A Crown of Snow and Ice: A Retelling of The Snow Queen (Beyond the Four Kingdoms Book 3)

by Melanie Cellier

  My power wasn’t enough. My words weren’t enough. I had nothing left to try.

  But my heart refused to give up. Even without my powers, even without my mind, my stubborn determination wouldn’t let go.

  “You have to wake up, Oliver,” I said into his chest, still gripping at his jacket. “You have to. Because I’m not letting you go, and I’m not ready to die.” Fear filled me as I felt us both slipping closer to death. How long could we survive floating in the Snow Queen’s melting throne room?

  But love burned more strongly in me than fear. I would not give up Oliver to her icy power. Not even to save myself. Tears dripped down my already sopping face, falling onto his chest with a fresh burst of steam.

  But these weren’t my normal tears. Scalding hot, they burned instantly through the material of his jacket, sinking down to the skin beneath. I lunged for the freezing water around us, scooping some up to splash wildly over the bare patch of his chest, afraid of the burns I would see there.

  But the skin appeared smooth and unharmed. I didn’t even realize I was still crying until I saw fresh drops sizzle down onto his skin. Impossibly they sank down toward his heart.

  With a cry and a gasp, he jerked upward, flinging me from the ice and back into the water. For a moment I could see nothing but bubbles and steam as I thrashed to right myself and find the air again. I burst up, gasping, to see Oliver staring down at me in wonder.

  “Celine!”

  I didn’t need to hear more than my name to know he was free. Truly free. The tears streamed faster down my face, but they had changed now into tears of joy.

  “Celine.” His tone had transformed, his eyes wide in wonder. “Look.”

  As my tears hit the surface of the lake, steam rose, almost obscuring our view of each other, although I bobbed just beside his block of ice. And it was spreading, racing out across the surface of the water.

  He had pulled himself fully up onto the floating chunk, kneeling on all fours to peer toward me, and he reached into the water to feel it.

  “Ouch!” He pulled his hand back quickly. “It’s hot!”

  The temperature didn’t bother me, but something caught my eye.

  “Look at the ice.” All around me, I could see the chunks of ice melting in the now hot water, the smaller ones disappearing completely.

  The ice Oliver crouched on was large and thick, but I thought I could see it thinning. Soon he would be dumped into the water, and from his earlier reaction…

  “We need to get out of here. Now!” I said.

  “But how?” he looked around, trying to get his bearings in the room that had become a lake. Pushing himself up a little higher, he pointed. “I can see the door. Over there.”

  A distant cry reached me above the steam, although I couldn’t make out the words.

  “It’s Giselle,” said Oliver. “She just saw me. She must have made it out before the lake cracked.”

  I remembered how I had propelled us onto the ice in the first place. “Hold on,” I said, my voice determined. “We’re going to her.” I released my air beneath the water.

  “But how—” Oliver flattened onto the ice as I landed partially on top of him, causing the block to lurch and rock beneath us.

  “Oof! Sorry.” I scrambled off, as the ice tipped dangerously. “You watch where we’re going, I’ll provide the power.”

  When I thrust both hands back under the water and blasted a trail of bubbles that sent us careening across the surface, he laughed. We smashed into another large block and both nearly ended up back in the water.

  “Whoa, steady there. Maybe a bit slower,” he suggested, positioning himself as flat as he could while still allowing himself some visibility across the choppy lake. At least the obstacles were getting fewer as more and more of them melted away.

  I had wondered if we might stop melting once we got away from the hot patch where I had fallen into the water, but it seemed to have spread, great billows of steam and vapor rising toward the distant ceiling on all sides.

  I faced behind us, using all my control to slow the stream of air and keep us moving forward in a controlled way. Oliver called out directions, and I moved my hands left or right, maneuvering us around any remaining blocks liable to tip us over. And all the while our own block grew smaller, pushing us closer and closer together until Oliver was crouched half over me.

  A sudden wild cackle broke my concentration, and we lurched dangerously. Looking up, I saw the Snow Queen, her white-blond hair whipping behind her and her dress billowing as she appeared to float across the surface of the lake.

  As she got closer, I saw that she actually rode a block of ice, just as we did. Only she stood straight on hers, apparently having no problem with balance or controlling the movement of the chunk.

  “Hold on,” I screamed again, restarting my wind and loosing my control. We flew across the surface of the water, but still she seemed to be closing the distance.

  She laughed again, sounding a little mad, and threw an icicle spear in our direction. I pushed us sharply to one side, avoiding it but nearly tipping us both into the water.

  “Steady, Celine,” said Oliver. “We’re nearly there. A straight shot now.”

  We had approached close enough that I could hear Giselle more clearly, screaming both our names. Our block had grown even smaller, and I dangled half in the water now, to give Oliver more room.

  My eyes focused in on the block carrying the queen. Despite her control, it seemed she couldn’t fight the heat of the water. It, too, was being eaten away, growing smaller and smaller. Already it was smaller than ours, although she needed less space to stand on.

  My bubbles shot us forward, and I didn’t dare break concentration to look over my shoulder and see how close we were to the door. The ice shrunk again, forcing Oliver to rise up fully onto his knees or dangle half in the heated water. With him upright, I had to slow our progress, and the queen approached even closer, her arms stretched out toward us, a feral grin pulling at her face.

  She stood on only a thin circle of ice now, but it was enough to hold her up. Oliver grunted in pain as he slipped, one leg falling into the water. I put on one last spurt of speed, trying to outrun both our melting boat and the pursuing queen.

  But our block of ice had become so thin and light that I misjudged it, and the power of the blast made us shake from side to side, both of us sliding off and into the steaming water.

  Chapter 31

  Oliver’s cry of pain sliced through me. I thrashed back to the surface, trying to find him and the edge of the lake among the steam and the splashing water.

  Another cry, this one of relief, drew my eyes over to the door, which now stood on the edge of the lake, giving entry to the antechamber that still stood beyond it. Despite overturning us, my final push had gotten us close enough it seemed.

  Giselle, the one who had cried out, knelt at the side of the water, reaching down to pull her gasping brother onto the solid ice beside her. I kicked out toward them, anxious to see how badly Oliver had been burned, but a sizzling splash of water pushed me to one side.

  Turning, I saw the Snow Queen. Still balanced precariously on a thin film of ice, she threw another icicle at me. This one I dodged, throwing myself to one side, and it hit the water with an equally loud splash, quickly melting into nothing.

  I dodged another one, managing to bring up one hand and send a fire ball back. This time it was the queen who had to dodge, half-crouching on her meager platform. The action seemed to break her concentration enough that she slipped, one foot falling into the water.

  Her scream pierced the room, shaking chandeliers of ice down from the ceiling. They crashed into the water, one landing so close that it swamped her remaining block before sending me tumbling beneath the surface.

  Pushing back up into the air, I looked for her. I heard her before I saw her, her horrible screams shaking the walls. Her block of ice appeared to have melted completely, and she thrashed wildly in the water, almost
fully submerged.

  I glanced back at Giselle and Oliver. I absorbed that he seemed to be moving easily, his face clear of any serious pain, before my eyes were drawn back to the queen’s desperate cries. The water steamed in the cold room, but it didn’t boil. And despite the discomfort that prolonged immersion must have brought, Oliver seemed to have survived his dunking intact.

  And yet the Snow Queen screamed as if we held her down in a pot of boiling water. As if she was…

  “Melting!” cried Giselle. “She’s melting!”

  There was no other way to describe what I was seeing, though it seemed impossible. Like the chunks of ice had already done, the queen herself was slowly losing her shape, becoming smaller and smaller as the features that made her human disappeared, reducing her to a vaguely human shape. And at the center of that shape, in the place where her heart should have been, I saw a small metal object.

  Even as my mind registered that it was a simple locket, the remaining part of her chest melted away, and it slipped beneath the water. Her face remained for another breath, held above the water and contorted into an expression of anger and pain and madness. And then even her head had sunk beneath the water and disappeared.

  I gasped and swallowed and swallowed again. Had the locket replaced her heart? No wonder Sterling had never seen it.

  “Celine!” Oliver’s voice pulled me from the horror that had overwhelmed me at the terrible sight. “We need to get out of here.”

  I kicked out toward them, no ice left now to impede my path. When I reached the edge, they both held hands down to help, but instead I sent a burst of air through the water behind me, shooting up and into Oliver’s arms.

  He grunted and staggered backward, just managing to keep us both upright. He looked down into my face and moved as if to press his lips to mine, but Giselle’s sharp voice made him pull back.

  “There’s no time for that!” she yelled. “I think we need to run. Oliver do you know the way?”

  I pulled back from him and looked around. The heat in the water had reached the walls of the throne room, and they had begun to melt, water streaming down to join that already in the lake. Looking across at a distant wall, I saw the dim glint of the mirror frame as it slid free of the wall and fell into the water with a splash.

  Perhaps it was coincidence, but at the exact moment it disappeared beneath the surface, a screeching crack resounded above all the other sounds of the disintegrating palace.

  Giselle and Oliver were already backing away from the edge of the lake, pulling me with them.

  “This way,” Oliver yelled, and I stumbled after them, forcing my exhausted limbs to yet further effort.

  We slipped and slid across the wet floor, barely avoiding chunks of ice that fell haphazardly from higher up the walls or from the ceiling. Thankfully it wasn’t long before we burst into the empty entrance hall. The front doors beckoned across a large floor.

  We all put on a fresh burst of speed, Oliver’s long legs moving him ahead. He reached the doors and ripped them open, swinging them wide before turning back to search for us. Ahead of me, Giselle stumbled and fell, slipping as she tried to regain her feet.

  I shook my head and grabbed her hand, running the last few steps with her sliding through the thin layer of water behind me. As I shot out past Oliver, he reached down and swung his sister back to her feet.

  But when we all stopped to look down the long staircase leading up to the door, we realized we would all have to slide. Already the melting stairs had lost definition, one merging into another in a steep incline. Plonking down, I pushed off, the others close behind me.

  “Wooooooo!” I screamed as I slid down the newly-created slide, the snow at the bottom rushing up to meet me. All of my pain and terror and horror and exhaustion expelled in one long wordless exclamation. Oliver yelled behind me, and then Giselle’s higher voice a beat behind.

  When we all tumbled into the deep, soft snow, I just lay there for a moment, too spent to even push myself to my feet.

  “That last part was actually sort of fun,” said Giselle, her voice breathy, and her eyes glassy.

  I shook my head at her, too tired for any verbal response.

  “What?” she asked. “We’re all alive, aren’t we?” And then she laughed, and it sounded slightly hysterical.

  Oliver shook his head at her, but he was smiling. He pulled me up, and reluctantly I let him.

  “I would feel more comfortable if we put a bit more distance between us and this melting palace,” he said.

  I wanted to protest, but he was right. I didn’t want to stay near this place for a moment longer, either.

  “Look!” Giselle held something up, her voice triumphant. “Look what I found.”

  I forced my eyes to focus and saw that she was holding our two sets of snowshoes. Quickly she began to lace hers on, and I tried to make my fingers and arms follow suit, but they didn’t seem to be working properly.

  Oliver knelt to attach them for me, letting me lean against his shoulder as he worked. I breathed a sigh of relief, all my energy focused on staying upright.

  When he had finished, we took off, poor Oliver falling into the snow with every stride. How were we going to get back down the mountain when he didn’t have snowshoes? But my brain was too tired to focus on anything other than moving forward.

  Briefly I wondered if the flurry of killer iceflakes would reappear, but to my relief, nothing darkened the late afternoon sky. I didn’t think I had the energy to protect us from anything else.

  “We left our packs in a cave just over there,” I heard Giselle say. “I think that should be far enough, don’t you think? Because if we don’t stop soon, I think the two of you are going to keel right over.”

  I didn’t protest, relieved at the idea of a dry cave and food after a long day without any. But as I stumbled the last few steps, a surge of energy filled me at the unexpected sight of another person. Perhaps I did have something left after all.

  For a horrible moment, I thought it was the Snow Queen herself, somehow re-formed. But then I blinked, and a different familiar figure appeared. Not the Snow Queen, but her loyal lieutenant.

  “Sterling!” Oliver’s shout made the other man falter and nearly trip.

  He was emerging from our cave, and I suspected he had just been looking through our packs for anything of value. From the surprise on his face as he looked over his shoulder, he hadn’t been expecting us to emerge alive from the rapidly disintegrating palace.

  His expression as he took off running gave me the remaining strength to send out a blast of air. Catching him square in the back, it sent him sprawling face first into the snow.

  I swayed from the effort, but held up my hands, ready to send another blast. Oliver and Giselle had both taken off running toward him, however, so I refrained. Giselle, faster because of her snowshoes, reached him first and promptly sat down on his back, pushing him further down into the snow.

  He mumbled something in protest and stirred feebly, but he couldn’t gain any traction against the soft snow. Only when Oliver arrived did she pop back up so that he could reach down and wrench the other man to his feet.

  “Going somewhere?” Giselle asked sweetly, as Oliver pulled Sterling around to face us.

  Sterling glared at them in silent anger, but when his gaze moved to me—standing a way off still, but with both arms extended, ready to fire—he slumped.

  “No, I suppose not,” he said.

  Between my exhaustion and the discovery of Sterling, I hadn’t mustered the energy to look back at the Ice Palace. But standing in the mouth of the cave at last, I saw the tallest of the spires droop, dripping and melting into oblivion, steam rising as water raced down its sides.

  As I watched, the last remnants of the structure crumbled in, leaving in its place a great lake, bigger than the frozen one we had swum through. Its surface roiled and steamed, but it didn’t seem to be expanding any further, solid ground and snow standing firm between us and what h
ad once been the Snow Queen’s home.

  “It was beautiful, you know,” said Giselle, who I hadn’t heard come to stand beside me.

  I gave her a disbelieving look, and she shrugged.

  “Well, it was. But that doesn’t mean I’m not glad to see it gone.”

  I sighed, my eyes drawn back to the lake. “I suppose it was beautiful. But I prefer your palace. The real one. That’s made of stone.”

  Giselle smiled. “Me too.”

  Reluctantly I retreated back into the cave where a silent, bound Sterling sat beside a small fire. He had helpfully brought some wood with him, so I had only needed to provide the briefest burst of flame to get it started.

  Swaying, I sank down to sit on the opposite side of the cave to him, admitting to myself I was more than glad we wouldn’t be relying on me to keep us warm all night. Dim embers still burned somewhere inside me, but I felt too drained to whip them into any sort of serious heat.

  Despite myself, I found my eyes straying to Sterling’s still form. He had a full pack with him—which had turned out to contain some of our own things as I had suspected—and not only snowshoes but a second spare pair as well. Finding him had been fortuitous. But what had driven him from the Ice Palace so fully prepared? He couldn’t have put all that together after it started melting, especially not when he had been ahead of us.

  Had he taken my words in the kitchen seriously, after all? It was true that something about his manner had seemed to change during our conversation.

  When I realized he was staring straight back at me, I shifted slightly, turning myself away. Oliver had already declared that we would take him down the mountain with us, to be secured in the palace where he could await judgment from the king. And that was good enough for me. I wanted nothing more to do with a man who had let his thirst for power lead him to assist in nearly destroying an entire kingdom. And, if he was the man Prince Dominic had asked me to watch out for, he might have had a hand in nearly destroying Palinar as well.