by Jill Myles
“You have always punished me severely for escape attempts in the past.” He watched her closely. “The last time, you put the mirror flecks in my eyes to enchant me into falling in love with you.”
She chewed on her lip, thinking. She remembered the mirror flecks and how they’d made him into some sort of lovesick zombie. ”Nah, I’m good. Like I said, I don’t blame you for trying. I’m just disappointed, is all.”
Kai stared at her for so long that her nape began to prickle, uncomfortable. Then, he leaned forward, his voice low as his dark eyes regarded her. “Who are you, really?”
Charlotte clasped her hands nervously. “I’m the Snow Queen.”
“No,” he said flatly. “You are not. You wear her form, but you are not her.”
She couldn’t stop herself from wringing her hands in worry. If Muffin knew that he’d guessed the truth, would she be in trouble? She’d had to promise not to discuss it, or else everything would be ruined. “Yes, I am,” she said emphatically, and gave a little nod.
“You’re different. You don’t remember anything from before. You don’t touch me the way you used to. And you want to be…friends.” He said the last word flatly. “You are not the same woman.”
“Hssst!” Charlotte shushed him, waving her hands and glancing around anxiously in case the fairy godmother was nearby, listening. “Ixnay on that whole line of thinking, okay?”
“Tell me the truth,” he demanded.
She clenched her fists. “Look, Kai, I wish I could, but I can’t, okay? I just can’t. Please trust me.” Frustrated tears threatened again. “I don’t like this any more than you do.”
“Then tell me who you are!”
“I’m the goddamn Snow Queen!” Charlotte jerked to her feet. “You may not believe me, but it’s true. You think I’m doing all this ice bullshit for funsies? It’s who I have to be. And I’m going to protect my ass as best as I can so I can win this stupid task I’m being shoved through.”
His dark eyes glared at her, as hard as the line of his mouth. After a moment, he asked, “You mentioned a month. A month and something happens. And you’re changing things. You’re changing all of this into a fortress.” He gestured at the no-longer pretty and dainty ice walls. “Why?”
She snapped her mouth shut, mentally cursing. She’d said too much. He’d caught her little slip of the tongue and now she was going to be in trouble for sure. But when no fairy godmother struck her down, she supposed that she hadn’t broken the rules…
Yet.
Charlotte rubbed her forehead. “I can’t say.”
“What happens at the end of the month?”
She glared at him. “I still can’t say.”
“Are you going to tell me anything?”
“I honestly don’t think that I can. Not without getting both of us into trouble.”
Kai snorted at that, and rubbed his foot a little harder, forcing circulation back into his chilled flesh. “You make it sound as if you have someone you answer to.”
She pressed her lips together, still silent.
“Do not tell me, then,” he said. “I will harbor my own suspicions. But tell me this: what will happen to me at the end of the month?”
“If it’s up to me?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll let you go. You can go home.”
He looked surprised. “You’d just let me leave?”
“That’s right.”
His brows furrowed. “You make it sound as if I’m a guest instead of your prisoner.”
She wanted to tell him that none of this was her idea, but she forced herself to press her lips closed, keeping her secrets.
“Very well, then,” Kai said, wiggling his toes. He gave her a scrutinizing look. “You will keep me as a companion for this month, and then you will let me go. Why?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I needed a friend.”
He stared at her for so long that her cheeks felt heated with a flush. “A friend,” he said flatly.
Now she felt stupid. “Whatever you may think of me, it’s true. All I want from you is a friend.”
“I see.” He thought for a moment, and then gestured at the furs he sat on. “If we are to be friends, I want clothing. And boots.”
“If I knew how to get those, you’d have them already.” She gave him a wry smile. “I’m not exactly sure who is in charge of shopping around here.”
“You have servants, remember?”
Right, so she did. “I’ll put them right on that.” Just as soon as she figured out how.
~~ * * * ~~
When Kai went to bed that night in the snow queen’s chambers, his mind was troubled. Well, no, that wasn’t quite right. His mind was always troubled when it came to her, but now he was simply confused.
She wasn’t the same person as before.
Oh, she’d danced around the subject and given him vague answers, but what she hadn’t admitted to had told him plenty. Look, Kai, I wish I could, but I can’t, okay? I just can’t. Please trust me. I don’t like this any more than you do.
She — Charlotte, he had to think of her as Charlotte – made it sound like she was not here of her own choosing. More games? He didn’t know. But when she’d said she wanted a friend…he’d believed her.
Maybe she’d be true to her word and release him at the end of the month, like she promised. He considered her words. Maybe I wanted a friend.
Very well, then. He’d give her a friend. Bees flock to honey because it is sweet, the old saying went. He’d get further with her if it seemed like he was playing along with whatever her new game was. If it was a game at all. He hadn’t missed the sheer disappointment on her face when she’d caught him escaping, but she looked sincere when she said she hadn’t blamed him.
Kai didn’t know what to make of her.
Even now, he lay alone in her bed, wrapped in the blankets. He held his breath, listening to the stillness. Tonight, as every night, he heard the muffled sound of weeping.
So she was a different woman, and she cried every night. And she couldn’t tell him anything about who she was or why she was wearing the same face as the snow queen.
One thing was certain, though; she was no happier to be here than he was.
Chapter Five
Something stirred Kai out of sleep. He remained still, his breathing even, as he assessed the situation. His fingers twitched, desperate for his hunting knife, but the snow queen had shattered it moments before she’d captured him.
His ears pricked as he caught the low sound of murmuring voices. Was that Charlotte? Who was she talking to? Her servants? But…why in the middle of the night?
Carefully, he sat up in the icy nest, wrapping the furs around his body. The low sound of voices continued, so he tucked a smaller fur around his hips, forming a kilt, and tiptoed through the room, looking for the sound of the voices.
He went down another hallway before the voices started again.
“But, I don’t want to be the snow queen,” he heard Charlotte saying. “I’m just a normal woman. I’m not the bad guy!”
“You’re a whiner,” a high, nasally voice said emphatically.
“Now, now, Fifi,” said another voice. “Let’s be nice to our clients, all right? What she meant to say, Charlotte, was that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.”
“You keep saying that, and I’m tired of hearing it! There’s no lemonade to be made here! You’ve put me in an impossible situation! Do you understand that if I win this, I screw over Kai and his girlfriend and everyone in the village? They can’t live in all this ice! Nothing grows! I’m destroying the crops and their livelihoods simply by being here.”
“Then lose,” the kind voice said. “If you value the lives of strangers more than your own, lose and this won’t be a problem.”
“But you told me if I lose this challenge, I’ll be stuck between worlds forever, right?”
“Well, yes, that’s right.”
“Then I can’t lose,”
Charlotte’s voice rose to a panicked level. A sob escaped her throat. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Well, crying about it won’t help,” came the nasal voice again.
“Fifi,” the other one warned.
“She’s whining,” the nasal one continued. “I thought you said she’d be happy for a second chance?”
“Well, most of them are.”
“Not this one! All we hear is ‘waaah, I’m so sad that I have to be the bad guy. It’s so awful that I have all these magic powers and get to live in an ice castle. Oh, my life is sooo terrible’.”
“You suck,” Charlotte said in a tear-choked voice. “It’s your fault I’m here. I’m supposed to be the other girl! The one that Kai likes! Not his enemy! I wish you hadn’t messed everything up!”
“Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one—“
“FIFI!”
The quarreling voices fell silent.
What in all the heavens was going on? Who was the snow queen arguing with? Why did she keep saying that this wasn’t supposed to be her?
“Please,” Charlotte said after a long moment. “I just want to go home.”
“I’ve told you before,” the authoritative voice said. “You cannot go home. You cannot be transferred. You are, for all intents and purposes, an evil queen. You’re stuck, so why not have fun with it? You’re evil! Cut loose! Go wild! This is your second chance to cram in everything you never got to do before!”
“You’re my fairy godmother!” He heard Charlotte cry. “I thought you were supposed to help me!”
“I am helping you! Look, this is me playing the world’s smallest violin at poor you, stuck with a second chance at life as a magical queen.”
“Ugh!” Footsteps slammed on the ice, and Kai barely had time to slide against one glittering wall before Charlotte swept out of the room in a puff of frost, swiping at her eyes. She stormed away, heading for her apartments, and Kai was pretty sure he heard the sound of weeping.
He wanted to go after her. For some reason, her crying tore at him. Maybe it was because he’d never heard her cry until she’d changed? Or maybe it was that he was sensing she was just as trapped as he was. Who had she been talking to?
Curiosity won out, and Kai cracked open the ice-lattice door to the room that Charlotte had left behind.
The room was empty. He frowned, stepping inside and looking around. No one was there. He ran his fingers along every wall surface, looking for a door he might have missed, but there was nothing.
Odd.
Maybe he’d overheard a conversation with her invisible servants. He glanced around, wondering if someone lurked silently in the corners. But there was no one, and nothing to see. It was all so strange.
When he returned to her room, Kai was surprised to see that her eyes were red and swollen, and her nose looked like a red berry. She’d been crying, and was obviously still upset. She had one of the fur satchels and was tossing cubes into it, along with anything else in arm’s reach.
“Who were you talking to?” he asked.
“I can’t say,” she said with a sniff.
He’d expected that answer. It still irritated him to hear it. She shared nothing with him. Not that he expected otherwise – she was his captor. Still, she kept trying to convince him that she was different…and then did the same sort of thing that made it difficult for him to trust.
He watched her for a minute more. “What are you doing, then?”
“Packing,” she said in a watery voice. She wiped her eyes and shook the ice off of her fingers. “I’m taking a vacation.”
“What about me?”
“You’ll be fine here in the ice keep,” she said in a dull voice. “I’ve reinforced the doors. You won’t be able to get out, but no one will be able to get in, either.”
“I’ll make a fire and burn a hole through,” he threatened. Why did he care if she left him? Why did it make him so angry?
“No, you won’t. It’s enchanted ice.”
“Enchanted how?”
“Um. Enchanted not to burn.”
He’d never heard of such a thing. “I don’t believe you.”
She flushed. “I don’t care if you believe me or not. It’s true. You’re stuck here. And I’ll be…back soon. Ish.” Her face crumpled and she wiped more tears from her eyes.
For some reason, her tears tore at him. He felt helpless to assist her. In her own way, she’d been kind to him, and he could do nothing in return. “And who will bring me food while you’re gone?”
She stilled, blinking.
Ahah. He’d found something she had not considered. “Your servants only respond to you. Who will bring me water and soup when you are gone? Or do you care if I starve? Is this another one of your tortures?”
He knew she hated it when he threw out the ‘torture’ word.
Sure enough, her jaw set in a mulish line. “I’m not torturing you.”
“I seem to recall ice in unpleasant places that tells me otherwise.”
Her face flushed again, rather prettily. “That’s not fair.”
“Is it not? What about this is fair?”
She threw her bag down, now angry at him. “I didn’t choose this!”
“Nor did I.”
Her mouth firmed again.
“If you’re leaving, take me with you,” he said, though he wasn’t sure why. She just seemed so desperately alone and unhappy. “You can keep an eye on your prisoner and still get away.”
She hesitated, and then began to stuff the furs in the bag. “You’ll need furs. You can’t go naked.”
“I’ll get them,” he said easily.
He didn’t know why, but he felt like he’d won a battle. “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere but here,” she said, a grim look on her pretty face. “I’m not staying here to wait for the end.”
“The end?”
She turned and glanced around the room, then looked at him. “Someone’s coming here and I doubt they’re leaving without my head on a pike.”
“I’m sick to death of this place.”
She wasn’t the only one. “We can go south, to my people.”
Charlotte gave him a pointed look. “Yeah, right.”
He found himself smiling. “I had to ask.”
Her tears dried a little, and her mouth turned up, just slightly, at the corners. “I suppose you did.”
“So…where are we going?”
She shrugged. “There’s a mountain in the distance. I thought I’d see what was on the other side.”
“Walking?”
She thought for a moment, and then got a mischievous look on her face. “Not walking…”
~~ * * * ~~
From atop the back of her polar bear, Charlotte stared over the cliff. “Okay, so apparently there is no other side of this mountain.”
Behind her rode Kai, his hands on her icy waist. “This is probably why no one lives on the mountain,” he said with amusement. “My people never come here.”
That struck her as odd. “Really? Even when I wasn’t here?”
“It is a long climb and my people travel by foot.” His long black hair fluttered near her face as the wind picked up. “We’ve had to range further and further for food due to the cold, but never up the mountain. As you can see, there is not much to commend this side.”
He had a point. Charlotte pushed her hair back behind an ear and studied the world laid out below them. Their polar bear (she’d asked her invisible servants for a mount and this was what had showed up) waited patiently on a narrow, snowy ledge. Far below, the craggy granite of the mountain seemed to sheer off, leading to white-capped waves and floating glaciers hundreds of feet below. If she squinted, she could make out dozens of dark, lounging forms below. Walruses, or seals, perhaps. The wind was high, whipping her hair about no matter how much she tried to tie it back, and seagulls cried out in the distance. It was all very beautiful.
Not super useful, but beautiful. “D
o your people fish?”
“They do. Why?”
She pointed below, at a seal flopping across the ice. “They’re obviously eating something. My guess is that there’s some good fishing below.”
“Yes, so I will just tell my starving people that if they will only cross an icy mountain and then scale a cliff, there is fishing to be had. I will carry that message home as soon as you let me go.” His voice was full of harsh sarcasm.
She winced. “Okay, okay, good point. I was just trying to think of a way to make everyone happy.”
“You could send me home.”
They’d had this argument before. “I will in about two weeks.”
He grunted amicably.
For some reason, their arguments about sending him home had lost a lot of their bite. Even though they’d ridden together today into the wild, he’d never once attempted to leave her side or overpower her. In fact, it had almost seemed as if both of them were enjoying the afternoon out in the wild.
Either that, or they were enjoying being together. She was, but she was starved for company. She might have been assuming that he was enjoying himself as much as she was. But there was no animosity between them. And…she really liked it.
Charlotte gazed down at the glacier-peppered waters, at the seals basking in the sun on the sand below the cliff. All that food, and too remote for his starving people to get to. They’d have to pass her icy domain, up the mountain, and then, as Kai had said, find a way down the cliff.
And she was no help. She was the bad guy. She sighed. “It’s a shame I’m not the crop princess instead of the snow queen.”
He snorted. “You’d have to pry me from your side if that were true.”
And wouldn’t that be a lovely problem to have? Charlotte gazed wistfully down at the blue waters below. If she had Kai’s help, she wouldn’t be running away from her ice castle so his avenging girlfriend wouldn’t come and kill her. If only Kai was on her side. She thought for a moment, then asked, “What happens if I win?”
“What do you mean?” Kai’s hands shifted on her waist. She could have sworn she felt his hands give a bit of a comforting squeeze, but perhaps she’d imagined it. He often had to adjust his hands – his fox-skin gloves tended to stick to her icy clothing if he didn’t shift or move about every so often.