The Snow Queen's shadow pn-4

by Jim C. Hines

  The responsibility gave Talia something to focus on. Few nobles would risk acting directly, but each had brought his or her own retinue. If something did happen, it would likely be someone in his or her staff who did it. Someone most people would overlook, who could be disavowed if caught.

  Lord Oren of Dragon Lake was a possible candidate. The man was paranoid enough to bring his own personal food taster, despite the implied insult to King Theodore’s hospitality. Oren and his wife ate with their own utensils of pearl-handled silver. Such fears revealed much about the mind that harbored them.

  Another man to watch was Anton of Eastpointe. Anton was an older man, one who gave every impression of contentment with his lot. But his son was known to harbor a grudge against Jessica of Emrildale, who had spurned a marriage proposal. When the delegation from Emrildale arrived, Talia would have to watch them all.

  Then there was the pixie Febblekeck, recently-appointed ambassador from Fairytown. Febblekeck was a pretentious rag doll with wings who shed glittering orange dust everywhere he went. He sat cross-legged on the table, sipping a noxious drink of salted honey water from a thimble-sized cup as he leered up at Oren’s wife Yvette.

  Febblekeck was unlikely to be involved in any assassination attempt, at least directly. The treaty between Lorindar and Fairytown prevented Febblekeck from harming humans. But Talia had watched too many fairies snake their way around the stipulations of that treaty. Though Yvette appeared ready to stab him with her fork, which would take care of any fairy threat for the moment.

  “Humans have a peculiar attraction to all things fairy,” Febblekeck was saying. “To this day, there are those who smuggle pixie dust out of Fairytown, to be used as a drug. I’m told the effects on a human are quite… potent.”

  Yvette wrinkled her nose. “I can’t imagine inhaling that filthy stuff.”

  Febblekeck’s smile grew. “Inhaling. Yes, let’s say that’s what they do.”

  If Snow were here, she would be whispering crude comments to Talia regarding the mechanics of pixie/human relations, trying to crack Talia’s composure and make her laugh. But Snow had been spending all her time cleaning the debris from her broken mirrors and repairing the damage to her library. Given Snow’s vanity, Talia suspected she would try to keep to herself until her wounds healed.

  Talia stared at one of the windows, trying to push the image of Snow’s bloody face from her mind. Had the glass cut any deeper, or if one of the shards had struck her throat… Snow could have bled to death, and it would have been hours before anyone found her.

  “What did you say to my wife?” Lord Oren struck the table hard enough to rattle his plate, jolting Talia’s attention back to the conversation. The room fell silent.

  Febblekeck’s wings blurred, raising him to eye level with Oren and showering the table in glowing pixie dander. “I merely asked if she might join me for breakfast tomorrow. I’ve a bottle of syrup from Fairytown that’s far too much for one pixie.” Glittering eyebrows wagged. “Tapped from the maple of a dryad, with all of the associated

  … benefits that come from a nymph’s magic.”

  “You miserable little insect!” Oren kicked back his chair and stood. Talia was already circling the table.

  “Lord Oren, stop.” Danielle’s tone was the one she used when Jakob refused to listen, and it cut through Oren’s bellowing as easily as a sword. “Would you play into the pixie’s hands?”

  “If he’d keep those hands where they belong-”

  “He’s not touched your wife,” Danielle said. “He’s committed no crime.” She glanced at Febblekeck. “There’s no law against behaving like an ass. However, if you were to attack him-an ambassador from Fairytown-”

  “What kind of ambassador dishonors the very people he’s supposed to work with?” Oren demanded. By now, Talia was in position behind them both, ready to seize human or pixie should the need arise.

  Danielle gave Talia a slight nod of appreciation before turning her glare on Febblekeck. “The kind who’s more interested in leverage than peace. The kind who views politics as a game, seeking to score points for himself and his masters.”

  Febblekeck flashed a disarming smile. “I humbly beg your forgiveness, Princess. And yours, Lord Oren. I was overcome by your wife’s attractiveness, and forgot myself. It’s a flaw of the fairy race. We’re far too susceptible to beauty.”

  Prince Armand snorted. Without looking up from his meal, he said, “Pixies have an unfortunate sense of beauty.”

  Talia froze. Even Febblekeck appeared taken aback.

  “Excuse me, Your Highness?” Lord Oren appeared torn between anger and uncertainty. “I… believe I misheard you.”

  Armand took a drink, then returned his cup to the table. “Lady Yvette has the complexion of a plucked boar, and her voice grates the very soul. Febblekeck might as well seduce one of the hunting dogs from the kennel.”

  Oren’s cheeks went blood red. His hands balled into fists. Talia swore softly and moved to the left, to better intercept him if he forgot himself and lunged for the prince.

  “Forgive my son,” said King Theodore, speaking for the first time since dinner began. He stared at Armand as though seeing a stranger. “Beatrice’s death has been a strain upon us all, but grief is no excuse for such behavior. My apologies, Lord Oren.”

  Armand stood. “Do we now beg forgiveness for speaking the truth?”

  “Armand, sit down.” Danielle grabbed his hand, but he pulled away.

  “I take no orders from commoners.”

  Danielle jerked back as though struck. Lady Jeraldsen started to speak, trying to intervene, but Armand ignored her.

  “You’ve nothing to fear,” he went on. “Oren is a fat old coward, no threat to anyone.”

  Oren snarled and started toward the prince, one arm pulled back to strike.

  Talia hooked her arm through Oren’s and yanked him off-balance. A kick to the back of his leg spilled him to the floor. “Would you assault the Prince of Lorindar in his own hall?” Talia whispered.

  Oren shoved her away and pushed himself upright. His hands were shaking and his face was red, but he made no further move toward the prince. Armand stood with arms folded, an expression of boredom on his face.

  Talia glanced around the table, making sure nobody tried to take advantage of the chaos. Most of the assembled nobles had risen and backed away, distancing themselves from the fight. Danielle was talking to the king. Febblekeck had flown up to the rafters.

  “Have you suffered humiliation enough?” Armand asked. “If being knocked down by a servant doesn’t satisfy your need to look the fool, perhaps I could summon a young child to trounce you next.”

  Oren moved before Talia could stop him. She couldn’t tell which of the two men struck first as they crashed together. Oren punched the prince in the jaw, even as Armand buried his fist in Oren’s stomach. Talia jumped onto the table, dancing between plates and platters as she grabbed a silver pitcher of wine and emptied the contents over both men.

  Oren sputtered and reached for Talia. She swung the pitcher, which rang like a gong against his knuckles. He howled and spun away.

  “Enough!” King Theodore’s voice thundered through the hall. “If either of you so much as sneer at the other, I will have you both locked away. Is that clear?”

  Armand gave his father an exaggerated bow. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Majesty.” Without another word, he spun and left the hall.

  Oren was clutching his fist. The knuckles had already begun to swell. “My deepest sympathies on the death of your wife, King Theodore.” He stared after Armand. “I hope you’ll forgive me if my family chooses not to attend the funeral. We will be departing tonight.”

  Talia returned to Danielle’s side. “What just happened?”

  “That was not the man I married.” Danielle shook her head. “I’ve seen him angry, but never cruel.”

  Oren and Yvette were already leaving-through a different doorway than the one Armand had used, than
kfully. The rest of the people slowly settled back into their seats, all save Febblekeck. The pixie remained overhead, giggling to himself as he sipped his drink.

  “Armand has insulted you like that once before,” Talia said. “When he was under your stepsisters’ spell.”

  “Get Snow.” Danielle left to follow her husband.

  Talia palmed a roll from the table as she slipped away. She glanced back to make sure Febblekeck’s attention was elsewhere. There was one last thing she needed to attend to.

  Febblekeck squawked as the roll struck his head. He fell in a cloud of glowing dust, nearly striking the table before he recovered enough to take flight. He whirled, glaring from one human to the next. Talia smiled and pulled the door shut behind her.

  Snow walked slowly along the northern edge of the courtyard. The roof extended overhead, sheltering her path. Icicles as thick as her arm hung from the copper gutters. The evening air was chillier than usual, and the sun had dipped low enough that the castle wall blocked its light.

  At the woodpile, she dropped to one knee to retrieve the broken fragments of another mirror. She tossed the pieces into the sack she had carried since yesterday. The leather was thick enough to keep the sharp corners from jabbing her, though she could see a small hole near the bottom where the glass had cut the seam.

  She sat beside the pile, leaning against one of the iron rods that held the logs in place. Old spiderwebs stretched from the bottom logs to the base of the wall, though the weavers of those webs were nowhere to be seen. Deep within the woodpile, she could sense the warmth from a family of mice.

  With a touch of her mind, she summoned one of the mice to her hand. The magic flowed so easily, with no pain at all. The mouse shivered in her palm, a filthy, fat rodent with bulging black eyes and yellow teeth. She could crush it in her fingers, and it would neither fight nor flee, bound by her spell.

  Were humans so different from animals? Fighting for food and a safe place to sleep, doing their best to avoid the dogs and the owls. The Whiteshore family talked of peace while hiding behind walls of stone and magic.

  There was one difference. Snow raised the mouse higher. “Animals never lie, do you?”

  Danielle had deceived everyone, disguising herself in order to enter the ball and win Prince Armand. Talia lived every day pretending to be a mere servant instead of the rightful ruler of Arathea. Even Beatrice had lied, secretly sending Snow and Talia out on one mission after another to manipulate her kingdom. King Theodore lived in blissful ignorance, never knowing the plans his wife concocted from the darkness beneath the palace.

  Beatrice’s lies had killed her. Her secret meddling in the politics of the merfolk. And what was politics but the art of smiling through deception? What was civilization but a mutually agreed-upon facade, ever on the verge of cracking and exposing the ugliness beneath?

  Kingdoms and treaties, palaces and boundaries, all lies. Talia’s family once ruled all of Arathea until a fairy curse destroyed them. King Theodore believed himself the ruler of Lorindar, but how many years remained until death robbed him of his crown? There was no kingdom here, only an old man struggling to hold on to his power, to delay the inevitable.

  Her own exile from Allesandria, another lie. Queen Curtana had ordered a hunter to cut out the heart of her own daughter, yet when Snow killed her mother to defend herself, it was Snow who was condemned for murder. Snow who was banished from her home, clearing the path for others to seize power.

  For half her life, Snow had pretended it didn’t matter. Just as she had pretended not to care that day when she was arrested for murdering her mother. Battered and exhausted, she hadn’t fought the Stormcrows, the magical guard of Allesandria. They had locked her in chains and dragged her to the city to face trial. She remembered standing before the Nobles’ Circle as they debated when and how she should be executed.

  Every man and woman in that room had known what Rose Curtana was. They had seen her cruelty, the torments she visited on enemies and allies alike. Even upon her own husband. Even her own daughter.

  She touched her neck, remembering the way the links of the magic-inhibiting chain had pinched her neck, leaving raspberry-colored lines.

  Beatrice and Theodore had worked a bargain with Laurence, a minor noble from one of the southern provinces. They used their influence to help him gain the throne, and in return he spared Snow’s life. Snow came to live in Lorindar, and Beatrice placed both the new king and Snow White in her debt.

  And for years, Snow had smiled and flirted and laughed and pretended none of it mattered. She had lied to herself, and to all she encountered.

  “No more lies.” Her fingers tightened around the mouse’s body. Its heart pounded as fast as the beating of a hummingbird’s wings. With a sniff, she lowered her hand, allowing the mouse to scamper back into the woodpile.

  She rubbed her left eye. The irritation had faded quickly enough, though she could still feel the lump beneath the surface where the splinter from her mirror had lodged. She had feared at first it would steal the vision from that eye, but instead her sight had grown clearer. She could count every pimple and scar on the groundskeeper’s face from across the courtyard. When she looked to the sky, she could make out every swirl of gray in the dark clouds.

  She wasn’t alone. Armand had also begun to see the world’s true ugliness. When Snow concentrated, she could peer through his eyes, just as she had done with her mirrors before they broke. She had shared his disgust in the chapel earlier that day, as he gazed upon the wrinkled body of his mother. She had felt his hatred of the fat, greedy nobles who sat with him at dinner.

  Snow rose. The muscles of her arm and shoulder throbbed from carrying the heavy sack. She ignored the pain. She had retrieved most of her mirrors, but a handful of pieces yet remained.

  She started with the throne room. Now that Danielle and the rest were busy elsewhere, it was a simple enough matter to reclaim a mirror where it had fallen unseen behind the dais. She whispered a spell, calling every speck of broken glass to her hand, then carefully brushed the pieces into her sack.

  Next was the private dining room used by the royal family. Smaller and less formal than the great hall, the dining room was a warmer place, with brightly painted windows and a fire burning in the hearth. Jakob and Nicolette sat at the long, wooden table, arguing over a plate of mashed cod.

  “No fish!” Jakob pressed his lips tight.

  “No fish means no pudding,” Nicolette said wearily. Her face was worn, though she always donned a mask of cheerfulness, to the point where it made her appear addlebrained. Her blouse was stained, her hair a thinning nest.

  Jakob gave her a crafty smile. “Pudding first. Then fish.”

  “Nice try, Your Highness. You can’t-What is it, Jakob?”

  The prince was staring at Snow, his dinner apparently forgotten. “Aunt Snow?”

  Snow didn’t bother to answer. Her mirror remained where it had fallen in front of the fireplace. Snow had lost a dozen to overzealous servants, all infected with Danielle’s need to clean. Snow picked up the pieces of glass, dropping them into her sack before turning around.

  Jakob’s chair clattered to the floor. He ran toward the door, arms flopping like rags, but Nicolette intercepted him before he could escape. “What are you doing, Jakob?”

  “Bad Snow!” Jakob pointed.

  Snow frowned and studied Jakob more closely. She slipped a hand into her sack, carefully pulling out a narrow triangular shard the length of her finger.

  “Pay him no mind,” Nicolette said. “You know how the prince gets spooked sometimes for no reason.”

  “He has reason.” Snow approached slowly, and Jakob’s eyes grew wide. He squirmed and kicked, drawing a grunt of pain from Nicolette. “What do you see, Jakob?”

  Jakob bit Nicolette’s hand. She yelped, and he dropped to the ground. He fled, his clumsy movements making him look like a damaged marionette.

  “He’s really scared.” Nicolette was slow, a useful trait i
n one whose life consisted of such drudgery, but she watched Snow more closely now. She stepped to the left, putting herself between Snow and the prince. “I should take him back to his room to let him settle down.”

  Snow struck almost absentmindedly, slicing Nicolette’s cheek with the broken mirror. Nicolette gasped and grabbed her face.

  Snow could sense the tiny sliver working its way deeper into Nicolette’s flesh. Snow gave a mental push, helping the mirror’s magic to clear Nicolette’s mind and vision. For an instant, she saw as Nicolette did. Saw the bloody lines carved across Snow’s face, the way Snow squinted through her rheumy left eye. Age had wrinkled the skin by her eyes, and the gleaming ebony of her hair had begun to fade, replaced by strands the color of a dirty mop. Even her mother had never appeared so ugly.

  She pushed Nicolette aside, doing the same with the images in her mind. Jakob had run toward the kitchen. She hurried after and yanked open the kitchen door, releasing a wall of hot, humid air. Woodsmoke darkened the air from the brick oven burning on the far side of the room. Coals smoldered in the larger fireplace to her right. A half-butchered lamb lay upon the wooden table in the middle of the room.

  The kitchen staff stood like slack-jawed statues. Jakob was here, hiding behind one of the cooks, but they couldn’t tell whether he was playing another game or if there was some genuine threat. Snow licked her lips, wincing as her tongue touched one of the cuts left by her mirror. Nine people, not counting the prince. Most with knives or pots that could be used as weapons.

  Snow slipped a hand into her sack and pulled out a larger shard of glass. The edges cut her fingers, but she paid the pain no mind. She slammed the glass to the stone floor, where it exploded into a silver cloud.

  Snow pursed her lips and blew. Tiny fragments flew up, speckling skin with dots of red. In the time it took to draw a breath, her power spread into everyone in the room. Everyone save Jakob.