Jim Hines - The Snow Queen's shadow

Even in winter, hours before dawn, the harbor was a place of chaos. One overweight captain in a garish green jacket shouted orders to the men unloading his ship. Farther along, a younger man in the uniform of the Harbormaster’s Office guided a fishing vessel into the docks. Beggars crawled like lice along the edge of the canal, competing with the gulls to collect fish guts to sell for bait. The cries of the gulls sounded like the mocking laughter of children.

“Look at them,” Snow said. “Cawing and racing about as though their lives were in any way meaningful.”

Jakob didn’t answer. He walked beside her like a pet, his hand clamped in her own. He hadn’t tried to run away, not since she threatened to fling him into the ocean. The crying was another matter. Her magic had silenced his whimpering, but couldn’t penetrate his mind. He had cried throughout the carriage ride to the harbor. Dried tears and snot covered his face.

She scooped Jakob into one arm, carrying him in a way that might from a distance be mistaken as caring. His body was taut, and he wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

“You could burn it all, and who would notice?” Snow asked. “Ten years from now, their names would be forgotten. Twenty years, and the fire would be but a story told by old men. Even you, little prince. Your death will be nothing but a note in a forgotten history of the royal family.”

Jakob whimpered.

“I was to be queen,” she continued, looking out over the water. “My mother wouldn’t live forever. All I had to do was survive, and one day I would have earned my reward. When I met Roland, I dreamed I would make him king, that we would rule Allesandria together. But the world cares nothing for dreams.”

As she walked, she marveled at her strength. The mirror’s magic had infused her blood. She hardly noticed Jakob’s weight. She could toss him into the sea or dash him against the rocks without straining, and spellcasting came as easily as breathing. She briefly considered ripping the cliffside apart, merely because she could. Perhaps this was Beatrice’s final gift, giving Snow the power to take back what was hers.

“All my life, my mother’s magic dwarfed mine. It was only anger and desperation that allowed me to defeat her, and even in defeat she destroyed me. I should have been queen, but her poison had already spread through Allesandria, corrupting those in power. They were afraid to confront my mother, but once she was dead, they turned their loathing and their fear upon me.”

She adjusted the strap of her sack. The rope dug into her shoulder, but the pain didn’t bother her. “The world is broken, Prince Jakob. A place of chaos and madness that can never truly be controlled. Your parents believe they will one day rule Lorindar, but they cannot control her people any more than a beggar can command those gulls.”

She smiled and stretched a hand toward the birds. With barely a thought, one of the gulls cried out and fell, bouncing off the roof of a warehouse with a wet thump.

She slowed, glancing at the road behind her. It would be a shame to abandon her library at the palace, but Lorindar was a small, insignificant nation. And what need did she have for old books and scrolls? Though there was something… a spell she had been working on? Something to do with Beatrice’s body. Her experiments to save Beatrice had been a failure. The potions and charms she had created over the years were of no use anymore.

The memory slipped away, retreating down into the darkness.

The presence of magic pulled her attention back to the docks. As a child, she had always been able to sense her mother’s spells. Now the magic hummed through her body, a silent tune that rose and fell with her surroundings. This latest chorus of spellcasting originated from the four people hurrying up the road toward her. The Harbormaster himself led the group, if Snow’s eyes didn’t lie.

“Master Francis.” Snow should have foreseen this. The Harbormaster was responsible for all incoming and outgoing ships, which meant checking those vessels for illegal enchantments. A simple illusion had allowed her to stride out of the palace and steal a carriage, but Francis would be able to see through such tricks. She slid the sack from her shoulder, dropping it to the road. A single fragment of glass, no larger than the cap of an acorn, spilled out. “Is there a problem?”

“Princess Whiteshore sent word to watch for you and the boy.” Francis’ men spread out behind him. “Set Prince Jakob down and surrender.”

“What gives you the right to command me?” Snow stepped forward, crushing the glass beneath her heel. She lifted her boot from the pieces and blew softly.

She could feel Francis’ magic circling her, trying to contain her without hurting the prince. She shredded his spell as easily as cobwebs.

Frost spread over the glass shards on the road. Tiny frozen spikes grew from each splinter, spreading into paper-thin panes of ice.

From behind the Harbormaster, a grunting bull of a man lunged forward to grab Snow. Francis shouted an order, but it was too late. The man’s fingers dug into her forearm, trying futilely to pry her grip from the prince. Snow put her other hand over his and squeezed until she felt the bones snap.

Snow pointed to the broken shards. Wings of ice twitched, then fluttered to life. Insects of snow and glass, no larger than wasps, swarmed toward the Harbormaster.

He cast another spell, knocking two of the wasps back. One of his men destroyed a third, but there were too many. Soon the rest were crawling over their bodies, jabbing stingers of mirrored glass into their skin.

Snow glanced around. She had created close to twenty of the wasps, more than she needed to deal with the Harbormaster and his men. There was no point in letting the others go to waste. She called the rest, allowing them to settle into her hair, a living crown of ice and glass. “Come, Jakob. Let’s find ourselves a ship. I’ve so much to do.”

Danielle maintained her composure until she reached the room she shared with Armand. She shut and locked the door behind her, then pulled her sword from its sheath. She collapsed against the door, pressing her forehead to the flat of the blade. The glass sword was liquid smooth, save for a handspan near the hilt where it had once broken. Snow’s magic had fixed the sword, but that part of the blade was frosted.

Jakob was gone. Armand, too, for all intents, unless Isaac or Gerta could free him of Snow’s spell. Snow, Beatrice… it was too much.

Snow had taken her son.

No matter how hard she tried to focus, thoughts of Jakob returned. His confusion yesterday as Danielle pulled him from his father. His laughter the week before at the performance of a tumbler who juggled as many as seven eggs at a time, only to break them all in the end. His small hands digging into her nightgown in the mornings, demanding she wake up.

She forced herself to rise. Clutching the sword in both hands, she made her way to the edge of the bed, thinking back to the first time she had felt Jakob moving within her womb. Danielle had been a prisoner of her stepsisters at the time, trapped deep in the Duchess’ domain below Fairytown. She remembered the cold touch of fairy hands, the tightening of her skin as magic aged her flesh and the unborn child within.

The Duchess was no fairy noble. Centuries ago, she had been a lowly servant, a spy who betrayed the king and queen of Fairytown. On the way to her execution, she had tricked her freedom from the king, bargaining for the right to see one final sunrise. When he agreed, the Duchess fled to the chasm at the center of Fairytown, hiding deep underground where sunlight never penetrated. There she had built her own small kingdom, forever protected from fairy interference by her bargain. Until she looked upon another sunrise, the rulers of Fairytown wouldn’t touch her.