Jim Hines - The Snow Queen's shadow

“I serve as the king wishes, Your Highness,” Ollear said carefully.

“The king is a fool to waste someone of your talents. I remember your visits to the palace. The potions you brewed for my mother.”

“What do you want?” His gaze was openly calculating now. Snow was alone, but she was the daughter of the most powerful queen Allesandria had known in centuries. His fear was fading, replaced by hunger for the opportunities she might present.

“You’re not the only one to be wronged by our new king. I mean to see justice done for those crimes.”

“You do have a legal claim to the throne,” he said cautiously. “Yador is merely a border province, as you said, but I retain my seat in the Nobles’ Circle. I could-”

“What would you ask from me in return?” Snow interrupted. “What cost to betray your king?”

“Nothing, Your Highness.” Ollear stood, his hands spread. In other lands, it would be a gesture of peace, but in Allesandria, where every noble learned magic even before they mastered their letters, the lack of a weapon meant nothing. He stopped at a polite distance. “I ask only to help you correct an injustice.”

And to place Snow in his debt. His lies wormed into her stomach, leaving her nauseated. “Do you remember my father, Ollear?”

“I do.” The wariness had returned to his voice, though he kept his eyes averted. In Allesandria, to stare too long was to invite a magical confrontation. “He was strong in heart and mind, but his body failed beneath the demands of the throne. Your mother summoned me often to try to ease his pain.”

“I was so young when he fell ill.” Snow paced the circumference of the room, watching the lamplights below, the mountains in the distance. From this height, she could just make out the guard towers on both sides of the border. “I’ve spent years studying the healing arts, Ollear. I’ve yet to find a single malady that strikes with the same symptoms that took my father. Stealing his voice, withering his body, but also robbing him of his magic. A strange ailment, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Your parents were powerful practitioners,” Ollear said carefully. “They did much to expand the boundaries of magic, but as you know, all power carries a price.”

“What was the price of your chancellorship?” Snow asked. “To prepare a draught which could slip past my father’s charms against poison? One which would weaken him over time without attracting suspicion to my mother? Your skills are unmatched. You’re the only one she would turn to for such help.”

Ollear’s companion edged toward the door. Snow waved, and the bedsheet leaped out to entangle her feet. The other end of the sheet knotted itself to the bed. Snow stepped into the doorway, blocking their escape. Jakob chirped softly, burrowing into her hair as if trying to hide.

“Your mother had many allies,” Ollear said. “If you mean to rule Allesandria, you would be wise to follow her example. You will need friends.”

“I loved my father,” Snow said softly.

Ollear lunged for his desk. He snatched what appeared to be an inkwell and flung the contents toward Snow.

Snow might not have had Talia’s fairy-blessed reflexes, but her missions for Queen Bea had honed her reactions both physical and magical. By the time the sickly green liquid reached Snow, her magic had frozen it into a series of rippled icicles and droplets. She caught the largest icicle in her free hand, maintaining her own magic to prevent the heat of her flesh from melting it.

Ollear watched as though entranced as the ice in Snow’s hand changed, growing paper-thin wings. The other pieces had broken when they hit the floor, but they too responded to Snow’s will, forming insects the size of flies and gnats.

Sweat beaded Ollear’s brow. “I can help you.”

Snow pursed her lips and blew. A wasp the size of her hand shivered and flexed its wings. “I already have help.”

Ollear fought well, destroying more than half of her insects before one slipped past his guard to sting his ear. Skin sizzled, and he screamed. The pain cost him his concentration, and soon the battle was over.

It wasn’t a quick death, but as he had intended the same for her, she felt no remorse. Nor did she take any joy from his end. Death wouldn’t undo his crimes, wouldn’t restore her father to life. This was but the beginning.

“Look.” She wrapped her fingers around Jakob’s fragile body, tugging him free. She held him toward Ollear’s twitching body. “No matter what lies we tell the world, death reveals the truth. Ollear Curtana was a traitor and a coward. The ugliness of his end matches the ugliness of his soul.”

She turned to his friend, who was cowering behind the bed. “And how did you serve the Lord Protector, aside from the obvious?”

The girl’s voice shook. “I’m his scribe, Your… Your Highness.”

Snow returned the trembling bird to her shoulder and reached into the pouch at her belt. A scribe was a lowly enough position to go unnoticed, particularly in the chaos which would follow upon the discovery of Ollear’s death. “Give me your hand.”

She bit her lip and shook her head.

With a sigh, Snow slid a needle-long sliver of glass from the pouch. “This will hurt.”

The sheets tightened, holding her in place long enough for Snow to jab the glass into the girl’s neck. She screamed once, and then her struggles slowed as the tip snapped off within her flesh. Snow removed the rest of the sliver and wiped the blood onto the sheet.

“You will be questioned about Ollear’s death. Either by the local mageguard, or perhaps by the king’s Storm-crows.” Snow pressed a larger shard of glass into the girl’s hand. “Begin with them.”

Danielle reread the note. This was the second message she had received from King Theodore. The queen’s funeral had been held three days ago, under heightened guard. And Danielle hadn’t been present.

She closed her eyes. Grief could come later. For now, better to maintain the dam, to focus on what needed to be done.

Tymalous and Father Isaac had made no progress at freeing Armand and the others from Snow’s curse. They had managed to find the few remaining shards of Snow’s mirror around the palace, and were spending every moment studying them for answers, but with no significant progress.

A soft quack made her jump. She smiled at the duck that had delivered the message. He was small for his breed, a black-and-gray-dappled bird with a smoke-colored bill. He ruffled his wings but settled down, waiting.

Danielle sipped her tea, grimacing at the medicinal taste, and returned to the letter she had begun writing to the king. She had described their failure to save the prince, and the futile search that followed. Danielle’s dolphins hadn’t returned, and Snow had evaded their pursuit since that night. Gerta suspected she was using the infected prisoners to track and avoid the Phillipa.

Seven men had been cut, along with Stub the cat. Stub was now confined to a small cage in the chartroom, and the infected crewmen were locked in the hold. Even if Snow looked through their eyes, she should see nothing to reveal their plans.

Gerta was probably right, but what more could they do, short of throwing the prisoners overboard? They were victims, innocents who had fallen to Snow’s magic under Danielle’s command.

Bells clanged from the deck. The duck squawked and beat his wings in alarm. Danielle hastily signed the note and rolled it tight, sliding it into a leather tube. She smeared wax over the seams to protect it from the elements, then bound it to the duck’s leg. “Thank you. Please take this to the king as quickly as you can.”

She tossed her cloak on over her nightgown and grabbed her sword belt. The bell continued to ring out as she opened the cabin door and stepped into the cold night air. Captain Hephyra was shouting orders, which the crew scrambled to obey. She waited for the duck to leave, then hurried over to join Talia.