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17

BESSA

We were blissfully almost finished with yet another state dinner of barely edible pottage and peas with salted fish. Rontu regaled us with his elaborately long story of how he’d gone with the ice fisherman to catch the fried mussels we were eating with his own two gloved hands and had nearly fallen through the hole carefully sawed through the ice when Gillian of the Violent Tides simply couldn’t take it anymore. He slammed his fists on the table, rattling all of the metal plates. The suitors, thankfully, had all brought their own silverware, since we hadn’t found any in the kitchens or storage.

“Enough prattle, Prince Rontu,” Gillian said. “I’ld like to eat my meal in peace.”

“Prattle? As if you could have accomplished such a feat!”

“You stood next to a fisherman who handed you his catch. This is what passes for a feat in your lands?”

“I will show you what our lands are made of,” Rontu boasted.

“Perfectly put. I challenge you to a duel!”

I quickly rose to my feet, barely beating Rontu to his. Everyone froze, some staring open-mouthed, like Mika, and others with their forks halfway to their mouths.

Before Rontu could accept, I projected my voice loudly over the both of them. “I admittedly don’t know every single Violent Tides custom, but in Frostvale, we have outlawed dueling.”

“We have?” Wyot whispered, seated on my left.

“Yeah, I’m outlawing it right this second,” I whispered back.

“Ah. Good call.”

“No dueling in Frostvale,” I announced.

No one said a word. We only had the crackle of the fire in the hearths and a few nervous scraping of chairs on flagstone to guide us.

“Retract your challenge, Prince Gillian,” I said firmly. “Or retract your retinue from Frostvale. Those are your choices.”

“May I make a suggestion?” Rune asked, standing from his spot.

I shrugged. Why not? I mean, honestly. What did I have to lose from letting one of my councilors give their opinion?

Rune nodded. “I think this should settle the question of dueling, as it is, apparently, outlawed. Queen Bessa would like all of you to be aware that she will choose a suitor by her coronation in two weeks’ time.”

“I—what?” I exclaimed, startled. Apparently, I had a lot to lose.

Rune nodded emphatically. “Yes, Frostvale finds it prudent to hold our alliances close, and we hope to hear all the best offers by then. You’ll find Frostvale is so much more than ice and snow,” he said craftily. In his hand was a cup, something green spilling out of it. “This was found near the candle shop earlier this week,” he said to an enthralled audience. “We don’t know what type of seedling it is, but I think the gods are clear. Frostvale is blessed.”

I felt, rather than saw, Mika’s hand slip into mine. She squeezed and whispered, “It looks like my time to shine, sister!” Clearing her throat, she announced, “As official court historian, I have been organizing the archives and discovered the old name of Frostvale. It was Rosevale, and the prophecy that began with the birth of Queen Bessa twenty-seven years ago, the famous Night of Warmth, has begun anew. While we cannot fathom the minds of the gods, it is clear we have their favor.”

Desperately woozy, I panicked. I’d never been good at keeping my mouth shut, but how was I supposed to know I would be queen one day and need to learn this very important skill set? No one trained me for rogue councilors and rampallian sisters at state dinners in front of royal suitors!

“How about, instead of choosing, I’ll just eliminate a few contenders by the coronation?” I suggested weakly.

That got everyone on their feet. “Is this a game to Frostvale?” I heard some of the Silverwood retinue shout. “We should leave now. This is outrageous. Magical favor or not. Maybe that’s a fake flower!”

“I agree with Silverwood for once,” a man dressed for arctic shipping said. “The Violent Tides is used to the fickle nature of the open seas, but we demand stability in our monarchy!”

Gillian was smiling, having backed down from his duel and seemed content to let his people voice his concerns for him. Smart. He held up his hands. “Now, now. I”m sure the queen didn’t mean it like that. Right? This is no game to the Violent Tides, and Queen Bessa doesn’t seem the type to trick, either.”

“Nor Sunfalls!” piped up Rontu.

“Nor Silverwood,” added Jarth.

“This is no game to Frostvale,” Rune said. “To prove how serious Frostvale is committed to finding the right matrimonial partner, Queen Bessa would like to host a few competitions for our royal suitors to showcase their talents.”

If my face wasn’t set in ice, it would have shattered. “I…what?”

“Baking!” Mika shouted. “She wants you to bake.”

“Baking?” It sounded like I had a fifty person echo as everyone repeated the same thing.

Her grin was so mischievous, any potential court jester should be taking notes. “Baking. Tomorrow morning, bright and early. See you in Honeywood Haven!”

Our rather large retinue wended down the ice-slicked roads toward Honeywood Haven, each suitor insisting on bringing their own people as some show of popularity or force. What followed was a farce, worthy of bards to sing about in kingdoms over. There was slipping. There was sliding. There was cursing.

Finally, we more or less made it in one piece to the bakeshop, where my mother was watching through the window with her hands cupped around her face, all the better to see. She broke into a wide smile and flung open the door, embracing me as soon as we got close. She gave Mika and Wyot hugs next, fussing over us before letting me introduce the royal dignitaries. My status as queen hadn’t changed her an ounce.

“Mom, this is Prince Rontu of Sunfalls.”

Rontu, less dressed as a hibernating bear than when he arrived, but still bundled up tight, bowed and offered a sack of white flour to bake a manchet loaf, prized in the kingdoms as the softest, whitest flour available. She held the weighted sack in her hands, testing the softness of the flour with a fingertip. I could tell she was impressed by the quality.

“Milled with a hard stone, no doubt,” she said finally. “Grit from softer stones gets in the finished product otherwise.”

“Um, precisely,” Rontu said, clearly having no idea what she was talking about. “Hard stones only in Sunfalls.”

“I bet no one has ever introduced a parade of princes by saying, ‘Mom, I’d like you to meet’…” Mika giggled in my ear.

“You have only yourself to blame,” I said stoutly.

“Blame? Are you kidding? I’m having a grand time!”

Next came Jarth de la Silverwood, presenting her a bag of dried citrus rinds, which made my mother’s eyes cross. The floral scent even coaxed my dad to come out from behind the ovens to investigate, his eyes meeting mine first to ensure I was okay. “I’m fine,” I mouthed.

He nodded once and shook Jarth’s hand.

“And finally, may I present Prince Gillian of the Violent Tides?” Gillian took out his sword, brought it to his face and bowed. I wondered if I’d ever get used to their cultural customs, so different from ours. He handed my mom a bag of sea salt, “Freshly harvested from our salt flats.”

It was pink! He pulled out another bag of salt. It was blue! And another one was purple!

“My salt keeper ensures me they are the very best of the pull we’ve had this year. The purple salt is my favorite.”

Mika, my mother, and I dipped a fingertip inside and put it to our tongues.

“It tastes juicy,” Mika marveled. “Like a fruit.”

“Plums,” said Gillian, his voice approaching something like honest pride for the first time.

“I’m very pleased to meet you all. I hope you’re ready to put your backs into some bread!” my mother said. “You’ll knead all those muscles!” she joked. Only Mika, Wyot, and I got it. And Dad, but he was used to Mom’s bad jokes and was already back behind the ovens.

Rontu looked positively giddy at the thought. “What are we making?” he asked, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

My mother gave each suitor an apron and a lump of dough, coarser and darker than the white flour from Rontu. “Let’s see what you can do with that.”

Jarth poked at it. “What, exactly, is it?”

Gillian looked inclined to agree, although it clearly pained him to admit it. He wouldn’t even touch it with his bare fingers.

Mika put her hands on my shoulders and turned me toward the door. “This is going to be a blind judging, so say goodbye to our queen!”

The three men stared slack-jawed, clearly full of complaints, but Mika was a force, and I was plopped out the front door and into the snow before I could add my complaints to theirs.

“You can’t really mean for me to wait out here alone?” I complained.

“Of course not. Ambrose should be here any minute. He’s our second judge. I thought it would be fun.”

“You thought it would—” but Mika was gone, waving merrily through the window before I could finish my sentence.

“I have a lot to do, you know,” Ambrose said as he turned the corner, his scowl apparent from thirty feet.

I held up my hands. “I’m not stopping you.”

Ambrose took up every square space of my whole being as he peered around me into the bakeshop, an even deeper scowl etched in his face. He smelled like pine needles and lavender and candlesmoke. He’d clearly been tending his little garden this morning, and the image of him kneeling with his hands in the dirt, his back muscles straining, that serious fiery look on his face, made my thighs tighten and my stomach flip. I could imagine his fingers digging into my skin, pulling my hips closer to his, his whole body straining to be near mine. Gods, I was jealous of a flower.

Would I feel this way about a suitor if he’d shown me a secret garden buzzing with bees?

With a deep sigh, Ambrose straightened back up and locked his green gaze on me. It held more fire than any of my suitors, more fire than a thousand of his candles, magical or not. “I’ll stay,” he said gruffly, and the way his voice pitched deep in the base of my stomach told me I would not feel that way about a suitor, not for a million bees.

Duty over desire. I kept repeating to myself until it was as engrained in me as any Frostvalen motto.

“I don’t need protecting, you know. The suitors are here to woo me. Not throw me over their shoulders like some marauding gang of bandits and whisk me away against my will. If anything, I’d be chaining them here against theirs.”

“They’re not worthy if they wouldn’t brave the elements to have you keep them warm at night,” Ambrose said, his voice low and rumbly. We both stared at each other, surprised, I think, that he’d said that out loud.

He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I should not have?—”

“What? You didn’t mean it?”

“No. Yes. I mean, I just don’t think it’s appropriate?—”

“It’s certainly not appropriate, but I asked if you meant it or not.”

Ambrose stopped trying to explain himself and set his gaze on me. It was intense, a deep forest of green behind those eyes with no end in sight. I could be lost in those eyes, as lost as I was in the pine forests of Frostvale as a child, but this time, I might not find my way out.

Yet still, I waited to hear what he said. I couldn’t bring myself to say no, nevermind. Forget it. Off with his head.

“I meant it,” he said finally and fiercely, and I believed him.

My face was still burning when we walked back into the bakeshop, and I could only pray to Frostine that no one noticed. I stared at the suitors, Rontu proudly displaying what I think was supposed to represent a sheaf of wheat, while Jarth tried to hide his misshapen lump behind some scraps of raw dough. Gillian, to his credit, didn’t bother hiding the fact he thought this was dumb and hadn’t even tried. Dumb? Sure. Funny? Absolutely.

This was supposed to be a blind judging but they just made it too easy.

Mika clapped her hands together. “And now, for our judges. What do you think?”

Steadily, I avoided all eye contact. It was all I could do not to burst into laughter, and I knew if I caught Ambrose’s eye–the way he raised his left eyebrow and tightened his mouth into a straight line–I’d completely lose it.

“For your efforts and enthusiasm–which have overwhelmed your lack of quality–I award you, Rontu, the victor in this royal bake off.” I sealed my declaration with a kiss on the cheek while Rontu fist pumped and danced around the bakeshop, careful to keep a good distance from Gillian.

Only as we were leaving did I dare look at Ambrose, his left eyebrow indeed quirked up and his mouth set in a mischievous grin. Making him laugh, even if only on the inside, really did feel like winning a war.