Blinking, I turn my full attention to him. “You were nine and all alone?”
“When the streets aren’t full of frozen bodies, Neve, I’ll take you on a walk in the shadows. Starving orphans aren’t uncommon.”
But Ban is a full-grown adult, not a child. “You died later, though.”
“I survived for a while on the streets.” His voice is harsher, like this hurts more than the loss of his parents. “Did things I’m not proud of. Associated with people I now hate. Butit kept me alive. Then your mother’s curse began to worsen, and Andor began cracking down on the peasants. I couldn’t handle it, so I went away from the capital city with some of the nomads. I’d never left the Frostlands before. I thought if I could survive Icicle Pass, it was a sign I was meant to keep living. That’s the way most people look at the pass. If they manage to cross it, it’s a sign of life. Things aren’t quite that bad anymore, but a century ago? It was a death march.”
“You went anyway?”
He sweeps his hand out in front of him, his fingertips brushing my arm and making me feel alive at the touch. “There was nothing for me here.”
“I don’t know much about the pass,” I tell him honestly, “just that it’s treacherous. I’ve never seen it in person.”
“You’ve never even left the Frostlands, have you?”
“No. There was no reason to leave before I became the Queen. Now I don’t know who I would meet with.”
“You’ll see it someday. It used to be a rope bridge with rotting planks. The wind would often send it rocking, and that’s how most people died. But in recent years, it’s had some reinforcements. Stronger planks, wider berth, everything to allow trade. It’s still treacherous, though. I was crossing with a band of stragglers when the wind ripped me off the side. I was too weak to hold on, and I lost my grip. It threw me down the cliffs, and I crashed into the rocks and ice at the bottom, landing on the bodies of other poor souls who didn’t make it.”
My eyes widen, and I desperately wish I could see him. “You fell off a cliff, andthat’show you died?”
“I didn’t die immediately,” he says, so calmly it’s hard to believe it’s real. “I remember feeling my life fading, knowing I was going to die. Everything hurt. I landed atop the other bodies; there was a whole graveyard down there. I think that’s what kept me from dying on impact, but I knew I was close.”
“And… and that’s when you gained ice magic?”
He’s quiet again for many moments. “I was watching the moon. It was a clear night. Aside from the wind, it was picture perfect. Too pretty to be the setting of my death. I remember thinking it was unfair, and I regretted my choices as my life leaked out of me. But there was no coming back from that. So I lay there and pleaded with the moon, asking what I had done to deserve my ending. It was all out of desperation. I was just another poor guy who died because the kingdom didn’t provide. I didn’t expect anything or anyone to answer me.”
“So you felt the magic join you?”
“No. I felt myself die. It’s a strange feeling, Neve. Kind of like nothing at all. I was aware the moment my passing happened, and a sort of peace settled over me. Then the cold came, and it was like something pushing me down until I was trapped in my broken body again. I think I passed out. When I awoke, I was the only living person in a pile of dead, and I no longer felt the cold. I made my staff when I finally climbed out of the bodies and collapsed into the frozen lake below. I thought I was going to drown, but I just floated there until I eventually resurfaced. There was a long branch on the shore, and I took it. It helped me walk when I was weakened, and eventually, it became mine. That was some weeks before I ended up in the dungeon. I hadn’t been an ice mage very long when your parents captured me.”
“So, when they wanted to know about your magic and the moon…”
“I had no idea. It took me a long time to learn how to use it, longer to accept it. I met the other Reapers when I finally felt I had a decent grasp on my gifts and left the Frostlands. They grew up, we became closer, and then the Mad Queen killed us. I don’t know whether it was always my fate to die twice or if I just have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I think over everything Ban tells me; it’s easier to focus on his dark past than mine. It feels less raw.
“I was twenty-six when I died,” he says in a voice so calm it’s hard to believe he’s sharing the tale of his death. “After the dungeon, I wandered. I knew things were amiss in the kingdom, so I lingered, trying to understand. I once heard your mother talking about the frozen sleep and a spinning needle, and that started my search. It was some years before I heard more about it. Maybe seventy or so. I met the other Reapers when I traveled south to Sherwood, back when they were living mortals. Teens, in fact, when our paths first crossed. I didn’t grow close to them until about eight years later. We were friends for almost a decade before the Mad Queen killed us again.”
“So much death,” I whisper. “It’s all you’ve ever known.”
“When something is all you know, my queen, it becomes a part of you. I’m better for it.”
Sighing, I force myself to stand. It’s still dark outside, but the sky is a little bit lighter. The snow is more distinct. Morning approaches, and with it, all the burdens I’m avoiding.
I just want to stay here, in the snow, a while longer. I could go hide in the cavern again, but whatever secrets the frozen woman holds feel too daunting to contend with right now. If I go back to the kingdom, what’s left to find?
Cringing, I glance toward Ban as he rises too. “Where do we go from here?”
“First, we need to find the others. You should rest after your injuries, and we can go back to the capital when you’re ready–”
“My mother,” I say quietly, cutting him off. “I killed her.”
“Ikilled her. Youcanblame me for this one, Neve. She had already attempted to kill you by tearing out your spine.”
Reaching behind me, my fingers ghost along the cool spot at the back of my throat. “How, how did I survive?”
He holds up his hand, and I can see his palm when a little frozen snowflake appears above it. “It was Odette’s idea. She suggested using my magic to fuse your spine into place. I’m not a healer. I’ve never done that before. I was worried I’d kill you faster. But we needed to get your spine repaired before anything else could happen.” His voice hardens, and he crushes the snowflake with a fist. “Your mother ripped out your spine. Two big, frosty hands opened with her magic and tore it straight from your back. I killed her because I thought she had killed you.”
