Cross the Silver Moon

by Jessica Daw

  “Maybe I’d be safe to live in Edeleste then,” I mumbled, already out of Dagmar’s hearing. Mother liked telling me that I should consider myself lucky, being too pretty to be safe in Edeleste. I considered the residents of Edeleste to be pigs for making it too unsafe for me to live there. Besides, I knew the real reason was that the Council didn’t want me messing up their precious capital with my recklessness.

  The estate was too small. It took me very little time to reach Mother’s room.

  Queen Ester Nordskov of Vansland sat in her four-poster bed, velvet curtains drawn back to let the weak November sunlight fall on her pale face. Word was that she had resembled me more when she was younger, even before the Incident when I was seven. Now, though, she looked sickly and weak, thin white-blond hair, crystal blue eyes almost ethereal, as if she were seeing through the world we saw to somewhere other.

  Not everyone thought she looked sickly and weak. I had heard her described as an angel walking on earth, or queen of light, similar nonsense. I knew better.

  “Helena,” she said in her fainting voice that always immediately annoyed me. She wasn’t dying; I doubted she really was so very incapable of speaking clearly and at a reasonable volume.

  “Thank you for coming.” I turned and saw Flemming, Mother’s favorite Council member, and the one assigned to the royal family. My lip curled. I hated that man.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. He had been the one to decree I would wear the iron wristbands until I turned eighteen. The others had merely agreed.

  Flemming was old, though not as old as I tended to think of him being, with flat brown eyes and thin hair of an indeterminate color. He disliked me nearly as much as I disliked him. He blinked in utterly false surprise. “Did Queen Ester not tell you?”

  “Tel me what?” I hated rising to his bait, but he had to have

  His thin, bloodless lips twisted into a parody of a smile. Before he spoke, there was a knock on the door. “Enter,” Flemming called without looking away from my face. I darted a glance at Mother, trying to figure out what was happening, but her gaze was trained on her hands, knotted in her lap.

  Through the door walked . . . for a moment, a breath of a moment, I stared, uncomprehending.

  Then I screamed and ran at August, throwing my arms around him. He was harder and broader than I remembered, his clothes more worn, made of materials I didn’t recognize, though they were still his preferred black and gray. I heard his intake of breath when I collided, full-speed, with his chest.

  “I can’t believe you’re home!” I exclaimed.

  He pried me away from him, and my heart fell at his harsh expression.

  “Lord August, would you care to inform Princess Helena of your news?” Flemming asked, sounding almost gleeful. Anything that made Flemming gleeful made my blood chill.

  August’s face was different—that shouldn’t have surprised me. A seventeen-year-old was more of a man than a fifteen-year-old, and from what Espen had written me of Sikuvok, it was not an easy place to live. August had not written me. I felt like I stood face-to-face with a stranger, his eyebrows darker than before, drawn over eyes that were an icier shade of blue, the planes of his face harder. His fists clenched, and I saw that his old iron signet ring had been replaced with a heavy gold one.

  “Espen is dead,” August said flatly.

  Certainly gleeful, Flemming elaborated. “He died while on patrol with August and a group of soldiers. They were attacked by ice giants, rare that far south but seen occasionally.”

  “He died very bravely, giving his life to let the others escape.” Mother’s voice shook, as if she were terrified to tell me.

  Tears started falling, though my mind did not comprehend their words. Espen? Hunting? Ice giants? My Espen? My chin trembled and I couldn’t focus my gaze on anything, my eyes failing to turn the world into distinct images, just a blur. Small sounds escaped me, as if I were trying to speak, though I didn’t have the faintest idea what words I could say. Espen. My betrothed, my hero, my golden, beautiful Espen, wasn’t coming home?

  He hadn’t even gone to war. It had been a diplomatic mission, it wasn’t even a war and he could not be dead.

  “I know this is hard for you,” I heard Flemming say, from somewhere very, very far away.

  How dare Flemming speak to me? I shook my head slowly back and forth. My lips formed Espen name once, twice, then I finally whispered it. “Espen . . . Espen . . . is de-de-dead?” The final word, the truth—for I knew August, regardless of how angry he was at me or how long it had been, told me the truth—was what shattered the moment of unrecognition. Tears flew faster from my eyes, breath speeding, heart rate increasing, and I fell apart.

  Flemming’s sickening voice reprimanded me for making a scene, and the words served as a second blow—it was what I’d wanted to do for Espen, to be the collected royal that even the Council would approve of, even hateful Flemming. I’d barely had a chance to try to please Espen.

  And he was gone.

  “Don’t speak to me,” I screamed at Flemming, the words distorted, likely unintelligible. I felt like I was going to fall, I couldn’t support myself, how could I stand when Espen wasn’t coming home? My thoughts were incoherent. I was forcefully reminded of once when August and I had gone to the ocean to swim and I’d gotten pulled in deeper than I’d expected and suddenly hadn’t been able to see anything, hadn’t been able to breathe, the harsh taste of salt burning the back of my throat and my eyes mercilessly, no idea where up or down or home was, no hope of salvation. Where was hope, when Espen was gone?

  “Be kind, Helena,” Mother said fadingly, as if I were imposing on her with my grief.

  I turned desperate eyes to August. August had saved me from drowning that day, pulling me from the waves. I had no words, but I tried to communicate how much I needed help, support, love, anything.

  August’s eyes were cold as ice, his arms folded, looking down at me as if my emotions disgusted him. He would not save me again.

  Chapter Five

  Lena

  Six days later

  “The Council is ready to see you.” Dagmar said the words with forced brightness. She said everything with brightness lately, usually forced.

  “The Council can gouge their own eyes out with forks,” I said, my tone night to Dagmar’s day. I did not enjoy being in the palace, stone under a glittering latticework dome, embedded with gems engraved with a thousand protective runes and packed with magic. If Edeleste was attacked, at least the palace would be safe, unlike the wooden homes on the outskirts of Vansen capital.

  “Helena Nordskov, I’ll not put up with this,” she replied, dropping the brightness, to my relief. “You haven’t left your room since we arrived in Edeleste five days ago, and you’ve scarcely eaten a crumb. I’ve let you sulk in bed long enough. The Council has something to tell you, and you’re going to go hear them out.”

  “I’m wearing my armor, you know. That is a point in my favor.” My tone was dead, but Dagmar couldn’t help letting out a bit of a chuckle.

  “Always one for graveside humor, you were.”

  That made me wince and shove my head deeper into my pillow. My hair could not be more of a rats’ nest than it already was. Espen had no grave. Killed by monsters and left behind and I was left behind. I repeated the words in my head, a mantra, engraved in my brain as deep as the symbols on my hidden armor were engraved in the iron.

  “They have consulted with King Aleksander,” Dagmar said finally, knowing Father’s name would elicit a reaction, though I knew she hadn’t brought him up before because she wasn’t certain what flavor of reaction his name would get.

  “Lucky Council has heard more from Father than I have in the past month,” I said sourly.

  “You know that His Majesty can’t waste all his time and energy sending smoke letters,” Dagmar chided. “Now get up or I am going to have to drag you out myself.”

  Dagmar was not one for bluffing. Groaning, I rolled out of my
bed, letting myself land with a heavy thud on the stone floor. My stupid armor had one advantage—I could dramatically throw myself about without anything but a jolt and the faintest of bruises.

  It was Dagmar’s turn to groan, trying to cover her gasp at my crash. “Helena Nordskov, you will be the death of me if I don’t murder you with my own bare hands.”

  “It would be easiest to strangle me. You know how to disable my wards better than anyone else.”

  “I do put an awful lot of work into designing them and keeping them fresh,” she said crisply. “Now get up. I’m going to do your hair and you’re going to put on the dress I chose out and you’re going to keep a civil tongue in your head while you speak to the Council or your armor will be sorely tested.”

  All I wanted to do was lie on the stone floor for a thousand years, until the earth swallowed the palace and the city and I could rest in its cold belly where no stupid Council members would ever bother me again. However, it seemed much more likely that I’d meet my death at Dagmar’s hands if I continued to disobey her, so I dragged myself up and plopped myself down in front of the vanity. It was larger here, at the palace, than at the estate. I spent so little time in Edeleste I forgot what my rooms looked like between stays. It was a large, light room with expensive patterned ivory and cream wallpaper, the furniture exquisitely carved blonde maple with lilac and primrose damask coverings. All very formal and proper. I hated it.

  Then again, I was inclined to hate everything at the moment.

  Dagmar made quick work of my hair, using the handful of styling spells she knew, despite her general disdain for the energy-wasting things. Far too soon, my hair was a gleaming pile of curls atop my head, a braid running through them to suggest the tiara I couldn’t wear, as part of my punishment. A tiara would have looked stupid with my iron wristbands anyway.

  “There. Pretty as a picture.” Dagmar was clearly satisfied with her work.

  Choosing stony silence as a decent replacement for dramatic flinging-myself-about fits, I responded by glaring.

  She took the glare in stride, throwing a comment over her shoulder as she went to retrieve my dress. “Prettier when you’re not scowling fit to give yourself wrinkles in ten minutes.”

  The dress was black, as I’d refused to wear any other color. Dagmar dressed me quickly, hastily using a little more energy to alter the dress until the fit was perfection.

  “There’s a war going on. We need to conserve energy. That’s why Father can’t write me, after all,” I reminded her to be spiteful.

  “That was my own energy, right from my wellspring,” she said, gesturing to her chest, where people traditionally thought of the wellspring of magic energy to be located. It was really more of a force that flowed like blood throughout the body, but no one cared what I knew about magic.

  I twisted my left wristband, the tight iron burning my skin, butterflies starting to jump in my stomach. I despised few things more than meeting with the Council.

  “It’s time, Lena. They’re waiting.” Dagmar only called me Lena when she was trying her hardest to be gentle with me, which was not something she did often, more commonly buying into the theory that excessive gentleness makes for weak heads and hands.

  “Do I have to?” I asked, eyes on the floor.

  “Yes. They’re waiting,” she repeated.

  Taking a deep breath, I nodded, and marched out into the halls of the palace.

  “Good luck!” Dagmar called after me. I made no acknowledgement—I couldn’t turn around, or I’d give in to the temptation to run for the stables and race away on Rune.

  The corridors of the palace were always bustling with life, people rushing about to perform their various duties, all so intent, as if they were in the process of saving the world. Accustomed as I was to the country estate, it was uncomfortable to be surrounded by people I didn’t know, that I knew I probably should know. Though how I could know them was beyond me, I thought as I progressed through carpeted hallways lit with the watery light provided by the thick glass windows. I had been at the palace for perhaps a total of three months in the past ten years.

  Still, I knew the palace well enough to find the Council room.

  I paused at the door, reluctant to face the group of men who hated me so unanimously. Hated me for being a girl, for necessitating a foreign king to rule as my husband, for being too temperamental to be trusted with magic, and I didn’t even know why else.

  The door was heavy, old oak with the traditional runes for blocking noise. The runes were quite effective here—the room could have been empty, or full of roaring lions, for all I knew.

  Lions, ready to devour me. Accurate enough.

  Taking one last deep breath, I opened the door.

  “Princess Helena. Thank you for gracing us with your presence,” Flemming, the leader of the Council in Father’s absence, said unpleasantly the moment I stepped through the door.

  The room was fairly large, with banners in Vansen blue and gold hanging on the walls. It was lit by a fantastic crystal chandelier, each crystal glowing white with energy. Wasteful, in a time of war, but the Council room had no windows, and the fire burning in the immense fireplace was not enough to give light to the glorified Council.

  They sat in a semicircle at a polished hawthorn table that curved to fill the length of the room. Mother sat in the center in a gilt chair with a high back. Father’s chair sat empty next to hers, its back higher and gilding more impressive. Flemming sat immediately to the left of Father’s chair, and the rest of the Council spanned to his left and to Mother’s right. A dozen old men, wearing matching expressions of disdain as they looked at me. And Mother in the middle, her pale face pinched with discomfort. She did not like sitting with the Council without Father. I thought she would have become more accustomed to it in his absence of more than two years, interrupted only by sporadic visits (that only once reached my estate), but it would appear she was just as uncomfortable as ever with the stubborn old men.

  The Council stared at me with a single gaze, until I realized what they were waiting for. I sketched a curtsy, the barest of formalities. It was more than they deserved from me.

  “We have been discussing your next marriage alliance, as the previous alliance with Espen Kjeldsen fell through,” Flemming announced with all the self-importance and pomp I expected from him.

  My heart plummeted at those words. It had been six days since I’d learned of Espen’s death.

  “We had every intention of choosing the fittest match for the kingdom, but at Queen Ester’s insistence, we have made a short list of suitors. They will arrive two days from now and you will have a week to associate with them. At the end of the week, we will expect your decision as to which will be your future husband.” Flemming looked as if he expected me to be grateful.

  Anger was boiling in me, but I made my best effort to tamp it down, swallow it, keep it in. I could not afford to let the Council see me lose my temper. There were only nine more months until my eighteenth birthday, and I wanted desperately to prove myself worthy of having my hated iron wristbands removed.

  Mother gave me a shaky smile and began babbling. “They’re very nice men, Helena. There are seven that the Council has chosen, after consulting with your father. The Duke of Farjord is coming from the south of the kingdom, an excellent man with remarkable taste in horses, just like you, and an absolutely impeccable family history. Prince Kristian of Tryllejor will be here—his brother, the king, is fighting alongside King Aleksander in the war, doing an excellent job since King Henrik’s death—his father, you know. The new king is remarkable, and his brother isn’t a whit behind him in war magic. Prince Bashkim of Shilavdi is coming as well, a really dashing man if half the rumors are true—been looking for a wife for a time but hasn’t found anyone with enough spirit, which you have in spades, though I do not mean you should let yourself loose by any means. And Sir Hugo, the nephew of quite the most respected man in Verstaat is coming, and his story is intriguing, was
cast off when his father remarried and his stepmother disliked him, but went out and made such a name for himself that his father’s title was given to him and the father was demoted. Imagine that!” Mother’s excitement and confidence grew with each word, with each faceless name she threw my way. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her so animated in front of the Council as she was then, trying desperately to sell these suitors to me.

  My head ached from her ceaseless talk, as I tried to contain my anger. “I can’t imagine it!” I interrupted. My mind spun, despite my best efforts to control it. Suitors coming from all over the whole continent of Luspe to inspect me and see if I was a worthy wife? And I was to choose the one I liked the most? Mother seemed to have not the faintest idea how broken my heart was and how I longed for nothing more than to see Espen’s face again! Had she never been in love? Did she not know how a broken heart felt? Obviously not. Obviously, I had put on too good a face. I had played my part too well. Now, my reward was to choose between the prince of Shivaldi and the nephew of the most important man in Verstaat.

  Mother’s air of excitement disappeared as she slumped back into her chair, the movement slight, as she wore her armor under her fine clothes the same as I did. “You may like one of them,” she said softly, reminding me strongly of a wilting flower.

  The Council was now giving me a look of irritation. However much Mother disliked or feared the Council, they did have an interesting habit of wanting to protect her.

  I should have an instinct to protect her, I berated myself. It was my duty to not feel, it was my duty to play the part of an obedient puppet. I had to do it. “I hope I won’t disappoint you, Mother.” That was very true.

  A hint of a smile moved the corners of her tissue paper mouth. “You shall bewitch them, Helena. The dark-eyed, golden-haired beauty.”

  “I don’t think even you can disappoint this time,” Flemming said, then waved his hand, dismissing me. My future was sealed—they had no further need of my presence.