The Frost Queen’s Blade
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First self-published by Meg Smitherman 2024
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Over the centuries, scholars have called Queen Elma I of Rothen many things. Some brand her a hero, some declare many facets of her life the stuff of fantasy and legend, while some still insist she ought to go down in history as a traitor. It is easy, if you have read the usual histories, to label her a monster. But if one takes a moment to study the accounts of those who loved her, most notably the letters from her husband, one can see a new narrative beginning to form. What most historians routinely fail to understand or, for that matter, convey, is that Queen Elma I of Rothen was neither hero, nor traitor, nor figure of legend. She was simply a woman.
From The Ice Queen by Harriet Moss (1532), Cornelian Tower archives
Seven Years Ago
News of her mother’s death came without ceremony in the form of a hastily scribbled note. The pageboy hadn’t wanted to say the words aloud, presumably, afraid of embarrassment or hurting Elma, whose mother was gone. She held the letter in her hands long after the page handed it to her. Long after she read it. She sat in her favorite garden, the one with fruit trees and large firm plants shaped like artichokes, plants that thrived under a year-round sun. The stone bench beneath her was cool in the shade, her outstretched feet warming in a ray of sunlight.
You are summoned home, read the note. Your mother is dead. The king requires his heir.
You are summoned home.
Of course, Elma’s father did not write a letter of his own. No, Elma thought – the moment his wife’s last breath had passed her lips, the king would have ordered a messenger to send for his only daughter. Heir to the throne of Rothen. And thus, a messenger had arrived that morning with word of the queen’s passing, and upon hearing it, Elma’s pageboy scribbled a note and brought it to the garden.
So here Elma sat, finally crumpling the note in her fist.
This moment had always been inevitable. Elma knew her life in Mekya was temporary, knew that the caress of hot dry air on her skin, golden sun against her eyes when she closed them, scratchy grass tickling the soles of her bare feet – it was all temporary. She was only in Mekya for safekeeping, to stay out of her father’s way, to give him peace and quiet. To be someone else’s problem.
Until she wasn’t.
Elma had not thought that her mother would die before Elma came of age. She was only fourteen now. She had imagined returning home to her mother and father together, on the first day of her eighteenth year, as was tradition. Not with warm embraces, but with a distant formality, cold enough to fit the city of her birth.
‘Your Highness?’ The pageboy waited, uneasy, near the edge of the garden.
Elma shoved the note into her bodice – her dress was light and gauzy and not substantial enough for pockets.
‘Don’t call me that,’ she said under her breath, not loud enough for the page to hear. She was next in line to the throne whether she liked it or not.
‘I didn’t quite catch that, Your Highness,’ the pageboy said, his forehead shining with sweat. He clearly wanted to go back inside, where cool stone kept the heat from permeating. Out here, there was no escape from summer’s scalding touch.
Elma loved the heat. Her naturally pale skin had long since browned in the sun, her thick black hair cut short to her chin to keep her neck cool. She was born of the north, but she had bloomed in Mekya, so Mekyan she would always be in her heart.
‘I said thank you,’ she lied, standing. ‘Would you be so kind as to send a tea service to my rooms?’
‘Very good, Your Highness.’ The pageboy strode inside, his shoulders back, always with an air of confidence and efficiency that Elma wished she might emulate one day.
But she was only fourteen. She hadn’t yet learned confidence. She felt as if she had only just begun to know the kingdom of Mekya and its walled city of Lothyn. But she hadn’t learned who she was and still hated to be called princess.
Clenching her jaw, Elma slipped on her sandals. The leather was sun-warmed, and she sucked in a breath at the sudden heat. But instead of kicking them off again, like she wanted to, she marched out of the garden, away from the sun and a dry breeze in the leaves.
In a moment, she was inside, cloaked by shadows and cool air. There was no door to step through, only an arch of white stone that led into a brightly tiled vestibule. This was Orchard House, the only home she had ever known. Here, she had been raised by her mother’s cousins. Three sisters, each loving and motherly in her own way.
Elma passed through the vestibule into a corridor lined with tall arched windows, open to the world beyond. It was never cold enough in Lothyn to require glass panes or outer doors – everything opened itself to the giving sky.
When Elma came at last to a carved wood door decorated with a wreath of yellow flowers, she flung it open and went inside, self-indulgently slamming the door in her wake. She heard a muffled thump as the wreath hit the floor outside. She didn’t care. This was her room, her sanctuary. Tears pricked her eyes, and she bit her lips, willing
them to go away. She plucked the pageboy’s note from her bodice. The ink was smeared now, her sweat dampening the paper.
She read it again, vision blurred.
Your Highness –
Your mother is dead. The king requires his heir. You are summoned home.
Elma was happy in Lothyn. She was safe. Her mother, she was certain, had died of some natural cause. If she had been murdered, the king would have left Elma in Mekya, far from danger. Instead, he wanted her close. He would say that he wanted her in Frost, the capital city, where he could ensure that she understood her birthright. But Elma was certain, though he would never admit it, King Rafe did not want to be alone.
Elma bit back a sob as reality sunk in.
She did not remember her parents. The last time she’d seen them, she had been an infant. There were no memories, no blurred recollection of a pair of faces, of voices, of hands holding hers. She had been too young, sent away at the first possible moment, as was tradition. Babies did not fare well in Rothen. And so, everything Elma knew of her parents had been told to her or learned in rare letters from the northern kingdom. All she knew was Orchard House. And now, she was to be ripped from it, forced into a world of long nights and frigid snows and thick, dark windows. Tears streamed down her face.
You are summoned home.
There would be no denying the king, her father. She
had never met him, not truly, but she knew what he would expect of her. She knew her basic duty as heir to the throne of a kingdom – to do her father’s bidding.
She made a strangled sound of frustration, gritting her teeth.
Couldn’t her mother have been more careful, for Elma’s sake? The thought washed bitterly down her throat. No. Whatever had stopped the beating of her mother’s heart, whatever ailment had taken her soul prematurely, was the work of fate. Nothing could have prevented it; Elma knew that much. She had spent enough time lighting candles under the moon, hands clasped with her three stand-in mothers, speaking to the world’s heart.
She knew things like this never happened by chance.
A knock sounded at the door, the soft rap of a knuckle.
‘Come in,’ said Elma, pressing her eyes with the heel of a palm.
The door opened slowly, revealing first a tray of tea, and then Tammire, one of her mother’s cousins. She caught Elma’s gaze as she entered, closing the door behind her. There was love and warmth in her eyes, and a steady knowing – she had heard of the death of the queen.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tammire, not waiting for any formalities to pass between them before she set down the tea tray, gathering Elma into her arms.
Finally, Elma gave way to grief. She wept loss into the embrace of one of the only mothers she had ever known. Racking sobs escaped her mouth, a stream of hot tears falling from her eyes until her nose was clogged and her breath came ragged.
She wept for the loss of Mekya, the garden kingdom,
the place she would love with every piece of herself until her dying breath. The loss of Tammire, Dae, and Sharra –the women who had shaped her, nurtured her from infancy. The loss of Lothyn, its narrow streets, crowded shopfronts, expansive ponds and gardens, the libraries, the musicians, the flocks of green parrots that cackled in droves atop swaying palms.
But mostly, she wept for the impending loss of a youth that had been so fleeting, fragile in the knowledge that it would be taken away.
‘Cry, cry, let it out,’ said Tammire, and Elma heard in the woman’s voice that she, too, wept. ‘There is no shame in grief.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ Elma said, desperate, over and over into her mother’s shoulder. ‘I don’t want to go.’
‘I know,’ said Tammire.
And even those two words, soft and helpless as they were, calmed Elma until her sobs lessened, until her breathing slowed. Had Tammire told her to stop crying, she would have wailed even louder. If Tammire had tried to assure her that things would be all right, Elma would have shoved her away, disbelieving. But Tammire, Dae, and Sharra had only ever shown love. Understanding. Compassion.
Dread caught at Elma’s throat. Would there be compassion in Frost? Would there be love, understanding, even acceptance? Or would her life become hard-edged, carved from ice like the glaciers that moved unendingly across Rothen like frozen seas?
‘Come,’ said Tammire, holding Elma at arm’s length so they could see one another clearly. ‘Have some tea. I’ll send for the others, and we’ll say our goodbyes.’
Elma said nothing, afraid to speak, should she start crying again.
‘It won’t be forever, love.’
The next day, Elma set off for Rothen. She had three bags full of belongings, all piled neatly on top of the carriage that would bear her across one kingdom and into another. Her gauzy dresses would stay behind, just like her sandals. They wouldn’t be needed in Rothen. Instead, she wore plain trousers, a tunic, and a long woolen cloak to keep her warm at night.
The journey would take weeks. A small contingent of guards was hired to protect her, in addition to a personal maid and various other members of the traveling party whom Elma couldn’t identify and had never met.
Tammire, Dae, and Sharra hugged her all as one before she left, their bodies nearly smothering her with unadulterated love. They were much like Elma, physically. Tall, graceful, their faces lined with decades of laughter and expression. They wore their hair long, thick, and gray. Tammire’s hair was plaited, a thick braid down her back. Dae and Sharra wore theirs loose about their shoulders.
Elma breathed them in desperately. They smelled of cloves and orange honey, their soft embraces a lifelong comfort. She had felt so safe, so loved and protected in her fourteen years at Orchard House.
‘I love you,’ she said, muffled by the embrace, through the tears that streamed down her cheeks. ‘I love you, I love you.’
‘We love you, Elma,’ they said, kissing her on the forehead, taking her hands, speaking soft prayers in the pale morning. ‘We’ll light a candle for you and keep it lit until we know you’re home. Safe.’
Elma climbed into the carriage at last, biting back the wails of sorrow she wanted to unleash. Home. Home was here, in Orchard House. But she was a princess. She was on her way to fulfill her role as the heir of a kingdom. She must compose herself.
Her mothers blew kisses as the carriage rolled away, bumping over uneven cobbles. Elma watched until the three figures disappeared around a bend in the road, the last she would see of them.
‘It won’t be forever, love.’
The memory of Tammire’s words cut her like a dull knife. Because Elma knew, deep down, that they were untrue. She had always known that the moment she left Mekya, she would never return.
Present Day
Boredom was too kind a word for what Elma felt. Resigned disgust would be a more accurate descriptor. Only her father’s presence beside her, his large-knuckled hand propped against a vacant face, kept her dutifully seated. Otherwise, she would have excused herself hours ago.
They were in the Frost arena, presiding over the Death Games. It was the king’s privilege, and his daughter’s as well, to watch over whatever revelries occurred from day to day. King Rafe Volta always chose to indulge in the Death Games. It was his particular favorite pastime, the brutal battles that were carried out in dramatic fashion in the snow-swept arena far below.
Elma only ever saw her father truly eager when there was a smell of blood in the air.
Had it not been Elma’s twenty-first birthday party, with nearly all of the Frost court in attendance, she might not have felt so miserable. If this were a typical Death Games, she would have amused herself by wandering into the underbelly of the arena to joke with the arena men, and maybe even catch a glimpse of one of the champions on his way to dismember someone.
But it was her birthday, and abandoning the celebration would be rude.
‘No storm today,’ her father had said that morning over breakfast, stray beads of hot wine clinging to his graying mustache. ‘Your twenty-first year will be plentiful and easy.’
‘Yes,’ Elma had said, her thoughts elsewhere as they always were. And anyway, no storm meant very little in Rothen. Snow still fell, relentless and white. Though today there were no harsh winds to batter it against the fighters in the arena, or against the Frost Citadel where it perched above the city, a gargoyle of black stone and sharp steeples against a jagged mountain peak – the seat of the King of Rothen.
From her covered seat in the stands, Elma watched as a man eviscerated his opponent, a slop of gore falling out onto the dirty snow below.
Her father slammed his fist on the arm of his chair, leaning forward, teeth bared. He rarely took sides at the Games – he only cared to see brutality. It was the Volta way. The Death Games had never enticed her the way they were supposed to. They were repetitive and dull; the same champions always won in the same brutal ways. Elma leaned back in her chair, trying not to glower.
‘Don’t be so grim,’ said King Rafe, leaning close so no one but his daughter could hear above the din of the arena crowd, the excessive indulgence here in their sheltered box seats. ‘They will suspect you don’t like your gifts.’
Elma glanced at the pile of trinkets next to her chair, gold and jewels, gifts of wealth that she didn’t want or need. ‘I don’t,’ she said. Her father was no stranger to Elma’s insouciance, which tended to border on sullenness.
The king’s frown deepened: a warning. But Elma’s verbal punishment was cut short as a well-dressed young man approached their seats. He was smiling far too brightly, an
expression that was as obviously forced as his deep bow and stiffly styled hair. Elma recognized him as one of her cousins, a lordling by the name of Jarian, or . . . Jedner.
‘Lord Jarlen,’ said the king.
Jarlen, thought Elma. Close.
‘Your Majesty,’ said Jarlen, straightening from his bow. The grin remained plastered to his white face.
He wasn’t a fighter then, but one of the sheltered noblemen who preferred to stay indoors and attend parties in favor of protecting the realm from whatever horrors came out of the snowstorms. Elma’s uncle had taught her, upon returning to Rothen, how to recognize a warrior. He would be sun-tanned from being outside all day, where the sun reflected a million ways off the snow. And he would hold himself in a way that spoke of ease, comfort, a man whose body and mind worked in concert.
Lord Jarlen’s body could not have been more awkward, as much as he tried to appear relaxed. He swept his furlined cape aside in a dramatic gesture and managed to catch it on his sword pommel. Flustered, he fiddled with it for a moment, tassels swaying from his hat.
‘What is it you want?’ the king asked, his tone unchanging. Elma glanced at her father. He was not a kind man, but she had become almost fond of him in the past seven years. And she was grateful that he allowed her to sit in silence in these moments, saving her from the pain of interacting with distant third cousins who couldn’t even bow without causing a tangle of themselves.
‘I’ve come to wish Her Highness Princess Elma well on this, her twenty-first birthday.’ He swept another bow, this time managing to avoid tangling his cape in his sword.
‘She extends her deepest thanks,’ said King Rafe. Normally, courtiers like Jarlen would smile politely, turn, and depart. But Jarlen only stood there, smiling. His gaze found Elma’s, and she had to fight not to wrinkle her nose at him. ‘Your Highness, I thought . . .’ said Jarlen, his words tumbling over themselves as if he were reciting a rehearsed line, ‘I thought I might perhaps offer you a gift on this most, ah, auspicious of birthdays.’ He lifted one arm and extended it outward and behind him.
This gesture piqued the interests of the courtiers who had been milling about in the stands nearby, watching the exchange with sideways glances, their hot wines sloshing. Small gasps broke out as those gathered saw what was making its way through the crowd toward the dais.
A well-clad pageboy – clearly Jarlen’s – holding a delicate gold chain in one hand. Behind the pageboy, their wrists bound and attached to the chain, were a pair of scantily dressed men.
They wore flimsy gold cloths across their hips, and jewels adorned their fingers and hair. Heavy fur cloaks fell over their shoulders, shielding them from the worst of the weather. Their bare chests were utterly hairless. They were fair-skinned and lovely and close to Elma’s age. Her gaze alighted on the delicate bindings about their wrists and the chain. She didn’t look away.
‘For you, Princess Elma,’ said Jarlen, bowing again.
Elma said nothing.
‘They are bed slaves,’ said the king, looking at her sidelong. ‘No small gift.’
‘And well trained,’ said Jarlen. He snapped his fingers, and at once, the two beautiful men drew toward one
another, embracing, exploring one another as if the entire court of Frost weren’t watching.
It was obvious from the gasps and titters that those present did not object to this display.
Elma swallowed, her mouth suddenly far too dry. This felt somehow obscene, even compared to the Death Games’ letting of blood for enjoyment.
‘From Slödava?’ The king’s voice rang out over the arena’s noise.
The snow had begun to fall thicker now, giving their covered section of the stands an almost cave-like feeling.
‘Where else?’ said Jarlen, his confidence seemingly growing. ‘They’re beautiful, are they not? Pure white hair and made for pleasure. We only feed them once a day; they’re far too weak to fight. The princess would be utterly safe.’
Slödava. Elma had seen the elusive northern men before, captured spies and assassins from that remote enemy enclave. Slödava was a city-state swathed in shadow and ice, a place that Elma might not have believed existed at all were it not for the prisoners she’d seen.
I don’t want them, Elma wanted to say, unable to look at the bed slaves. Get them away from me. But she rarely spoke in front of the court. The less she interacted with the people of Frost, the less she believed she might one day rule them.
‘Would Her Highness like further demonstration?’ Jarlen asked, snapping his fingers again.
At that, the slaves began to kiss, slow and deep. Elma watched, horrified, as their hips rocked together, as their breaths grew shallow. Public displays of intimacy, even orgies, were not uncommon in the Court of Frost. Elma had attended but only observed, yet she had never seen
two people forced to touch one another. Forced to become aroused.
‘That will be enough,’ said the king.
Jarlen snapped his fingers, and the slaves drew apart. Elma turned her eyes away from their obvious shared arousal, though she knew she was one of the few who did. His demonstration finished, the lordling continued to watch Elma with an uneasy eagerness.
‘Your Highness,’ he said, almost vibrating like an excited child, ‘does my gift please you?’
Elma sighed. So, this was the point of all that flaunting, all that bowing, and the ridiculously showy gift. Lord Jarlen had not taken his eyes off her, and she ought to have recognized his intent immediately. Men of Rothen had been courting her since her arrival at the citadel, and Elma had refused each of them out of hand. Jarlen would be no exception.
A flaming brazier near them, an enormous thing that could have housed a whole family, roared hotly. Elma felt its heat too keenly.
The king shifted, lowering his meaty hand from his chin. Everyone was waiting for her to respond. To say something. Just one word would do.
Countless glazed eyes gazed at her from the stands nearby, drunk on bloodshed and wine, all in celebration of their princess. Elma Volta, a woman who wanted nothing to do with them. Who might have given anything to be rid of them, of this life.
‘No,’ said Elma. Her voice, rough from an evening of disuse, was hoarse. ‘Your gift does not please me.’
Jarlen’s grin crumpled. Amidst the low hubbub, the gasps and muttering that fanned out through the seated
courtiers, Jarlen gestured at his pageboy to take the slaves away. Elma heard his hissed commands, though she couldn’t parse the words.
King Rafe frowned but said nothing. Perhaps, Elma thought, he was recalling the time he had forced a fiancé upon her, only for the man to be poisoned in his sleep within a fortnight.
This place is a grave. Fed up and miserable, as she was on each of her birthdays, Elma stood to go.
The attending courtiers rustled in response, a whisper of fabric as they stood and bowed low, as hats were removed from heads, as skirts spread out around bent knees.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Elma said, trying to speak above the sound of battle and death below. She considered saying something about a headache, or asking her father for permission to leave, but it would make no difference. He would be in a rage the next morning, and she’d face the consequences of her insolence one way or another.
Elma paused, bending to pick up one of her gifts, a gold and tourmaline necklace, before sweeping out of the box, head held high.
Cora, Elma’s maid, met her in the arena’s inner corridor.
‘Leaving early again?’ Cora said, hurrying to keep up with the princess’s long strides. ‘What happened this time?’
‘Here,’ said Elma, holding out the necklace and deftly sidestepping the question. ‘My father will keep the rest as part of my dowry, or I’d let you have every last cursed trinket.’
Cora took the necklace with a pinched smile, shoving it deep into her bodice. ‘One day he’ll notice you’re stealing your own birthday gifts.’
‘He won’t.’ Elma stopped short as a thought occurred to her. This caused a slight pile-up in the dimly lit corridor, as she was being followed diligently by not only Cora, but four citadel guards. Her father never let her go anywhere alone, and his paranoia had only worsened as he aged. Where once he had been satisfied to let Elma roam the citadel with only one guard at her heels, with each passing year, his fears had increased, and thus, so had the guard detail.
‘Sorry,’ said Luca, the youngest yet most competent of her guards, who had nearly stumbled into her. The others were grumbling to one another about trod-upon toes, but Elma hardly heard them.
‘I left the slaves,’ said Elma.
Cora and the guards all shared a look.
‘You . . . changed your mind?’ Cora ventured, not sounding confident in this guess.
But Elma had already turned and was striding back toward the arena, where the roar of bloodlust and wineaddled laughter grew louder by the moment. She wasn’t quite sure what she was doing or why she cared so much. Those slaves were her enemies. Many of her father’s men had been slaughtered by Slödavan weapons.
In the first year of her life in Rothen, just before her fifteenth birthday, her father had brought Elma the severed head of her favorite guard. His skull had been sliced from top to bottom at an angle, so that only an eye remained, and part of a nose, and a bloody mush that was his brain. As she stared at the remains of his face and the insides of his skull, Elma remembered laughing with the guard over games of dice, sipping wine from his flask. He had
been the only thing she had that was even close to a friend in Rothen.
‘This is the brutality of Slödava,’ King Rafe had said, as blood and brain dripped on the floor, splattering Elma’s silk slippers. ‘This is what I protect you from. What I must crush into dust.’
The bed slaves might have been sent as spies, for all Elma knew. They might have Lord Jarlen under their thumbs. It would be an elegant assassination – the princess, murdered in the throes of pleasure, strangled while the killer’s cock was still inside her. She imagined it all with a sort of thrill, the kind of horrific pleasure that could only come from a life so cold that anything, even death, seemed exciting.
For some elusive reason she couldn’t name, Elma did not like the thought of those two men alone with Jarlen, with her father, with the Court of Frost. They were defenseless and nearly naked, bound to one another, and now . . . useless. Rejected. Would they be killed?
I don’t care either way, Elma thought, as the sound of the arena grew louder, the chill air constricting her chest. I just don’t want them to die on my birthday.
As Elma emerged once more into the stands, her guards and Cora close behind, she could sense immediately that something was wrong. The sounds of revelry were too loud, too piercing. Odd shouts pierced the air. And . . . was someone wailing? But it was so crowded, courtiers and servants alike were everywhere, and no one seemed to notice that Elma had returned. She shoved her way through men and women, treading on booted feet and fur-draped skirts.
‘Your Highness!’ her guards called, following after her.
She ignored them. There was no sound of battle from below; for some reason, the fighting had stopped. As she made her way through the throng, Elma realized belatedly that everyone’s attention was focused on where she had been sitting with her father. Pausing to stand on tiptoe, she saw . . . nothing. Two empty chairs.
Her heart constricted.
Two empty thrones.
‘Father,’ she said, a whisper in the chaos.
It felt like years before Elma reached him. She stopped at the edge of the crowd, caught in indecision. Her father lay at the foot of his chair. She couldn’t see his face – someone was in the way. All she saw were his feet, the toes of his boots pointed toward the sky.
‘Your Highness,’ someone said breathily. ‘Come away.’ Elma did not come away. She shoved away the hands that tried to protect her, stumbling forward to see. At last, the figure who had been crouching at her father’s side –an arena physician, she now realized – turned and stood to face her.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ said the physician, her features pinched and raw. ‘You shouldn’t see this.’
‘I’m the princess,’ Elma said, as if that meant anything. ‘Let me speak to my father.’ It was a ridiculous thing to say about someone who was clearly dead.
The physician, nearly as tall as Elma, set her shoulders. ‘You should be prepared to –’
Elma pushed past her. She had seen death. She’d cheered it here, in the great arena. She had watched, her father grinning beside her, as heads rolled on red-stained snow. She had seen him execute Slödavan invaders with his own
broadsword, teeth bared as he severed their spines. And Elma was no stranger to loss. But nothing, somehow, had prepared her for the sight of her father, the king, in death. His face was purple and blotchy, his eyes open too wide. Spittle crusted the corners of his mouth.
‘Who did this?’ Elma said, the words coming by rote. It was the thing you always asked when someone died in Rothen. Before grief came revenge.
‘No one,’ said the physician, softly. ‘His heart gave out.’
Someone wailed.
I’m the one who should be wailing, thought Elma. ‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve seen this many times,’ said the physician. ‘There was no poison. The royal tasters are alive and well.’
Elma said nothing.
‘The slaves,’ someone said from the crowd of courtiers, which had quieted in Elma’s presence. ‘They did this.’
‘Yes,’ came another voice. ‘The Slödavan slaves poisoned him!’
In a moment, the cry was taken up by the entirety of the surrounding courtiers, a chorus of rage and impotent grief, no doubt fueled by the bloodthirst of the arena.
‘Stop them,’ Elma said, turning to Luca and her guards. ‘Silence them.’
‘Only you can do that,’ said Luca, apologetic.
Elma stood over her dead father and watched as the Court of Frost worked itself into a blood frenzy. Only you can do that. The words rang in her ears. Her father was dead. King Rafe Volta was dead. She was all that was left of the Volta bloodline.
‘The slaves!’ came the boiling cry.
No one was left to stop this. Elma’s hands clenched into fists, her breaths fighting against a too-tight chest. She could not stop this. She wasn’t meant for it.
‘Your Highness,’ said the physician, matter-of-fact, her voice cutting through the chaotic noise. ‘Your father’s body. What are your orders?’
Elma stared at it, the thing that had been her father. Part of her wondered if the slaves were still alive or whether they’d already been torn limb from limb, disemboweled right there in the stands of the arena.
‘Your Highness.’
‘Take the king to his bedchambers.’ A deep, resonant voice cut through the chaos, and the noise abated until it was nothing but a dull hum.
Elma looked around for the source of the voice, relief and fear and grief all threatening to drown her. Because she would have known that voice anywhere. Her uncle, Lord Godwin, appeared at her side in his military garb. He must have been called in from his post atop one of the arena battlements. Tiny icicles clung to his dark beard.
Elma opened her mouth to speak, but her uncle’s hand fell heavy on her shoulder, silencing her. That gesture alone, the weight of his presence, soothed her.
‘King Rafe will be seen by the kingdom’s best physicians,’ said Godwin, addressing the room at large. They hung on his every word, for he was the king’s general, his brother by marriage, and trusted as the sovereign’s right hand. ‘There, the method of his death will be determined. While this is being done, the Slödavan slaves will be held by my own men. I can promise you that justice will be
carried out, and your king’s memory will be honored as he so deserves.’
Then Godwin turned to Elma, his voice far lower, and said, ‘Go back to the citadel. There’s nothing more you can do here.’ He made a sharp gesture for Luca’s benefit – keep her safe, get her home. Elma did not object. She didn’t want to spend another second in that arena, that horrible blood-stained place where her father had been and where only a body remained. And as she hurried into the arena corridor once again, Cora and her guards at her sides, she felt distinctly that she had been subjected to some kind of test. A test that only a queen could pass, and that Elma – a mere princess – had utterly failed.
Elma was allowed to see her father’s body just past midnight on the day of her twenty-first birthday. It seemed as though no one in the citadel slept; the halls were so brightly lit. Even the shadows were full of solemn servants and courtiers. Silken handkerchiefs dabbed at wide eyes as Elma passed.
Elma was relieved to see that her father’s wing of the citadel was quiet, empty of prying eyes and listening ears. Only her guards accompanied her until she was left alone at the door of the king’s rooms.
Indecision gnawed suddenly. Was she meant to knock or simply enter the room? A queen would do the latter, but Elma had been King Rafe’s obedient daughter. She tapped a knuckle softly on the heavy wood.
At once, the door swung open, aided by a pair of solemn pages. She went in, aware of how she moved, the set of her chin, and every nuance of her expression. They would be watching, curious, or hoping for guidance.
Without her father, Elma was about to be the highest power in Rothen. She would be their mother, their war chief, their protector, their judge, and their jury. In her hands, she held a power unwanted, writhing in its eagerness to undo her. She had never wanted to be queen.
As she came to the bed, the physicians moved away from it in tandem, heads bowed. ‘Your Majesty,’ they murmured,
using the title out of deference, even though Elma had yet to be officially crowned.
The words fell on her ears and sat like a rock in Elma’s gut.
She studied her father’s face. He was not as he had been in the arena, twisted in pain. Somehow, they had made him look peaceful. His thick arms were folded over his chest in repose, and he still wore the ring that had always been his prized possession, a trophy of war: a silver band set with a blue-black stone. His eyes were closed, and his face had been washed, his silver-flecked beard trimmed. The scent of cloves permeated the room, too strong and yet not strong enough – the reek of death cut through.
Elma’s fingers curled around the tasseled edge of one of the many blankets on her father’s bed and twisted. ‘May the winter star guide you,’ she whispered.
‘May the winter star guide him,’ intoned those in the room.
Elma recited the rites as best she could, the words an heir was expected to speak over her predecessor. But in her heart, she was pleading, clutching at him, begging him not to go. Not to leave her here, alone in this frostbitten waste.
This is your birthright, he had often said, admonishing. You are the sole heir to the throne of Rothen. The sooner you learn to accept it, the less miserable you’ll be.
But Elma had always clung to misery. She enjoyed it. What else did she have here but resentment?
‘Your Majesty,’ said the nearest physician, and Elma blinked, jolted back to the now. ‘The funeral . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Elma, the true weight of her new station beginning to crash over her. ‘The funeral. Is two weeks enough time to . . . prepare?’
The physician nodded.
‘Two weeks, then.’
Elma returned to her room. When she was alone at last, she went to the window and watched the snow fall. Even then, shivering and afraid, she did not cry.
Inertia kept Elma under the fur-lined blankets of her bed the next morning, a strange coldness seeping from within her as opposed to without.
She had been fond of her father. As fond as one was of a half-rotted meal that would pain the stomach yet stave off starvation for another day. For the past seven years, she had watched the lines of his face deepen, his knuckles swell with every new winter, his breaths become labored with every new spring. But somehow, she had believed, with the conviction of naivete, that he would be with her until the end of her days. He was a king, after all. Kings did not die. They ruled the land because that was their duty.
It was Cora who was finally able to rouse Elma from her morning stupor, bringing in a tray of breakfast and bitter, steaming coffee.
‘Your father’s . . . I mean your advisors are waiting for you,’ Cora said, her face wan, lips tight. ‘Godwin and the rest.’
‘Godwin’s a general,’ Elma said automatically. She found it difficult to meet Cora’s eyes, afraid she would see pity there. Or perhaps even impatience. Elma did not have the energy to contend with Cora’s feelings on top of her own, whatever they were. She could not seem to access her own emotions, and she was afraid that in seeing emotion in others, they might infect her.
‘He may be a general, but he’s been locked in that room
with the other advisors all morning.’ A warning tainted Cora’s words.
‘If you want my dowry,’ Elma said, her fingers flexing on the velvet embroidered coverlet, ‘it’s yours. Father doesn’t need it. Your family does. Your sisters . . .’
Silence stretched between them.
‘I have the necklace,’ Cora said at last.
‘I’m not leaving my room.’
‘They will make decisions without you. You’ll be trodden on by your own men. You need to assert your power. You are the queen.’
A spark of anger cut through the fog of Elma’s mind. She turned sharply, at last meeting her maid’s gaze. Cora’s eyes were wide, red-rimmed as if she hadn’t slept. ‘I am the queen,’ Elma said.
‘Yes.’
A crushing weight, as if the whole of the mountain’s snow had cascaded down to bury her in its suffocating depths, fell over Elma. Cora and her family depended on Elma. Countless more souls dotting the frozen kingdom of Rothen depended on her. She was their queen.
Elma wanted, in that moment, nothing more than to let the entirety of Rothen freeze and die and take her with it. What difference would it make? There was no escape for her. This was her birthright. As surely as the winter storms, her reign would come.
‘Unless you’d like a full battalion of Slödavan soldiers on our doorstep before the crown is laid upon your head, Your Majesty, I suggest we move forward with a coronation this week.’
Elma listened, heavy-lidded, as Lord Bertram insisted –not for the first time that morning – upon a swift coronation.
‘Such haste speaks of desperation,’ Godwin said. It had been his reply each time as the conversation went around in circles, Elma at the center of it. ‘A prosperous kingdom in peacetime does not rush to crown its monarch. We need at least a month of planning and another for festivals. Celebrations. Parties and tournaments.’
‘A ball, perhaps,’ said Lord Ferdinand, the youngest and most genial of the advisors, spinning a large silver ring around one finger. ‘The young men and women of Frost might benefit from . . . levity.’
‘I don’t think anyone in Rothen knows the meaning of levity,’ said Elma.
The room went quiet. It was the first time she had spoken in hours, and she was convinced some of the men gathered had forgotten she was still there. She couldn’t blame them – she had never found the need for her voice before, had never found it important to disagree or to weigh in. What need did a prisoner have of an opinion when her chains might never break?
A log snapped in the hearth, sending up a shower of sparks.
Godwin, no longer dressed as a general but as a lord of the citadel in a tunic and cape of fine silk and fur, broke the silence with a chuckle. ‘Her Majesty has a sharp tongue. A boon for the kingdom.’
‘What good does a tongue do if we are overrun by Slödavans?’ grumbled Lord Bertram. His hair and skin were gray, and he was set in his ways. Elma tended to see
him as an embodiment of the kingdom: old and stalwart and brutal, rotting from the inside.
‘Licks its wounds,’ said Lord Maurice. Half-shrouded in shadow where he sat at the far end of the table, he had said little that morning. His craggy countenance and dark eyes had always made Elma uneasy. He was a man who seemed to have always been ancient, as if a part of the mountain had crumbled off and become a man.
‘Do we have evidence of an impending Slödavan invasion?’ Elma asked.
She knew there was more to the aggression between Rothen and Slödava than some long-standing, pointless feud. Slödava had something that Rothen wanted – Rime Ice. Her father had waxed poetic on the subject countless times. The magic-imbued weapons were supposedly forged directly from the ice of a glacier in the far north, which only the people of Slödava could access. They were indestructible weapons of legend. It was said that the damage these weapons inflicted was far beyond any a mortal blade could cause, their wielders granted unnatural strength and speed.
King Rafe had desperately wanted Rime Ice, but Slödava had refused to even acknowledge its existence. But Rafe, and the kings before him, had never stopped hunting it, as if obsessed. Their intermittent attacks on the kingdom of Slödava were unending.
This was why, Rafe had once explained to Elma, the Slödavans battered themselves against the walls of Frost in snow-born raids, why the Queen of Slödava would do anything to put an end to the line of Volta and take the throne of Rothen for her own, and to prevent the
knowledge of Rime Ice from ever reaching the southern kingdoms.
‘Every month we are attacked,’ said Lord Maurice, somehow subsiding further into gloom as he spoke, though his eyes shone darkly. ‘They come out of the snow and assault the walls; they scale ice as if born to it. They are inhuman, bloodthirsty, unrelenting.’
‘It has been decades since a full-scale assault was launched upon Frost,’ Godwin said. ‘To cross the Frozen Sea alone would be a feat for any army.’
‘Not impossible,’ said Lord Bertram. ‘We must strike first, and decisively.’
Elma rested her chin on folded hands, more than ready for this discussion to end. ‘No evidence, then.’
Lord Maurice said nothing. Lord Bertram spluttered, as if about to protest, but Godwin held up a hand. ‘Unless there is a pending threat of attack, I see no reason to rush the coronation. Her Majesty became queen the moment her father’s heart ceased to beat. A coronation is a formality.’
‘A formality that bears legal weight,’ Bertram insisted. ‘If we declare all-out war on Slödava, which I say we must, then Rothen would be in a position of weakness. An uncrowned queen declaring war without an heir? None of our allies would have reason to support us. The laws of the land and the kingdom would not yet bind her, and Frost Citadel would be open for the taking.’
Elma listened, her own thoughts muffling the lords’ words. A delayed coronation meant more formal events, invitations to host far-flung family members, a parade of miserable pretending and smiling. She would be forced to grin all the way to the chopping block. Yet a quick
coronation meant an ax at her throat before she was ready. If one could ever be ready to rule a kingdom.
‘Your Majesty,’ Godwin said, turning to Elma. His eyes were softer than they had been all morning, though it might have been the firelight. Or the reflection of late morning sun glancing in through the window, pale and weak off the drifts of snow. ‘When shall the coronation be held?’
The question caught her off guard. Since returning to Frost, Elma had seldom, if ever, been asked for any meaningful input. She had been asked questions, of course – what would Her Highness like for breakfast? What color dress would she like to wear to the Death Games? How many logs would she like in the hearth? But the real decisions, the ones that affected her life, had never been left to her. The only true rebellion she had ever been allowed was the length of her hair, which she had refused to grow long since leaving Mekya.
Now that a true decision was left up to Elma, she found that she hated every option. Would she prefer to hurdle headfirst into queendom, to rule a kingdom before she had even accepted that her father was gone? Or would she rather delay the inevitable, allow time to crawl all over her uneasy skin until she ached for the release of finality?
What do you really want?
The question came softly, from a place of longing that Elma had tried hard to forget. From the memory of her mothers at Orchard House. A ghost of warmth, of tenderness and love passed over her. For a brief moment, she felt Mekya’s hot sun, Orchard House’s cool stone under her bare feet, and drew her fingers along a broad green leaf.
I want to go home.
‘Your Majesty?’ Godwin said.
Elma knew what she wanted. And she could never have it. She glanced at Godwin. ‘In a month,’ she said, the end of her words upturned like a question.
Godwin nodded once. ‘Very good, Your Majesty. Let the coronation be held in a month. Two weeks from the day of King Rafe’s funeral. There will be time enough for preparations, a ball,’ he tossed Lord Ferdinand a generous smile, ‘and for a tournament. Even if an army were on its way to Frost now from Slödava, which is unlikely, an army in full force would not evade our notice. There is always the option to hasten the coronation if need be.’
The gathered lords seemed to find no reason to object. Why should they? It was Godwin who had spoken the words, who had made the real decision. Perhaps Elma could rule this way, allowing Godwin to guide her, to speak for her. It would be a pale life, but what did Elma know about being queen?
Everything your father taught you, she thought, her mouth twisting. Would you fail his memory so quickly?
‘I will see to it that the preparations are carried out,’ said Godwin, magnanimous.
‘Thank you,’ Elma said tonelessly.
It didn’t matter to Elma whether she was crowned in a month, or in five, or that afternoon. As soon as the crown was hers, she would become like Bertram and Maurice, these aging men who clung with gnarled fingers to the snow and black rock of Frost. And when she died, her flesh would remain forever preserved in the frozen earth, never rotting, never changing.
‘You did well today.’
But Godwin’s words fell on unwilling ears. Elma had done nothing. She walked with him to one of the small dinner rooms, a retinue of guards and pageboys swarming at their heels. Elma’s duties for the day would be finished after this meal, after what felt like a day that would never end. She regarded her uncle sidelong. He had shown no sign of grief or shock since her father’s passing. She was grateful for it.
‘One more dinner,’ he went on, ‘though it may be a quarrelsome one.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that your advisors will be in attendance, and . . .’ he looked pointedly straight ahead, ‘there is one last matter of diplomacy to discuss.’
Elma stopped in her tracks. Luca and her guards, watching more closely now, halted behind her. ‘We’ve been discussing diplomacy all day,’ she said, her tone treacherously close to petulance.
‘And what’s one more hour on top of so many?’ Godwin grinned, a wan baring of teeth. He extended a hand. ‘Come, Your Majesty. You are needed.’
The advisors were in good form that evening, laughing uproariously at their own middling jokes, fingertips oily with goose fat and noses red from hot wine. Elma sat at the head of the table. She felt like a child playing monarch in her father’s chair. She had worn her best gown, a sweeping thing of dark red, with draped sleeves and a gold braided belt that hung low over her hips. It had seemed queenly in her rooms, when Cora had fastened gold and pearl webbing over Elma’s black hair. Now, it seemed silly.
What good was a gown when a kingdom lay at her feet, hoping she wouldn’t trip and stumble, crushing it beneath her awkward gait?
‘I’ve never seen anyone so jolly in mourning,’ Elma said, watching as Lord Bertram laughed so hard, he choked, forcing Lord Ferdinand to slap him on the back.
The room went quiet, save for the crackle of the fire, the distant howl of wind outside.
‘We celebrate the life of a great king,’ said Lord Maurice. He peered at Elma over the top of a hammered gold goblet.
Elma knew these men. She had known them for seven years against her will. And while she knew they had respected her father’s reign, loved him as a man might desperately love a father who withheld affection, they had never liked King Rafe. They were, like all men adjacent to the throne, happy to wait patiently until the opportunity arose to take some of it for their own. And Elma knew that she was the only thing that stood between them and a fistful of raw power.
‘You celebrate the death of my father,’ she said.
When the men began to protest, spluttering and wideeyed, Godwin raised a hand to quiet them. ‘Her Majesty is in mourning,’ he said. ‘As are we.’
The others muttered agreement, nodding and glancing between one another with solemn expressions. Elma’s pulse quickened. With a flash of satisfaction, she imagined what it might be like to take her dinner knife and plunge it deep into Lord Bertram’s neck, right where the vein throbbed against the papery skin of his throat.
Only the memory of Orchard House, of her three mothers’ arms around her, brought Elma back to earth.
