I say the words in the shadows, even if there’s no voice to them.Is she showing them loyalty?
“Come Lance,” the Queen says, bobbing her head toward the door. “I need to look my best for the kingdom. What do you think, more red? Red, red, red!”
If Lance finds her way of speaking strange, he doesn’t comment, rising from the chair. There’s an expressionless look on his face. Whatever he is thinking, he’s good at masking it.
As the two royals take their leave, we do, too. This time, when Ban moves us into the shadows again, he travels faster. Not toward my room but away. I don’t fight him, going limp in his grasp as we move to outside of the palace, then beyond.
I should care that he’s dragging me away when there’s supposed to be a ball tonight, but all the fight is gone fromme. Too many things happened in that room, and none of them made any sense. Mother is… I don’t know who she is anymore.
When we are some distance from the palace, Ban lets us out of the shadows. It reminds me a little of where we had our first fight with our winter powers, but I know we aren’t as far away as we were then.
The shadows fall, and so do I. He doesn’t force me to stand anymore, sinking into the ground with me.
Chapter 17 Ban
Neve doesn’t try to attack me once we’re out of the shadows, and I’m not entirely sure whether that’s good or bad. Her hands fall to the snowy ground, and I take a careful step away, giving her some space.
Seeing the Mad Queen here with Lancelot is strange enough, but Neve’s still living behind a veil. Try as she might, there’s no hiding that things are amiss. Her mother isn’t the hero Neve wants her to be, and at this point, there’s little I can do to cushion the blow.
I didn’t take us too far from the palace, because I’m pretty sure we’re going to need to go back. My gut tells me to leave and go across the Frostlands, search for the spirits I haven’t seen these past few weeks. But there’s no doubt in my mind that Neve is going to go back when she fixes the mess going on in her head.
I lean against a large boulder, waiting for her to come around. She stays on the ground, fisting the snow, and doesn’t speak for several long moments.
Then she screams, a shattered, broken noise that almost makes me jump. She’s up faster than I expected, a large icicle appearing in her hand. Screaming, she charges at me, only a few steps separating us when she slides to a halt.
Wild, exhausted blue eyes peer up at me as she forces herself to stop, the sharp icicle grazing the side of my throat.Tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and she grits her teeth before speaking. “Fight back.”
“No.”
She pushes the tip against my neck, and my gaze doesn’t waver from hers. “Stop being a coward and fight me already, King Killer!”
I bend down, pushing the tip into my throat until it breaks the skin. It shatters the anger in her eyes, uncertainty taking its place. “We both know I’m not the monster you want to fight, Neve.”
She licks her lips, so close I could kiss her if I wanted to impale myself on the icicle a little more. It’s not going to kill me, but it does sting. Her gaze locks on my throat, her mouth slowly falling open. “You… your blood.”
“It’s black,” I supply, and she gives me a jerky nod. “That would be thanks to the shadow magic.”
“Y-you didn’t bleed black the first time we met.” Her brows draw together before she lifts her gaze back to mine. “It was red. All the marks my parents left–”
She cuts herself off, ripping the ice out of my skin. That stings a little more. She throws the icicle into the snow, wide eyes staring at me before she stumbles back.
Right now, she truly looks lost. More lost and confused than she looked even when she first woke up. That was blind rage, but over the week and a half that she’s been awake and has gotten some answers, it’s turned that hate into something else.
“You said I don’t know the truth, but you’ll share when I’m ready. It doesn’t matter if I’m ready. Tell me something to make me believe you are not as bad as the rest of them.”
“You’re comparing me to the Mad Queen?” I ask, scoffing. “I hate to tell you, Neve, but she killed me about a decade ago. You can thank her for my shadows.”
I drag my staff out of the shadows for effect, slamming it against the ground. A web of inky black sprouts from the spot in the ground, harmless but effective. Neve watches me with cautious eyes, her hands poised to strike me again.
But there’s curiosity in her voice too. “Lady Hartsell did that?”
“Mad Queen,” I correct again.Hartsellis a person I would rather forget. “She’s gotten into killing for sport. After the King of Diamonds died–”
“Jasperdied?” she shrieks. I’m not sure why that strikes her as a surprise since it’s been a hundred years, but she quickly clears her throat and switches directions. It had to be kind of obvious when Davina introduced her new husband, right? “When did Lady—When did theMad Queenremarry?”
Slowly, I meet her gaze and let my staff disappear into the shadows. “That’s the King of Diamonds official name? Jasper?”
“Of course,” Neve replies with a frown. “King Jasper Traum, the King of Diamonds. I… surely that was common knowledge in the past?”
