by Tom Hansen
Behind them, Captain Nora cleared her throat. “I’m sure Her Majesty will be happy to hear about that, since I was never able to figure it out myself.”
Chapter Fifteen
Captain Nora held Ynya’s head to the stone floor as the Frost Queen paced in front of them.
Clack, clack, clack!
Every step of the shoes drove home just how much the Queen dominated the room. She was a woman who commanded respect. From her casual but deadly demeanor, to the skin-tight dresses she wore, to the intense magical aura she exhumed, to her metal-lined shoes, the Queen made sure everyone knew where she was and just how powerful she was.
Clack, clack, clack!
It was incredibly unnerving, the Queen walking just inches from Ynya’s prone body.
Nora had dragged her up many flights of stairs to the top of the Frost Queen’s castle. The room looked like a workshop, with a desk and chairs and half a dozen bookcases along the walls.
The stone in the Queen’s study was impeccably maintained, except for the face print where Nora held Ynya to the polished marble.
Seconds ticked by, and the Queen continued to pace.
Ynya spoke, though it was difficult to do so given her position.
“I can’t tell you because I am not entirely sure myself.”
The Queen stopped pacing.
“Is that so? I have ways to make you talk, you know. Oh, let her up Nora, she’s not going to do anything. You act like she could possibly harm me.”
Ynya was surprised that the Frost Queen hadn’t taken her magic again. Most likely it was a conscious choice to make sure Ynya understood just how insignificant the Queen thought she was. Yet again, the Queen wore her power on her sleeve in such a way that would almost seem disingenuous if she wasn’t actually powerful enough to do it properly.
Luckily, Ynya hadn’t told anyone but Synol and Finny about her mother’s powers residing inside her. The only other people who might know had been the testers from Reyoarfjell, and she didn’t know if they had managed to get their testing information results out to the Queen or not.
Hopefully not, given how soon after her testing the place was destroyed by Finny’s wind magic.
Ynya stood, shoving Nora when she tried to grab Ynya’s upper arm.
Ynya glanced back to her sisters in the doorway. Synol gave her the sign to keep her mouth shut, and Ynya replied with the sign that she understood.
One corner of the room held a raised stone dais with a large inscribed rune chiseled into the aged rock. Ynya wasn’t sure of the rune’s purpose, but she sensed an immense amount of power undulating within it.
The main focus of the room was the massive windowed openings looking out over the frozen plains and the army encampment.
It was mid-day at this point, and the overhead sun diffused through the light snowfall, giving the whole scene a serene, calm ardor. The wind had died down a fair amount and Ynya could almost enjoy the serenity if it wasn’t for the distant screams of the people on the spikes outside.
It was the same people she had seen from the ground. Back then she hadn’t been close enough to hear them, but here, level with them, that’s about all she heard.
It was an odd reality that she wanted the constant howl of the wind back. Then again, she was standing in front of the woman who had ordered her sisters kidnapped thus resulting in her parent’s death. The whole world was an odd reality when you were on a quest to rescue your sisters from fates worse than death.
Finally standing, Ynya continued. “What does it matter, anyway? Your soldiers raped and killed my mother, so there isn’t anything to be gained by knowing what magic she had.”
Nora growled.
Captain Nora wore the same look on her face back in the Holmslatr prison. It was an expression that, at the time, Ynya had wondered about, but brushed off as a Captain irritated that her soldiers weren’t following orders.
But now, knowing that Nora was her aunt, Ynya thought she understood better what the Captain had gone through at that moment.
It was one thing to follow orders from the Queen and kidnap your nieces, but it was another thing entirely to know that your sister was now dead because of those soldiers’ uncontrolled lust.
The Frost Queen paced to a bookshelf and grabbed a thick leather-bound tome in her arms. “I need to know because her powers might have been passed down to one of you, and knowing what she had initially will help me answer some questions.”
“What questions?”
The Queen dropped the book on her desk and tugged at a ribbon in the middle.
“This book maps out the cycles of the moon, the stars, and the earth in relation to each other. This book covers about five thousand years of historical and future data, and as you can see, we are only halfway through the book. That means it will continue being useful for another two-thousand years.”
The Queen planted a fingernail on the page, about halfway down one of the columns of data.
“Eight years ago, I opened this book and looked at what it told me. I did the same thing twelve years ago, and sixteen, and I want you to take a wild guess when the other time I consulted this book was.”
Ynya swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She glanced back to her sisters, all three standing in the doorway with the same terrified expression.
“Eighteen?”
The Frost Queen slammed the book closed. “Exactly! Now you can imagine just how curious I was when the stars told me about all four of your births, but the more interesting thing is that this doesn’t just tell me when you were born, it also told me the details under which each of you were conceived.”
The Queen put the book back on the shelf, then walked to the rune on the stone.
The Queen looked like she would step onto the rune, but stopped short, her face betraying her inability to proceed.
Interesting, so the rune didn’t allow her on?
The Queen turned, folding her arms across her chest.
“This involved some further investigation, of course. This rune allows me to see through the Void. It was the only way I could find out the details I needed. Your mother managed to get pregnant with each of you at the correct time in order to produce a daughter.”
She walked closer to Ynya. “She was so precise with her copulations that she managed to ensure not only your gender but seed a specific type of magic within you. In doing so, she ensured each of you had some other traits passed on, like the propensity to inherit or pass on your family’s bloodline of magic, which I’m still trying to decipher.
“If that wasn’t enough, she managed to birth you at just the right times to ensure you were born with all the traits she sought. She even went so far as keeping one of you in her womb for longer than any woman I’ve ever seen just to ensure you were born at the right time. Had she deviated by even one day then all the preparations might have been for naught. Yet she persevered. I dare say she impresses me to this day with her gumption and precise planning. Tis a shame she’s not alive to serve me.”
The Frost Queen stopped right in front of Ynya, squaring off to her.
“I know us women can sometimes get a little crazy when it comes to our offspring, but have you ever heard of a woman putting so much thought and care into when her children were conceived and born that she would go through an eleven month pregnancy just to ensure their child received a specific type of magic?”
The Queen stared at Finny for a long time before breaking her gaze back to Ynya.
Ynya heard Finny’s feet shuffle across the floor.
Ynya wanted to squirm or run herself, but she knew she needed to stand against this tyrannical woman no matter how much it unnerved her.
“Tell me, Ynya Oblique, daughter of Talia Oblique, how did your mother manage to time all of these copulations and births so perfectly? The book I have is one of a kind, I stole it from my father before he imprisoned me here in the frozen north. It doesn’t exist anywhere else, so how would your mother understand things that h
ave never been seen by other human eyes?”
Chapter Sixteen
Ynya swallowed, trying to keep her nerves in check. “I don’t exactly know. My mother never told any of us what her true magic was. We all had our own suspicions, but even as a young girl I asked her repeatedly what magic she had, and she would always find a way to change the subject.”
“And what did you think she had?”
Talia Oblique’s magic had been on Ynya’s mind a lot lately, especially since she arrived here at the Queen’s castle, but she wasn’t about to tell any of that to Her Majesty.
Instead, while being drug up some seven flights of stairs by her evil aunt, Ynya came up with the most probable explanation based on the outward evidence. It was a story she would insist on.
“When I was younger, I thought Mama could grow garden plants, but turns out that was just Synol with her earth magic. Then, I wondered if she could control the weather, but seems that had gone to Finny with her wind magic. But leaving those to the side, my best guess now is that Mama was able to predict the future.”
“How so?” The Queen turned her back and strode toward the open window overlooking the falling snow.
“When Papa went on fishing trips, she would sometimes tell him to wait a day or two. Whenever she did that, despite the skies looking clear at the time, a storm came out of nowhere a couple days later. She had to have saved his life at least a dozen times over the years because she knew when storms were coming.”
“Do you think she could control the weather?”
Ynya glanced back to her sisters again.
“No, just predict it.”
The Queen nodded her head. “So your best guess, with all your observations, is that she had predictive magic? Do you have any other evidence for this theory of yours?”
“I think so. She also predicted crop failures and other things around town that allowed people to finish getting animals indoors before a big freeze came.”
Ynya smirked. “She also sent me away on a fishing trip right before your troops showed up. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she insisted I leave on my trip that day, thus ensuring I wasn’t there when your soldiers arrived. So you tell me, Your Majesty, did your soldiers leak their plans, or could she predict the future?”
The whole conversation whirled around in Ynya’s head. As much as she was trying to convince the Queen that Talia had predictive powers, internally, she was trying to decipher exactly what her mother actually had. Her mother had spent her entire life preparing her girls for this encounter. She had laid in the frozen snow for two days waiting for her daughter to come back from a fishing trip in order to gift her magic to Ynya. Ynya needed to learn what it was so she could properly use it to help them escape.
The Frost Queen paced back and forth in front of the window, her brows furrowed in thought.
Ynya chanced a look back at Synol, who held Finny with one hand and Meki with the other. Synol’s mouth was drawn to her familiar unreadable line.
“And what do you think about these things, Captain Nora?”
Ynya glanced to the Skarmyord standing two paces away.
The woman in black frowned. “She never told me about any type of magic she had, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have any. My own magic wasn’t unlocked until my Enlightenments, it’s possible that whatever she had wasn’t unlocked until then. Did the records from Reyoarfjell not state their findings on her?”
The Queen shook her head. “Those particular ones, along with a handful of other specific ones, were found to be missing when I looked for them upon discovery of the girl’s births. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you, Ynya?”
Ynya shrugged. “I didn’t even know there were records kept. We destroyed the entire camp once we got the prisoners out safely, so I can’t tell you much there. Perhaps if you find the remains of the Warden you can piece him back together and reanimate him to find the answers you seek.”
The Queen pursed her lips and furrowed her brow, her long fingernail still tapping the desk in front of her. “You think you are so clever, don’t you, Ynya? Well, the world is much grander than you could possibly know, and I have been around a long time.”
She turned back to Nora. “Your sister escaped the camp?”
Nora nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I remember when that happened. That was one of your first failures under my service. I punished you extensively for that if I recall.” A small smile spread across the Queen’s lips.
Ynya shuddered.
Nora’s already white face paled, but her expression did not betray her thoughts. “You did, Your Majesty.”
Ynya wasn’t sure how effective the Queen’s threats were to a Skarmyord. The Enlightenments didn’t seem to change the personalities of the soldiers near as much as the Queen would probably have liked, so it was possible that the Skarmyord still retained more of their humanity than the Queen wanted.
That might be why she had to constantly exude magic and power, to keep everyone just fearful enough that they wouldn’t dare betray her.
Ynya had spent what time she could today watching the pattern of the guards, and the various nearly-hidden doors that the kitchen staff used. She counted the steps leading up to the Queen’s room, and now she watched her long-lost aunt’s facial expressions, looking for any sign of humanity.
The Frost Queen tapped her long fingernail on the wood desk. “So what we have here is a mysterious family of mages, all female, that have come up through the ranks. One has served me all these years, while another has gone and done something so amazing, I have to wonder which one ultimately served me the best.”
Nora gulped.
Ynya tensed. It was suddenly very cold, and the Frost Queen pulled an immense amount of magic to her.
But…it wasn’t just the Frost Queen, most of the snap in the air came from…behind Ynya.
From Meki?
Ynya turned and looked at her sister. The young girl’s eyes were glazed over and unfocused, like she was in a trance. Turning allowed Ynya to get a feel for the power difference between her sister and the Frost Queen’s magic.
It was immediately noticeable to Ynya, that the flow of power went from Meki to the Queen, then out into the room, but the interesting part was that Meki’s well of magic felt deeper and broader than the Queen’s. While the Queen’s magic swirled around in the room in a blizzard, the true power of Meki’s frost magic wasn’t being tapped, while the Queen’s was.
Is Meki stronger than the Queen?
The magic around the Queen swelled, filling the expansive room A howling wind whipped at their skirts. Icy frost clung to their hair, weighing it down as it tried to fly away with each gust.
The Queen finally relented. The magic dissipated, and the room returned to the calm it once contained.
Only now most everything contained a small layer of ice across its surface.
The Queen looked at Nora, then Ynya. “I don’t know what your mother hid from me, but I should be grateful that she did. Her gift of you four girls turned out to be a blessing of the Gods, and I have plans for each of you. Especially you, Finny.”
Finny’s eyes widened at the Queen’s response.
Ynya turned to look at her sister, but upon meeting her gaze, Finny pursed her lips and turned her head to look out the window.
What was that all about? Ynya asked herself.
The Queen took a step out from behind her desk. “Each of you is going to serve me in unique ways, but I want to start with you, Ynya. The rest of you have other places to be, and I’ll have Nora here escort you where you are supposed to go. But Ynya and Meki are coming with me.”
“What are we doing?” Ynya asked.
The Queen smirked but continued walking toward the door.
Ynya glanced between her sisters, even searching the face of Captain Nora, but no one let on what the Queen meant.
Finally, passing by Ynya and following the Queen, Meki sighed. “We’re going to spa
r, dummy. It’s what we do here, to focus and improve our magic.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Again until you win!” The Queen barked.
Ynya thought she was going to die. The Queen had her battling Meki for the last two hours. Her arms ached, her head pounded, and her side still healed from an ice spike that had cut into her an hour earlier.
Two earth mages stepped forward to repair the arena like they had done nearly a dozen times before.
Ynya eyed Meki, who sat down to meditate as soon as the match ended.
This whole situation was surreal. Her youngest sister was so much better than her. And I didn’t even know about Meki’s powers until this morning!
Ynya growled under her breath. This last match had at least lasted nearly three minutes, but that was only because Ynya ran and hid for a while, trying to draw Meki out.
What is she trying to do to me?
The Queen sat on a throne of ice near the exit to the expansive training room. A soldier carrying a scroll stood a few paces away, trying to get the Queen’s attention without interrupting her. He’d been there for nearly an hour.
Just speak to the poor guy already.
Even if Ynya wasn’t gaining any ground on her abilities, she tried to use the opportunity to learn little bits of information about the Queen.
People stood for hours waiting for her to acknowledge them.
She also had one hell of a temper on her. Twice she’d done the same frost rage thing she had done earlier in her office.
Despite their vast differences, Ynya understood the rage boiling just under the surface. It was a trait they both shared, much to Ynya’s chagrin.
Still, it surprised Ynya that she seemed to have better control over her emotions than a powerful Queen who had lived at least a couple hundred years so far.
I wonder how old is she, anyway?
Ynya had been through enough in her short life to realize that sometimes, not expressing that anger outwardly was the right thing to do.