Page 14

14

BESSA

Snow fell thickly outside, guttering and howling at the arrowslits that had yet to be covered by tapestries. The Sunfalls and Silverwood retinues shivered under mountains of furs, their feet practically in the hearth of the Great Hall. The Violent Tides seafarers were at least used to icy sea conditions and were dressed more normally as we did in Frostvale. Which, I guess was a good point for Violent Tides.

Ducking around a few scullions to avoid having to speak prematurely in the day, I looked for Mika in her quarters, the kitchen, and amongst the weary weavers in the Great Hall to no avail. I had a hunch as to why suitors were showing up so early and in such grand fashion and I needed to pounce on my intuition.

Finally, I found her in the library, where I probably should have looked first. It was her most recent escape from the many tasks of returning a castle back to its former glory, but she never actually relaxed in the library. She hunted.

Like a dog with a scent, she was determined to find my twin brother’s prophecy, determined to make it say something other than what we all feared. Determined to make me Frostvale’s greatest queen, by grit and sheer force of will. Honestly, her sheer will was probably enough. By her grace, I was here. But that didn’t mean I should let her run roughshod through the Ilex Isles. The other six kingdoms wouldn’t know what hit them.

I snuck up behind her, but she stopped me in my tracks. “Hey, Bessa. How’s the suitor situation?”

“How did you hear—never mind. Mika, have you been sending any messages lately?” I asked.

She didn’t look up from the piles of books and scrolls, her head barely visible. Her voice echoed slightly, like in a tunnel. “Messages? Why, surely. Messages are a great form of communication when sent by loyal pigeons. The dovecote is so calming, don’t you think? Sometimes I simply go to hear the cooing. It calms the soul.”

I waited, my arms crossed. Eska looked up once, decided it wasn’t worth it, and resettled herself on her paws around my neck. “Mika!” I threw up my hands. “Why are suitors coming so early?”

“Oh, that. Probably the messages.”

“Mika,” I said in a low voice that would have worried anyone else, but merely made my sister shrug.

“There are rumors flying all over the Ilex Isles,” she conceded, still flipping through lamb-parchment pages and unrolling scrolls. “Who’s to notice a few more?”

It took real queenly willpower not to grit my teeth. “What. Rumors.”

Mika finally looked up, her eyes as sharp as cut coal. “Only true ones, Bessa.”

I flopped next to her in the pile of bound books and ribboned scrolls, sending papers flying upwards and making her shriek. “Bessa! I had that organized a certain way.”

“I’ll help you if you tell me what you did.”

Shooting me a glare, she started shuffling things around, and yes, I helped. Marginalia littered some of the pages while others were more austere. I held out one piece of vellum that had wyverns walking on two legs up and down the left hand side of the text. It looked like they were walking into the sun, a golden orb hanging brightly at the top of the page. It was a book about the old gods, the gods of warmth and summer and other mystical things that had little basis in our reality. Much like wyverns themselves.

“Well, your chandler gave me an idea.”

“Ambrose?”

“First name basis, are we?” she asked, even waggling her eyes and pausing in her organization.

“Mika!”

“Fine,” she said, bending to reshuffle and then reshuffle some more when I handed her my stack of unruly parchments. “ Ambrose ,” she said, emphasizing his name rather pointedly.

“You’re being obnoxious.”

“ Ambrose ,” she repeated even more obnoxiously yet, “informed me that he doesn’t spread gossip.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to follow. “That’s nice.”

“Well, at first, I’d only considered getting word around Honeywood Haven and the outer villages.”

“About?”

“About magic returning due to the power of your charisma.”

“My what?”

“Your charisma. Keep up. But then Ambrose informed me that he doesn’t spread gossip and just that word, spread, got me thinking. Why shouldn’t we spread it as far and wide as possible?”

My jaw dropped and I nearly dropped all the papers again. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, I so did and I’m still doing it and I’m going to keep doing it.” Mika looked fierce. As fierce as the time our baby brother Wyot fell into a snowdrift so deep, it was about to suffocate him and she didn’t think there was enough time to run for help, so she figured out how to rig a pulley around a tree out of a broken branch and our coats. We nearly got frostbite on our elbows, we were so cold, but he survived.

Adult Wyot poked his head around the corner of a moving bookshelf. “Found a few more in that hidden crawlspace you asked me to investigate. Oh hey, Bessa. I didn’t know you were here.”

I threw my hands up, letting papers fly. “And now you’ve got Wyot in on it too?”

“Finding this prophecy is a family affair now, Bessa. Better get used to it.”

“If you tell me Mom and Dad are back there somewhere, I swear I—I will think of something sufficient and it won’t be pleasant.”

“Of course they aren’t,” she waved my paltry threats away. “Today is bun day. One of the suitors brought exotic spices, including something he called cardamom, so they’re busy. You’re welcome, by the way. Without my messages, we wouldn’t be indulging in cardamom morning buns tomorrow morning with our equally exotic lemon balm tea. We should really keep stretching this suitor situation out. It’s been so delicious.”

“For us, that is,” Wyot winked.

“Without your—what are you telling people?” I blustered.

“Only the truth,” Mika insisted. “That odd things have been happening in Frostvale. Things you might have to see to believe.”

“I thought of that last bit,” Wyot added proudly.

“So let me be clear. You’re telling all seven kingdoms in the Ilex Isles that I have magic.”

“And if we could just find this silly prophecy, we could back it up,” Mika said, already diving back into her piles of parchments. “You are magic, Bessa,” she called, voice muffled again. “You were literally delivered to us by a unicorn.”

“And what if it doesn’t stick? What if this is all the magic there is? What then?”

“Then that’s all the magic there is. Might as well get some good trade deals out of it,” Mika said reasonably.

“And be stuck with a husband who takes over my crown? I think not! What happens when this new husband realizes I don’t have strong enough magic to keep my castle warm, let alone save his kingdom, and that I’m not the prophesied twin. He won’t be happy to learn that I won’t be supplying him with an endless capacity of magic to destroy his enemies and turn everything he touches into gold? Hm? What then?”

“So supply him with a lot of heirs. Heirs make them happy, those simple creatures,” she said fondly. Wyot only rolled his eyes and walked away, too used to Mika’s ridiculousness to take offense at her man-maligning ways.

“Rumors only grow, Mika! I’ll be turned into a fire-breathing dragon before this is all done. Frostvale will be a laughingstock when we can barely keep real fire in our homes.”

Mika stood up, fierce again. “I hope they grow. Bigger and bigger and bigger. I have faith this is not some prophecy meant for men. This is for you. If you can’t have faith in yourself, then I will for the both of us.”

A knock on the large oaken doors stopped us all in our tracks. “Am I interrupting?”

We both spun on our heels, eyes wide and worried. Ambrose stood in the door, his wool cap in his hands, his left eyebrow raised.

“ Chandler ! Why, Bessa, look! If it isn’t the chandler ,” my sister crowed, now saying chandler in the same tone she’d said Ambrose. I could have strangled her. But I didn’t. I still needed her. Instead, I smiled sweetly at both of them.

“In fact, you are interrupting. If there’s anything you need to discuss regarding our recent candle order, the servants’ quarters are located at the rear of the castle. I’m sure someone can point you in the right direction.” I turned back around, unable to meet Ambrose’s eyes after that little speech and unwilling to give myself and my churning feelings away. He’d been dismissed and surely he understood that.

“I am deeply sorry for interrupting such important work, your majesty,” Ambrose began, and I swear there was the deepest hint of not being sorry at all. I was just about to retort a response when Mika made a noise like a wounded duck. I whirled around to see her, eyes wide, staring at a piece of parchment.

“Gelid preserve us,” Mika whispered. “I found it.”