As she came to a stop, she knew who she’d find, but when she blinked the tears away, her chest stung all the same.
“Ade?”
Mareda’s voice was thin and wavering. In the rooms beyond her, the wailing continued; someone else or perhaps several someones offered up their soft, trembling sobs in harmony.
“How many tolls has it been?” Adeline said numbly, only distantly aware that it no longer mattered.
Mareda’s lip wobbled. “She’s gone, Ade.”
For a moment, Adeline thought the deep, shuddering crack in her chest had actually sounded outside her body; it took her a moment to realise that the sound was Mareda’s wooden crutch hitting the floor, dropped so that she could hobble forward to catch Adeline in her arms.
And then they were holding each other up, holding each other together, both in danger of coming apart but for the circle of one another’s arms.
High in the towers of the palace, the bells pealed prettily, each toll marking an end to the reign of Selma Ashalynn Beira; the Queen of Snow and Silver.
???
The days passed in a blur of arrangements until one morning, after yet another sleepless night, Adeline donned the bruised blue mourning dress Imogen had delivered to her rooms, and followed her family to the lakefront.
The Parting Breath was Eisalaan’s mourning ritual. It was performed by Wielders, said to help the soul catch on to Aera’s winds and drift away to join the Goddess above. While other countries buried their dead, Eisalaan froze them down to snowdust and watched them scatter into the air. There was, Adeline thought, something much more final about it.
On the solid shores of the Laune, the Beira family sat arranged in a neat arc on one side of the ice coffin. On the other side, a sea of forlorn faces stared back at them, the people of Eisalaan gathered on the banks a short distance away. Sniffles and gasps carried on the wind. Someone was keening. It was surreal; as though they were performing a terrible play and nobody was sure who was actor or audience. Adeline clung tight to Iseult in her lap, the little girl’s arms a vice around her neck. At the fore of the crowds on the bank, Kai and Ceri had found Ger and Imogen, and the four of them stood huddled together, a dark smudge of mourning blue against the snow. Though she couldn’t look at them for fear of breaking down, it was a small comfort to have them in her periphery. A small flutter of warmth in the numb she’d sunken into in order to get through the day. For now, she stared over Izzy’s shoulder at the unmoving, ethereal figure.
Encased in panes of ice as smooth and clear as glass, Selma looked every bit the Fairytale Queen that the world had imagined her. Her golden hair was laced with a silver wreath, her hands folded over an airy white bouquet of snowdrops and baby’s breath. She might have been sleeping; awaiting the salvation of her true love’s kiss.
But Selma had never needed that. She’d never wanted to be saved by a fairytale love. Only saved from herself, finally allowed to feel something.
As the Priestess led the mourners in a hymn of farewell, Adeline could only mouth nonsense words with her eyes still snagged on her mother’s face. Entirely and eternally still.
Finally, the moment came for the family to step up to the Queen’s side and bid their farewell. The Priestess invited the congregation to send a final kind thought to buoy the Queen on her journey, and then Adeline, her sisters and the Dukes stepped aside for the two Wielders and their Commander.
They watched as Edward stood at the head of the coffin and placed his hand above Selma’s head. Watched as frost spider-webbed from his fingertips to join the ice magic spreading from the Wielder’s hands at each side of the coffin. Watched as the frost laced above their mother’s face until a fog of patterned ice blurred her features entirely. The Priestess had begun a low, continuous chant to Daughter Aera, and the breeze had picked up in answer, stirring slowly and awaiting Selma’s spirit.
A ragged sob in Adeline’s ear jolted her back to herself, where tiny, broken Iseult was shaking in her arms. Sebastian reached out and the girl scrambled from Adeline to her father; perhaps too big now to be passed from person to person, but certainly far too little to be mourning her mother. Adeline wasn’t sureshewas old enough to weather this loss; she didn’t know how to do this. Shouldn’t she be crying, sobbing like Iseult or like Mareda gently dabbing stray tears away with a lace edged handkerchief? Her eyes were dry, but her chest ached – all the more noticeable now without her arms wrapped around her little sister. She wrapped them around herself instead, holding her chest together beneath her cloak. As tiny cracks began to form in the ice of the coffin, she was sure they masked the soft splintering sound deep within her ribs. She couldn’t breathe. She was shivering with the rising wind as the Priestess chanted faster and faster. Her arms weren’t strong enough to hold all her pieces together and she was going to splinter apart and disappear into the ether along with her mother’s spirit –
But then two sets of arms circled her from either side, someone at her waist and another around her shoulders; Kai and Ger. She wasn’t sure how they’d known she needed this, and she didn’t ask, just clung to their arms. The splintering of the coffin was turning to a low groan - any minute now the whole thing would collapse into shards of ice and rise to meet the gently wailing winds.
But minutes came and went, and the ice held strong.
Beneath the wind, a murmuring rose across the bank. Sebastian raised an eyebrow at Edward, who now had two hands laid at the head of the coffin and a sheen clinging to his brow. Was he sweating, despite the cold breeze stirring around them? The Priestess faltered slightly in her chant, and Edward scowled at her.
“Keep going,” he barked.
The other Wielders were sweating now, too. One of them dared a glance at the Commander.
“My Lord –”
“Keep. Going.” He made a swift, irritated gesture towards the banks, and two more Wielders rushed across the ice, peeling off their gloves as they went.
Edward now led a team of five Wielders crowded around the frozen block; another shuddering groan slipped from the ice, but still the coffin held.
Iseult sobbed harder.
“Will Aera not take Mama’s spirit?”
Sebastian hushed Iseult gently, but his tone turned harsh as he called out; “Edward, what is this?”
“It is under control.”
