by K. M. Shea
Oskar thought for a moment. “Because Princess Rakel may be a magic user, but she’s still human.”
The seneschal stared at him. “You really are mad. This is a grave mistake.”
“Maybe.”
The seneschal sighed. “I won’t hold a position for you, but when you’re ready to abandon your foolish notions, send word. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” Oskar smiled pleasantly as he made plans to haul his book collection up the mountain.
It would be twelve years before Oskar returned to Ostfold with the princess he had given up so much to serve. But he would never regret his decision for a day. Indeed, the fate of Verglas was forever altered the day the Attendant entered the service of the Snow Queen.
The End
The King’s Story
Steinar is another character whose early life, though unexamined in the book, has a profound effect on how he views and interacts with Rakel. This story takes a look at his journey towards meeting and accepting her.
Steinar was seven when he learned he had a sister. A sister who had magic.
He learned only because a servant let it slip when he strenuously argued against having to leave for the annual trip he and his mother took in summer.
“It’s the best time for fishing,” he complained.
“It is good for you to visit your cousins,” his nurse said.
“I hate visiting them! The girls spend all their time giggling at soldiers, and the boys say I’m too little to play with them.” Steinar plopped down on the ground and folded his arms across his chest.
His nurse smiled and shook her head. “You must go, little prince.”
Steinar squinted up at her and wondered if a temper tantrum would convince her to let him stay.
“I know it is a sacrifice, but it is for your own good. You’ll understand when you are older.” His nurse smiled at him, then slipped out to join a maid packing his trunk in the room next door. The door clicked shut behind her, but the latch was old and insecure, so it cracked open a moment later.
“Still putting up a fight is he?” the maid asked fondly. (He liked her. She sometimes slipped him an extra treat from the cook.) “That’s our little prince!”
Steinar scrunched up his face and glared at his bed as his nurse and the maid talked. It was not fair. Papa didn’t have to go—why did he?
His nurse sighed. “One day soon, I expect, his parents will have to tell him the truth.”
“They will delay it as long as they can,” the maid said. “For he is far too curious for his own good. Why, if he learned he had a sister…”
Steinar blinked and turned towards the door. “I have a sister?”
His parents were furious with his nurse and the maid and would have dismissed them both if Steinar hadn’t cried and begged to let them stay.
It was with even greater reluctance that his loving mother and father explained he had a sibling.
“How old is she? What’s her name? She must be close to my age, isn’t she?” Steinar chattered. He didn’t remember ever seeing another child around the palace, so he must have been very little when she was born. He almost wriggled with glee—he had always wanted a sibling! Someone to play and adventure with—someone who would relieve the boredom of being proper and royal!
His mother sat next to him on a settee and stroked his hair. “She’s not really your sister, my love. She…she has magic.”
“She’s a monster,” his father said. “She’s dangerous and terrible.”
“Did she do something?” Steinar asked.
His father hesitated. “No.”
Steinar cocked his head. “Then how do you know she’s terrible?”
His father looked away.
His mother took his hands. “You have a kind and compassionate heart, my love. One day, it will make you a great king. But you must understand, Steinar: those with magic are different from us. They are not like the kind civilians who greet you in the street, or the cook who makes your favorite food for your birthday. They’re bad people. Magic is a curse, and anyone who has it is an abomination.”
Steinar didn’t know what an abomination was, but he did know magic was to be feared. His nurse read him stories every night about valiant heroes who defeated evil people with magic and saved the princess.
But she was his sister. She couldn’t be evil…could she?
Though he pumped his nurse for more information than the dire warnings his parents gave him, she would say nothing on the matter.
For years, the only information he heard of his sister were whispers from gossiping servants when they didn’t know he was there.
When he was twelve, he finally learned her name—Rakel—and the shocking fact that she was older than him.
Older.
It meant she should be the one to ascend the throne after Papa.
But she wouldn’t. She had been exiled to Ensom Peak, and Steinar knew he was being raised to rule. He had been told so as long as he could remember.
Suddenly, the stories from his childhood took on an ominous light. Did his sister know he was going to rule? Did she resent him for it? On the far off day he would be crowned—when he was older and hopefully an established hero—would she break out of her prison and come swooping down the mountain to kill him?
But in spite of his fear, there was the nagging thought that she wouldn’t do such a thing. Older siblings were supposed to look out for the ones that come after them—he knew that much from his boring cousins.
Steinar spent late nights in the royal library, staring at the few dusty books that contained information on magic users with sputtering candlelight.
And though his parents rarely talked about Rakel, and when they did they spoke of her as if she were a creature to be feared, Steinar knew that they still loved her.
He saw it when he was fifteen. He was running late for his afternoon lessons with his father—who was teaching him the ins and outs of ruling—and paused outside his father’s study to straighten his tunic.
The door was open, allowing Steinar to peer inside and see his father and one of his advisors.
“But other magic users are stirring, my King,” the advisor said. “We’ve received news from other countries—whispers of a band of magic users. If they approach her, it will be disastrous. You must have her killed now to avoid such a thing.”
Steinar’s throat closed. They would kill Rakel—kill his sister—when she hadn’t done a thing? Anxiously, he glanced at his father.
King Ingolfr was normally a serene man. Rarely did he lose his temper. As a child, Steinar always wished he would lose it more often because he hated it when he did something wrong and his father spoke to him in a tone that said he had disappointed him. But now…he was furious.
King Ingolfr stood, his shoulders shaking with rage. He gripped the edge of his desk and said between clenched teeth. “You want me to kill my child—to kill my only daughter?” He was so angry he broke off and looked away. “If you ever say such a thing again—be it to me or anyone else—I will have you thrown from the palace before you take another breath.”
The advisor stammered an apology and hastily changed the topic, but Steinar had learned a valuable lesson.
Though his father feared Rakel and called her a monster…he still loved her.
Too few years later, Steinar was crowned King of Verglas.
With both of his parents gone, and feeling horribly young to rule, Steinar felt lost and alone. He forgot all about his magic/monster sister until a month after his coronation, when he received a report from Captain Halvor—the captain of the soldiers who guarded his sister on Ensom Peak.
He hadn’t even known his father received reports on her, so he spent his nights combing through backlogs of supply lists and reports, letting his tired mind dwell on the mystery that was his sister rather than remember the gaping hole left by the death of his parents.
He still feared her. He didn’t think she was inherently evil, b
ut the trials she had endured, the years of exile…surely that was enough to drive a person into bitterness and hatred.
But she didn’t move against him. He received report after report that recorded no change.
He wondered if he should have her brought back to the palace—back to civilization. He wanted to. He wanted to reach out to his last close family member…but he was still afraid. So he hid behind logical reasoning: if he did so, the courts would rebel, and surely the army would object. He was too young in his rule, too young to be king to make such a risky move.
He promised himself that one day he would free her. He told himself that this was for the good of the country because he didn’t really know his sister, and it was quite possible all his daydreams were incorrect, and she was a monster.
But, like his father who loved Rakel secretly in spite of his fear, so did Steinar.
He tripled the guard on Ensom Peak, partially because he knew he was in the wrong and that she would be perfectly correct to seek out retaliation, but also because lately there had been cases of violence when civilians uncovered a magic user.
Rumors of magic users banding together stirred fear and unrest. There had even been a few cases of rioting mobs when enslaved magic users were seen.
And Steinar, though he had never seen her, loved his sister too much to risk such a mob coming for her.
He noticed her attendant always made an order of books with each supply train, and from Captain Halvor’s reports, he inferred the books—though bought with the attendant’s wage—were directly delivered to Rakel.
In the early hours of the morning—the hours he was particularly prone towards hopeful thinking—he ordered two map sets to be bought, and he sent one to Ensom Peak. It pleased him to think that he and his sister shared something—even if she didn’t know it.
After that, he started having other models and maps bought and sent to her.
Doing so alleviated some of the guilt he felt for taking her place, for keeping her there.
And then came the darkest time in his life.
The Chosen attacked, wiping out villages and armies, massacring everything they came across, ravaging Verglas itself.
They swept across the country in a shockingly short amount of time, entering Verglas in summer and taking Ostfold in winter.
He had lost everything, and he had failed his people.
At the time when they most needed a hero to stand against the evil magic users, he had failed them. They were now enslaved and would likely live a life of labor and starvation.
Steinar was badly treated—as he would expect. He was imprisoned, starved, and beaten. But everything the Chosen did to him was child’s play compared to the guilt that tortured his thoughts.
Verglas was gone…and it was his fault.
But there was something neither Steinar nor his captors had counted on: Rakel—a being so compassionate that she strove to save the very people who had imprisoned her.
Rakel, the Queen of ice and snow, delivered village after village from the clutch of the Chosen, and she successfully took back Ostfold with an army loyal to her cause and with magic users who had revealed themselves for her sake.
While she was unconscious—the price of using her magic—Steinar was filled in on all the recent events, and he realized something: this was obviously the time to give over the throne to the rightful heir.
Rakel had saved northern Verglas, and her general intended to sweep south and defeat the Chosen army. She was the hero the people needed. She deserved to reign. It was his obligation to step aside as king and let her rule.
Shortly after he made this decision, he ran into her—literately—and saw her for the first time.
She was different from what he expected. He had heard she was dazzlingly beautiful—and she was. Her glacier-blue eyes and snow-white hair were breathtaking…but he didn’t expect to see so much of himself in her. She had the same nose, the same pronounced cheekbones. She was tall, like he, and even shared some of the same mannerisms.
Seeing her only further confirmed Steinar’s resolve. Even if it was only in physical attributes, Rakel resembled him…yet it was she who had saved the country. She deserved every accolade and admiration. She deserved the throne.
He would make it as easy on her as he could. He would fade into the background and into obscurity. He deserved no more than to watch her from afar.
But Rakel’s heart was bigger than Steinar could fathom. Though he would not see her, she came to his door and talked—never knowing that he leaned against the other side of the door, wishing he could call out to her.
It’s for her good. I’m doing this for her.
His resolve was shattered the day Rakel pounded on his door with fright.
“Steinar? S-Steinar! Something has happened, and I don’t know what to do. There’s not a book in the world that can help me now. I need you…”
Steinar paused on the other side of the door and clenched his hands into fists. I can’t help her. I don’t deserve that kind of relationship with her.
“Why don’t you answer?” She slapped her hand against the door. “Stop hiding! This isn’t fair of you to make me face this alone! I didn’t want this—I didn’t want any of this! Now I don’t know what to do—and no one else sees it!”
There was a thud on the other side of his door. “Why, why did I have to have magic?”
The words were a dagger to his heart. I might not deserve her forgiveness…but she has never deserved this heartache. Before he knew what he was doing, he opened the door.
His sister—the rightful queen and the hero of Verglas—was on her knees, her eyes glazed with tears.
“What happened?” he asked.
He was shocked when she scrambled to her feet and threw herself at him. He automatically hugged her, and for the first time in years, he remembered his initial joy at learning about her.
He always wanted a sibling—someone to share in adventures with. Maybe…finally…he would get that wish.
The End
The Wolf
Occasionally I include small details about characters to further flesh them out. While they may seem small and materialistic, they almost always reveal something profound about the character. Such is the case with Farrin’s jade wolf statue, which is briefly seen in Farrin’s office in Glowma. Several readers asked about it, so I decided to flesh out a story that would explain how he received it.
Though he wasn’t the leader of the raid—that was Kavon, riding in front with Tenebris himself—Farrin carefully combed over the party, discreetly studying each individual. Everyone rode, though a few were mounted double on sturdier horses, and the group morale was high.
Earlier that morning, they had attacked a caravan that carried a few enslaved magic users and freed them. The magic users had been sold to Torrens at a Ringsted slave auction and were supposed to be presented to the ruler of Torrens. Tenebris had cut off that horrible future with the raid, and the one-time slaves now rode with them as comrades. When we reach camp, I’ll make a detailed list of the new recruits’ magic and abilities.
Farrin allowed himself the luxury of a slight smile. When he first joined Tenebris as little more than a boy, the exalted man had barely a dozen magic users who followed him. Now he was twenty-years-old, and Tenebris had no less than forty under his command. Our forces will continue to grow. As long as magic users are treated unfairly, we will ride!
“Behind us!” A new recruit shouted with panic.
Farrin swung his horse to see a small squad of soldiers on the horizon, chasing them. There couldn’t have been more than fifteen of them, but they were all mounted and armed with gleaming swords. At the moment, they were out of range of bows and arrows—not that their party had any—but they were closing in fast.
Farrin studied his fellow magic users with a grim frown. Tenebris had gone for subtly over fire power for this particular raid, and the few who had battle-worthy magic were already drained from their morning skirmi
sh with the caravan. It wasn’t too troubling. Farrin could handle them—and if he failed, Tenebris certainly would. But the lack of organization bothered him like a nail in his boot.
He glanced to the front of their raid, searching for Kavon. The illusionist was too busy shouting at the scouts for failing to notice their pursuers earlier to give combat orders.
Shaking his head, Farrin slipped from his horse. He reached for the two-handed broadsword strapped to his back and tapped his speed magic.
Though the pursuing soldiers were far away, Farrin’s magic let him close the gap in moments. He stopped in front of the officer leading the squad, startling the man’s horse so it reared and snorted.
Using his speed magic, Farrin easily avoided the equine’s front hooves and ducked to the side. He grabbed the officer by the arm and yanked him from his horse.
A flash of his sword, and the officer was dead. Before the soldiers realized what had happened, he attacked and killed three more of them. He was on the fifth one before they arranged themselves into a combat pattern and tried to run him down with their chargers.
It didn’t work. Farrin zipped between them, careful to nail the soldiers and avoid injuring the horses—which Tenebris’s forces desperately needed.
By the time he had offed the seventh soldier, the warriors spun their mounts around and fled back the way they came.
Farrin considered following them. It wouldn’t do well to let the soldiers carry off word of Tenebris’s gathering forces, but he disliked killing those who were fleeing rather than fighting—even if they were non-magical. It was a dirty move he had been forced to pull too many times during his days as a gladiator.
His indecision gave enough time for a few members of Kavon’s raiding party to catch up.
“Tenebris says to come back,” Judoc—a magic user who could control animals with his flute music—said.
Farrin nodded. “You’ll take care of the horses?”
Judoc flipped a flute out of his back pocket. “Yep.” He started playing a little tune on his flute, and the horses moved towards their party under his magical influence.