“My mother wouldn’t strike down my father,” she whispers, her voice dropping. “It was you. You! You stole my magic, combined our powers to attack, took down my father–”
Her voice cuts off, and she presses a hand to her mouth. I give her a moment to try and catch her breath, biting back the cries, before I continue, “I had no interest in killing the King. Or the Queen, for that matter. Before I died and the moon claimed me, I was a citizen here in the Frostlands. They were my rulers, too. I just wanted to escape. I borrowed your magic because I knew the Ice Queen had magic similar to mine. I figured it would be enough; I meant to put up a barrier to escape. You didn’t look especially interested in fighting, so I figured it would work.”
“You lie,” she breathes, her voice almost too quiet to hear. “The shadows are yours. It’s your strange magic that created the story. You can twist it however you please.”
Crossing my arms, I level my gaze with hers. “Go back to the palace, then. Confront your mother. Ask her why the spinning wheel in your bedroom is gone, yet I found the needle. Ask her how she regained the ability to move like normal, yet since your return, she’s grown stiff again.”
Neve’s throat bobs, her eyes blazing as she tries to find a way to answer me. She’ll fight me on every point I make because she doesn’t want to believe it.
“I don’t knowwhyyour mother is cursed,” I explain, meeting her gaze. “I can’t tell you what happened in her homeland to give her the curse, but somewhere along the way, she learned how to bend it to work for herself. She couldn’t get what she wanted from me, so she sacrificed you.”
She steps back like I’ve struck her, her hands balling up at her sides. “My mother loves me. She did what she had to for me, for the kingdom, for all of us.”
I snort. “You don’t believe that. You returned home to demand answers, and amid the confusion, you accepted lies instead. Why do you think she’s still friends with the Mad Queen?”
Confusion flickers across her face. “You mean… Lady Hartsell?”
“Davina,” I reply dryly, the same thoughts as earlier echoing through my head. “She’s still alive and well, a century later. Just like your mother. Your mother, who used a curse to keep you asleep and her magic in check. Hell, she’s still alive. It seems to give her immortal youth, too.”
Neve shakes her head. “That doesn’t make sense. It isn’t right.”
“The Mad Queen retains her youth, too,” I continue, and it rubs me wrong that Neve is so in the dark about Hartsell. If she ever decides to believe me, we’ll have to get to that. “I wonder if she’s hiding someone someplace, too, keeping them a prisoner to maintain her youth. Nowadays, Hartsell is known to kill purely for her own amusement and tortures people just because she’s bored. I bet whoever she has locked away, they are in a great deal of pain.”
Briefly, my thoughts fly to Anastasia and the story she shared with me.A frozen girl…
“Enough!” Neve’s voice is strong, but when she pushes me, the shove is weak. Her hands press to my arms, but there’s no effort behind the motion. I don’t know if she’s fighting herself or fighting me anymore. “I don’t trust you. I—Ican’ttrust you.”
“Then don’t,” I tell her. “Go back to the palace and ask your mother yourself. You can bring those things with you if you like. She can only deny so much when the evidence is clear. I would stay away from the Mad Queen, though, and Lancelot. I have no idea how he became her king.”
Neve bares her teeth, but swipes up the items from her icy shelf, anyway. “I will ask, ice mage. And I’ll prove you wrong. When we’re reunited once again, the only person left to answer questions will be you.”
I wish she were right, but I doubt she is. I watch Neve take off through the snow, using her ice to glide quickly down the sloping hill. I brought us out toward the mountain, not far enough that she’ll struggle to get home, but far enough that if we got into a fight it wouldn’t be quite so obvious for anyone back in the capital city.
Before I can step into the shadows, I notice light coming from my pocket. Sighing, I tug the seeing stone free. This is the worst possible time. “I’ll have to talk to you later.”
“Later doesn’t work,” Zarev snaps, and I’m unsurprised to see it’s him. There’s a woman in the background, and when she sits I’m stunned to see it’s Odette instead of Rapunzel. “We need to know about the Icebound. Now.”
“Well, it’llhaveto wait,” I remind him, narrowing my eyes. “Right now, I’m about to have averyuncomfortable conversation with the Mad Queen.”
Chapter 18 Neve
Despite my desperation for answers, I can’t go back to the palace quite yet. Mother and Davina sound like they are on friendly terms, and I worry what that means for me. Instead of going back to face my fears, I leave Ban behind, reroute myself, and climb partway up the mountain.
I’ve never struggled with the Frostlands’ terrains for as long as I can remember. Even in my dreamscape, the snow and ice bent to my will, bowing to my ice powers and letting me glide through the frost with ease.
Now, it provides comfort. I don’t feel Ban’s cool presence nearby, so I decide to pretend I’m alone. If he’s standing out of my reach, just watching me, I’ll give him hell later.
For the first time in a century, I wish I had friends. Being the princess always came as a lonely role, and I had some ladies-in-waiting, but no one I was close to, aside from Viere. That’s just how things were. I would speak to my father sometimes when I was distressed, but that’s all I could manage. And now I don’t even have that.
Sitting in the snow, my hands clench together. The little spellbook and the spinning needle are tucked precariously into the belt of my dress, which has very little storage to begin with. I’m soaking it through, and even if the cold doesn’t bother me, the dress Mother so proudly handed me yesterday is now unfit to wear to a ball.
“I miss you, Father,” I whisper to myself. My eyes stare down the icy cliffs, wondering if anyone even cares to listen to me now. “I am sorry I haven’t come to see you.”
I asked my mother where Father’s grave was on the first day of my return. My assumption was the royal crypt, but when I went down to check for myself there was no spot for King Andor. There wasn’t even an empty coffin, nothing.
“I had him buried somewhere special, just for me. I was mourning you both for a long time, Neve. Come, we’ll get things in order and then you can go see your father.”
Like most things, it now feels like a lie. I don’t know if Mother ever intended to keep her promise, but it feels like she twists everything to her advantage. All I want is to be able to mourn my father properly. I’m a hundred years late.
