by Zoe Marriott
As Uldar huffed, I stood and went over to Shell. She had been sitting there, unmoving and apparently entirely detached from the whole discussion, since we all tumbled in here twenty minutes or so ago. Even when Katja had gently tended to the long, deep gouges in her arm – and Katja had said she was lucky, because a blow like that from a furst bear could easily have shattered her whole arm – the castaway girl hadn’t reacted. Not a wince nor a grimace.
I did not know why the sight affected me so much. Why it made me ache. Just that it did.
Cousin Yasha had thoughtfully offered us all thick blankets and Uldar had put one around Shell’s shoulders, but she didn’t seem to notice it, allowing it to slip down until it only covered her lap. I knelt by her, drawing the soft wool back up and tucking it around her slender shoulders.
“Shell. I know you can’t speak, but please – did someone try to hurt you? Did someone trick you into the stable, and trap you there? Just nod. Or shake your head.”
She stared down at me, lashes still thick with tears, mouth working as if she had tasted something bitter. Then her eyes darted away from me, over my shoulder. I turned to follow her gaze. Was she looking at the lady-in-waiting? But why? The woman hadn’t even said anything, was just quietly working on her scarf or whatever it was, in the corner.
I looked back at Shell. She had averted her face and was staring unhappily into the fire.
“Shell?”
No reaction.
“It seems the girl has no complaint to make,” Miramand concluded. “It is certainly all very strange, but I think we must simply be thankful that no one was seriously hurt. Now I, for one, am ready to return to my bed.”
Uldar’s clenched, twitching jaw and tight eyes said that he was not in agreement. But since no one else had anything to add, soon everyone was trooping wearily from the room. Uldar collected Shell and gently ushered her out before him, casting me a slight, unconvincing smile.
Miramand, despite her words, was the last except me to leave. She stopped beside me and leaned in to murmur: “Beautifully done, my dear. Even I was almost convinced.”
I went cold with shock. Before I could unfreeze and demand to know what the devil she meant, she was gone, her attendant following faithfully in her wake.
Does she suspect me? I flopped down into Shell’s abandoned chair, my eyes sweeping blankly over the room as I tried to calm my racing heart. I had said that I wished Shell were dead. I had said that to Miramand. No wonder she thought... No, she couldn’t really believe it. No matter how much she despised Shell she wouldn’t just turn a blind eye to attempted murder on my part – let alone allow her son to marry a potential murderess. Would she?
I was being ridiculous. She must have meant that I did well to put my hostility for Shell aside and show her kindness, that was all. The Queen was right, it was time for us all to go to bed and stop imagining ghosts in the dark.
Heaving myself to my feet, I noticed that Miramand’s lady had left her knitting behind on the seat of her chair. I picked it up – and dropped it with a hiss. One of the needles had made contact with a sore patch on my palm and – burned me. Burned me?
With the tip of an uninjured finger, I touched the needle again. Despite the warmth of the room, the needles were cold. Cold as ice.
28
Castle Oborov was a subdued place as we prepared to depart the following day. Yasha was apologetic, though none of the blame could be placed on him, Uldar quietly grieving, and Shell withdrawn, her usual fearless vibrancy snuffed out like a candle flame. I felt sluggish and worn, not only by the eventfulness of the past few days, but by my mind’s endless, scurrying attempts to fit them into some pattern that made sense.
Eventually, with none of the energy which had characterised the expedition thus far, the Silinganan party gathered themselves up and trailed out into the courtyard in the bracing morning air, watching blearily as bustling servants loaded our trunks back onto the sleighs that had carried us in only three days ago. It seemed like an eyeblink – and a lifetime.
Shell was struggling with her fur coat, the sling on her arm making her slow and clumsy. Uldar was on the other side of the space, talking to Yasha, but I observed with some surprise that Lord Grimgar and Uldar’s other friend, instead of vying for the chance to assist the girl, were keeping a wary distance from her. Lord Grimgar, as I watched, cast Shell a look that revealed no lustful longing, but – suspicion? Perhaps even fear.
The two men had not sat with her at breakfast, and their usual noisy clamour for her attention and smiles had also been absent. I had taken it for a rare show of sensitivity at the time, but it clearly wasn’t that. What had changed?
Of course. The bear. They had both been there to see Shell kill Skirpir with one hand. But rather than being impressed by her bravery or intrigued by her strength it seemed they were repelled.
Men were such strange creatures. I indulged in a moment of true appreciation for Uldar; he had not turned from Shell, even though it was his beloved pet that she had been forced to destroy. Despite the setbacks and the sulks, I was sure that Miramand was right. Uldar had the potential to be a great king.
Since no one else was apparently going to offer, I moved to help Shell. As I reached out toward her I met her eyes – and saw such intense misery there that I jerked to a halt, my hand still on the collar of her fur. After a frozen moment she shrugged me off and moved away, avoiding my gaze.
I prickled with embarrassment at the thought that anyone might have seen the rebuff, and only just prevented myself from glancing around to check. Yet deeper inside, I still ached for her. Having to kill Skirpir, even to save Uldar, had wounded the girl very deeply in some way that I simply could not hope to understand.
Who is Shell?
As we climbed back into our places in the sleighs, for the first time I found that my attention was occupied less by the question of what Shell was to Uldar – and how that would affect my own future – and more with how it must feel to be her. So lovely, and yet so lost here among us.
I could not stop remembering her leap from the night before. This, joined with the fact that Shell had taken a swipe from Skirpir’s massive claws and received only relatively minor wounds, and the extraordinary strength required to fracture a furst bear’s skull with one blow, led me to only one conclusion.
Shell was Blessed. Blessed more than once – for she also had the ability to heal – and with abilities more powerful than anything I had ever seen before. It was most probably the reason she alone had survived the wreck that had pulverised her people’s ship so thoroughly that no debris had been found. She was completely unique. But she did not want anyone to know about her abilities; in fact, she feared it.
What she was thinking? What did she feel? Shell was not even her true name. The innocent, the seductress, the court’s favourite dancer – all of these were identities which had been forced on her by others. I wanted the truth. I wanted to know who she really was.
Katja, Uldar, Shell and I shared the same sleigh, which was pulled now by four giant reindeer loaned to us by the kindly Yasha, to take Skirpir’s place. As a result, our sleigh ended up lagging behind the others, simply unable to keep up with the pace of the two remaining bears. This, and the sight of the deer where his beloved pet had been only two days before, clearly made Uldar miserable. Shell was drooping too, heavy-eyed and paler than normal, as if she had not slept.
But the slower pace of travel made conversation possible, and luckily Katja took the task of cheering everyone up upon herself. As she related the various adventures and misadventures enjoyed by the young Prince at Skalluskar over the years in a dry, deadpan voice, Uldar gradually went from laughing reluctantly to helplessly. When I added in a few carefully edited tales of my own childhood follies, Shell doubled over in silent paroxysms of mirth.
Uldar retaliated against Katja for what he called ‘telling tales’ when we reached the way-station, sneaking up behind her to stuff a dripping handful of snow into the hood of
her cloak. A vicious snow-war immediately broke out, involving not only Uldar and Katja but also Lord Grimgar and Uldar’s other friend, as well as several children from the settlement. Aware of my dignity, I had no intention of getting involved – until Shell dragged me into it with a missile that flew past its intended target, Uldar, and hit me square in the face. This was not to be borne. I chased her with a battle-cry, eventually cornering her and pushing her into a snow drift deep enough to cover her head. The small village echoed with whoops, wails and shrieks.
Miramand, safely out of the way in her own sleigh, watched us with every appearance of benevolent toleration. Once, she beckoned me over. For reasons I could not quite name to myself, I pretended not to see.
We arrived at the palace a little before nightfall, chilled and fatigued but generally in good spirits. Katja, far more familiar with the Silingana than I, declared that she was well able to find her own room, and slipped quietly away, Shell and Uldar trailing tiredly behind her.
I could feel Miramand’s eyes on me again, expectant. It made the back of my neck itch. I was too weary for any more strategic talk of ways to manage Uldar, or dispose of Shell. I waited for her to be distracted from her steady regard by a footman wanting direction about the trunks, and then hid from her in one of the archways leading to other stableyards, waiting until she had gone inside to emerge with a sigh of relief.
I nearly tripped over Ralkin and Miramand’s lady-in -waiting. They were engaged in a hushed, teeth-gritted argument, and broke off the second they saw me. The lady lowered her eyes and curtseyed, before hurrying away. In the light of the stable’s oil lamps, the cobbles where the woman stepped seemed to glitter and shine, leaving a trail in her wake. As if her feet were wet.
No. No, that wasn’t water. It was frost. Ice.
Miramand’s lady-in-waiting was an Ice Breaker.
That frozen stable latch, preventing Shell from getting out. So convenient. So easy to explain away.
I turned slowly to look at Ralkin, not attempting to keep the comprehension and dawning horror from my eyes. He knew. He had known Shell was in danger, that she was with Skirpir – he had known to run to fetch help – he had to have known exactly what the Ice Breaker had done and who had ordered it –
“Do not ask me to betray one of my people,” he said softly. His face was set not with defiance or anger, but sorrow. “We will not be held responsible for crimes others have forced us to commit.”
Railing at him would gain me nothing. Ralkin’s words only made the situation Katja had outlined even more painfully clear. What the Silingans called ‘mages’ were an underclass, legally indentured and exploited. Powerless. The work they undertook, no matter how reckless and foolish – like Nickaj’s attempt to hold back the sea storm aboard The Black Tern – or wicked – like the lady-in-waiting’s locking Shell into the stable with an enraged bear – was work their masters made them undertake, in order to earn back their liberty. They were not responsible.
What am I thinking? That Miramand...?
“Answer me this, then,” I said, hardly knowing what words spilled from my mouth. “What did you mean, on the ship? When you said the Silingana was built on the backs of Ice Breakers?”
He considered me gravely, then nodded. “If you seek that truth, Princess, you must look for the palace’s foundations. Beneath the ball room floor.”
The old man bowed, then turned away before I could ask anything else. The slow, defeated shuffle of his steps turned my own feet to lead. I let him go.
Shedding my furs into the hands of a footman within, I nearly ran up the grand staircase, dread heavy within my ribcage. The foundations of the Silingana were rock. Under the ball room floor should be nothing but a cliff. And yet.
And yet.
I pushed open the door to my chamber, only to freeze on the threshold, blinking. Katja, rather than making herself comfortable in her own chamber, appeared to have taken possession of mine. And, with Osia’s help, she had emptied the entire contents of my closet over the couches and chairs of the receiving room. “What the devil?”
“Praise Morogana, you’re here at last,” Katja sighed, dropping a handful of scarves. “The Queen sent a message: the betrothal ball is going ahead tomorrow night. And I’m sorry to tell you, but you haven’t a thing to wear.”
*
Mistress Kirgin had, in fact, finished the gown for the official betrothal. After a hurried note carried by Osia reached her, she returned to my chambers herself to present it to me. It was a bell-shaped affair in the predictable white, with a high collar, flaring sleeves and layers of petticoats that made me look like nothing so much as one of the snowmen that the children in the way-village had made. This was apparently traditional apparel, to which I had condemned myself when I rejected the skimpy piece of see-through lace she had proposed. After a few tense moments of speechless staring, I resigned myself and approved it.
“It will be nice to dress in colours again,” I said as the seamstress was about to depart. “All your work is beautiful, of course, but after the wedding, when there is more time, I shall be very happy to be fitted for some new things in red, and gold, and blue...”
Instead of looking joyous at the notion of another large order, the dressmaker’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “I should speak to the Queen about that, then, Highness,” she said dubiously. “Very keen on white for you, she is.”
“The Queen is – ?” I cut myself off hastily.
Having seen Mistress Kirgin out, I nibbled reflexively on my lip, and was surprised to find that the ever-present sore place had healed, for the first time in years, sometime in the past two days.
Shell.
She had fixed it when she saved me. So much came back to Shell. But not everything. I was deathly afraid that some things went in a different direction altogether.
29
Every ninguid globe had been lit for the ceremony. The great ball room was jam-packed with not only courtiers but all the wealthy or noble Silingans for miles around, and the flash and glare of jewels and silver and gold thread was nearly blinding. Despite its size, the cavernous space was also steaming hot. Surely, I thought, the ice bricks that made up the walls would soon start dripping. The back of my neck and the base of my spine already were.
I was a little grateful for the hint of shade offered by the gauzy lace veil draped over my face – but not the slightest bit resigned to the bizarre headdress currently digging into the back of my skull. Shaped like the six-pointed Silingan star, it was made of layers of paper and wire, painted gold, and sat so that the spokes of the star framed my head.
Beside me, Uldar was wearing a similarly voluminous crimson velvet robe, with a hat that looked like a beautifully embroidered loaf of bread squashed down over his red-gold hair. Sweat was beading visibly on his brow and upper lip. The young, bearded Priest of Morogana who stood on the fifth step of the ice staircase above us had been intoning ritual words in what was apparently the oldest Silingan dialect for quite some time now with no end in sight.
My own levels of discomfort were high, but Uldar was making no effort to keep the misery off his damp face. I was torn between sympathy and the urge to smack him for it. I made allowances for his grief over his lost bear, but he could at least have tried a little.
Finally the Priest made a sweeping gesture and, as directed in the hasty rehearsal we had stumbled through that morning, we both stepped forward, ducking under the rounded lintel of a hut made of ice. A Mimirsk, they called it – another tradition. Once the ceremony was done it would be pulled apart and melted, and its water used for us both to bathe on the day of our wedding. It was just tall enough and wide enough for us to stand, upright and face to face, inside.
Somewhere out of sight, the same Ice Breaker who had made the ice dome was working busily. A thin, opaque screen of ice formed in the narrow doorway of the Mimirsk, creeping across like patterns of frost on a window, until we were closed in, and hidden from sight.
Immediately
our breath began to cloud between us. After the heat of the ballroom, the chill was something of a relief. Outside, low, rhythmic chanting began, muffled by the ice. This was the part where the guests – each and every one, moving in rank from lowest to highest – began slowly circling us in our hut. They would all be given a minute to lay a hand and a blessing on the Mimirsk, and then pile a present up next to it.
“Will the wedding be this – ” ridiculously over-complicated “ – elaborate?” I murmured.
No response. Uldar was staring over my shoulder, but his despondent expression made it clear he was not in rapt contemplation of the ice block wall, or the vague shadows of people moving beyond. The muffled footsteps and chanting only emphasized his painful silence. He clearly wished that he were anywhere else – with anyone else. Or rather, with one particular someone else. And the hardest part was that I could hardly even blame him anymore. Shell was – Shell. What ardent young man wouldn’t fall in love with her? But this had gone on long enough. To the Frosty Hells with Miramand’s commands.
I had to know.
“Uldar, are we going to get married?”
“Hmmm?”
“Uldar!” I reached out and grasped the front of his robe in exasperation, then hastily let go, trying to contain my temper. “Do you actually want to marry me? Is this just some sham that you’re going along with until you can figure out how to get out of it? What are your intentions toward Shell?”
I had expected the furious blush that bloomed across his face – but not the way it faded almost instantly to a chalky pallor. I seemed to have taken him completely unawares. “P–Princess – I – I – ”
He really was still a child in some ways.
“Listen. I’m not your Mother. You don’t have to account for your actions to me. I don’t have any silly romantic notions. But I need to know that our engagement, this ball, everything, is real. If you’re planning to run away with Shell at the last minute then have the decency to tell me now.”