Beyond the Four Kingdoms Box Set 1
Page 76
When Giselle fell back to let me take the lead for a while, she noticed my eyes fastened on the still-distant doors.
“We might as well,” she said. “Somehow I don’t think we’re going to slip into this queen’s domain without her noticing, whichever entry we use.”
I winced. “I suppose you’re right.” I glared at the ornate entrance, adding in a mutter, “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
I was still taking my turn at the front when Giselle’s sudden indrawn breath made me pause. I scanned our surroundings looking for a threat. I sighed when I spotted a dense flurry of snow approaching like a moving wall. Great. Just what we needed.
But when I began to push forward again, Giselle stayed frozen in place. I looked back at her and then back toward the incoming snow, examining it more closely.
“Wait, is that…” I looked up at the blue sky, still as clear as when I had opened my eyes this morning.
“It’s not coming out of the sky,” breathed Giselle, her fear clear in every word.
“Well, magical or natural, we’re too close to the palace to get caught in a blizzard now,” I said grimly, pushing forward again. I glanced back over my shoulder. “Giselle! Come on!”
The younger girl shook herself from her daze and hurried across the snow to join me.
“There’s something about it,” she called, as she half-slid, half-ran. “I don’t think we want to get caught in it.”
I didn’t stop again to ask what she meant because I felt all too certain she was right. But despite our increased pace and the nearness of the palace, the distant flakes rushed far too quickly to meet us. I tried to push my legs faster, but I could already see we weren’t going to make it.
The strange flurry approached us, moving horizontally to the ground and broad enough to stretch up above my head. The dense heart of it was still a little distance away, but the first flakes, dancing in front, had nearly reached us.
They came at us from the side, a strange whistle of wind driving them along, and one flew past just in front of me. I tried to keep moving, although my body wanted to freeze in shock. It had been huge, and the flake had glittered strangely as it passed.
A scream from behind made me whirl around, nearly falling as my snowshoes tangled. Giselle was still moving forward, but a small stream of red ran down her cheek from a long, narrow gash along one of her cheekbones. While I watched, trying to understand what had happened, a sharp pain raced along the arm which faced toward the encroaching snow.
I stared as the flake whose icy tip had cut clean through my layers to pierce my skin continued on its way, gusting up and then down in the strange breeze.
“Don’t stop,” screamed Giselle, waving me onward. “They’re not snowflakes—they’re iceflakes. And their edges are razor sharp.”
I had never heard of such a thing and, judging from her face, neither had she. I scrambled to face myself forward again, ignoring the sting in my arm and the warm trickle I felt making its way down my sleeve. The cut hadn’t been deep, thanks to all my protective layers, and I had no time to tend it now.
As I hurried forward, slipping and sliding awkwardly in my haste, more iceflakes flew past. They appeared like perfectly formed—but huge—snowflakes. Except now that I looked more closely, I could see the hard lines and glitter of ice instead of the soft white of snow. I had never seen such a thing before and, given the heavier weight of ice, the wind that blew them shouldn’t have been strong enough to lift them in such a manner.
Giselle gasped and moaned, and I gestured for her to come up beside me. “Get ahead,” I yelled at her, continuing to gesture wildly as she pushed past me, panting and gasping.
As soon as she entered my line of sight, flame rushed to fill my hands. I sent it streaming between us and the oncoming wave of iceflakes. The hiss of steam overpowered the wind as the flakes melted. But even as I sent out another burst, a flake danced up and over it, driven by the unnatural breeze, to swing down toward my nose.
I jerked my head from its path and snapped my hands into fists. I had reacted without thinking again. Fire wasn’t what was needed here.
Still pressing forward, my snowshoes sliding desperately across the snow, I thrust out my palms. A hot wind rushed from them, and I gestured around us. Like I had done in the blizzard, I created a whirlwind of air around us, with us in the still center. My wind overpowered the breeze that drove the flakes, and they spun away from us, some melting in the sudden warmth.
It was working. Except we were still rushing madly toward the palace doors, and keeping a circle of air around two moving people was far more difficult than keeping it around four immobile people. I battled to stop it from sweeping us away, along with the flakes. And we both now looked as if we were involved in some sort of mad dance, ducking and weaving to keep away from the flakes that made it through my imperfect shield.
The last stretch before the ice stairs seemed to extend forever, the densest part of the flurry having now hit with flakes coming at us from every direction. When Giselle reached the first step, she flung herself at it, only to slip and fall back into the snow. Snowshoes weren’t made for climbing ice stairs.
I threw myself down beside her, gripping her arm to keep her from rising.
“Take them off,” I shouted above the roar of my wind and the fury of the flurry. My hands remained out, my wind tightening around us. It was infinitely easier to control now that we were sitting still.
For a moment I forgot Giselle in my concentration, until I felt a tugging at my feet. Looking down, I saw that she had stripped off her own shoes, and now struggled to free my boots. I thrust my legs out in front of me to make her job easier, and she smiled at me with tight lips. She had a rip at her shoulder and on both legs, and red still dripped sluggishly down her face.
As soon as she had finished, she tugged me up to standing, my wind coming with us. But as she stepped up onto the first step, she nearly slid back again. I risked a glance downward and saw that the first few steps, the ones within reach of my hot wind, had started to melt, water dripping off them as they lost their shape.
“Jump over them,” I shouted, steadying Giselle from behind. I tried to lift my wind slightly as she leaped forward. Keeping it off the stairs but still low enough to protect us was a delicate balance I didn’t think I could achieve while running up stairs.
Eventually I gave up the effort and let my power rip at the stairs. We would just have to move faster than the wind could melt them.
“Go! Run!” I screamed at Giselle, who hesitated above me, looking back down to track my progress. She turned and dashed upward, and I followed.
I kept my eyes beneath me, watching each step, my whole focus on the next stride upward. So when the next step failed to materialize, the ice stretching out instead into a flat platform, I fell. Sliding forward across the smooth surface on my knees, I felt my grip on the wind slacken and then die. Giselle looked back at me, her eyes jumping to the flakes that rushed in to fill the quickly stilling air.
Sprinting the last steps, she grabbed at the icy handle of the door and tugged with all her might. The door swung open so smoothly that she nearly joined me on the ice. Regaining her balance, she swung it wide and then held it there, beckoning for me to join her.
Slipping and sliding, I forced my feet under me and ran as fast as the ice would allow, not slowing as I barreled through the doorway. The clang of heavy ice against heavy ice made me stop and turn. Giselle stood with her back against the now closed door, her breath heaving.
“Without your power, those would have cut us to ribbons,” she said, her wide eyes meeting mine.
“What did I say?” I asked. “Welcome to the Snow Queen’s domain.”
Chapter 27
I had barely regained my breath before I swung around, fire balls bursting into life in both my hands. The run had drained me, but too many emotions flooded me to have any difficulty accessing my power. And whatever greeted us in here, I wanted to be ready.
Giselle’s breaths softened and slowed behind me, returning to normal before I heard the sound of her boots scraping against ice.
“Well, this is…somewhat unexpected,” she said when she at last reached my shoulder.
High windows, made of ice so thin it resembled glass, let in the sunlight. But the golden rays provided no heat, posing no threat to the frozen structure.
“Where do you think everyone is?” She looked around, as if expecting people to start popping from the walls.
“I have no idea.” I reminded myself I should be pleased we hadn’t been met with armed guards, but I felt unnerved all the same. “I suppose we should go and find someone. Well, one person in particular.”
The reference to her brother made Giselle start, as if she had forgotten him in the madness of this place. “Yes. The sooner we find Oliver, the sooner we can leave.”
She headed straight for the broad staircase on the other side of the hall, and I followed without question. Inside my heart was sinking, however. Upstairs meant the royal suites. And I didn’t like to think of finding Oliver there, even if Giselle thought it the most likely place to look for him.
But this strange palace didn’t seem to follow a usual layout. We passed through room after room, the corridors and apartments creating a warren, one leading into another into another, until I had no idea where we were anymore. Many rooms held no furnishings, but we found a massive dining room containing an ornate table made of thick ice, with more than twenty matching chairs.
Giselle shivered when she saw it. “Can you imagine eating here?”
A blond head with burning blue eyes filled my mind. Had Oliver been forced to eat meals here? Not surprisingly, I hadn’t seen a single fire since we’d entered, and the air burned so coldly against my skin, I was surprised I wasn’t steaming. Did some enchantment keep the inhabitants from freezing?
I looked over at Giselle as we entered another long corridor. “Are you cold?”
She shot me an odd look. “No, Celine. I’m walking through a palace made entirely of ice, the home of someone who calls herself the Snow Queen. I’m feeling toasty warm. Must be all those bonfires burning everywhere.”
I rolled my eyes, and she rolled hers straight back.
“Yes, I’m cold.”
“But, how cold?” I persisted. “I’m about to turn blue, and I’m seriously concerned I may lose my fingers and toes, cold? Or, this is unpleasant, and I could probably do with an extra layer or a nice fireplace, cold?”
This time Giselle took the question seriously, considering her answer.
“Closer to the second, I think. Which is surprising now that I think about it. It must be part of the magic of this place.” She reached out to run her fingers along a wall and shuddered.
“Well, that’s reassuring, I suppose.” I eyed a graceful column as we passed but kept my hands to myself. “And not only for Oliver’s sake. Perhaps this Snow Queen is a bit more human herself than she might like us to believe.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Giselle murmured, staring with fascination at an intricate chandelier of ice hanging from the ceiling.
I couldn’t imagine the point of it since I felt certain it would never hold candles.
“Oh, I’m not counting on anything,” I said. “Believe me.”
“Good,” said Giselle.
Despite her lack of further comment, I winced. I hadn’t forgotten that she had told me not to go to the forbidden hut back in the village. Or that I had frozen when the snow leopard attacked. For every time I had saved her, there was another occasion where I had let her down. Neither of us could afford for this time to be anything but a success.
No matter how many rooms we explored, we found no other people. In fact, we found nothing at all that wasn’t made of ice. Nothing that made the palace look lived in at all.
Although the layout was different, it reminded me a little of what the Eldonian palace could have been like without the warm touches of velvet and wood. Back before the hand of the servant-turned-queen, Estelle, transformed it. No wonder she had decided to take on a decoration project.
When we found the first room that contained something other than ice, my thoughts were once more directed back to the true palace. The display room reminded me forcibly of the Eldonian one, although this one held fewer jewels and more domed pedestals. The domes were made of the thinnest of ice, instead of glass, of course. But there was no mistaking the similarity.
My eyes skimmed over them all, noting how many were empty. Waiting for future treasures? Or the home of objects currently in use? I peered at one that held two combs, simple in design but elegantly carved. The stand was clearly made to hold three, and I wondered if they were useless without the third or whether each of the combs held a different enchantment.
Glancing back at Giselle, I jolted and called a wordless warning. She started and looked at me guiltily, pulling back her hand just before touching one of the domes.
“Who knows what powers these hold?” she said. “One of them might help us defeat this Snow Queen.”
“Yes, it might,” I said. “But it might just as likely kill us. And how are we to know the difference? They’ve all been tainted by her, remember. However good their purpose may have been originally.”
Giselle paled even further than her already chilly coloring, and we both hurried from the room. Not long afterward, we stumbled across a second room that held something more than ice. And once again the room seemed to mirror something from the true palace. This time something that was common to most palaces. A portrait gallery.
“Well,” said Giselle, after we strode silently down its length. “This is different.”
“It’s…” I didn’t know quite how to finish the sentence. I’d never seen anything like it.
“Self-obsessed, would you say?” Giselle suggested.
I nodded wordlessly. Where a normal royal portrait gallery held the painted likenesses of generations of royals, this gallery portrayed only one person. Painting after painting of a single woman in various poses.
Her hair at first glance appeared white but, as I examined one painting more closely, I realized it was white blond, as leached of color as the rest of her. Even the blue pigment of her eyes was so pale that I could see the red of her blood vessels shining through. Everything about her face made me shiver, an unnatural quality to it that I suspected had more to do with the model than any lack of skill in the artist.
“Celine!” Giselle’s sharp cry drew my attention away from what could only be yet another image of the Snow Queen herself.
Giselle had wandered away, reaching the end of the gallery ahead of me, and was fixedly regarding something there. I hurried to catch up, eager to see what had caught her attention.
“This one isn’t the Snow Queen,” she said as I reached her.
I came to a sudden stop, my mouth falling open. “No,” I finally said slowly, “it most certainly is not.”
It was, however, a recognizable portrait. Here at the end of the gallery, a single painting depicted someone other than the Snow Queen. A large image of the long-dead Queen Estelle. The image was well done, there could be no doubt of her identity. But, at the same time, she looked different. Determined still, but nothing of the sweetness showed. If anything, her face held a hint of calculation that didn’t quite sit naturally.
“But why…” My question trailed off as Giselle pointed at something beside the portrait.
Like the painting of the queen back in the capital, this one hung beside a domed pedestal. Only this one wasn’t empty. It held shimmering folds of material that I thought might be a cloak. An old-fashioned design that I had seen in old portraits.
“What d
oes it mean?” I asked, after looking back and forth between the pedestal and the painting several times.
“I have no idea,” said Giselle. “But I get the sense there’s a story here. And that one of those objects back there might extend life. Because this feels personal. I think this Snow Queen woman knew my great-grandmother.”
Our pace increased after that, both of us even more on edge than we had been before. The continued emptiness of the palace was more than eerie, and I could only hope that Valley View had an unusually law-abiding populace and not that the Snow Queen made a habit of disposing of lawbreakers on arrival.
I reminded myself that Oliver was a crown prince. And that the Snow Queen’s servant had expertly manipulated him here. She must have some purpose for him beyond death. If assassination had been her aim, Sterling could have achieved it on our journey up the mountain easily enough.
Finally, on the second level, we found a bedchamber that actually contained a bed covered in blankets and furs. A pack sat in a corner and several items of male clothing lay draped across a chair. Although none of it looked familiar, Giselle and I still looked at each with excited eyes. We were not alone here.
Unfortunately, we found no further such evidence. An enormous suite looked as if it must be meant for the queen herself but, if so, she apparently had no need for real blankets. And I couldn’t quite determine if the gowns that hung in the wardrobes were made of material or ice.
The Snow Queen might once have been human, but surely she could not count as one anymore. Not if this was her bedchamber.
Soon after that we found a small staircase that led straight down. A servant stair, no doubt. Giselle’s energy seemed to rise as we descended lower.
“If there is anyone here, it makes sense they would be down in the servants’ quarters. We should have started by going down instead of up.”