Gathering Frost (Once Upon A Curse Book 1) (4 page)

"My sweet Jade."

The voice comes from behind me, slithering across the floor, sliding up my back so it wraps me in a tight cocoon. I am trapped in the notes, stuck in my spot as her words pull me under, suck me in, drown me in magic.

My heart grows colder, smaller, sinking with heaviness until it is lost in a vast sea. The chill extends down my arms, along my spine, to the tips of my toes. My eyes go wide.

Queen Deirdre.

As if controlled by another power, my feet begin to turn.

"Your Majesty."

Even though it comes from my lips, that voice is unrecognizable. Quiet. Meek. Subservient. Not the voice of the girl who defied the commander by riding into the city at midnight. Not the girl who is the best in her training class. Not the girl who has a knife strapped to her thigh, just in case.

The steel presses into my skin, cold, sharp, and I try to hold onto its touch lest I drift away in the power of the queen standing before me. It is my anchor to the heart she controls.

My knees bend into a curtsy and a smile plasters my lips, womanly, like a lady of the court and not a soldier.

"Your Majesty," the commander echoes, bending at his waist into a deep bow.

The queen waits, watches, with hands clasped in front of her hips. As always, red drapes across her narrow frame. Dark, deep, and in stark contrast to her ivory skin.  Rubies decorate the crown nestled in her elaborately braided hair, popping against the icy blonde, alive in the candlelight.

Though I try to look away, my eyes are drawn to hers. An electric shock pricks my chest as her aquamarine irises grab hold, latching on, stilling me, freezing me in place. The dryness starts to burn, to itch, but I cannot blink.

"Welcome," she says and the bond is broken. My lids move rapidly, wetting my eyes, soothing them, and my gaze drifts to the safety of the floor.

"Did you tell her why she was summoned, Commander Alburn?"

The queen's shoes click as she walks farther into the room. My pulse slows to match their steady melodic pace. The effects of being in her presence are starting to wear off—or maybe she is just releasing me, giving my system a break.

"No, Your Majesty. But Jade has news of her own that I feel is pertinent to share first, if Your Majesty will allow it."

She stops walking toward the throne, turning back to us with one brow raised in interest, a small grin on her lips, as though excited by the turn of events.

My throat has gone dry.

I swallow.

"Do tell."

The commander steps forward, mouth opening to respond, but she silences him with one flick of her gaze.

"Jade, if it is your news, please share it."

"I…" A cough travels up my neck, followed by a deep breath that shakes my limbs. Stop, I command, yelling at my body. This is not who I am. And I don’t believe it is who the queen wishes me to be either.

I steel my veins, turning my body into a knife. The demure girl falls away—I throw her away, out the window, letting that mask break into a thousand tiny pieces as it crashes into the city below.

"I believe I saw Prince Asher in the ruins last night, Your Majesty."

Her brow rises higher, arching into a sharp point. "Continue."

"One of the mines exploded, and I went to investigate. When I arrived, I found a group of men waiting there. I believe they set the mine off on purpose to see how the Black Hearts would respond. Immediately, I recognized Prince Asher from the paintings we have all studied. When I tried to charge, I felt the building shift beneath my feet and needed to flee in safety. By the time I returned, the group had vanished, Your Majesty."

My fingers do not spasm. My lips do not dry. I do not even blink as the lie comes smoothly to my lips. Repeating the story a second time is even easier, even more natural. Part of me almost believes it is the truth, and that my other memory is but a dream, a mirage I made up, a falsehood my mind conceived.

The queen taps her fingers once, then folds them together, decision made.

"Leave us," she orders. The commander twitches, but then salutes in parting. His boots stomp like thunder in the silence. 

"There is no need to lie, Jade," she soothes, voice nurturing, caring, like a mother's might be.

Silence is my answer.

"Come," she says, waving her hand as she spins, skirt shuffling against the floor.

I do.

Behind the throne rests an open door, and she leads me through, out onto a stone balcony. The wind is not gentle from this height, and I can feel hair slipping loose from the top of my head, falling from my messy bun. Still, she walks farther, until both of our hands grasp a thick stone railing, smoothly filed so it does not scratch my skin.

"What do you see, Jade?"

My eyes drop below, to the vast city at my feet. Our view points west. To one side are the farmlands, green and lush, extending as far as my eyes can see. To the other, the broken city of New York. The dried up waters of the Hudson River create a path my gaze follows to the ocean, a warm blue compared to the sky. Shifting up, I take in the massive expanse of air floating above me. I never realized how closely it matches the color of the queen's eyes, as though the clouds might be the only things stopping her from gazing upon the entire world.

"I see Kardenia, Your Majesty." I am not sure what she wishes me to say, but the obviousness of my answer seems almost rude. Still, she smiles as though she expected nothing else.

"Would you like to know what I see?"

"Please, Your Majesty." My fingers tighten on the rail. What does our queen see as she watches over us, barely leaving her towering castle, ruling from a distance?

"I see thousands of people, each one a little beacon of light, calling out to me, pulsing for me. Candles. The city always seems decorated in candlelight, the world even, as though the stars have sunk from the sky to dance in my eyes. I see my magic connecting all of us, connecting all of you to me."

"That sounds beautiful, Your Majesty."

"Does it?" She releases a light breath, a minute laugh. "I thought the same once, I suppose, when my mother described her sight to me. But it is not, it is terrifying, because hiding at the edge of all of that light, is the darkness. The rest of the world is a dangerous place, which is why I hold on to all of you, my children, so tightly. It is to keep you safe, to protect you from the dangers that lay just outside my hold."

"Like the rebels, Your Majesty?" I ask, trying to see the world the way she does, failing. The edges of the horizon are a mystery to me, one I wish more than anything to unveil, to discover with my own eyes. The world waits for me, right in that spot where sea turns to sky, where trees and clouds mold together into an infinite line of light—that is where my soul waits for me.

"Yes, Jade, like the rebels who stole my son, who stole your mother. The rebels who sit at the edge, waiting for the day my power weakens, waiting to destroy us all." The queen turns to me, placing her palm on my arm. Her fingers are icicles against my skin, yet they do not feel cold. "Now, will you speak the truth, Jade? How did you meet my son?"

"I was exploring the bomb site when he held a gun to my head," the words spill out, uncontrollable, because somehow she knows them anyway. Somehow she was with me, watching through my eyes as I let her son go free. No surprise flashes across her face, only satisfaction. "I fought to disarm him, but he was strong, and he threw me away. When I landed, the floor began to give out beneath me, but your son saved my life rather than escape. Once outside, I heard voices, and tried to knock him out, but he was too fast, and I thought it better to make my way back to the wall so I could report the news, rather than allow myself to get captured."

My voice remains even as the last little lie slips out. But I know I cannot tell the queen that I just let her son escape without a fight, without any real reason except that he saved my life. Somehow, that excuse doesn't seem strong enough, not while her gaze weighs on me, shrinking me down until my feet feel stuck in the stone, trapped.

"I know everything that goes on in my kingdom. I know where every human stands, when they move. Their breath surges through my veins. I know when someone enters my realm and when someone leaves, especially my own son. Why did you first lie? Was the truth so hard to speak?"

"I have never lost a fight, Your Majesty—never, until last night."

The queen's gaze softens as she fills in what I did not say. I can only guess what she is thinking, but my mind filters back to the day she placed the black heart pin on my uniform, murmuring about a woman doing the job of a man, and I hope she understands.

I could have used this lie all along. It is closer to the truth, but by saying it aloud I had to admit something—that I had been defeated. I, who have had to prove myself by besting every other man that I've faced, lost.

It is not something I wanted my commander to hear.

Not something I wanted to admit. But now I must.

Silence extends between us, mutual and comfortable, as though there is something unspoken that only we two understand, a bond we somehow share. A tether stretches between our bodies, invisible but growing stronger.

Part of me wishes to grab my knife and chop it in half. Part of me wishes to leave it alone, to enjoy the connection.

"Good," she says finally. "I asked you here for a reason. Would you like to know what that reason is?" Without waiting for my reply, her arm lifts, pointing out toward the metal wasteland to our left.

"My son waits out there, and I have known it for days. He sides with the rebels against me, and together they plot my downfall. My first instinct was to send a guard to retrieve him, but I have since thought things through. It is not time for him to come home, the pieces have not yet fallen into place, but with your help they may."

"What can I do, Your Majesty?"

"Prince Asher is a good boy, a trusting one. He has always seen the best in people." The words sound as though they should be a good thing, but they spit from her mouth as though vile on her tongue, poisonous. "Take last night, for example. He will see your failure as a kindness, a sort of challenge. And we will use that against him."

As she continues to speak, her face glows with mounting excitement, as though her power surges stronger in her veins. Her eyes are in a far off dream, and I remain silent, watching her mind spin.

"I had a husband once, did you know that? I killed him, just after Asher was born.  The man was weak, so easily controlled, so predictable. All the time, trying to save me from myself." She snorts, sneering as her fingers grasp the stone below our fingers. For a moment, I believe it might break beneath her strength, rupturing like all of us have.

"But you understand me, Jade, you understand what it is like to always have doubt whispering in your ear, murmuring that you aren't good enough, urging that the world was right to keep you contained. Like me, it only gives you strength. Like me, it makes you fight harder for what you want."

Her gaze slips to my face, a prickling sensation spreads across my cheek, but I keep my eyes forward, locked on the spot I wish to be—the edge of the world.

"I wanted to be queen, and here I am. And I know what you want, Jade, I see the yearning in your eyes." The queen leans in, her breath like a winter's breeze tickling my skin. My muscles tighten, hard as rock so I do not flinch.

"Freedom," she whispers.

Freedom.

The idea flashes before my eyes, a signal that blinds, just out of reach.

Her fingers shift, landing gently on top of mine, which now clutch the railing. Power surges up my arm, stinging, bringing pain-filled tears to my eyes as it travels up to encase my heart.

But it is not cold, it is warm, like lava that burns my skin, melts my insides away. For a moment, I see the stars, moving, twinkling, dancing all along the ground. I feel everyone and everything in Kardenia.

There are children playing in the street, and I bubble with their laughter. A guard on the wall is drunk, passed out while still in uniform. The slow beat of his heart thrums in my head. The commander waits out of sight, but his insides are knotted tight in curiosity. And far off in the distance, people are walking and talking, muffled so that I cannot hear, but their pulses swell in my veins.

My heart expands, stretching wider than this kingdom, growing with my awareness. The world is at my fingertips, at my command, as though I can just reach out and take it, control it, experience it.

The queen releases me and the awareness vanishes.

Gone.

My eyes are left blind, spotted. My senses are dull. I feel nothing, empty without the souls of a thousand people funneling through my body.