called me, but the name has faded with time. Being born again as a Reaper helped, but for those who remember history, I’m still the person who ended the reign of King Andor.
With the death of Andor and the rumors about his daughter, Queen Neve’s sleep, the Snow Queen remains in power in the Frostlands.
If only the citizens there knew the truth.
“Barty!” I call, letting the shadows slip and slide over my form as I move among the trees in Sherwood. Getting across Icicle Pass and stopping in to speak with Legs delayed my return to the Frostlands, and I need to get back. There’s no time to continue my fool’s quest until I’ve caught up on my tasks inthe north again. The spirits will become unruly and follow the Icebound up there if I’m not careful. “Enough games!”
Ahead of me the spirit appears. He’s become my crazed guide, the one who found me in the middle of this asinine mission. I’m on a quest to find a needle in the middle of the continent, and this stray spirit overheard me. “I have the news, friend! Soon, we’ll find the Lady Swan.”
I grunt, glaring at the spirit as he carries on through the trees. Barty is a strange sort of spirit. He’s an older soul, something I could determine from the style of his clothes. A shorter cape, skintight trousers, it’s all a style that’s out of date. Normally a spirit who remained between life and death for an extended period of time would turn into a wraith or join the Icebound if they hail from the north, but Barty is different. He’s a spirit I don’t understand.
Spirits don’t linger for any good reason. This one stumbled into me wandering the north, reaping like I do, and interrupted me one evening on my rounds through the outer towns. The Frostlands have many small villages along the perimeter, spread out from the barren trees of the frozen woods, and south of the royal palace. Barty found me there, picking up souls who froze to death because the Queen could not be bothered to see to the needs of her people.
He latched onto me, and when he disappeared before I could reap his soul, I thought he would be an inconvenience after my visit with Legs. Instead, he found me again once I headed south, opting for the easier path south across Icicle Pass, rather than trying to use my magic to soar over the chasm between Wonderland and the Frostlands. I’ve done that in the past, and it’s always a bitch.
My lip curls thinking about the north.The Snow Queen.She’s spun a tale of pity and woe, and the rich elitists of the Frostlands eat up her story without question. The otherkingdoms in Mystica are none the wiser. And from what I’ve noticed over the last century, most of the other rulers don’t trouble themselves with anything outside the walls of their own kingdom. Alliances are weak, and with allies in Neverland, Ander Son’s Way, and even Meria closing their borders to all of Mystica in recent years, it’s easy to see how corruption quickly spread through each individual kingdom. This is a land divided, and even threats from the Mad Queen in Wonderland can’t change that.
“Does Lady Swan mean the Queen? As in the Queen of Swan Lake?” I ask Barty for the third time today. He’s a flighty spirit, weaving tales to hold my interest, even though part of me thinks he has an ulterior motive for telling me what I want to hear. For all I know, he might be dragging me all this way to find the reason he cannot pass on. Why he didn’t seek out Raymundo to help with this, I have no idea.
He assumes mentioning this needle he heard me mumbling about will help with whatever he seeks,I think to myself.But what does he get out of it?
Barty’s spirit stops moving, turning to stare at me with wide eyes. Sometimes, he’ll phase into the living world, his body taking a solid form for a few moments before returning to his spiritual form.
That’spart of why I’m following him. This isn’t normal by any standard, and even with the Icebound, I haven’t noticed such a strange transition. It’s on the tip of my tongue to share with my Hell Brothers each time we chat, but right now, I have no idea what I would say. Barty is a spirit I should have reaped in the Frostlands when I happened across him, yet I let him convince me to come down all this way to seek out an item I thought was lost.
My Hell Brothers… I really have distanced myself from them over the past few months. Lucius would mutter aboutcurses if he heard about Barty. Ray would tell me to research what’s going on, and Zarev would tell me to go for the final kill. All three options are good to a certain extent, but none of my friends know about the secrets I keep from them. Yet somehow, Barty does, his singular question enough to drive me forward on this mad pursuit.
“I heard a rumor,” the spirit whispered, his body bouncing about in the shadows of the Frostlands, “of the sleeping queen. Her sickness is all for show, and the Snow Queen prevails. Did you ever wonder what happened to the needle that pricked her finger and cast her into a frozen sleep?”
Unlike most people I’ve spoken to in the past century, Barty is aware of Neve’s sleep, and more importantly, the fact that her frozen sleep is unnatural. There are rumors that a villager cursed Neve, that the sleep is only a few years old, that the Ice Queen passed away long ago, and the crown covered it up. All those stories are wrong, and the longer Neve sleeps, the more creative they get.
I purse my lips, thinking of the tale that so many are fed: in recent years, a subject pricked the Ice Queen’s finger and cast her into an eternal sleep. Her mother, the Snow Queen, took up ruling the kingdom again in her absence. I realized I didn’t like Snedronningen, the Snow Queen, even when I barely knew her all those years ago.
“The Queen of the Lake?” Barty asks, pausing before me. I nearly forgot I asked him a question. We’re close enough now, I have half a mind to throw the spirit away from me, into the void in space I can open with my staff that sends souls onward into the next life. He keeps returning like a trained dog each time I've tried, finding me even when I go off to do something else. “The rightful queen, you mean! Lady Ysanna is ready for her rightful place.”
Tilting my head, I try to recall who the hell Ysanna is. I can’t remember the queen’s name in Swan Lake, but I’m positive Ysanna isn’t it. “Who–”
We’re interrupted by the sound of footsteps, and I pause to see what’s happening. Barty’s usually solemn face is suddenly giddy, and he looks between me and where the steps are coming from. “She’s here now!”
Goody.If this all amounts to nothing, I’ll reap Barty on principle, and contact Ray to come check out the kingdom he’s supposed to be keeping tabs on. Nevermind the reason why I’m all the way down here; Ray doesn’t need to know unless I unearth something.
“You promised me,” the voice hisses, and the excitement on Barty’s face falls. “This is not part of the plan!”
“I made no deal with you, wench,” another voice booms. “Your son is the sorcerer, not you. Our contingency rests on him.”
