Again, he rubbed a hand over his chest as his heart beat forcefully against his rib cage. He was just about to say something, when a sudden thought intruded.
“Earlier, when the children and I marched through the snow, I could have sworn I’d heard the voice of a woman.”
Deep down he knew it’d been her and he half expected her to deny it, but again she surprised him by being honest.
“It was me.”
She pushed her finger against the icicle her roasted meat had become. A pretty little frown marred her brows. As though it pained her to see it thus.
“I could have stayed on my land if I’d wanted to.”
She shrugged one slender shoulder. And he could almost read the question in her own mind. ‘So why hadn’t she?’
“Haxion came to me.” A brief flicker of a memory slipped through her eyes. “Begged I would come and aid you.”
Hearing those words, Alador wasn’t quite sure that was the only reason she’d come. Though it fit, made sense in many ways, there was more. He could almost hear the ‘but’ lingering idle on the tip of her tongue.
Tossing her hands wide, her long fingers toyed almost anxiously with the crease in her snow-white gown. Another emotion crossed her face then, one he couldn’t quite name. Regret, exhaustion...he wasn’t quite sure. She wouldn’t look at him now, kept nervously flicking her eyes to her feet and then up to a spot on his chest, before moving back down again.
“What happens to us if you cannot figure out where the key lies?” he asked softly, quietly, not sure he shouldn’t interrupt whatever thoughts laid so heavy upon her shoulders.
When her eyes found his this time, they were sharp as steel and just as unyielding. “Nothing. I shall see personally to that.”
“Why?” Again the same question, he knew it probably bothered her that he continued to ask it, but a point of pride for a centaur—any centaur—was the ability to know their enemy. To inherently understand their strengths, weaknesses, and what made them tick.
The queen was a conundrum, defying all explanation and everything he’d learned about her. It seemed a side of her hadn’t wanted to come, even now he sensed her grappling with her decision, and yet this had also become personal for her.
Enough so that she’d vow no harm would come to them.
Alador knew that the Goblin would not have made this challenge so easy. If he’d snatched them up, there was a reason for it. A purpose for why each one of them had been chosen. Nothing had been done by chance.
He frowned as he mulled their situation over. No doubt there was a penalty for failure. Not just for the three of them, but for the Queen as well.
His eyes flicked to hers, she was already looking back at him and though he said nothing, he knew she knew exactly where his thoughts had led by the sudden lowering of her shoulders and the gentle nod she gave him.
“What is it?” he asked quickly.
And just as he suspected, she did not miss a beat when she answered, “I become human once more.”
His lips parted, his jaw dropped and he might have said more but the babble of laughing children suddenly filled the hall.
Chapter 7
Luminesa
The children came in skipping and laughing. The girl, Gerda she thought it was, had her blond hair plated down both sides of her head and was gently shoving the raven-haired boy.
“Don’t you look adorable,” she said in sing-song.
Kai glowered, holding onto the belt of his garment with one hand and rucking up the hem of his robes with other. “Don’t either. Shut up, Gerda.”
To which the towheaded child laughed before sticking her tongue out at him.
Luminesa had had no idea what type of clothing to craft them, used as she was to her gowns of ice, she’d had to reach way back into the darkest corners of her memory banks to fit them with something practical.
What she’d come up had been robes made of heavy weighted cloth, tanned, practical. Nothing fancy about it.
Gerda stood several inches taller than Kai, and seemed fine with her robe that looked more like a gown of sackcloth.
Kai however was tripping over his, and she had to admit, it looked more like a dress than the robes she remembered the men of her village wearing.
The child glared frostily at her when he sat unceremoniously beside Alador. And without saying a word, he reached for the platter of magically warmed steaks in front of him.
Grabbing hold with two hands and dragging it to his mouth, making loud munching sounds as he chewed.
“You sound like an animal”—Gerda’s nose turned up in a derisive gesture—“and look like one too.”
Again she laughed, which only caused Kai to growl at her, snapping his teeth when she tried to reach for his hunk of meat.
Luminesa’s stomach rumbled. She’d only eaten a few berries, but truthfully she’d been surprised she’d even been able to do that. What’d happened to her leg bone was what typically happened to any food she handled. It iced over immediately. Which was why she’d stopped eating real food ages ago.
Her tongue still tingled with the sweet essence of snowberries. She’d managed to put down four of them before her magic took over and iced them over.
Fingers bunching into the fabric of her gown she wished she knew how she’d managed not to freeze the food when she’d first handled it. Something strange was definitely happening to her body.
“Both of you, quiet!” Alador snapped, his voice big and booming and loud in the now unnaturally quiet confines of the dining chamber.
Alador’s stern warning snapped Luminesa from her reverie.
The children both looked at him with wide, shamed eyes. Gradually Kai dropped his hands, setting the chunk of meat onto his lap.
“Now”—Alador nodded once he was certain he had their attention—“not a one of you thanked our hostess for the beds, or this wonderful meal set out before us.”
Gerda squared her little shoulders, looking directly at Luminesa with a timid and shy grin. “Thank you, Ice Queen.”
Her voice was small and nothing at all like the teasing tone it’d been with Kai.
Luminesa felt a little awkward since she’d neither asked nor expected their gratitude, but nodded all the same. “You’re welcome, but please, let’s not stand on formalities, here, I am only Luminesa.”
“Mistress Luminesa,” the girl said with a hushed little whisper of sound, before breaking out in a smile that caused her blue eyes to sparkle with laughter.
And something inside Luminesa’s heart quivered. A brief flicker of warmth that discombobulated and astounded her all over again. It hadn’t been her imagination last night after all—that she’d begun to feel real emotion again.
It was little more than a glowing ember of it. But even the mightiest of fires were birthed from the tinniest of sparks.
Her lips wobbled and she realized she was actually trying to smile. It was so bizarre she momentarily forgot what she was about to say.
It was in that pause that Kai spoke up.
“Thank her for what?” He glowered down at his lap; his voice was low, but rigid. “She’s the reason we were snatched from our homes in the first place. I want to go home.”
He punctuated his words with a flick of his fingers on the edge of his robe.
It was only once Alador opened his mouth—no doubt to chastise the boy—did Luminesa’s tongue come unglued from the roof of her mouth. Holding up a hand toward the centaur male, she shook her head.
“No, the child is right. This is my fault. And for that, boy...” She waited until he looked up at her. His pretty green eyes were so captivating in the sweet lines of his chubby little face. No doubt there was a mother and father in mourning for this little one. And again, Luminesa felt that strange bump bump tangle up her heart. “I am so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”
Kai’s little jaw dropped. In fact, Luminesa was sure that if she looked at the other two they’d be wearing similar looks of shock on their
faces.
One of her ice maidens suddenly came running through the doors of the hall, panting heavily and clinging to her chest, her pale blue eyes wide in her pale blue face.
“Mistress! Antigua’s dead!”
Alador was the first to rise. Clutching his fists tight by his side.
Luminesa had only just designed the maidens yesterday, she’d not yet learned their names, but they were built to be indestructible to most any kind of attack.
“But who could have done this?” Was what she asked immediately, as she gathered up her skirts to follow her scullery maiden out the grand doors. Had an ice demon crept into the palace after all?
Alador must have had the same thought, because he turned wide eyes on her and nodded grimly as if to say he’d take care of it.
The breathless maiden ran back down the hall and then turned, heading toward the conservatory wing of the castle. Luminesa barely spared the expansive room filled with shelves of books, rolled sheaves of parchment with drawings of different sections of Kingdom depicted upon it, and globes of every shape and size a passing glance. The maiden pushed open the French doors that led to the atrium and then stopped, shivering violently as she hugged her arms to her chest.
And though the atrium gathered with whistling winds and a thick flurry of snow, Luminesa knew she did not shiver from the cold she’d been built to withstand.
No, she shivered from the nearly decapitated body of the scullery maiden.
Her arms and legs were bent at odd angles around her body. Her head, or rather where her head should have been, was nothing but a puddle of water.
Luminesa frowned when the glittering sparks of silver floating inside the puddle caught her eye. Kneeling she made to reach for the strange shimmer, when twin gasps sounded from behind her.
Glancing over her shoulder, she shot out her arm. “Go, maiden. Take the children with you!”
The maiden nodded, and dropped her hands on the children’s shoulders. Gerda had her eyes squeezed tightly shut, burying her face in her furry mittens. But Kai stared at the macabre death with a solemn, almost deadened impression.
The little boy never blinked once, and even when the maiden tugged on his shoulder, he stood stock still and unyielding.
Alador, who Luminesa hadn’t noticed until now, came forward and setting his hands beneath the boy’s arms, lifted him high, and twisted about, so that he could settle the child on his backend.
“Hold on tight, Kai,” he said in his thick, gravely voice.
Whether it was the command in his voice, or just the fact that he was in shock, Kai listened and clung to the long ends of Alador’s hair like horses’ reins.
Then taking up Gerda in the same manner he’d done for Kai, Alador sat her behind the younger child.
“I will check the halls once I’ve settled them. I’ll be back soon,” he said.
And Luminesa knew those words had been for her alone.
Turning, Alador trotted off.
The maiden was about to follow suit, but Luminesa held out her hand instead. “Maiden—”
The woman touched her left breast. “I am called Astrid.”
Odd that she’d never named them, and yet it seemed to Luminesa that they had a mind all their own already.
In times past Luminesa wouldn’t have bothered seeking any sort of outside council, used as she was to her solitude, but in this strange place full of dark magick, she’d take any help she could.
“Astrid then,” she nodded in acknowledgment, “did you happen to see who did this?”
“No mistress,” Astrid said softly, her frost tipped lashes feathered gently across her blue cheeks as she blinked rapidly. “I came here to tend to the fires, as is my duty, and noticed the door ajar, that was what caused me to investigate in the first place.”
A horrible sinking feeling sank its claws deep in Luminesa’s belly.
“So you saw no one, and nothing?”
Tossing out her arms in a gesture of bewildered worry, Astrid shook her head once more. “I wish I could tell you more, mistress.”
She looked back down at Antigua, or at least what was left of her, the silvery specks floating in the water caused the fine hairs on the back of Luminesa’s neck to rise.
Running her hand across the puddle, not touching, but just moving it over the top, she felt a faint wave of violent darkness.
Curling her fingers tightly back to her side, she grimaced as that foulness continued to cause her flesh to tingle. She needed to question the other maidens, to see if anyone had heard or seen anything.
But deep down she knew this to be the work of the enchanted mirror.
Standing, she dusted her hands off on her gown, trying to rid herself of the leeching sensation still clinging to her left palm. “Thank you, Astrid, I think I should—”
The air tightened, quickened with that same foulness of spirit that rested in the silvery flecks of water.
Twirling on her heels, she pointed at the door. “Go, Astrid, speak to the others, find out if anyone saw or heard anything last night or this morning, now go,” she whispered urgently.
It must have been that urgency that decided Astrid, without saying a word, she bobbed her head, turned, and ran out the doors of the study just seconds before the Under Goblin himself materialized before Luminesa.
And unlike last time, he was not scratched up or disheveled. He’d taken care with his appearance. Combed his dark black hair back, causing the thick golden hoops in his pointed green ears to glimmer. Wearing a blazing sunset orange vest, and royal blue silk pants, he cut an exotic and striking figure, standing out boldly against the pale blue and white of the icy castle.
Glancing around, his black eyes, studied the room. Whistling beneath his breath, he then turned that hard, obsidian gaze on her.
“You did this,” she said, wasting no time with the accusation.
“Moi?” He patted his chest. Causing the deep vee of his blouse to part, revealing the thick ropes of golden chains around his neck. “Don’t be absurd, my love.”
Clenching her teeth, she took a step closer to him. “I am not your love. I am not anything to you. What is this?” She pointed her hand at the body. “What have you done?”
Leaning on a corner of the desk, he pulled out his knife and began playing the tip beneath his thumbnail.
“Say I know what’s happened.” He shrugged, giving her a pout that had nothing at all to do with contrition or remorse. “And say that perhaps I also know why...does it matter?”
“Of course it matters.”
Eyes widening, Luminesa twirled at the sound of Alador’s deep timbre. She’d forgotten that he’d promised to return.
He stood in the doorway, a powerful, and brawny centaur male. His malachite eyes burning fury as he stared down at the Goblin, who even at his full height would only come to chest level on him.
And the cold that’d encased Luminesa’s heart at the sight of the Under Goblin thawed just a little, and against her will, her lips flinched into a smile of welcome.
But Alador hadn’t seen it. He’d been too focused on the Under Goblin’s cruel sneer. Walking forward, his hooves were silent as he came and stood next to Luminesa’s side.
And it was silly that she should feel safe with him, because she was more than strong enough to take care of herself when it came to the Goblin, but she did feel safe.
Thick arms crossed an equally impressive thick chest, as Alador glared hotly down at the Goblin.
Though Luminesa suspected it’d been Alador who’d given the Goblin the scratches the other day, he didn’t cower away from the centaur’s withering stare.
Still with that mocking thread of laughter in his words, the Goblin said, “You really wish to know? Don’t care to play the game? Come on, it’ll be fun.”
She growled at him. That he called this a game, even as the dead body of her ice maiden melted between them, made her want to retch.
And he only laughed, holding up his hands. “Right, n
o love. Then...my frosty little bitch it is. The silver, it’s my glass, if you haven’t figured it out yet.” Then looking back around the room, he nodded as though coming to some grand conclusion. “I do like the look of this place. I think I’ll keep it when I turn you human.”
She closed her eyes at those words. “I loathe you.”
He snorted. “As though you’re the first to say so.” His chuckle was brash and patronizing.
She opened her eyes. “Tell me what you’ve done. Was this another ice demon attack?”
“I told you I would make your life hell, and I have.” He chuckled, crossing his legs at the ankle as he leaned against the corner of the desk.
Alador growled, balling his hands into fists. “I will beat you bloody.”
“My, what a temper.” The Goblin planted a hand against this chest dramatically. “Fine, you really wish to know, I’ll tell you, though it’s so disappointing that you won’t at least try to figure out the riddle.” He shrugged when Alador grunted, taking another step forward. Then holding up his hands, muttered, “Fine. Fine. It was the girl. Gerda.” His smile was a cruel sneer.
Her heart sank. “Gerda? But she couldn’t have. She was just here, smiling, and—”
“But. But. But. But. But,” the Goblin stuttered, “Oh yes,” he laughed, “I can assure you it was her. I spelled the silver into her eyes. She never even knew what she’d done. That’s the beauty of the silver you see, the victim has no clue just how evil they’ve become.”
Luminesa’s heart clenched as she clutched fingers to her breast.
Alador swore beneath his breath, spitting out the words as though they tasted foul on his tongue.
The Under Goblin tipped his head back and laughed with gusto.
“I don’t believe you. You must be lying,” Luminesa said, “You wouldn’t just tell us your plan, just like that?”
He snorted, rolling his eyes. “It matters not if you know my plan, you can’t change it. It’s inevitable. Tomorrow, tonight, this afternoon, I could infect the eyes of another and you can’t stop me, queen. Because you won’t even know I’m here. You won’t know who to trust, or where I’ll strike next. The perfect hell. By the way, how did you like my ice demons? What fun, eh? Be sure to give them my warmest regards when next you see them.”
The Ice Queen (Dark Queens Book 3) Page 9