Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(23)

Some towns have refused to let her speak; some crowds have thrown rotten potatoes and eggs at her carriage and called her the Bastard Queen. News of Aurora’s abdication has by now spread to much of the land, and not every Delucian citizen is happy about it. Rumors abound: that Aurora never woke at all, that William and Isabelle conspired to kill her in her sleep, that this is all a plot on the part of Queen Malfleur to undermine Deluce’s legitimacy.

The slipper has helped combat these rumors somewhat—it has, in fact, taken on a life of its own. At rallies, in town squares across the land, Isbe has exhibited the dainty object—too small for her own foot—and proclaimed that she knows what it is like to be small, to be stepped on. She has worn their shoes. Her mother was a peasant, like them. She should have grown up in poverty; it was only a feint of hand by the fates that landed her in the palace instead. But she has known what it is like to be unlucky too.

Every time she gets to this part in her speech, she can feel the way the breath catches in her lungs. Gil. He bargained away his luck for her safety.

She has heard the memory of his voice in the many gathered crowds, has felt his absence everywhere. She imagines he’d be proud of her now.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d see through the words, to the terrified, exhausted girl behind them, the one who’s been playing queen one moment and people’s voice the next. And he’d be right to cast his doubts. He’d be right to hate her, even. She has betrayed every sentiment she once vowed to uphold—her disdain for all things royal. She has married a prince.

And she loves William, loves everything about him: his mind, his passion for ideas, the way his voice moves against her skin in the dark. Even thinking of him sends a shiver of excitement through her body, and she longs to see him again.

Just married, and two weeks apart—it’s excruciating.

And yet. The decision to marry William, to bind her life and soul to his, has changed her irrevocably—the knowledge of it coats every inch of her and inhabits her senses, a heady perfume she once admired but now cannot wash off, even as it intoxicates her still.

And there is a thorn in the side of her love. Though she has never stopped sending out inquiries, has even ordered a royal investigation into the fate of the whaling ship where she lost Gil, the mystery of their parting still haunts her, a dark reverberation of the mystery within the mystery: the meaning of his kiss, of the intensity in Gil’s words and hands during that moment in the storm. What might have happened next had it not been their last?

She steps down from the stage, ushered by several guards in full livery. They take her to the royal carriage and stow her safely inside. Then she’s jolted against the back of her seat as the horses are whipped into motion.

These long, confining carriage rides drive her mad with anxiety and impatience. They leave far too much room for her thoughts to consume her. And she’s painfully aware of the guards—no fewer than six—who accompany her journey, which only adds to the on-edge feeling. She aches for an unbridled courser and an open field.

She removes her gloves to finger the cool surface of the slipper, both transfixed and frustrated. The slipper has given her a kind of influence she never expected . . . and yet its meaning eludes her.

So her mother grew up a peasant.

So she possessed an article of clothing, constructed out of the least likely material: glass.

And the fact that the slipper is unbreakable has now become the touchstone of her campaign. It won’t shatter, no matter how hard Isbe has tried—a feature she was shocked to discover when an angry rioter tried to steal it.

But why?

There is a story in this shoe and its strange magic. Isbe longs to understand it. However, there is one person in her life who knows stories like no other, and that is Aurora, and she is gone, to find her own happily-ever-after. Isabelle received a single letter from her sister, sent via messenger from some point south of the royal road where the river forks in the Vallée de Merle. It said only that Aurora was alive, and all right, and not to come after her. That she has found Heath and they are making a life together in obscurity, safe from the violence of the war.

Isbe knows she should be happy for Aurora—and she is—but she wonders miserably if everyone she loves will fly from her the moment they have a chance. Her mother, who she cannot remember. Gilbert. Aurora.

Will William be next?

She pushes the thought from her mind as the carriage comes to a halt.

Byrne, Isbe’s driver, offers her an arm. “Highness.” The title still makes her slightly sick. “Boar’s Neck Inn tonight,” he whispers.

She has come to depend on him to orient her at each of their stops along the royal road, as well as the many winding offshoots into various villages, some so small she has not even heard of them despite their being within a few days’ ride of the palace.

“Boar’s Neck? How inviting.”

“At least ’tisn’t another part o’ the boar, Highness.”

“Please, Byrne, I’ve asked you before.”

“Yes, sorry, Your High—Miss Isabelle.”

“Thank you. That’s much better.” She climbs out of the carriage. The afternoon air has gone crisp with the hint of evening. “Boar’s Neck . . .” she repeats. The name seems dimly familiar. “Byrne, can you tell me what land this is?”

“County of Chasseur, Miss Isabelle.”