by K. M. Shea
Halvor nodded and watched his friend leave. He returned his attention to his sword, but he couldn’t shake the sense of regret.
If only things could have been different. If only we had acted differently.
For five years, he had guarded Princess Rakel. And for five years, she had done nothing to harm anyone. Never before was there a human more innocent of the hatred she faced.
She will live. The invaders will likely welcome her into their forces with open arms, or if she chooses to leave before they arrive, I imagine she will survive well enough on her own.
Halvor sheathed his sword and shook his head. He—and likely everyone in Fyran, including Oskar and his soldiers—would probably die tonight, and unfortunately, he had many regrets. He regretted that Verglas was lost and the future of its people was dire. He regretted that they hadn’t been able to defend it, and that people—good people—would pay for the pain and the sins committed against magic users. And most of all, he regretted that five years ago, he hadn’t believed in the scared girl and had never thought to set her free until it was too late.
Hours later, when Princess Rakel emerged from the woods, icy in her anger as she chased the Chosen forces from Fyran like the Snow Queen she was, hope would bloom in Halvor once more.
The End
The Attendant’s Story
I actually wrote this short story before I even began writing Heart of Ice, when I was trying to flesh out my characters and nail down their motivations and personalities. Oskar’s loyalty to Rakel has been a key factor in his character since the day he showed up in my plans, so I really hope you enjoy this early peek at his life.
Oskar skid into the palace kitchens, a smile on his face and his brilliant red hair mussed. “Anja, I’ve been sent ahead to tell you King Ingolfr is taking his lunch in his study today.” Oskar snatched up a few blueberries, grinning mischievously when one of the cooks rapped his knuckles with a wooden spoon.
“Oh, aye. Of course he would.” Anja grumbled and stirred a bowl of batter with unusual ferocity. Her normally sweet face was wrinkled like a dried prune.
Oskar munched on his blueberries and tilted his head. “Something wrong?”
“No, nothing at all. Not a single bloomin’ thing,” Anja said.
Her response confused Oskar. Anja was the head cook and was well known for her cinnamon rolls and her even temper. Since he started working at the palace several months prior, he hadn’t seen her snap at even the clumsiest of kitchen boys. And why would she be upset today? Queen Runa and the tiny Prince Steinar were gone for the week—it was practically a holiday for the kitchen staff as King Ingolfr entertained no one in the queen’s absence.
Gry—a young, pretty maid-in-training—leaned into Oskar and whispered. “She’s a magic sympathizer.”
Anja slapped her wooden bowl of batter on the counter with a crack. “Enough of your whispering, Gry,” she warned.
Gry curtsied and darted out of the kitchen.
Oskar, however, was intrigued. A magic sympathizer? Is there such a thing when magic is universally hated? He scratched his cheek and slowly sidled up to Anja.
Anja caught his look and brandished a wooden spoon at him. “Not today, Oskar. I haven’t time for any of your pretty words or the tricks you use to make everyone gooey and warm with you.”
Oskar held a hand to his chest. “Your words wound me!” He winked, but Anja shook her head and returned to her violent stirring. Oskar watched for several moments. “Anja,” he said in his softest voice. “What’s wrong?”
Anja stopped and wiped her forehead with her sleeve. “It’s the princess’s birthday today.”
Oskar blinked. “Princess? Oh, the monster!”
“She’s not a monster,” Anja snapped.
Oskar shut his mouth and patiently waited for the head cook to continue.
Anja sighed and shoved the wooden bowl across the counter. “She’s just a child. But they have her locked up like—never mind. Go tell Footman Henning I’ll have the king’s lunch ready in time.”
Oskar refused to be dissuaded. Though he was only a teenager, he already had an employment goal in mind: attendant, the highest role he could achieve as a commoner. If he wanted to make his dream a reality, he needed to befriend the right people—like Anja. Besides, he genuinely liked her. She had been kind to him in the first month when he was insipidly stupid about palace conduct.
“Anja, just tell me. You know me—I’m discreet. I won’t repeat your words if you don’t wish it,” he said.
Anja rested her hands on her floured counter. “It’s Princess Rakel’s birthday, and as a special ‘treat’ she’s been taken out of the tower they keep her imprisoned in and allowed to wander the palace gardens.” She spoke softly, her voice barely above a whisper. “Our queen took the young prince and left when she did so she wouldn’t be here when the princess is ‘loose.’ King Ingolfr doesn’t even want to look at her. But all the palace servants have found an excuse to be on the east wing so they can get a look of the dangerous princess.” Anja’s voice was bitter.
“You think her treatment is unfair?” Oskar guessed.
“Aye, I do.” Anja clenched her apron in a fist. “She’s naught but a little girl, but she’s treated worse than an animal. I—” The head cook shook her head and tried to smooth her now-rumpled apron.
Oskar leaned back, calculating. Anja had a little girl who was five or six—not much younger than the monster-princess. Is that why she is upset? Because she is a mother and still sees the princess as something human? He turned his speculative gaze east.
“Fixin’ to go see her yourself?” Anja asked.
“No. I am just curious what you see in her that others have missed.”
Anja turned back to her batter. “Go take a look,” she said bitterly. “Maybe you’ll see it too.”
Oskar tapped his fingers on her counter. “What is it that you hope I see?”
Anja’s doe-brown eyes teared over. “Her humanity.”
Oskar followed her advice, driven more by curiosity than the belief that Anja was correct. She has magic; how human can she be? Oskar snorted as he strolled into the open-air corridor that hugged the palace perimeter and edged around the beautiful, blooming flower gardens.
Guards were positioned every few horse lengths, penning the garden in. Instead of facing out to protect their charge from any harm, they all faced the gardens, their weapons drawn.
Oskar craned his neck, but he couldn’t see the monster-princess. He saw a number of servants loitering down the corridor, whispering to each other. When a guard glanced at them, they moved along, casting speculative glances over their shoulders.
Whistling, Oskar strolled after them, lingering where they had stood. Sure enough, the position afforded him a view into the heart of the garden, where a little girl sniffed a flower and reverently touched its petals.
He was shocked. He didn’t see a monster, or a fiend, or even a mad creature that the puppeteers and picture books so often displayed. Instead, he saw a beautiful little girl, who had her mother’s silky hair—though it was so light colored it was white—and her father’s wide blue eyes. She shared Prince Steinar’s elegant but severe features, and she clasped her hands the same way the Queen Mother used to when she was alive.
She moved from one flowerbed to the next, completely unaware of his scrutiny, although she did glance at her guards from time to time. She looked at everything with wonder, as if she was seeing it for the first time.
And she may be. Oskar gave himself the luxury of feeling sorry for the monster-princess for a moment, then ruthlessly shoved it away. She was beyond his help, and she still had magic. Those with magic were to be feared and cast out.
Oskar turned to leave, and at that moment the monster-princess sneezed.
It made her guards jump, and in moments all of them had their pikes, swords, or arrows trailed on her.
The monster-princess’s blue eyes went wide as she twisted around, her terror stark on
her face as she looked at the guards with dread. She stepped on the hem of her dress and fell, cracking her head on the rock-lined foot path.
She clutched her skull, and her eyes glossed with tears, but she made not a sound. Oskar had a little brother who would scream until he was red in the face if he stubbed his toe. How did one little girl have such fortitude to hold in so much pain?
Oskar switched his gaze from the girl to the soldiers, but none of them moved to help. He shook his head and turned to go, but glanced over his shoulder one last time—which became his undoing for life.
The monster-princess sat up. One of her grubby little hands was held to her head, but she stared at her other hand—which was skinned and bleeding a little—with dismay.
Oskar pinched the bridge of his nose, sighed, and hopped over the low railing that separated the corridor from the gardens.
The guards gaped at him, but none of them moved to stop him as he strolled deeper into the garden.
The monster-princess lost all resemblance to the royal family when she saw him coming. She wore a look Oskar had never seen on any member of the royal family—alive or dead. She resembled a dog that had been abandoned—distrustful and frightened.
She shifted a little so her back was not to him, her eyes drowning with pain and fright. Oskar suspected it would have hurt him less to take a spear to the chest than to witness such a look again. In that moment, she ceased to be the monster-princess in his mind, and simply became the princess.
He crouched in front of her and offered her a clean handkerchief. She shrunk away from him, breaking his heart a little more. “It’s okay,” he said in his most soothing voice. She didn’t pull back any more, but she didn’t move to take the handkerchief either.
Oskar sat there so long his legs started to cramp and his feet grew numb. But he was rewarded when the princess, as cautious as a mouse, crept forward and took the handkerchief from him.
Her eyes were glazed with a lingering fear, but her lips trembled, and it took Oskar several moments to realize she was smiling.
Oskar came from a good, loving family. When he was a child, every night his parents embraced him before he was sent to bed. Looking at the princess, he wondered when the last time a member of her family spoke to her, much less touched her.
Breaking every protocol pertaining to royalty that had been drummed in his head since he was first employed at the palace, Oskar reached out and ruffled the princess’s white hair.
The princess stared at him in shock and awe but Oskar, hearing a guard shift behind him, stood. He winked at the princess and sauntered off as casually as he had come. He nodded at a guard, jumped the railing back into the corridor, and strolled off, whistling merrily.
He waited until he rounded a corner and was at the south side of the palace to sigh and pinch his eyes shut. “I see it, Anja. I see it.”
Later he would be ashamed to admit it, but Oskar thought of the imprisoned princess infrequently. She was easy to forget as she was locked in her tower, separated as if she were diseased.
Years passed. Anja left—her family moved to a small backwater village. Oskar suspected Anja’s daughter—like the princess—possessed magic, and Anja and her husband were moving to hide it. He said nothing in spite of his suspicions, but he was sorry to see the cheerful head cook leave.
Oskar worked furiously towards his employment goal and, at age twenty, was respected by his peers, courting a lovely girl, on the verge of becoming Prince Steinar’s personal attendant.
It came as a surprise when he received instructions to carry a trunk to the princess’s quarters. He didn’t question it—he wanted that promotion—so he carried the trunk, which weighed about as much as a boat anchor, to the dank, cheerless tower hidden behind the palace, in the fringe of the forest.
I wonder how she has grown. Has the isolation cracked her? Has she become the monster they think her to be? I can’t imagine anyone surviving what she has with much goodwill. Oskar thought as he ambled towards his destination.
Six soldiers stood guard outside the tower door. One of them opened the door, and Oskar peered inside with curiosity and apprehension.
In that instant, he wished he hadn’t come, that he had insisted they send someone else, for though the princess had grown, her expression was still as frightened and as harmless as ever.
She sat in the corner of the tower, curled into as small of a target as possible as she watched maids pack her belongings. Her eyes were pools of pain and fright.
Three soldiers stood around her in a semi-circle, their weapons aimed at her.
I knew it was bad, but this…this is inhumane!
A maid approached Oskar. “Wonderful, put the trunk over here, careful now.”
Numbly, Oskar did what he was told.
“Thank you. We’ll be able to finish packing with this.” the maid said. She glanced back at the princess and shivered. She gave Oskar a charming smile and leaned closer so she could whisper. “We don’t want to be tarrying—‘tis a danger to be here.”
Oskar knew he should have returned the smile—and backed away, his darling wouldn’t take kindly to the scant distance between him and the maid—but Oskar barely noticed her. He was still staring at the princess, who had lowered her gaze to her hands and was pressing herself against the tower wall.
He shuffled outside, jumping when the door closed behind him with a bang.
“She’s an eerie thing to behold,” a soldier said when Oskar stood, frozen in place.
“Unnatural,” a second soldier agreed.
“No.” Oskar shook his head and made his feet move, leaving the tower behind him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t as easily banish the princess’s sad expression from his mind.
Oskar saw her again exactly one week later. He was one of a dozen servants assembled to load the princess and her few belongings—clothes, mostly—into a wagon caravan that would take her to her new home on Ensom Peak. A small garrison of soldiers would escort her—whether it was to keep her from running, or to guard her from any attackers, Oskar did not know. One thing was certain, however: the princess was being exiled.
No one from the royal family was present for her exit. Even so, the princess approached her waiting wagon with imperial bearings. Her chin was up, her gait was smooth, and her hands were clasped in front of her.
There was a harsh clang of a sword blade hitting stone. The soldiers reached for their weapons, but the princess spun around, her icy eyes haunted as she flung her arms in front of her, shielding herself. The air turned so cold, Oskar could see his breath, and ice as thick as a finger crawled across the courtyard, coating the ground in a slick blanket.
The soldiers shouted and sprang away from the princess.
Just as she had all those years ago, she twisted, trying to look everywhere at once. She turned too fast and slipped on the ice, yelping when she fell to her knees.
Guards shouted and drew their swords, the metallic clangs raising a cacophony. As seemed to be their custom, instead of facing out against any possible threat, they were turned in, surrounding the princess in a glittering, deadly circle.
The princess—still on her hands and knees—froze.
No one said a word. It was hard to breathe in the overwhelming cloud of fear.
The princess blinked, and it took Oskar a moment before he realized she was crying. The few tears that escaped her control fell not in drops, but small flakes of ice. It was another reminder of how wrong the princess was…but Oskar felt his heart shiver in his chest.
She had magic, an abomination of nature, but even so…she was a scared ten-year-old girl who spent most of her young life alone and despised.
It’s not right, he thought.
The first step he took was the most difficult thing he had ever done. His heart pounded as he slipped around the soldier and approached the circle of ice that spanned around the princess. This was different than the last time he approached her. Then she had only a scraped hand. Now she was clearly in
control of her magic.
She could skewer me…but she won’t.
He took a deep breath and stepped onto the ice, flinching when it crackled under his feet. His shoulders were heavy with the weight of stares as he approached the princess with the caution he usually reserved for angry women and wild animals.
He hesitated, then knelt a short distance away from her. He swallowed, his throat twisting. “Are you hurt…Princess Rakel?”
The Princess ripped her gaze from the ground and stared at Oskar. Shock glazed her eyes. “No, thank you.” Her voice was throatier than Oskar would have imagined, but it was beautiful—like freshly fallen snow.
The soldiers shifted as the Princess stood. She glanced guiltily at the ground, and the ice melted away. She then took a breath—in the exact same courage-gathering way Oskar had moments before—and continued towards the waiting wagon, her chin high.
Oskar watched her go.
She has changed, a bit. She’s gotten more courage…which is about the last thing I would expect someone in her situation to obtain.
Two weeks later, he filed a request to fill the position of Princess Rakel’s attendant.
“You’ve lost your mind.” The castle seneschal told him. “This isn’t going to further your career. Wait a few months, and I promise you will receive an invitation to join Prince Steinar’s retinue.”
“It’s very kind of you to tell me that, but it does not matter. I wish to serve Princess Rakel,” Oskar said.
“The King and Queen won’t thank you. They intend to forget about her and the staff sent with her.”
“I know.”
“Think of Johanna. Would she want to marry the attendant of the monster-princess?”
She didn’t, and she had told Oskar plainly so before officially breaking their courtship. Oskar put on a smile for the seneschal, using every ounce of charm he had. “It doesn’t matter.”
The seneschal sighed and tossed the paper down on his desk. “At least tell me why.”