I was a princess of Drachenheim. I would not let anyone glimpse tears in my eyes.
They were gone by the time we reached the central island where the royal palace sprawled, only twenty minutes later. I held myself rigid with determination, my jaw locking as I watched those glorious white walls curve into view.
Just endure this until it’s over, I told myself.
Humiliation had never killed anyone before. For better or worse, it wouldn’t kill me now either.
Gert van Heidecker would say –
No. I wouldn’t think about him right now. I couldn’t let myself think about anyone I’d seen or met since my arrival, because if I did, I would break down entirely.
‘Maybe I’ll see you again one day …’
If I’d ever been brave enough to tell Talvikki the truth of who I was, she would have known better than to imagine that that could ever happen. But I hadn’t – I’d been too cowardly – so she and the others would never know who it really was that they’d welcomed into their group for one magical moment.
The carriage pulled to a halt and the door swung open.
‘Your Highness.’ The captain of the Valmarene guard stood outside, waiting for me.
I walked down the carriage steps with my head held high, my long, blue, second-hand student robe swishing around me. Jasper must have scrambled after me; I sensed him walking behind me a moment later. His quick, unsteady breaths sounded uncomfortably loud in my ears.
But all of my attention was fixed on the scene spread out before me, like a perfectly staged re-enactment of my arrival at Villenne weeks ago.
Rows of soldiers and black-cloaked battle mages filled the massive, chequered square. The sea glittered, blue and vast, surrounding us on three sides, while the palace sprawled on the fourth side, closing all of us in together. Sunlight shot sparks off the rippling water.
In the centre of it all stood the king and queen of Valmarna … but this time, they weren’t alone. No such luck. They were flanked by two semicircles of men, women, and girls and boys around my own age, all of them wearing elaborate gowns and jackets – and Ulrike had been right: I could tell the difference between the outfit of a lady-in-waiting and a royal after all, even before I started recognising faces from public portraits.
I was looking at the assembled royalty of the continent. While I’d been gallivanting around the city with my friends, they had gathered together for the Diamond Exhibition … so they were all here now to witness my disgrace.
Everyone would see what was about to happen.
I felt as if I were floating above my body as I watched my sister’s carriage descend through the air. The shadow of Jasper’s mother’s great wings cast cool darkness across the square. I didn’t move as the shadow fell over me. I was helpless to do anything except stand and take what was coming to me.
I was always so helpless when I was myself, undisguised. And I was so very tired of it.
At least Katrin would never unleash her fury in front of everyone. She was far too conscious of her dignity and our nation’s reputation to ever berate me in front of onlookers.
The carriage landed with a thump directly before me. Above it, Jasper’s mother opened her vast mouth wide in a soundless roar, her ferocious golden eyes fixed on her runaway son.
I heard Jasper gulp.
My own dread-filled gaze fixed on the carriage door as it fell open …
And my sister tumbled out of it, barely catching herself on the door frame as she tripped. My mouth fell open as I stared at her.
Katrin was barely recognisable! From the tangled, messy knots of dark hair that hung around my sister’s beautiful light-brown face to her haggard expression as she staggered painfully down the carriage steps …
Apparently we did have something in common after all, because I could smell the sick from here.
Cringing in sympathy, I started forward.
Queen Berghild spoke before I could. ‘So! Another Drachenheim … princess –’ she paused on the word, as she glanced from my dishevelled sister to the other elegant watching royals – ‘has terrified our citizens for no reason, without giving us the benefit of a fair warning. Princess Katrin, I’m not surprised that you could only find wild beasts to ally with your little kingdom.’
Grinding my teeth, I started towards her.
A terrifying growl rolled through the courtyard, stopping me in my tracks.
But it wasn’t Jasper’s mother who had made that ominous sound. It was my perfectly controlled older sister who had shockingly let it loose …
As she glared directly at me.
‘Do you have any idea of what you’ve put me through, Sofia?’ Katrin didn’t even seem to notice the queen of Valmarna, or any of the other gathered royals who were all avidly watching us.
‘Katrin!’ I jerked my head urgently towards our audience. ‘We can’t –’
‘Three days!’ she shouted into my face. ‘Three whole days of endless sickness!’
‘I know,’ I gritted through my teeth. ‘I made that journey too! But –’
‘I had to leave the kingdom under Father’s control,’ she spat. ‘Do you have any idea what the nobles will talk him into while I’m gone? Do you even care that our most vulnerable subjects will suffer for it?’
‘I –’
‘Of course you don’t! You don’t care about any of us!’ She swept out one arm, nearly falling over with the force of her gesture.
Two of her senior ladies-in-waiting hovered behind her, peering out of the carriage doorway with identically terrified expressions. No one had ever seen her lose control before today.
‘You certainly don’t care about me!’ she bellowed.
‘Katrin –’
‘I asked you to do one thing, Sofia. One! How hard could it be, for once in your life, to actually help our kingdom instead of feeding off it?’
Ouch. I sucked in my breath as our onlookers rustled with interest. I had to control my expression for my own sake and for our kingdom, no matter what she said.
‘Why can’t you even pretend to care that you’re a princess?’ Katrin demanded.
That. Was. It!
Gasps hissed through the teeth of every nearby royal, and fury detonated within me.
Every day of my life that I’d spent pretending to be someone I wasn’t, just to follow those stupid rules of royalty; every day that I’d worked to impress my sister while knowing I would never be good enough for her; every dream I’d given up because a princess could never do that; and everyone I would never see again after today …
‘I don’t know!’ I shouted back. ‘Why don’t you tell me? Because you’re the one embarrassing our kingdom right now in front of everyone!’
Katrin jerked back as if she had been slapped. Her dark eyes flared wide. Her head snapped around …
And she finally noticed our gathered audience of royals.
Her face tightened with horror. Her long throat moved in a convulsive swallow as she looked from one disapproving face to another. Then her eyes fastened on me with a light I’d never seen before, not even in the worst of our past arguments.
‘This is your fault, Sofia,’ she hissed. ‘And I will never, ever forgive you for it.’
CHAPTER 14
The sea still lapped at the edges of the square, barely fifteen feet from my feet. Seagulls still called to each other in the distance.
But inside me, an entire revolution took place, flushing me hot and cold until even the tips of my fingers tingled with the shock of it … and a question: how long had I been waiting for her to say those words to me?
All those years she’d spent dutifully looking after me, ever since our mother had died and Father had lost all real interest in us …
I’d always known that one day Katrin would give up on me too. I’d just never expected her to do it in public, without even the pretence that she cared.
My eyes blurred. Something hot and fierce sparked behind them, and I realised that I couldn’t hold
back these tears after all, no matter how many people were watching.
‘Now,’ said Katrin, swishing past me. ‘Your Majesties …’
I didn’t wait to hear which beautifully polished words she would use to apologise for my behaviour and excuse her own. Everyone here knew already that I had been discarded. What was the point of staying to hear more?
At least my legs still worked. They turned me around like a puppet and took off, half running, half stumbling across the square.
‘Sofia!’ Jasper called after me.
‘Your Highness!’ Ulrike cried. ‘Wait!’
‘Jasper!’ His mother’s thunderous voice roared overhead. ‘Don’t you dare run away again!’
Footsteps thudded after me as I dodged, running faster and faster, past rows of Villennese guards and battle mages who leaped out of my way. My long robe and gown tangled with my legs, so I yanked them up to my knees. It wasn’t as if I could look any less regal at this point.
All that mattered was getting away from everyone … especially the only family I’d had left.
‘I will never, ever forgive you.’
A harsh noise caught in my throat, somewhere between a sob and a croak.
Then a deafening mass of sound suddenly erupted behind me. Saltwater crashed over the entire square in an overwhelming, icy wave.
Dripping and spluttering, I spun around …
And screamed as I saw three pairs of massive white hands, each one larger than my entire body, clenching around the three sea-facing sides of the big, tiled square. Ice shot out from boulder-sized fingertips, transforming every ounce of seawater that had puddled on the tiles and sending all of us helplessly staggering and skidding. Battle mages and soldiers looked tiny in comparison as they stumbled and slid, shouting, towards those three huge pairs of hands.
And beyond them, rising higher and higher …
A strangled squeak escaped my lips as I tilted my head back to take in the full scope of the three monstrous figures emerging from their hiding places in the deep, cold seawater.
Long, dangling, white beards hung down their bodies, tangled with shards of jagged ice. Marbled blue-and-white skin stretched higher than the palace walls. Massive eyes glared down upon us all like bright blue flames.
‘Ice giants,’ I whispered.
They had to be.
They must have crawled on hands and knees between the islands all the way here, to keep from being witnessed until it was too late.
No wonder that troll had woken up at the underground echo of their movements. It hadn’t been Jasper’s mother who had spooked Abjörn after all.
She wheeled around now in mid-air, letting out a roar of fury that shook through my bones. Flame shot from her vast mouth as she flew at them, her giant teeth and claws stretching towards the ice giant in the centre …
And he grabbed her by her long, scaly, blue-and-gold neck, closing his massive fingers around it. Her dragonfire was cut off in an instant.
Battle mages chanted in unison. Guards fired muskets. But white frost crackled and shot across her blue-and-gold scales – and an instant later, a tight, cold cage of ice encased her.
Her huge legs and wings stopped moving. Her great, golden eyes stared unseeingly out from her transparent prison as the giant gathered it into his arms, hefting the giant block of ice with ease.
‘Mother!’ Jasper roared.
He’d been standing just before me, but now he ran, skidding and sliding across the icy square, desperately fighting his way through the chaos towards the massive ice giant who held his mother.
A wordless moan of protest ripped out of my mouth as I reached uselessly after him. That creature had just defeated a full-grown dragon without a flinch! What could Jasper possibly do against it?
The battle mages’ spells flickered and flashed in the air, bouncing off all three giants without any effect. Bullets and cannonballs landed on blue-and-white skin, but none of them left a single mark.
We had to run as fast as we could in the opposite direction, just as my other friends had told me! But Jasper ran straight at danger as I watched – and then something even worse happened.
My sister stepped forward. She held up one slim brown hand to forestall anyone from shielding her. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ she called up to the ice giants in the firm but patient tone I’d heard her use on arrogant nobles many times before. ‘There is no need for any of this violence.’
Without so much as glancing backwards, she flicked one dismissive hand behind her at the square-ful of battle mages and soldiers, and – perhaps simply in surprise – they all stepped back at once, leaving the courtyard in a sudden, stunned silence. Even Jasper stopped moving. From royals to guards, everyone gaped at my sister as the spells disappeared and the muskets and cannons stopped firing. Even the three ice giants looked surprised as they shifted together to stare down at her.
Only I wasn’t shocked. Of course Katrin was handling it. Katrin handled everything! Unlike me, she was a true princess.
But my feet stayed stubbornly planted on the ground nonetheless, refusing to turn away until I actually saw her make everyone safe …
Especially herself. Because as those three ice giants loomed together over my sister, my stomach curled up on itself with panic, taking me right back to that night last winter when the fairies had held her and Father prisoner in our own palace. Spots whirled in front of my eyes. My breath thundered in my ears.
Just let her solve this, and then I can go.
The ice giant in the centre spoke in a voice as vast and cold as an endless storm. ‘You are the ruler of this kingdom?’
His breath sent a damp chill sweeping across the square, pebbling my skin with goosebumps despite the bright sun high above us.
‘No!’ The king of Villenne bustled past his guards with his big moustache bristling in fury. He shoved Katrin aside and took her place to square off with the giant, glowering up at it. ‘This is my kingdom!’ he shouted. ‘She’s only the ruler of Drachenheim, a little nothing of a kingdom!’
The giant raised one gargantuan hand, sending showers of cold saltwater raining over everyone in the square as he pointed past the king. ‘And those?’ he boomed, pointing at the clustered group of royals. ‘Are they rulers too?’
‘Ah,’ my sister began, shifting forward. ‘Perhaps, King Henrik –’
‘Silence!’ he bellowed. ‘I am the one who speaks before my palace!’ Puffing himself up, he set his fists on his hips. ‘Those are all the rulers of lesser kingdoms,’ he told the ice giants. ‘They’ve travelled across the continent for my Diamond Exhibition!’
The ice giant didn’t reply. But his massive head tilted back and forth, exchanging blue-flame glances with his comrades.
My stomach twisted tighter as I watched.
‘Step back, Katrin,’ I whispered. ‘Step back, step back …’
‘All the rulers of this continent,’ said the ice giant on the left. His bluish-white lips curved within his glittering beard as his voice dropped even deeper. ‘Perfect.’
‘No.’ I didn’t even know what I was denying with my whisper, but my feet inched forward, carrying me closer to the nightmare against my will. ‘No, no! Katrin!’
My voice rose to a scream as the giants stretched out their hands …
And ice shot out from all their fingertips.
Katrin was the first one to be hit. A brand-new block of ice crackled into place around her as I launched into a desperate run.
But now everyone else was running too, and all of them were in my way. I lost sight of my sister as soldiers and mages stampeded. Sobbing and flailing, I fought forward with all my might – but everyone else was so much larger than me. Everybody else was stronger.
A sudden cry went up, piercing the chaos. I jumped up on my tiptoes, straining to see past all those taller heads.
A giant block of ice rose into the sky above us, carried by two giants at once.
That block of ice was full of people.
N
one of them wore the black robes of battle mages or the uniforms of the Valmarene guards. No, this prison was filled with richly dressed royalty. All the visiting rulers and their families were frozen together … with my own sister at the far end, helplessly trapped in the ice giants’ prison.
‘No!’ I screamed. ‘Katrin!’
The two giants who held the larger block of ice turned and marched away from the island, splashing steadily through the deep, cold seawater. Only the giant who held Jasper’s mother in his grasp paused to look down at the rest of us, tiny and screaming before him.
‘No more Diamond Exhibition,’ he boomed down at us. ‘No new machines for humans to invade our lands. You stay away from our realm forever … or your rulers die.’
CHAPTER 15
Colours and shapes whirled around me. Bodies shoved past in all directions. I couldn’t take any of it in. I couldn’t even look away from the too-empty sky where the giants had towered only moments ago.
I should have been in that block of ice with my sister.
I should have been in that block of ice instead of my sister. She wouldn’t even have been here if not for me.
‘How hard could it be, for once in your life, to actually help our kingdom?’
Because I had tossed aside all of my responsibilities – because I’d wanted so badly not to be a princess for a few weeks of my life – my sister had been taken.
Frozen.
‘Katrin,’ I whispered.
‘There she is!’ A male shout broke through my trance.
Hard hands grabbed my arms – two pairs of hands in quick succession. Both of my guards held me now, shielding me with their bodies.
‘Make way for the princess!’ they bellowed. ‘Make way for the heir to Drachenheim!’
If they hadn’t held me up, I would have doubled over in agony.
I wasn’t the heir to the throne. That was Katrin! That would always be Katrin, no matter where she was. No matter what those horrible giants might –
No. Sickness roiled through my belly. Nothing worse was going to happen to my sister!
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