Page 2

All around us the trees in the Quendi forest stretched tall on either side of the gleaming, snow-covered trail that led inside it.

Trees I didn’t recognize and that didn’t grow anywhere near my village or anywhere I’d ever seen before were heavy with frozen leaves that rustled in the icy wind.

I hadn’t realized before that the Ice Poles lined the broad trail that led into the forest for at least a kilometer or more.

I’d heard the legends about the Poles being stolen from the North Pole and brought there by the Ice Giants, but I had always preferred another story—the one that said the race of Giants, who had originally settled all the land between here and the sea, had been caught in a sudden blizzard and turned to ice while dancing in long lines and holding hands one frozen Winter Solstice Eve.

Over the centuries, the wind had carved away at them until they'd lost the arms that had once joined them, and their bodies became as smooth and featureless as polished glass.

From the look of all the snow and ice surrounding us, the limbs on the trees in the forest should have long since been bare too, yet there they were, ice-bound and frozen.

A few of the pines had limbs that hung low, weighed down by ice, with long white skirts sweeping the snow.

Snow-colored birds flew among these trees and perched on their arctic limbs.

An occasional white hare came to the edge of the road and stared after us with blood-red eyes as we galloped by. The stag’s hooves made only a muffled sound on the road, and the full moon had peeped out from the clouds to gaze down and watch us pass.

I believe that no matter how scared we are, our bodies refuse to hold onto that fear for awfully long.

It has the practicalities to take care of, after all, like keeping air moving in and out of the lungs and keeping the heart pumping along, and all manner of other tasks, so after that first surge of adrenaline, it can’t be too bothered even with extreme emotions like terror, especially when that body is freezing to death.

I still felt afraid, but the fear gradually turned to worry over how cold it was, and how much I was shaking.

The snow pricked my skin like needles. The cold air gnawed at me, an unnatural, alien cold that tried to creep into my lungs with every breath I took and seep into my brain as if it might find out what I could possibly be doing there.

The Quendi soldier had put me in front of him on his saddle, holding me stiffly against him.

Only once did he speak.

I was shivering so desperately by then that he pulled back on the reins and sighed.

“Mortals,”

he said with great disgust.

He reached behind himself and rummaged through a large pack strapped to the stag’s side, pulling out a thick, dark fur and matching fur-lined boots.

“Wrap this around you and put on the boots, else you’ll be dead before I can ever get you to the palace.”

“T-the palace? A-are we going t-there? A-are you the Elven k-king?”

“Me? Most certainly not.

I am Lord Juul of the King’s Council.”

“Oh,”

I said, as he swirled the big cape around my shoulders, so I was immediately enveloped in its blessed warmth.

I awkwardly pulled the boots on my nearly frostbitten feet, and he clucked his tongue to the stag.

We set off again, going even faster than we had before.

I tucked my head down deep within the folds of the ermine-lined cape and then, exhausted and heartsick, I actually sagged back against him and managed to fall asleep.

I don’t know how long we rode through the icy forest, though I believe time was measured differently there.

It had been the middle of the night when we first entered it, but it seemed much later in the day when I opened my eyes and looked around me.

We were still traveling down a wide, icy trail through the trees.

A silvery light filtered down through the leaves and surrounded us. It was far too bright for me, glinting off the snow, so I closed my eyes and went back to hiding my face in the furs.

At length when the Lord nudged me awake, it was well and truly dark.

I looked up to see the tall, white walls of the high king’s citadel.

Not that I knew for sure that all that magnificence belonged to the king, but then who else? It was a beautiful palace and I’d heard the legends about the Quendi and their alabaster castle, never dreaming I would ever see it.

It sat at the top of a hill, with its turrets and battlements covered in a thick crust of ice and snow. And above every turret was the king’s emblem, a golden crest emblazoned on a field of blazing white. The flags billowed in the wind, bright against the bruised-looking clouds threatening overhead. The Quendi Lord rode straight up to the massive gates, which parted for him as soon as we came near. What seemed like magic resolved itself into guards who had seen us coming, of course. All of them wore chalky white fur uniforms that had blended in with the snow and the massive gates. The stag trotted into the large courtyard and up to the bottom of a broad set of steps.

Lord Juul pulled on the reins, and other Quendi ice soldiers, pale men wearing dark leather, came closer to us then.

Lord Juul picked me up as if I weighed next to nothing and handed me down to one of the guards.

He set me back on my feet, and Juul jumped down beside me.

“Come,”

he said, taking my arm.

“I’ll take you to the king.”

The same guards who had met us in the courtyard went ahead of us to haul open the huge double doors, and a blaze of light fell across us as they opened, making me want to shield my eyes again.

Gathered on either side of a long entryway, Lords, nobles, and courtiers clothed in beautiful jewel-toned colors turned to stare at me.

We walked past them into a huge hall, and as my vision cleared, I could see that at the far end of the golden room was the shining, white marble throne of the high king—the king of all the Quendi.

If I had thought Lord Juul beautiful—and I had—his beauty paled in comparison to the glittering being who stood up as I came closer and looked down curiously at me, tilting his head slightly to the side as I’d seen Juul do earlier.

He wore white leather, trimmed with soft, white fur, and his hair was long and the palest shade of blond I’d ever seen, so pale it looked almost silver.

His hair had red and green jewels hanging off the braids and plaits that fell around his elegant, patrician face.

He had golden spurs on his heels that looked wicked sharp and blue jewels like huge chips of ice on his fingers. His eyes were like pale blue diamonds too, though his brows and lashes were thick and dark. He was tall and well formed, and he looked at me with his lips in a thin line, the corners turned down, like he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at, but he didn’t much like what he saw. A circlet of gold, sapphires, and diamonds banded his forehead. He waited, unsmiling, even grim, as we walked slowly toward him.

“Juul, what is this?”

he asked, almost hissing the words.

I had the feeling of being in a dream.

Whatever this glorious being had wanted with me, it didn’t seem to please him now.

I had no idea why or what I’d done, and it only added to the otherworldliness of the moment.

Lord Juul nudged me closer to the base of the throne and bowed low before the king, yanking me down beside him and nudging me with a sharp elbow in my side to bow my head. Thank God his “nudge”

was cushioned by the thick fur I had wrapped around me, or he might have broken a few ribs.

“Your Majesty,”

Juul said, sweeping his arm to the floor.

“I have brought you a mortal.

I gave his father a bag of gold to purchase him for you.”

“I see.”

The king’s voice was smooth and almost musical in tone, but it held no trace of happiness.

I think it would be safe to say he wasn’t at all glad to see me.

In fact, he looked at me as if I were something that had just crawled out of the drain.

He stepped down off the dais and came to stand in front of me, sounding amused. “Or at least I see a head sticking up out of the fur. But where’s the rest of him?”

Juul jerked the warm ermine off my shoulders to fall in a heap at my feet and then gestured at me.

I began shivering in the palace of ice as the king put a long, cold finger under my chin and tipped up my head.

“Black hair, Juul?”

he asked, looking at it with as much horror on his face as Perseus’s must have shown when he first saw Medusa’s head full of snakes.

He, at least, got to see it through the reflection in his shield—to avoid the vision that would turn him to stone.

As I recalled from the story my grandmother had read to me, Perseus then cut off Medusa’s head and stuck it in a satchel.

I fervently hoped that wasn’t on this king’s list of things to do next.

“None of the villagers in the area are fair-haired, Your Majesty.”

Lord Juul hurried to appease him.

“This was the prettiest one I could find in any of them.”

He looked me up and down consideringly.

“He has a pleasing singing voice.

And I think his eyes are…unusual.”

I was startled by the words and turned my head to look at him.

He thought I was pretty? Being a man, I didn’t think of myself as such, but people did often say I took after my mother.

She had been a rare beauty before the sickness ravaged her.

I mentally shook off the idea as unimportant, because, much more crucially, what did he want with someone “pretty”? I’d had my fair share of that trouble with my father, and I wasn’t about to start up that with this man, no matter if he were the king. Juul’s words about my singing voice told me he must have been the one who left the tracks outside my brother’s window.

“The prettiest one?”

he sneered.

“With hair the color of black coal and eyes…”

He examined my features further before letting me go and taking a step back.

“Well, I suppose his eyes might be unusual, after all.

Shiny, like the onyx stones in my mother’s jewelry.

She liked to wear those odd, dark pieces she brought with her, just to show her disdain for my father’s gifts.”

He turned and walked back to his marble throne.

He sat down, almost lounging in it, clearly signifying how bored he was with his own “gift.”

“I suppose he’ll do,”

the king said, his voice petulant after a long, tense moment.

“From a distance, perhaps he’ll pass, if he wears something to cover his head.

Take him away and have him cleaned up.”

He made a shooing motion with his hands.

“We’ll have the betrothal ceremony when you return with him.”

“Very good, Your Majesty,”

Juul replied, and he took my arm to hustle me away, but I yanked my arm back from his grip.

“Wait a minute! Betrothal ceremony?”

I shouted, my voice echoing around the icy chamber, causing a few gasps of outrage from the mincing courtiers surrounding the throne.

“You can’t mean to marry me?”

“I do what I must,”

he said grimly, looking away, “though the moon and stars may fall for it.”

“But why?”

I insisted, dodging Lord Juul’s hands as he lunged toward me to pull me out of the king’s hall.

“You obviously don’t find me pleasing, and I certainly don’t have any desire to marry you.”

One imperious eyebrow rose at that, and I rushed to explain before he could order my death.

It would be a simple matter for him, I realized, like swatting an annoying fly.

“Not that you’re not…beautiful, and-and rich and all of that.

But it’s nonsense to marry me when you so obviously don’t want to, and when all I want to do is to go back home.

Perhaps we could make some other kind of bargain?”

Juul had managed to get hold of me with a cold, implacable grip and had begun dragging me from the hall with his mouth set in a grim line, but the glittering king held up a hand to stop him.

For the first time since I’d seen him, the man looked interested, his sparkling eyes narrowing slightly.

“Bargain? What kind of bargain?”

In most of the stories concerning Elves, and the Quendi in particular, it was always said that they loved making intricate and complicated bargains and trades, most of them involving life or death.

Bargaining was something they enjoyed, and something they excelled at it, but any mortal making a bargain with an Elf had to be extremely careful.

Though scrupulously honest, they would trick you if they could, and they always, always drove a hard bargain.

“You can forget about marrying me, and I can give you something else you might like better in return.

Something far more valuable.”

His cupid’s bow lips pursed and then quirked up mockingly at one corner.

“Do you have anything of value?”

“As it happens, I do.

I have certain skills that I can make available to you.”

“What kind of ‘skills’?”

I managed to dislodge one of Lord Juul’s hands again and smiled up at the king.

“Please, Your Majesty," I said.

“I’m able, by means of secret charms, to convince all creatures to do as I say.

All creatures living beneath the sun, all creatures that creep or swim or fly or run.”

He only looked bored.

“Really? And yet you live in the poorest village around, in a hovel by the forest.

How very humble and long-suffering of you.”

I felt my face flush, but I had to try to convince him.

“I’m only in training, because I’m young.

But I can play a pipe so sweetly, so hypnotically that it creates magic.”

“Are you saying you’re a wizard?”

“I’m saying I can use magic to heal or to harm.

And all creatures will follow the sounds of my pipe anywhere I want them to.

Grown men will dance to my tune and follow the music I create.

In this way, I can control your enemies and make you powerful. Uh, even more powerful, I mean. If you let me go home now and continue my training, I’ll come back when I get older and work my charms against your enemies. I could even be your-your wizard, like the Elven kings had in the old stories.”

Well, it wasn’t quite a lie.

I could play the pipes, like I said.

I was even quite good at it.

Thanks to my grandmother, I had inherited certain skills, and I also knew how to make potions that could heal or harm. Even hypnotic potions, if I wanted to, and perhaps with their use and my music and powers of persuasion, I might be able to convince men to follow the sound of my pipes. It would be, in a way, a form of hypnotism. I thought I could do it. I was pretty sure I could anyway.

After all, it was my belief that if you can make a man believe something you say or do strongly enough, and if it matches what they already believe in or what they desire anyway, then they’ll follow you and will do whatever you ask.

They’ll even ignore the fact that it may be harmful or detrimental to themselves.

My mother’s religion, for example, required her to be poor and penitent and never to question the priests when they told her that her suffering was God’s will.

It prevented her from taking my medicine that could have cured her or from leaving an unhappy marriage. In addition, all the peasants paid exorbitant taxes to the czar, so he could keep himself in fine carriages and rich furs, even though it beggared them, all because they believed they had to do what he said, or great harm would come to them.

The king gazed down at me, looking unconvinced.

“You already belong to me,”

he said.

“Along with everything you are or anything you can do.

Lord Juul made a bargain with your father, freely given and freely accepted.”

“But-but…”

I sputtered.

“It’s my life! You could at least offer me some compensation for agreeing to marry you.”

“Your father was already given compensation.

Freely given and accepted, as I said.”

“You offered him a sack of golden coins.

He would have taken a jug of krupnik as easily.”

“I did not seek to cheat anyone.

Only a mortal would suggest such a reward,”

he said, his eyes narrow with contempt.

“I don’t call it a reward to be dragged from my home in the middle of the night to be wed to a man I never met before.”

“What are you saying? Do you think I would degrade myself so much as to make a false bargain? We gave your father a fair and honest price for your hand in marriage.

It’s not my fault that he accepted a price you now find too low.”

Lord Juul was reacting with horror to my words and was glaring at me.

“Today is the greatest honor of your life,”

he told me, practically gnashing his teeth.

“You have been chosen to be the consort of the high king.”

“Yes, yes, but it’s not anything I want,”

I argued, glancing over at him.

“Or anything your king wants.

Look at him if you don’t believe me—that isn’t the face of a happy bridegroom.”

Juul, who had taken my arm in his steely grip again, ignored me, yanked me away and kept walking, dragging me with him, dodging around courtiers and stiff-arming any curious onlookers who were coming so close as to block his way as they tried to get a better look at me.

God, he was so incredibly strong.

I managed to wrench my arm from his grasp just at the doorway, and I made it a few steps backward to shout back at the king.

“But I don’t even know your name!”

“My name?”

He turned on me with a face like a thundercloud.

“I offer you my hand in marriage and my crown! How dare you ask me for my name as well?”

I stood there dumbstruck until Lord Juul captured my arm again and led me from the room, far from the main gallery, down one long hallway after another.

At last, he opened a tall, ornate door at the end of a corridor, pushed me inside, and pulled the door closed behind us.

Several servants came in right away—at least I assumed they were servants.

They were all beautiful, with silver blond hair and pale skin, and all wearing clothing that would have taken me half my life to save enough coins to buy.

Yet, Juul gave them orders in the lilting, musical, but totally incomprehensible language of the Elven people, and his tone, as ever, was imperious and cold.

He turned to contemplate me as we stood there waiting for them to do whatever it was he’d told them to do.

“They’re going to bathe you and prepare you to have supper with His Majesty.”

“What?”

I gasped, not sure I heard him correctly.

“Bathe me?”

“Yes, of course.

And scrape those wisps of hideous black hair from your face as well.

Then once you’re suitably attired, less smelly, and therefore less likely to offend the king, I’ll take you to his table.”

“To his table?”

I asked in a small, trembling voice.

Juul rolled his eyes and barked out a sharp laugh.

“Do you think us goblins that will eat you? I’ll escort you back to dine with the king.”

“Oh.”

He stood for a moment contemplating me and perhaps he felt some pity or—much more likely—perhaps he didn’t want me to fight the servants, because he actually explained himself, in a way.

“Listen to me carefully.

The king has need of a consort, and he has chosen to wed a mortal.

None of the whys or wherefores of this need concern you, but I hope you’ll be suitably honored and ready to do whatever you’re told and obey his every command.

For the high king to lower himself so much that he agreed to marry a mortal… Well, its unheard of. Unprecedented. The only reason it was even allowed by his council was because his mother wasn’t of pure Elven blood.”

“She wasn’t?”

“No.

Unfortunately, she was from one of the Fairy tribes.

She sought to trap the old king into staying with her in her realm, but he was too smart for her and managed not to eat the sweet relish and the wild honey and manna dew she offered him that would have kept him in thrall to her and eventually killed him.”

Yes, it no doubt would have.

Fairies could be treacherous creatures, and everyone knew that no mortal could ever eat anything given to them by a fairy.

Apparently, that went for Elves too.

“Instead,”

Juul continued as he finished his story, “the king ravished her, took her maidenhead, and escaped.

Nine months later, she was delivered of his child and brought the boy here to leave him with his father.

The old king forced her to stay with him once she arrived, however, for several years, and he even put aside his old queen, Olga, in favor of her.

The fairy was very beautiful, I believe.”

“You don’t remember her?”

“No.

The king and I are much the same age, and his mother was gone before we were old enough to really notice her.

She was never…motherly…to the king, and noble children are raised mostly by the servants until they reach a certain age.”

“What age would that be?”

“When they’re less noisy and annoying.”

“I see.

So, this fairy queen managed to get away from his father?”

“Yes.

She stole away with the aid of one of the courtiers she’d managed to bewitch.

The king didn’t remarry.”

“And the courtier? What happened to him?”

Juul glanced down at me coldly.

“Nothing good.”

I could well believe it.

As for the rest of the horrible story…

“How charming.

Attempted murder, rape, child abandonment, imprisonment, treachery, and divorce…it really has it all, doesn’t it? Did someone read it to the new king at night as a bedtime story?”

Juul stared at me with the same little head tipping motion that I’d come to understand meant that I was incomprehensible.

Or mentally unsound.

Take your pick.

“It made the king stronger.

More adaptable.

But there were those who favored the old queen and her son when the old king died.”

“He had another son?”

“Yes, Prince Adan.”

“But wouldn’t he be the rightful heir? He’s older, I presume.”

“We don’t have that custom.

In our kingdom, the strongest heir prevails.

Prince Adan was beaten in a fair fight, but our king graciously spared his life.

Out of pity, I suppose.”

He made a face that clearly indicated his distaste and disapproval of such an incomprehensible concept.

“But what does all that have to do with me?”

“With you? Nothing at all.

I was simply trying to explain how the King’s Council would allow him to consider marrying a mortal.”

“Well, in the first place, that doesn’t explain anything.

I still have no idea why he wants to marry me.

And in the second place, I doubt very much that there is anything this Council of his could say to try to prevent the king from doing exactly what he wants to do.”

Juul lifted one shoulder expressively.

“But can’t you tell me why he feels he needs to get married? Surely there are plenty of candidates around here, just dying for a chance at the position.

Why would he come to my small village to choose someone like me?”

“He didn’t come.

I did.

I chose you from the extremely small field of suitable candidates in the filthy little villages in your area.

And how dare you question me anyway?”

I raised my chin and glared back at him.

I didn’t know how I dared.

These people were cold and practically feral, it seemed, and they wouldn’t be swayed by anything like human feelings.

I doubted they had any feelings at all. I thought the only thing this Elven Lord might appreciate was strength, so I gathered my courage and shouted back at him.

“I dare because this is my life we’re talking about and not yours! And because I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t think it’s anything good.

Why would the king want a-a mortal as you call me? Why would he want me at all? I’m nobody.”

“All the more reason you should be on your knees thanking me instead of daring to shout in my face.

You’ll find out when the king deigns to tell you and not a moment before.”

I made an impatient noise, and he narrowed his eyes.

“Be careful, little human.

It would be inconvenient for me to replace you now, but not impossible,”

he warned with a cold hiss.

His eyes had narrowed, like a crack in a frozen river, signaling to whoever saw it of the danger they’d face if they didn’t heed its warning, and if they were foolish enough to try to cross it.

Still, I persisted, feeling as if I had little to lose at this point.

My life was probably forfeit anyway.

“What makes you think I’ll even go through with this?”

He stepped even closer to me and fixed me with a gimlet-eyed glare.

“Because if you don’t, I’ll cut your throat right now and let your blood run out on the floor.”

Since I had every reason to believe he’d do it, and no doubt dance in the puddle afterward, I shut my mouth at once and had to satisfy myself with staring coldly back at him instead.

Within moments, the doors opened again, breaking our standoff, and the servants were back, carrying a tub and buckets of steaming water.

They filled the tub with aromatic spices and soon had me stripped of my clothing and neck deep in the blissfully warm water.

There were four young women, and they rolled up their sleeves and went to work.

They soon had me soaped up, scrubbed, and shampooed to within an inch of my life.

One of them brought out a sharp-looking razor and scraped off my beard.

Another trimmed my hair.

And all the while Lord Juul looked on with a sharp and critical gaze.

Only once did he turn away, and that was when I stood up and stepped from the bath.

He stared at me and then blushed, only the faintest hint of color staining his cheeks, but on such a lily-white countenance, it showed up remarkably well.

He turned and walked away, over to a nearby chair, while they wrapped me in thick drying cloths and combed and perfumed me.

One of the handmaids brought in a beautiful suit of clothing, in a rich, sapphire blue satin with silver buttons and a pair of matching soft leather boots, lined with fur.

When they were finished dressing me, they stood me in front of Lord Juul for his inspection.

He walked around me twice and finally nodded his head.

He held out his arm to lead me back to my bridegroom, but I stopped him at the door and tugged back against his arm.

“What is it now?”

he asked me, his voice full of irritation.

“Will you at least tell me the king’s name? It made him angry when I asked him before, but if I’m to be married to him, I deserve to at least know his full name.”

His eyes narrowed and he frowned at me.

“Full names are closely guarded.

If a fairy were to find out, they could gain power over you.

His given name is Tarrak and that’s all you need to know. He is the Lord High King Tarrak to you.”

He started to take a step forward and seemed to think better of it.

He turned to look at me.

“And I suppose I should ask—what is your name?”

“Pavel,”

I replied.

“Then you shall hereinafter be called the King’s Consort Pavel.”

He gave me an abbreviated, mocking bow and then held out his arm to me again.

I took it, and he led me back to the main gallery.