But she couldn’t shut her eyes forever, so she opened them again and gently removed herself from Felix’s embrace. “Hold out your arms,” she said.
The cracks were noticeable, but they looked like scars, the kind one might receive from dueling or hunting. She could have fixed them, probably, but she decided she liked him better this way. She ran her fingers over the scars, and the feel of them sent a thrill all the way to her bones. Mine.
“You have the look of a huntsman, my love,” she said, “and the king often goes hunting. When you leave here, you’ll go to the stables and ask for the marshal, and you’ll tell him you’ve come to join the royal huntsmen. Perhaps in time, you’ll accompany the king himself, and then you’ll come back here, to me, and tell me what you’ve learned about him. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I’m going to be a huntsman,” he recited, eyes wide with eagerness to please her.
She bent her head and pressed her lips against one of the scars on his inner arm, and he lifted her head gently, stroking her cheeks, her lips, with his thumb. She leaned in, unsure at first, but when he didn’t move away, she drew in closer, until her lips met his. Almost immediately, she drew back again.
Felix adapted quickly. He copied her movements, bringing his head forward to return her kiss. His adoration, his yearning, nourished her, and she understood now why gods were always said to be jealous.
She pretended it was the king she was kissing, practicing where on his back to place her hands, when to lean away so that he would be left wanting more. This is what it feels like to be held, to be loved, she told herself, but she was too aware that it was a mirror that loved her, and mirrors only saw the surface. Were people the same? If she shone brightly enough on the outside, could she blind everyone to what lay underneath?
Felix cried out. She had unthinkingly torn the flesh at the nape of his neck, and when she withdrew her hand, his blood was under her nails.
Had the cry been loud enough to wake her father? Mina rose from the floor, listening for the sound of footsteps. Felix remained on his knees in front of her, his upturned face radiant with devotion, and she forgot her worries at the sight of him. She didn’t think she would ever grow accustomed to this sudden wealth of affection.
“Stand,” she said, and he obeyed. “Did I wound you?”
“A little.”
“Do you still love me?”
“Of course.”
She leaned in to kiss him again, but the sound of her door slamming open made her jump.
It was her father, and he was livid.
“Get him out of here,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
Felix looked to her in confusion, waiting for her to tell him what to do. “Remember where I told you to go,” Mina whispered to him. Her room was level with the ground, so she threw open the window. Felix understood, nodding to her once before climbing outside to fulfill the other task she had given him.
As she shut the window, she wished she could follow him, or that when she turned around, her father would be gone. But she had no such luck. Her father was waiting for her, as furious as before. She decided then that no matter what he said or did, she wouldn’t tell him about Felix’s true origin. That was still her secret, and she would cling to it as long as she had strength left in her.
“I can’t tell if you’re naive or just deeply stupid,” Gregory sneered, a vein pulsing on his forehead.
You wouldn’t speak to me that way if I were queen, Mina thought, but she remained silent. Let him rage, and when he was finished, she would speak.
“You should be thankful I stopped you before it went too far. If anyone found out about this, or if you ended up with a child, it would be impossible to find anyone to marry you.”
“And what if you were too late? What if it did go too far?” It was a risky claim to make, but it was worth it to see the blood drain out of his face. Yes, he’d listen to her now. He’d hang on every word.
He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. “Did it?”
Mina waited before answering, letting him anticipate her reply. “No,” she said at last.
Gregory released her, his shoulders sagging with relief. “If I ever catch sight of you with him—or any other man—again, I’ll kill him. How could a daughter of mine be so foolish?”
“I wasn’t going to let him—”
Her father’s laughter interrupted her. “You think you could have stopped him?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you know that?”
Because I made him and I can destroy him. She kept her mouth tightly shut, afraid that her pride would betray her. “I knew what I was doing.”
“Oh? Enlighten me.”
She thought quickly. Tell him the truth of her purpose, her secret ambitions, and he could be an ally. Lie, and he would think her a fool and marry her off as soon as possible.
“I want to be queen.”
His mouth remained hanging open for another few seconds before he shook his head and remembered to close it. Whatever he’d expected to hear, it hadn’t been that. She’d rendered him speechless, and that was a victory.
“I want to marry the king,” she continued. “I spoke to him in the courtyard, the morning of the banquet, and I thought that if I could … practice with someone, then I’d know what to do if I ever spoke to him again. I’d know how to—to make him love me.”
Gregory continued to stare blankly at her for some time, and then he burst into laughter. “I’ve underestimated you,” he said. “Here I was hoping to marry you into an important family, and all this time, you’ve been daydreaming about becoming a queen. You’ve inherited something from me after all.”
The idea of inheriting anything from him was distasteful to Mina, but she didn’t want to ruin her father’s good humor. “You could help me,” she said. “We could work together. You could be the father of a queen.”
He seemed to consider the idea more seriously, his expression growing contemplative. “It wouldn’t be for another few years. The queen’s memory must start to fade before the king can replace her. Are you resolved to wait that long?”
“Yes,” Mina said, thinking of the high table in the banquet hall and of the adoring faces that would turn to her when she took her place there at the king’s side.
“And no more of this … this ‘practicing,’ either?”
Mina flushed. She shook her head.
“If we can make this happen, Mina…” He stopped, nodding to himself as he went to the door. He paused at the threshold. “One more thing before I go. I’m simply curious: Is it the man you desire, or is it the crown?”
There was no safe answer. If she chose the man, she’d be deemed immodest; the crown, and she’d be mercenary. The only answer she could give was the truth:
“Both.”
* * *
Mina used to be able to determine the season by the trees alone. But in Whitespring, it was always winter, and so she hardly noticed as a year passed, and then another. She hadn’t expected to be queen by the end of a year, but she had hoped she’d at least have the chance to speak to the king again. She often lingered near the western courtyard where they had first met, but she never found him there. During meals in the Hall, she was too far from the high table to even catch his eye, let alone to speak to him. Most of the time, he wasn’t even there, preferring to take his meals privately.
Her father wasn’t concerned. “He can’t content himself with a memory forever,” Gregory kept telling her. “Soon he’ll want solid flesh, and that is something you have that the old queen no longer does.”
And though she found comfort in his reassurances, part of her always wondered, Is that all I am?
She still had Felix, though. She couldn’t risk her father catching them again, so Mina had searched for a safe place to meet him, and one night she found it. In a forgotten corner of the west wing was an abandoned chapel with stained-glass windows, the last remnant of a time when the sun had still shone on Whitespring, b
efore the North had begun to pray to Sybil instead. From there, Mina called for Felix—because she had made him, she could reach out to him with a thought, a slight pull that he felt no matter where he was. He was rising quickly among the ranks of the huntsmen, but the king was still beyond his reach, and so out of Mina’s reach as well.
And then, one night in the Hall, Mina overheard that there would soon be a picnic in the Shadow Garden behind the east wing of the castle. That wasn’t news in itself—the court occasionally held small social gatherings for their own amusement—but Mina also heard whispers that this would be the princess’s first public appearance, which meant the king would be present as well. Mina had another chance at last. When the king saw her again, she wouldn’t be the huddled, shivering girl he first met in the courtyard.
On the day of the picnic, Mina went alone to the Shadow Garden. She didn’t think this nightmarish collection of twisted, dead trees deserved to be called a garden at all, but she had to admit that the garden was almost pretty today, the lanterns hanging from the trees’ bare branches lending an orange glow to the snow. The entire court was here for the princess’s first appearance, along with a considerable number of visiting nobles. A tented pavilion had been set up away from the trees, and underneath it sat King Nicholas, as well as a nurse with an active two-year-old on her lap. The princess was struggling against her nurse’s arms in an effort to join a group of children running and playing under the trees.
Mina felt lost in the crowd. She recognized some faces from the Great Hall, but she had no friends or allies among any of them. She watched as old friends waved to one another, and she began to wish she had spent less time watching the king and more effort making a friend or two at court. She had come here today secretly expecting the crowd to part for her at her arrival and form a path for her straight to the king, who would be instantly struck by her beauty. But that was romantic nonsense that she should have put aside years ago.
She would approach this opportunity more practically, then. She needed to be approachable—alluring—to make people come to her instead of begging for attention from the fringes. She wandered through the crowd, looking for the right moment, the right person. She just needed someone to see her, to be drawn in by her beauty.
There—standing not too far from the pavilion were two men, both young enough that it was possible they were unmarried, engaged in conversation. Mina walked quickly, looking in the other direction as she headed toward them, letting herself accidentally collide with one of the men.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said at once, stepping away from him so that he could see her better. “I should have been watching where I was going.” The two men both started to scowl, but when they turned to see who had so clumsily interrupted them, their mouths fell open, their scowls forgotten.
Yes, Mina thought, look at me. She stood there, inviting them to see the way her hair so perfectly complemented her emerald-green dress. They would know her southern roots by the gold hue of her skin, but they would also have to notice how soft that skin was, her neck bare even though she was cold. Their eyes flashed brightly as she submitted herself to their gaze, lifting her chin and forcing herself not to turn away as she once again wondered, Is this all I am?
“No need for apologies,” the shorter one said, running a hand through his limp brown hair. “Especially not if you stay and talk with us.”
Mina smiled and put her hand on her throat, noticing the way their eyes followed. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t know many people at court, and it would be such a comfort to have a friend.”
She chirped and preened for them like a songbird in a cage, begging to be sold, but always standing so that she had a view of the king. Before long, others joined their circle—at first only other men, but soon some women joined them as well, until Mina became the main attraction of the festivities. They all swept their eyes over her at first, a slight frown of hesitation on their faces as they realized she was an outsider, but then Mina would smile or fiddle with her hair, and their gazes became more appreciative.
The king seemed preoccupied with making sure his daughter didn’t run off to join the other children playing by the trees, swinging branches as makeshift swords, but Mina knew he would notice the growing circle of people eventually, and then he would see her at the center of it all, shining like a beacon calling him to her.
In the end, it was Mina’s laugh that caught his attention. He had been listening to some old man who was leaning over to whisper something to him, eyes glazing over with boredom, when Mina pretended to laugh at something she was only half listening to in the first place. The king turned his head at the sound, and then he saw Mina, his head slightly tilting in curiosity as he noticed the small crowd of people around her. Mina held her head high, wanting him to see her like this, adored and admired, rather than the lonely girl in the courtyard, but after only a moment, he turned back to the old man.
Trying not to react to this disappointment, Mina brought her attention back to the group, but they weren’t looking at her anymore. They were moving aside, making room for a group of people led by a middle-aged woman, her head held high on her long, elegant neck, her black hair veined with dignified white strands.
Mina recognized her. Her name was Xenia, and she and several others of about the same age were always seated closest to the high table, many of them on the king’s council.
Xenia’s left eyebrow went up in a perfect arch, and her lips curled into an amused but cold smile. “What a strange day this is,” she said, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Our beautiful princess is making her first court appearance, and here we all are gathered around a southern girl none of us even know. I should think the king would resent such an insult to his daughter.”
She turned and left, taking the crowd with her. Some simply walked away, but several others took the trouble to shoot Mina a withering glance first.
Why should these people make me feel ashamed of my home? Mina thought. When had they earned the right to do so? For all their disdain toward southerners, they were no different from the frightened villagers at home, whispering and throwing rocks at her ankles when she wasn’t looking. Their reasons for hating her were different, but the sharp pain of their rejection felt exactly the same. She glanced at the king, and she instantly regretted it—he was staring at her, witnessing her sudden disgrace with a deep frown.
To be humiliated was one thing, but for him to see it—Mina couldn’t help herself. She retreated as fast as she could without breaking into a run. She knew that to leave now would be a sign of defeat, but she couldn’t bear to stay and be sneered at while her plans for the future dissolved in an instant.
She was nearly out of the garden when she heard a voice call, “Wait!” and then a strong hand took hold of her arm. When she turned to confront her latest tormentor, she let out a small cry of surprise—it was King Nicholas.
Just as she had imagined, the crowd had parted to form a path between her and the king’s pavilion, but instead of Mina going to him, he had come to her. They were all watching with interest, waiting to see what the king would do.
Nicholas followed Mina’s gaze to the observing crowd, and he gave an exasperated sigh. He let go of Mina’s arm and offered his own. “Walk with me,” he said, and Mina took his arm at once, hardly knowing what she was doing.
The king set a leisurely pace away from the garden—a simple stroll rather than the escape Mina had been making. Mina clung to his arm, thinking furiously. She didn’t know what to do, who to be—what was his purpose in following her? Why was he leading her away? Was he trying to help her, or did he want to tell her personally never to attend any public functions ever again?
Finally, he said without looking at her, “I know who you are. You’re Gregory’s daughter.”
“My name is Mina,” she said firmly.
He stopped walking and turned to face her, a small crease appearing between his eyebrows. “That’s right. Min
a. The girl with the peach. You’ve become…” He shook his head slightly and turned away. “Were they being cruel to you? Is that why you were running off?”
Mina studied his face, looking for some sign that he was goading her into a trap. But his eyes were gentle, and his forehead gently wrinkled with concern. He was the same man she had met in the courtyard two years ago, sad yet kind.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, they were cruel to me. But people have always been cruel to me, for one reason or another.”
He nodded in understanding. “Whitespring can be set in its ways. No one trusts anyone or anything new, not at first. I’m sorry you had to learn that so harshly. I won’t let it happen again.”
Mina didn’t respond at first. Even though she was still shivering, she felt a strange kind of warmth, his words wrapping around her protectively. She had confided something to him, and he had taken her side.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said, “for coming to my rescue.” No one else ever has, she wanted to say.
He smiled a little, but then his expression darkened. “Is your father here?”
“No,” Mina said quickly.
He held his arm out to her. “Then perhaps you’d like to stay for the rest of the afternoon? I doubt anyone will give you more trouble, and I’d hate for you to leave so early.”
She took his arm and he led her back to the crowd before bowing his head to her and returning to sit with his daughter. Mina tried not to gloat too much as the same people who had just shunned and sneered at her now called to her and greeted her warmly, but it was difficult not to enjoy the way Xenia and her friends were suddenly at her side with begrudging smiles.
“The king seems fond of you,” Xenia said. “Have you met before?”
“Once,” Mina responded.
“I do hope you weren’t too offended by what I said earlier,” Xenia added, placing a hand on Mina’s shoulder. “Just a little playful teasing among friends.”
Girls Made of Snow and Glass Page 9