The Snow Queen's Captive (15 page)

“What is this?” Kai asked, a sense of dread in his stomach.

“Return to bed, Kai,” Gerda commanded. “You’re not well. We will handle this.”

“Handle what?” he pushed forward, ignoring Gerda’s clinging hands. “Where do you go?”

“She’s sick,” Great Uglaf said, stroking his long braids. “You said so yourself. Now is our time to destroy her and reclaim our lands.”

Destroy her? “No,” Kai shouted. “She means no harm—“

The murmur of voices grew angrier. Nearby, someone shook their head with pity.

“You’re still caught in her spell, Kai,” Gerda said in a gentle voice. Her hands patted at his chest, as if trying to soothe him. “Let us take care of this. You will be yourself again by evening.”

“I’m not sick,” Kai growled, pushing her hands away. “Nor am I ensorcelled. She doesn’t want to be a burden any more than we want her to. The ice covering the land isn’t something she wants, either.”

“Then she should leave!” said someone.

“She can’t. She’s trapped here,” Kai said. “She must stay here until…”

Until today.

With sick horror, he stared at the war party. She was right all along. Gerda was coming for her, and only one of them would survive this day if her prophecy was correct.

And Charlotte was sick, barely able to rise from bed.

He stared at the faces of his tribe, all of them looking at him with suspicion. There was no dissuading them from their task. They were one step away from trapping him themselves, he knew, and forcing him to stay behind. He’d never let that happen. Never.

So he picked up an extra spear and clenched it in tight, bloodless fingers. “I will go with you.”

Gerda’s face broke into a beaming smile. “Let us go reclaim our land!” she cried, thrusting her spear into the air.

The tribe cheered. He forced himself to cheer with them.

Hopefully, somehow, Kai could protect Charlotte before it was too late.

~~ * * * ~~

They marched across the valley, singing battle songs and in good spirits. All of them were so positive of the outcome. Today, they would defeat the evil snow queen and reclaim their lands. Today, all would become right again.

It was all Kai could do not to howl with rage at their arrogance.

He knew they meant well. He knew this was a party to retake their land inasmuch as it was revenge for his capture. But they didn’t listen when he’d tried to explain Charlotte’s sweetness, her attempts to create plants to feed his people despite the cold, her loneliness and her good heart. All they saw was the snow queen.

And it was frustrating for Kai, because he couldn’t blame them.

So he traveled with them in silence, ignoring the jubilant war-chants and Gerda’s giddy instructions as she led the party. He needed a plan to save her before his people could harm her. She could easily protect herself by shoring up walls and turning the fortress into a maze to confuse them. She could simply shove them back out of her domain as easily as she’d removed him.

But he thought of her weakness again, and wondered how much that would cost her.

“There it is,” someone murmured. Dozens of hands rose to eyes, and the war party squinted at the gleaming fortress of ice at the base of the mountain.

“It’s magnificent,” someone breathed. “Her power must be immense.”

Kai tried to see it through their eyes, noting the delicate fluting spires that reached for the sky, the crystalline crenellations along the walls, the spikes she’d begun to create along the portcullis until she’d diverted her power otherwise.

But all Kai saw was that the castle gleamed far too wetly, too iridescent in the sunlight. The delicate, fluting spires didn’t seem to be as tall as before, and the crenellations were misshapen in spots and starting to melt.

And fear pounded in his heart. Fear for Charlotte. He raced ahead, using the butt of his spear as a walking stick as he pushed through the drifting snow, heading for the castle. Gerda hurried after him, a few paces behind. “Kai?” She asked, but he ignored her. The snow underneath his feet was soft and a little slushy.

It was melting.

His heart hammered and he began to sprint. They were still several leagues from her castle, but he’d run all the gods-damned way if he had to, simply to get ahead of them. Fear carried him, made his footsteps surer than the others, made him reckless where they were cautious, and soon, he was half a league ahead of Gerda, who was shouting for him to slow down, breathless.

But on he ran.

Charlotte needed him.

It seemed like eternity before he reached the castle walls. The thick ice of the gate was locked in place, and small rivulets of meltwater ran down the front. He pushed at it, only to have his wet hands slide over the ice. It wasn’t budging. Frustrated, he slapped a hand against it, and then glanced behind him. Gerda and the others were specks on the horizon, but growing larger by the minute. He needed another way in. Determined, Kai raced along the courtyard walls, looking for a weak spot in the ice. There, in the brightest part of the sunlight, the wall was so thin he could see patches of green and brown on the other side – near her garden.

With a cry of rage, he hefted his spear and slammed the butt of it against the wall.

It cracked, striated lines beginning to form in the ice. Another slam of his spear, and a thick chunk fell at his feet. He continued to jab his spear at it, working furiously until he’d made enough of a hole to see through.

What he saw on the other side chilled him.

There, at the edge of her garden, Charlotte lay collapsed, her hand reaching into the soil as if giving it the last of her powers. Her lovely dress was nearly fully melted, and the white floss of her hair lay in a tangle in the wet brown soil.

She wasn’t moving.

“Charlotte,” he cried, and attacked the wall with his spear anew. “Charlotte! I’m coming! Hold on for me!”

If she heard him, she didn’t stir.

Her lack of response made him redouble his efforts, until he was frantically chipping at the wall with quick, violent strokes. When the hole was almost big enough, he rammed his shoulder against the ice, and it groaned. A second ram and his shoulder throbbed in protest, but he was able to push through, stumbling to the other side.

Then, he got to his feet and raced to her, ripping off his cloak so he could wrap her in it. With infinite tenderness, he lifted her from the ground, cradling her form against him. He wrapped her in the cloak, but her limp hand brushed against his skin.

She…wasn’t cold.

The fear he’d been struggling against made his heart stutter in response.

Charlotte, his snow queen, wasn’t cold. Her skin was heating, which meant that the powers she depended on had been completely tapped out. She was helpless.

And he suspected she was dying.

With a cry of rage, he clutched her to his chest, rocking her. She was so still, her breathing faint, her cheeks drained of the blueish tint that spoke of her health.

“For weeks, I’ve dreamed of touching you,” he told her in a sorrow-filled voice. His fingers brushed over her skin, her hair, her cheek. “But not like this. Never like this. I will gladly give up any chance to ever touch you again if you’ll only open your eyes, Charlotte. Love, open your eyes for me.”

But there was no response. Wherever Charlotte was, it was far from him. He bent over her, trying to contain his grief.

“Kai?” Gerda pushed forward through the hole he’d made in the icy fortress wall. “Kai, are you all right?”

He looked up at Gerda, miserable. “She’s dying.”

“She is?” She stepped forward and then paused, eyeing his expression. “You’re upset.”

His fingers brushed over Charlotte’s lifeless cheek. “She’s my mate.”

“Your mate?” She gaped. “Her?”

“She is good,” he spat at Gerda and her incredulous expression. “You don’t know her like I do. She’s spent her dying breaths to try and make this land a place that we can all live peacefully in.” His heart ached in his breast as if he were the one dying. “She’s given everything she had and gotten nothing in return.”

“I don’t understand, Kai,” Gerda said, moving to sit next to him on the ground. She laid her spear in the melting snow. “She kidnapped you and enslaved you.”

“That wasn’t Charlotte,” he said, brushing his fingers along her fine cheekbones and her slack mouth, where her breathing was so, so shallow and faint. “That was the other.”

“Explain,” Gerda told him, even as others came through the hole in the ice and paused at the sight of him, cradling their enemy so tenderly in his arms.

So he did, holding Charlotte close to him as he told Gerda and the war party about his experiences inside the snow queen’s castle. The initial sorcery, the tortures…he glossed over some of those. Then he told them how, a month ago, she’d arrived in his cell, wide-eyed and frightened, and seemingly clueless as to who he was. He told them of her lack of knowledge in simple things – how to feed herself, how to feed him, how to do anything that she’d done with ease just the day before. He told them of her plans to let him go, the day she ran away, and the plants she’d worked so hard to create.

He looked over at those plants now. Small, pale green bushes grew in neat rows in the dirt he’d helped her plow. On a few, he could see pale berries.

She’d succeeded.

“It’s not enough to feed us,” he told them. “Not yet, but given time, I know she would have. She showed me how to fish through the ice, and creatures to hunt on the far side of the mountain. In time, we could make things work. I know it.” He bent his head, pressed his lips to her feverishly warm brow and hated that he couldn’t even see a hint of a mark from where he’d pressed his mouth. “She was a prisoner as much as I was.”

“Oh, Kai,” Gerda said, patting him on the back. “Don’t be sad.” Her voice was casual, as if she were consoling him over a broken arrow and not the loss of a lover.

“Don’t be sad?” he gave her an incredulous look. “She was my mate.” He looked down at Charlotte’s colorless face, the closed, sunken eyes. “I loved her and would have followed her anywhere.”

“Even if she left this land in the grip of eternal winter? Even if you never felt the summer’s warmth again?”

“Even so.” Warmth was Charlotte’s smile when she looked at him, the soft feel of her body next to his in bed. “I would give everything up to remain at her side.” He looked at Gerda’s discarded spear. “And you came here to kill her.”

“Well,” Gerda said with an irritated sigh. “I suppose there’s no need for that anymore, is there?”

“Oh poop,” said an unfamiliar voice. “Is this the part where I say it would have all been possible if it weren’t for you meddling kids?”

Chapter Nine

A strange woman strode from the castle itself. She wore an odd pair of baggy yellow pants, a yellow and orange tunic, and a strange shiny yellow hat. She was elderly, her hair white and curly, her face cherubic, and she was stout of figure.

She pushed her way in next to Kai, shoving aside his tribespeople that had gathered around. “All right, all right,” she said. “Let me step in and fix things before this little martyr takes everything a bit too far.” She leaned in and pinched Charlotte’s cheek, cooing. “Who’s a little martyr? Who’s a little martyr? Yes you are, aren’t you?”

“That voice,” Kai said slowly, realization dawning. “I recognize it. You were one of the ones she spoke to in the castle. One of her tormentors.”

“Now, now, sweet boy.” She reached out and pinched Kai’s cheek in a grandmotherly fashion. “‘Tormentor’ is a bit harsh, I think. I prefer to think of myself as a ‘motivation specialist’.”

“What’s going on? Who are you?” Gerda asked, frowning at both Kai and the stranger. “Is this the true snow queen?” She reached for the spear on the ground along-side her.

“Hsst,” the old woman said, giving a quick shake of her head. “None of that. You already declared that you weren’t going to kill the snow queen, and I don’t want you crapping up this happy ever after because you’re a little spear-happy.” She wiggled her fingers and Gerda’s spear melted away into a puff of dust that was carried away on the breeze. “Now. Let me take care of things.” She sat next to Kai and took Charlotte’s hand. “Wakey-wakey. Naptime’s over.”

“She’s not sleeping,” Kai said. This strange woman seemed to have answers and yet…she made no sense. “I cannot rouse her.”

“Yes, but you’re not a fairy godmother, are you?” She patted Charlotte’s hand again. “Come on now, honey. I don’t have all day. There are other people to make miserable too, you know.”

He opened his mouth to protest…but the bundle in his arms stirred.

“Mmmm?” Charlotte said, her eyelids fluttering. All at once, he felt her grow cold in his arms, the chill seeping through the blankets. Around her, ice crystallized and his breath began to puff in the air. And oh, by all the gods, he’d never been so happy to see that.

“Charlotte,” he breathed, overjoyed. He wanted to shout with happiness, but the others were giving them wary looks. He settled for hugging her fur-covered body closer to his. He’d never been so happy to feel the chill of her skin through the furs. “Ah, my mate. Are you all right?”

She blinked up at him as if awakening from a long nap, and then smiled slowly. She was so beautiful. “Kai.” Her gaze went to the woman that sat at his side, who’d released Charlotte’s hand and was now blowing on her fingers to return the warmth to them. “Muffin?”

“Yes, dearie,” the old woman said.

“Why are you dressed like a fireman?”

The one called Muffin threw up her hands. “Because I’ve been putting out fires all day, honey. Everything always goes to hell in a handbasket at once. Such is the job of a fairy godmother. Everyone decides to make life-changing decisions all at the same time. Terrible for scheduling.”

“O-kay,” Charlotte said. She rubbed her eyes and seemed to just now realize that there were a lot of people standing around them. As he watched, she shrank a little closer in his arms. “Are they here to kill me?”

“No one’s killing anyone,” Muffin declared. “Everything has been decided.”

Charlotte gave her a wary look, still clinging to Kai’s furs. “Then…who won?”