“You may recall that Jude gave you permission to abdicate? Well, that’s all well and good, but you can’t do it immediately. We’ll need several months more of your being our heir.”
“Months?” Oak echoes, completely puzzled.
The High King shrugs. “More or less. Maybe a little longer. Just to make the Court feel as though there’s some kind of backup plan if something happens while we’re away.”
“Away?” After so many surprises, Oak seems unable to do more than repeat the things Cardan tells him. “You want me to stay the heir while you two go off somewhere? AndthenI can step down, be de-princed, whatever?”
“Exactly that,” says Cardan.
“Like on a vacation?”
Cardan snorts.
“I don’t understand,” Oak says. “Where are you going?”
“A diplomatic mission,” says Cardan, leaning back on the cushions. “After that last little rescue, Nicasia has demanded we honor our treaty, meet her suitors, and witness the contest for her hand and crown. And so Jude and I are headed to the Undersea, where we will go to a lot of parties and try very hard not to die.”
CHAPTER
25
Oak steps onto the crust of ice, his breath clouding in the air.
He is dressed in thick furs, his hands wrapped in wool and then in leather, even his hooves wrapped, and yet he can still feel the chill of this place. He shivers, thinks of Wren, and shivers again.
The Stone Forest is different from what he remembers, lush instead of menacing. He is not pulled toward it now, nor does he feel pursued by it. As he passes, he attempts to see the troll kings, but the landscape has swallowed them up. All he can see is the wall they built.
When he approaches it, he finds that a great ice gate—newly built— stands open. He passes through. As he does, some falcons fly into the air from the top, probably to announce his arrival.
Beyond, he expects to see the same Citadel that he invaded with Wren, the one in which he was imprisoned, but a new structure has taken its place. A castle all of obsidian instead of ice. The rock shines as though it were made of black glass.
If anything, it looks more forbidding and impossible than what was there before. Certainly more pointy.
Hag Queen.He thinks of those whispered words and is more aware than ever why Folk are afraid of this kind of power.
Oak trods past copses made entirely from ice, animals sculpted from snow peering out from their branches. It makes him think, eerily, of the forest in which he found Wren. As though she has re-created parts of it from memory.
She made all of this with her magic. The magic that should have always been her inheritance.
The doors to the new castle are high and narrow, without a knocker nor any handles. He pushes, expecting resistance, but the door swings open at the touch of his gloved hand.
The black hall beyond is empty but for a fireplace large enough to cook a horse, crackling with real flames. No servants greet him. His hooves echo against the stone.
He finds her in the third room, a library, only a portion of it stocked with books, but clearly built for the acquisition of more.
She is in a long dressing gown of a deep blue color. Her hair is down and falls over her shoulders. Her feet are bare. She sits on a long, low couch, novel in hand, wings spread. At the sight of her, he feels a longing so sharp that it is almost pain.
Wren sits up.
“I didn’t expect you,” she says, which is not encouraging.
He thinks of visiting her in the forest when they were young and how she sent him away for his own good. Perhaps wisely. But he isn’t about to be sent away easily again.
She goes to one of her shelves and returns the book, sliding it back into place.
“I know what you think,” Oak says. “That you’re not whom I should want.”
She ducks her head, a faint flush on her cheeks.
