Heart of Ice (The Snow Queen #1)(6)

Rakel exhaled, knowing she wouldn’t be able to explain her reasoning. “I will show you out,” she said. She led the children all the way to the wooden gate of the wall. With a flick of her finger, the ice barring the gate fractured, allowing Rakel to push it open.

“Thank you, Princess,” Kai said as they left.

“Yes, thank you,” Gerta said, drooping like a wilted flower.

“I’ll go get the sled. You stay here,” Kai said.

“Alright,” Gerta agreed.

When Rakel closed the wooden gate behind them, she could hear them no more. They weren’t, however, so easily banished from her thoughts.

She sighed. “I wish the world were the kind of place they think it is.”



Hours later, Rakel was laboring over a fox ice statue—an attempt to quiet the racket her mind was raising—when she heard a man shout “Princess?”

She was so shocked someone had ventured deep enough into her castle that she could hear them that she almost yelped.

“Yes?” Rakel clutched the fox to her. She belatedly realized it could be viewed as a weapon and thrust the sculpture onto a table, rapidly backing away from it as Oskar and a gruff man she recognized as Captain Halvor—another person who had likely angered someone powerful, for he had served as the captain of her guard for five years instead of the usual three—entered the library with four villagers on their heels. Captain Halvor stood out like a wolverine among chickens. He was much shorter than Oskar as well as a few years younger, but he was more wiry and tough. His ash blond hair gave him a bland appearance that his perpetual shadow of whiskers belied.

Rakel inspected the villagers and placed the woman with a bruised face and bandaged head as Gerta’s mother.

What is she doing here?

“Princess, have you seen two children today—a little boy and a little girl?” Oskar asked. He smiled at her, dripping of charm and goodwill.

“Gerta and Kai?” Rakel brushed slivers of ice from her dress.

Oskar’s smile widened. “They’re still here, then?”

“No. They arrived late in the morning and left shortly after.”

“Did they say anything to you?” Oskar asked.

“Yes.” Rakel reflexively clasped her hands together and held them against her waist. “They wanted me to free Vefsna.”

Gerta’s mother cried out like an animal in pain.

“They left in the morning, you said?” Oskar’s pine-green eyes were grim and hooded with worry.

“Yes. The boy said he would go get their sled.”

“I was afraid of that,” Oskar said, running a hand through his normally well-groomed hair.

“They must have gone on alone,” Halvor rumbled over the sobs of the woman. His voice was gravelly and rusted, but warm. “If we leave now, we might be able to reach them before the invader scouts.” The captain left—his fur cape curling behind him—and the villagers scurried after him.

Rakel turned her attention to her attendant, who had stayed behind. “You cannot find them?”

“No. We suspect they went down to the mountain to Vefsna,” Oskar said. “They spent the morning asking soldiers and other villagers to band together to free it.”

Their loyalty to Gerta’s grandmother is touching, though I’m not surprised I am a last resort. Aloud, Rakel said, “I see.”

“Gerta is as brave as a windstorm, and we knew she was plotting—last night she and Kai begged us to bring them to you—but with all the rebuilding and clean up…” Oskar sighed.

Rakel pushed her hands together until they shook and her knuckles turned white. It’s not my responsibility. It’s not my— “Take me with you.”

Oskar looked up. “I beg your pardon?”

“You will go with Halvor?”

“If you wish me to.”

“Then take me with you. You can bring soldiers, if you must, to guard against me—”

“The guards aren’t necessary, Princess. They would be an insult to you—they’ve always been an insult to you—but after Fyran…I think everyone would agree it is unnecessary to guard you.”

Rakel didn’t believe a word of this but thought it was clever of him to pretend it was so. “Thank you. Will you inform Halvor?”

“I will, and I’ll order the sleigh to be brought around. Thank you, Princess.” He smiled warmly and made a quick exit from the library. “Halvor!” Oskar shouted.

Rakel watched him go, thinking, the sleigh?





CHAPTER 3





VEFSNA


Rakel sat in a tiny sleigh, crammed in behind Oskar, who snapped the reins and kissed at the two reindeer that pulled them.

“I was unaware Fyran kept reindeer,” she said, unable to keep her tongue still in her shock.

“Halvor had them brought to Ensom Peak,” Oskar said. “He got them so they could pull the supplies between Fyran and your home.”

“They are army animals?”

“Of a sort. They’re listed as supplies.”

Rakel hesitated for a long moment, thinking through her request. “Could I get a reindeer?” she finally asked.

Oskar twisted around to offer Rakel a smile. “I can promise that softy Halvor is already planning to buy you one since he saw that charming smile of yours when you set eye on these proud beasts.”