The Snow Queen's shadow

CHAPTER 10

Talia had visited Allesandria only once before. She hadn’t liked it then, either.

Mountains rose like a wall of shattered iron to the east, the tops dusted in snow. Lines of smoke decorated the sky to the west as they passed another village, the third since entering Tollavon the day before.

The wolfskin fanned her frustration. A part of her had wanted to remain with the Phillipa, to stay and fight. If Snow wanted to reclaim her throne, she had to come to Tollavon eventually. This demon had beaten them twice now. It wouldn’t do so a third time.

She quelled the wolf’s anger the best she could. She had been riding since she was five years old, and knew all too well how easily the animals sensed the tension of their riders. Her horse was jumpy enough about Talia’s cape, and wouldn’t have let her ride at all if not for Danielle’s urging.

Danielle was right. They weren’t ready to fight the demon. The cape might protect Talia from magic targeted at her, but it wouldn’t stop the demon from opening up the earth to swallow her whole, or shattering trees to crush her. Nor would the cape help her if the demon chose to use Jakob as a hostage.

Talia wasn’t the only one whose thoughts lingered behind. Danielle kept looking over her shoulder, her worry obvious even from a distance. She had barely spoken since leaving the harbor.

If Snow were here, she would have found a way to break the tension. An inappropriate joke or a ribald song. Even just prattling on about the white-barked trees along the road, the blue-tinged mushrooms growing on a fallen tree, or the techniques used to carve a path through the rock when the hills grew too steep. Talia saw no tool marks on the shoulder-high wall of dark, rippled stone which walled the road up ahead. No doubt it had been done with magic.

“I’ve finally come home.” Gerta’s expression was distant. She slowed her horse, allowing Talia to draw alongside. “I’ve returned to a land I’ve never actually seen. I could paint you every detail of our summer palace in the mountains, of the woods where my sister and I used to play, but I’ve never actually been there. None of it is real. All I have are memories.”

Talia shrugged. “That’s all any of us have.”

Gerta stuck out her tongue, her expression identical to Snow’s. “But yours actually happened.” Her smile faded. “What do you think Snow intended for me as she cast that final spell, splitting me from herself?”

“Snow doesn’t always plan things through,” Talia said. “She acts. Her instincts are usually good.”

“When she’s not releasing demons from their prisons, you mean?”

“I said usually.”

Gerta sighed. “How is this good? The demon took her, and I’m not strong enough to do anything about it. I’m not even sure I’m real.”

Talia nudged her horse to the edge of the road. She reached out and broke off a small branch, which she bounced off of Gerta’s shoulder. “You look real enough to me.”

“I’m part of her. She gave me so many of her thoughts and memories. But I’m not her.” Gerta lowered her eyes. Talia wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. “We’re different. Different thoughts, different desires.”

Talia stiffened. She had almost convinced herself Hephyra had been wrong about Gerta’s feelings. “How long until we reach this witch?”

“Another day at most.” Gerta guided her horse closer. “I don’t know what Snow intended for me. But one way or another, she’s going to want me back. If I’m to have such a short time on this world, why shouldn’t I pursue the things I want?”

“You’ll have time,” Talia said uncomfortably. “Whatever happens, I’m sure Father Isaac can find a way to help you both.”

Gerta stiffened. “Please don’t lie to me. I know how you feel about her.”

So much for pretending not to understand. Talia looked straight ahead. “Snow never wanted-”

“I’m not Snow.”

Talia squeezed her knees, urging her horse forward. “You were a part of her.”

“Maybe I’m the part of her that wanted you, that wanted to be able to return your feelings,” Gerta said. “Did you know she considered taking a love potion for you?”

“What?” She spoke so sharply that Danielle turned around. Talia waved her on. Fighting to keep the anger and confusion from her voice, she asked, “When did-Why would she do that?”

“Because she trusted you.”

“She never said anything.” But of course, Snow wouldn’t have discussed it. She would have just disappeared into her library and done whatever she wanted.

“She chose not to go through with it. Maybe because she knew how you’d react. Maybe because she was scared.”

More than once Talia had daydreamed about herself and Snow, but she had known such imaginings would never be more than idle fantasies. Snow’s preferences were obvious to anyone who knew her. What would Talia have done had Snow come to her, her emotions changed by magic? “It wouldn’t have been real.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Talia blinked. “What?”

“ I was created by Snow’s magic. Am I real?” Gerta was speaking louder now, earning a concerned look from Danielle. “Snow loved you. So much that she thought about changing who she was, just to be with you.”

“Shut up.” Talia’s mind was already tormenting her with what could have been.

“Snow was afraid. I’m not.”

“You’re not her.”

“Neither was Faziya.” Gerta’s voice dropped, taking on a new edge. “Snow gave me those memories, too, how you brought Faziya back with you from Arathea. How the two of you spent the weeks together like husband and wife newly wedded. How you moped for days after she left.”

“I wasn’t moping,” Talia muttered. Had Snow actually been bothered by all of the time Talia spent with Faziya? If so, she had never let it show… but again, Snow wouldn’t.

“Your time with Faziya showed her the kind of love she could have,” Gerta said.

“And she chose not to,” Talia said, trying to regain her balance. “Instead, she created you. Made you fall in love with me. Why?”

Gerta shrugged. “Maybe to make sure I stayed close to you, the one person she trusted to protect me. Or maybe she simply wanted us both to be happy.”

Her voice was different than Snow’s. Deeper, with a stronger Allesandrian accent, but the intonation of certain words was the same as her sister’s. Her hair was flame, but with the impossible softness of Snow’s locks. “So you would have me take advantage of a child little more than a week old?”

“Do I look like a child?” Gerta’s lips quirked into a crooked smile. “I know you, Talia. Regret has been your bedmate for too many years, and I love you too much to see you alone and in pain.”

“I’m not alone.”

Gerta looked ahead. “Danielle has her prince. Beatrice is gone. Snow White has been taken from us all.” She reached out, brushing Talia’s arm with her fingertips. “Choose soon, Sleeping Beauty.”

Desperation tinged her final words. Talia didn’t answer, but her skin tingled with the memory of Gerta’s touch.

Snow stood at the bow of the newly renamed Snow Queen, watching fog roll toward her from the two approaching ships. The winds had changed as she approached Tollavon, until even the most experienced sailor would be hard-pressed to tack into the harbor.

It was no matter. Their weather mages were mere gnats compared to the man who stood at Snow’s side. Age had stolen much of Eminio Perin’s stature. His head was hunched forward, and his hands were swollen at the knuckles, but he retained the presence of one used to dominating the stage. Snow had first heard him perform when she was six years old. He had stood before the queen and her court, a wig of soft auburn curls spilling down to his chest, as he sang a song of his own composition, glorifying Queen Curtana.

There were whispers about his private meetings with the queen, but few guessed his true profession. Perin was also a skilled wizard, and his fame as a singer gave him access to noble audiences throughout Allesandria. During the political slaughter known as the Purge, Rose Curtana’s Deathcrows had executed dozens of nobles in their own homes. Perin had murdered eight that Snow knew of.

To most, the Deathcrows were but rumors, phantoms that fueled the nightmares of a generation of children. Some people refused to believe they had ever existed, but Snow knew better. Her mother had handpicked the deadliest of the Stormcrows to serve as her personal spies and assassins.

Only two of the queen’s secret killers had ever been brought to justice for their actions. The rest had gone into hiding after Rose’s death. But through the mirror, Snow knew them all, including the man called The Butcher. Snow had no doubt she could have defeated him, but it had been easier to infect the young servant girl who answered the door of his mansion.

It was that girl who slipped a tiny shard of glass into the venison sausage Perin enjoyed for breakfast the following morning. Wrapped in illusion, the sliver had bypassed his protective charms. He had suspected nothing until the glass pierced the inside of his throat, and then he belonged to Snow.

Fog poured forth from the harbor, boiling up around the hull and spilling onto the deck. Magical, of course, seeking out other magic. It clung to the crew, tasting the splinters of enchanted glass within their flesh. It surged toward Snow, but a whispered spell chilled the air around her. The fog drifted lower, forming swirls of white frost on the deck.

It didn’t interfere with her control. The crew worked in silence, struggling merely to maintain their position. Her men responded to her will without the crass disruption of shouted commands. It was both peaceful and efficient, and no mortal magic could tear her crew away from the beauty of their new queen. They were loyal unto death.

All save Jakob. Snow frowned as she glanced at her shoulder, where the prince shivered and fluffed his feathers for warmth. The boy knew no magic. His resistance came not from spellcraft, but from his very nature. Not for the first time, she considered killing him and taking what power she could, as her mother had once tried to do with her.

She shrugged and turned away. She would unravel Jakob’s mystery soon enough. Through the fog, she could see the shadows of two ships moving closer. Cannons thundered, warning her to hold her position.

Snow glanced at the Deathcrow. “Master Perin, if you would?”

Perin spread his arms. His skin rippled and flexed as black feathers sprouted from his body. His clothes tore away, and he jumped onto the rail, talons of black steel digging into the wood. Lightning crackled from his wings. He launched himself into the air, a crow painted of ink and shadow, larger than the grandest eagle.

The approaching ships would likely kill him, but he would distract them long enough for Snow’s magic to work. She reached into the pouch at her side, pulling out a mirrored triangle of glass no bigger than her palm. She had spent perhaps a third of the mirror’s fragments to get this far, but there should be more than enough glass to reach King Laurence and deal with whatever opposition he offered. She held one corner of the shard between her finger and thumb and rapped it against the rail.

The glass broke, spilling fragments into the water below. Snow brushed her hands together, dusting the last of the shattered glass into the water. Blood welled from tiny cuts on her palms, but her skin healed even as she whispered a new spell.

As screams broke out from the other ships, courtesy of Perin, Snow’s fragments rose from the water on wings of ice. This swarm was larger than the others Snow had created. With a wave of her hand, Snow sent her creations forth. They skimmed the waves toward the approaching ships.

Halfway there, the fog coalesced around her wasps. One by one, the magic holding them together began to unravel.

“Not bad,” Snow said. Behind her, men raced to load the cannons. She concentrated, and the rest of her wasps plunged into the water where the fog couldn’t reach them. They emerged again beyond the fog, and the shouts grew louder.

Most of her wasps were destroyed. She felt each death as fire magic melted her creatures, or gusts of wind smashed them to the deck, but it took only one, its wings shriveled away but its body intact, to crawl up a man’s boot and lodge its stinger in his leg. Only one crewman to truly see the world’s ugliness, and to turn against his fellows.

She pulled a second shard from her pouch and released another swarm. This time there was less resistance. She sensed Perin’s sudden agony as he fell, wrapped in magical fire, but he had served his purpose. By the time the Snow Queen drifted into cannon range, there was little need for guns. She fired a broadside anyway, and holes exploded in the hull of the nearest ship.

Answering fire came not from the two Allesandrian ships, but from a third vessel sailing from the harbor. She approached quickly, wind filling her sails as she leaped forward to meet the Snow Queen. Even through the fading fog, Snow recognized the Phillipa.

The Phillipa approached at an angle, all of her port guns firing. The Snow Queen trembled as cannonballs tore through the hull. Captain Hephyra had never been one to turn from a fight.

The Snow Queen turned to port, but she was too slow to catch the Phillipa. Snow pulled the last of her wasps from the Allesandrian ships, sending them toward the Phillipa. They swarmed over Hephyra, who stood unflinching at the wheel. Hephyra’s cudgel smashed several from the air, but others landed on her bare face and arms.

Snow blinked in surprise. The stingers wouldn’t penetrate Hephyra’s skin. She watched through the splinters of glass as Hephyra crushed another wasp with her bare hand.

Her wasps couldn’t take Hephyra, and Snow wasn’t entirely certain how well they would be able to turn the Phillipa ’s crew against its captain. The dryad’s fairy allure was almost as potent as Snow’s own magic.

“Very well.” Snow’s wasps had taken the weather mages on the Allesandrian ships. In response to Snow’s thoughts, the wind picked up, turning the Snow Queen about and launching her after the Phillipa .

As they closed, Snow climbed onto the rail and stepped out, summoning a cushion of air to lower her to the water. The sea froze beneath her feet. Waves broke against the ice, splashing her boots and legs as she walked. She smiled, casting yet another spell. The water hardened, forming armor of gleaming ice that encased her legs and moved higher.

So much power at her command. A week ago, simply fighting the fog sent by the Allesandrian weather wizard would have left her head throbbing from pain. Today, there were no limits to what she might do.

She allowed the Snow Queen to veer away. Shouts broke out on the Phillipa as someone spied her in the water.

Ice spread to cover her face. She concentrated, keeping the front of her helm as pure and clear as possible. Only the slightest ripple distorted her vision. Her heart slowed, each beat pounding harder, as if her blood itself were turning to ice. She turned her head, testing the armor. Ice scraped against ice, cracking and refreezing to allow her to move.

A crossbow bolt splashed into the water beside her. A second struck her stomach, gouging a chip from the armor. She brushed a gauntleted hand over the chip, and an instant later no sign of damage remained. A magical attack followed, but her armor deflected that as well.

Her wasps had stung only a few men on the Phillipa, but it was enough. She reached out to adjust the vision of the closest. She peered through his eyes until she spotted two men in Allesandrian uniforms, working to prepare another spell. Her slave killed them both before they knew what was happening.

As the crew reacted to this betrayal, Snow moved on to another crewman, showing him not a maiden of ice striding toward his ship, but a drowning girl. He threw down a line to help her even as one of his companions rushed to stop him.

By the time Snow’s feet touched the main deck, her slave had fallen, but it no longer mattered. He had protected the line long enough for her to board. A sailor rushed her from the right, cutlass raised. The blade bounced from Snow’s forearm. A single punch from her gauntleted fist sent him sprawling into the boats lashed to the deck.

She touched her hip, allowing her fingers to reach through the ice to the pouch at her waist. Most of her mirror shards were locked away on the Snow Queen, but she needed only a few. When she pulled her hand away, a knife of ice and broken glass followed. The blade was long as her forearm and frosted white. The edges were jagged glass, like silver teeth.

Another sailor grabbed her arm and tried to wrest the knife away, but the hilt was bonded to her grip. She clubbed him on the side of the head, then sliced her knife along his forearm, allowing a single sliver of glass to break away.

“Keep back.” Captain Hephyra stood with a wooden cudgel in one hand. To Snow’s eyes, she was all but glowing with rage and magic that flowed through her and the ship both.

“Tell me about the girl.” The ice helm muffled Snow’s words, but Hephyra appeared to understand.

“Funny. I never thought you were interested in girls.”

Snow jabbed her knife. “Your crew belongs to me, body and mind. I can see their memories. Who is this girl Danielle and Talia brought along? She feels familiar. I want her.”

“And I want the fairy queen’s body fertilizing my roots, but we can’t have everything we want, can we?”

Snow circled, studying Hephyra. Red scratches showed where the wasps had tried to sting her, but not one had penetrated to the blood. Or sap. Whatever it was that flowed through the dryad’s veins. “Tell me where they’ve gone, and I’ll-”

“Rot it all, just shut up and fight.” The cudgel slammed Snow’s knife out of the way, then struck her forehead, sending white cracks through Snow’s vision. But the ice healed itself as fast as Hephyra could attack.

Snow’s weapon should be strong enough to pierce even a dryad’s skin, but every time she tried, Hephyra knocked her arm aside. Chips of ice flew from Snow’s armor with every blow. Snow stepped sideways, trying to regain her balance, but Hephyra stayed with her. Had Snow been unprotected, her bones would have been shattered a dozen times over by now.

The spray of the waves gave her more than enough water to repair and maintain her armor. “What did they do to earn such loyalty?”

Hephyra smashed Snow’s arm hard enough to spin her around. The next attack landed between Snow’s shoulder blades, driving her to her knees. “I like the prince. I met him last fall.” Heavy blows punctuated each sentence. “He said I was pretty, and he liked my ship. Also, you hurt my cat.”

Snow swung at Hephyra’s legs, but the dryad jumped back, avoiding the knife with ease. Snow yanked a second knife from her armor, keeping Hephyra away long enough to regain her feet.

“So what is this all about?” Hephyra asked. She wasn’t breathing hard, but she pressed a hand to the capstan as though drawing strength from the wooden wheel. “What are you after in Allesandria?”

“Allesandria has always been corrupt. A place of chaos and bloodshed and ugliness.” She thought back to the nobles who always fawned over her mother, scheming and squabbling like beasts to gain her favor. She had fled that ugliness for so brief a time, hiding in Roland’s cabin in the woods, but there was no escape.

“So you mean to fix that by killing everyone?”

Snow glanced at the crew, who had gathered in a ring on the main deck. Hephyra remained free, but the crew were no longer hers. “Allesandria banished your kind. Lorindar enslaved you. Why do you care?”

“I don’t, particularly.” Hephyra’s next blow struck the side of Snow’s helm and made her vision sparkle, but it wasn’t enough.

Snow dropped one knife and grabbed the end of the cudgel. Hephyra ripped it away, but not before frost began to spread over the wood. Snow smiled as the cold seeped into the weapon. The next time Hephyra attacked, the end of her cudgel broke away.

Hephyra cried out. “Damn, but that stung.”

Snow raised her own weapon to attack, but the dryad lunged again, stabbing the pointed end of her broken cudgel into Snow’s chest.

The wood gouged Snow’s armor, driving her back until she hit the rail. Hephyra bore down, trying to force the point through Snow’s chest. Cracks spread through the armor, but it held. “You never should have come after me on my own ship.”

“My ship now.” Snow thrust her remaining knife up, using both hands to sink the blade into Hephyra’s stomach. The broken cudgel clattered to the deck. Snow pushed harder, until the hilt of her knife pressed against the dryad’s skin.

She stepped back, yanking the knife free. Dark blood dripped more slowly than Snow would have expected, almost like syrup as it froze to her blade and gauntlet.

Hephyra staggered to the mainmast. One hand gripped her stomach. The other clung to the mast, smearing blood on the wood. Her lips pulled back in a smile. “Not yet it’s not.”

With a crack like thunder, the foremast toppled toward Snow. Lines snapped, and the yardarms broke away as it fell. Snow dove to one side, barely avoiding the mast as it crashed to the deck. The entire ship shuddered from the impact, and a mass of rope slammed Snow face-first to the deck. Crewmen screamed in pain, bones crushed by the impact. The mast had snapped one of the yards on the mainmast and torn through much of the rigging on the port side.

Snow pushed herself around, clawing her way through the ropes. The Phillipa ’s lines were thin, but the sheer volume held her trapped. She slashed out with her knife, cutting everything within reach. She pulled herself up and began to crawl toward Hephyra. The dryad was still smiling, clinging to the mainmast. The ship was her tree, responding to her will. She could sink them all if she chose.

If she had time.

Snow flung her knife, pouring her magic into the mirrored shards in the blade. Moments later, Hephyra lay unmoving on the deck.

Snow’s breath clouded the ice of her visor as she studied the damage. The Phillipa was useless as a sailing ship, the weight of the broken mast tilting her to port. Most of the crew were digging their way out from the mess, or doing their best to free the injured.

She glanced toward the harbor, where four more vessels were approaching through the fog. “Very well.” She retrieved her knife from Hephyra’s throat and turned it in her hand. The ice began to melt, forming into wings. One by one, the wasps took flight, their wings tinged pink by Hephyra’s blood. Her knife hadn’t held as many fragments as she might like, but it was enough to take the remainder of the Phillipa ’s crew.

Snow climbed over the ruins of the fallen mast. Let them send as many ships as they liked. She had four ships now. The Phillipa was dying, but she could still serve Snow’s purpose. At least one of the approaching ships would approach to investigate the damage and help the survivors.

“You banished me,” she whispered as she left the ship, returning to the Snow Queen and her mirror shards. Her own cousin had signed the order that she be executed should she ever again set foot in her homeland. She remembered the false sympathy in Laurence’s voice as he told her what he had done.

“I can’t change their minds,” he had said. His pale face was soft, his eyes shadowed. “You murdered the queen. Burned her to death with your magic.”

“She killed Roland.” Tears had choked Snow’s words. She had expected to die, had prepared herself for that. Instead, she would live… but she would never again be permitted to set foot upon Allesandrian soil. “She tried to kill me.”

“I know. But it’s not enough. She had too many allies.”

Allies like Ollear Curtana and Eminio Perin. Laurence had been too weak to fight them. In truth, it made no difference who sat on the throne. Allesandria had always been a land ruled by greed and cowardice.

Behind her, the crew of the Phillipa worked to reload the guns.