Michelle stormed out of the sleeping quarters, and as dawn breached the sky—I could only assume, since I could not return to sleep—I told myself again and again how wrong she was. I knew Nell… didn’t I?
But if I did, then how could I have seen her kissing Lethe Eraeus so passionately in the magical mirror?
And if I did, how could she now be declared his ascendant queen?
The woman who would bear the heir to the throne…
The ice throne.
Nell
In the morning, a servant came and announced the dawn. This servant had a new face; I couldn’t keep them all straight anymore. Another servant came in to offer me fresh garments for the day: another dress of white, naturally. Another servant arrived, perhaps an hour later, to offer me breakfast: a plate of steaming oats with syrup and chunks of dried fruit. When she exited, I couldn’t help but notice that there was no sound of a key turning in a lock. But the servants must have held keys in order to enter the room in the first place—which meant that either they were negligent, or they had been informed that I was free to move about the castle.
Interesting. Perhaps Lethe’s outburst yesterday, and his subsequent guilt, had been useful to me after all.
Assuming that I would no longer be detained or questioned if I was caught wandering, I vacated the premises and stepped into that now-familiar hallway. For God’s sake, how long had I been here? I couldn’t be sure. But the nightmarish landscape and howling winds no longer struck me as otherworldly. The spires and cathedral ceiling and romantic, ancient trappings no longer seemed quite so foreign.
Was it natural to begin to associate one’s prison with one’s home?
I wandered along the hallway, deeper into the royal wing, because I had already toured the main foyer and off-shooting towers yesterday. However, I had never been allowed deeper into the royal wing, where I had to presume other members of the “royal” family resided.
I wondered where Lethe was.
Not because I wanted to see him… but because if he found me, he would latch onto me and find some way to contain me. Even though he was beginning to trust me, I felt more akin to a dog on a leash than a free woman. My independent movement certainly made him nervous, but could you really imprison your queen in a tower and never allow her to leave her room?
I worried about what the answer to that question might be, but I didn’t have to worry about it for long—
“She won’t be happy about that.”
—because I recognized that voice.
Stooping down to my knees at the large keyhole, I glimpsed inside the next room. Lethe stood with a large yet angular man who I had never seen before. He held himself with such severity and brutality, I was immediately positive that the man was the tyrant I had come to expect of Lethe’s parentage: his father.
“I don’t give a damn what makes your weak bride happy!” he roared, and backhanded a crystal decanter of blackish-red liquid—blood?—into a wall. “Where has my son gone? My flesh and blood? The torch in this race? The new king of the land we have struggled to reclaim for almost two generations? Gods damn it, Lethe! Don’t you go weak on me now!”
“I’m not weak!” Lethe cried, though his expression was woebegone. He seemed on the verge of tears. “I’ve given you everything you ever asked of me!”
“Like hell,” Lethe’s father growled. “What happened to my drink?”
“You smashed it. You smashed it into the wall.”
“Don’t talk back to me, you worthless street trash,” his father went on, seeming drunken already. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t even noon yet.
Lethe’s father stormed to the corner of the room, where his drink had created a puddle, and picked up the decanter. Only an inch or two of blackish-red syrup remained in the bottom, and the man uncapped the decanter and downed it readily.
“I have given you everything you asked of me,” Lethe reiterated. “You wanted me to fight with you… to bring about this kingdom… and I did that. And then you wanted me to rule for you, and take the crown, and be the face of the revolution… and I will do that, too, because I’m ready—because you wanted me to have a queen, and an heir, and a coronation… and I’m ready. I can do all those things for you, Father. I have a bride. I know she’s not what you would call a perfect bride—but she is strong enough to bear dragon seed. We know that, because she was Theon’s chosen mate, and he’s one of the strongest—”
Lethe’s father whirled and raised his hand, and Lethe flinched away, clamping his mouth shut.
His father lowered his hand again.