Chapter Text
It was still dark when Andy crept out of the cottage. She trod carefully, avoiding the squeaky floorboard and the protruding foot of the girls’ bed from long practice.
When she had reached the outskirts of the village without seeing another living soul, she finally dared to breathe deeply again. The last thing she needed was for someone to tell William—or worse, Christian—that she’d been spotted heading east.
Andy’s breath fogged the air in front of her, lingering for a moment in the unnatural cold. She didn't usually mind the cold—she’d always been hot-blooded—but this magical winter was new and different. She felt the cold in her heart, even if her body retained its perpetual warmth.
Andy looked at the glimmers of sunrise and shook her head, turning onto the main road east, toward Winterhaven. How strange it was, to pick her way through snowdrifts and icy patches at Midsummer. The sun rose early, just as it should, but on a forbidding winter landscape. Eight months ago, before this endless winter, Andy might have found it beautiful. Here and now, it was terrifying.
Andy swallowed around the lump in her throat as she glanced back at Cordham for what was surely the last time. Maybe I can save Sarah and Margaret, she told herself. Maybe I can save them all. Prove myself useful, for once.
Around midday, she stopped to consume her lunch, such as it was. Half a wrinkled apple and as much water as she could manage. It kept the hunger at bay, at least for a while. Sort of.
Andy groaned as she started walking again, already feeling weak from just half a day of trudging through the snow and icy muck on the road. At least carts had cleared a path through the worst of the snow drifts for her. She would never have been able to make the trip on foot otherwise.
Andy couldn't help wondering what she would find in Winterhold. Nobody who entered the snow queen’s palace returned, they said. Everyone was too terrified to go near it now—now that this neverending winter held them all in its icy grasp.
But Andy had also heard another rumor: that the palace was even colder than the rest of Illyria. And if that was so, maybe it was just the freezing cold that held visitors captive, and nothing more sinister. Well, this unseasonable snow was certainly sinister enough, Andy supposed, but it was less dangerous to her than to others.
Surely Andy's strange, useless ability to be warm at all times could finally work in her favor now? Perhaps it would keep her safe long enough to find Queen Miranda at the heart of this unnatural winter and solve whatever had kept the queen from setting things to rights. Queen Miranda was stern, they said, but she was also fair-minded and brilliant. The most gifted frost mage in ten generations, even among her gifted family. Surely she would have ended this evil spell in a heartbeat if something had not stopped her. No, there must be some sort of treachery afoot. Assassins, or perhaps a traitor at court.
Andy shuddered. Assassins were beyond her ken, but she knew treachery well enough. She couldn't believe her own brother would—
But no, she could believe it. She'd spent months watching the people of Cordham grow leaner and hungrier and crueller as the winter continued unabated. After watching their eyes grow hard and shifty, their hands turning to claws when anyone had food to trade for firewood; after hearing their voices grow shrill and desperate, begging in the square for scraps to feed their little ones—after that, Andy could believe anything of anyone. Even William.
William, her dear older brother, who had gladly housed and fed her after their parents succumbed to the wasting sickness when she was still a teenager. William, who had taught her to skip stones and let her beat him in footraces. William, who hadn't let his wife kick Andy out of their cottage, even when their family kept growing. William, who had wept in Andy's arms the night their parents died. William, who insisted that Andy had to marry Christian.
That was the other, less noble reason for Andy's journey. It was foolish, she knew, to be so contrary when Christian was a perfectly nice man. Handsome. Wealthy, too—at least by the standards of their town. The eldest son of a prosperous merchant, he could have easily provided her with food, with protection.
But Andy—useless, contrary Andy—couldn't bear to think of what she would have to give up for that food, for that security. Even thinking of letting him touch her—no, she couldn't do it. Andy shivered in disgust. She would rather die than sell her body for food. And she would be selling herself. She knew instinctively that she could never love him, or any man, the way a woman was supposed to love her husband. It was just another way that Andy was strange. Unnatural. Much like the wintry winds that swirled around Andy's face under a bright blue summer sky.
So instead of marrying a wealthy man and starting a family, Andy had fled on a fool’s errand, had run away from the man her brother had promised her to.
Knowing her luck, she would probably slip on a patch of ice and break her leg before she ever reached the palace. Knowing her luck, she'd never make it anywhere close to her destination, let alone complete her quest. It was ridiculous to make the trip alone, especially with bandits about. But in many ways, Andy had always been alone—and now she always would be, for the rest of her very short life.
It was just as well that she wouldn't live long enough to graduate from spinster to old maid, Andy thought with a wry twist of her lips.
Why couldn’t I be normal? she wondered for the thousandth time, securing the hood of her cloak more tightly. Why couldn’t I be happy with Christian? Why couldn’t I marry and have children of my own? Why am I cursed to be different?
She couldn't boil water without burning it, couldn't bear a man’s touch, couldn't sew without stabbing herself or snapping the thread. Head in the clouds, too tall, too stubborn, too clumsy, too fond of books and tales. “Worthless,” she could still hear Winnifred saying. “Another mouth to feed, and she can't even cook. I can't take much more of this, William. We barely have enough for us and the girls. Face it, your sister’s dead weight, and you're better off without her. Let Christian pay for her food and clothing and her stupid books, if he likes her pretty face so much. He’ll see what she's really like soon enough. Better make sure they're married before that happens.”
Yes, at least this way she could stop being a burden on William, even if she couldn't bring herself to marry Christian. They would have more food for Margaret and Sarah now. Andy hated how skinny her nieces looked, how quiet and pinched. They used to run and shout with such energy, and now they could barely stay awake to play quietly with their dolls.
Andy pressed her lips together tightly, determined to think happier thoughts, or at least distracting thoughts. There was no point curling up in despair before she had even attempted to carry out her fool’s errand.
Andy eyed the increasingly hilly road in front of her with trepidation. The top layer of snow was fluffy and white, but she could see the churned-up brown muck beneath, and the thick gray clouds in the distance promised more snow soon enough.
She plodded on, beginning to pant as she reached the steepest part of the ascent. Suddenly, her foot slipped on a hidden patch of ice, and her mind instantly conjured an image of herself fallen in the middle of the road, injured, helpless as the winter slowly claimed her body.
Andy did fall, and she cut her hand on a hidden rock as she caught herself. She could see the blood welling up through the gash in her glove, but she was relieved to find her legs and feet undamaged by the fall.
She pulled off her gloves and scooped up some clean snow from the side of the road, letting it melt in her hands until she had enough water to clean the wound. It was still bleeding, so she pulled a small strip of cloth from her pack and bound it clumsily with her left hand.
But Andy Sachs could not be defeated so easily. If the unnatural winter wanted to lay her low, it would have to do better than this.
With a pained grunt, Andy pulled her gloves back on and started up the hill again, this time stepping more cautiously, and staying away from the deepest cart tracks.
Huffing and puffing, Andy gladly paused for a few moments when she reached the top of the hill. Then she looked at the road ahead of her and groaned. She was already flagging, and she had so much farther to travel. The road only grew steeper as it climbed toward the capital. By the last day of her journey, she would truly be in the heart of the Frostpeaks, and she knew it was nothing but steep climbs and sharp ravines.
Sighing, Andy let herself enjoy the brief respite of walking downhill before she inevitably had to climb again.
Several hours later, the sun was beginning to set, and Andy knew she didn't dare travel in the dark. The road was too treacherous, especially in this weather. The drop to the south was steep in places, and who knows how long she would roll downhill if she strayed from the road in the dark.
Andy carefully pushed her way into the deeper snowdrifts between the trees on the southern, downward-sloping side of the road. Every time her foot kicked a fallen branch under the snow, she stooped to pick it up, holding the growing bundle of firewood to her chest. When she felt she had enough, she crossed the road again, finding a somewhat sheltered spot against the cliffside to the north. She brushed a patch of earth as clean of snow as she could and carefully built a small fire.
She'd always been good at building fires. It was one of the few household chores she excelled at. Andy smiled as the flames burst into life, flickering eagerly as they lapped at the damp twigs and pine needles she’d used as tinder. She smiled at the flames encouragingly, inexplicably cheered to have a fire, even in this inhospitable place. She gradually fed the fire more wood, stopping when she was worried she'd melt too much snow and end up in a puddle.
Andy wrapped her cloak tightly around herself and leaned against the cold, damp cliff wall, staring into the flames with unseeing eyes. Her mind slipped into darker and darker places, alone there in the night. Hunger gnawed at her, and thoughts of food were even more torturous than usual after such a hard day’s travel. Some hours later, sleep finally took her from dark thoughts into darker dreams.
When Andy woke the next day, her first wild thought was that something must have attacked her in the night and infected her with a slow-acting poison. She was so stiff she could hardly move.
But no, she realized, on waking more fully. She hadn't been poisoned. She just wasn't used to the life of a traveling adventurer. With a pitiful moan, Andy began to stretch her sore, aching muscles. She winced as she stood up and felt the telltale discomfort of a blister on her left big toe.
Andy stamped out and scattered the embers of her campfire, taking tiny bites of one of the two pieces of jerky she had brought with her. It was a pitiful meal, but weren't they all, these days?
Unable to procrastinate any longer, Andy stared mournfully at where the road climbed higher and higher up the side of a mountain, switching back on itself every few hundred yards. There was so much snow that she could only see where the road was by the gaps in the trees.
She felt dizzy and exhausted just looking at it. Nevertheless, Andy strode forward. She smiled wryly as she watched a beautiful orange sunrise pierce the cloudy skies over the Frostpeaks. At least it was a scenic walk to her doom.
Several hours later, Andy stopped for a mid-morning rest. None of the tales of great heroes mentioned all the painful blisters and shaking thighs and burning calves, she thought sourly.
Andy took several deep swallows from her waterskin and refilled it with snow. She couldn't believe how sweaty and disgusting she felt on this icy trek, but she just wasn't accustomed to this sort of exertion. William would probably do far better. Blacksmiths needed to be strong and fit, after all.
Andy was near to staggering under the weight of her light pack, gasping for breath by the time she crested each rise.
By suppertime, Andy was swaying on her feet. She'd never been so tired in her life. She'd fallen several more times today, wrenching her left wrist and gaining another gash on her hand and some bruises on her elbows and her hindquarters.
She didn't have the energy to build a fire tonight. Andy barely had the energy to chew her last piece of jerky before she fell into a restless slumber, curled up in a miserable, aching ball.
Andy woke the next morning to the sound of voices and rattling wheels. She could hear men’s voices cursing and shouting as their horses struggled to pull a cart down the road from Winterhaven. Andy shrank further back into the bushes, shivering as she accidentally dislodged a clod of snow onto her face. Thank goodness she hadn’t built a fire.
When the men had passed, Andy stamped her feet and shook off the snow that had gathered on her overnight. She didn't know who the men were—they might have been simple merchants. But the rumors of bandits, and even roving bands of soldiers from Ravitz, had reached as far as little Cordham. Andy couldn't be too careful, especially as a woman traveling alone. She'd brought a knife with her, but she knew she wouldn't be able to do much damage with it, especially as weak as she was.
No, Andy would have to keep her wits about her, avoid notice, and hope for the best.
Hope was harder and harder to come by. Andy was certain her feet were bleeding inside her boots, and she felt unspeakably weary in both body and mind. The months of short rations had weakened her more than she thought. Andy bit her chapped lips, furious with herself for even considering being defeated by something as simple and pedestrian as hunger.
It was an ever-present companion now. She'd foolishly thought that she already knew the worst of what hunger could do to her. But she'd never exerted herself this much without sufficient food before. Her body was shaking, her stomach gurgling unhappily.
It felt colder up here in the mountains—closer to the palace. In her weakened state, even Andy was starting to feel the bite of the wind that nipped at her ears and nose.
Surely she could make it one more day. Surely she could. This was Andy's moment, her quest. She'd known it instinctively, as soon as the idea came to her. This was her task, the one she was ideally suited for. If Andy couldn't do it, who could?
I can do it, Andy told herself stubbornly, taking step after shaky step. I can save Queen Miranda, and she can save the country. She can save Sarah and Margaret. It will all be worth it.
Yes, if Andy could save her nieces, it would all be worth it, even if she did so with her dying breath.
And so Andy trudged on, hour after hour, mile after mile, stopping several more times to evade traffic on the road. At midday, she ate the last of the food she’d brought—the remaining half of a wrinkled, bruised apple. She swallowed uncomfortably as she continued to salivate long after she'd finished it.
She had started to pass mines, homesteads, signposts. She knew she must be nearing Winterhaven now. She tried not to think about how few signs of life she saw, how many people must be slumped wearily in front of whatever pitiful fire they had the fuel to create.
There were few trees left here, this close to the city, though many stumps poked up out of the snow. Cut down for firewood, she guessed.
Andy's thighs burned. Her knees shook, but she refused to stop. If she stopped now, she knew she'd never have the strength to start again.
So she pressed on, climbing up and up toward a high mountain pass.
If she had made good enough time, that should be the pass that led down to the valley that held Winterhaven. If Andy’s limited knowledge of this road was correct, then she should reach Winterhaven tonight, and she could creep into the palace while the city slept.
At long last, just as the sun was sinking behind the mountains, Andy crested the mountain pass and looked down to see the snow-covered roofs of Winterhaven spread out before her. She let out a sigh of relief, taking a few swallows of water as she scrutinized the city below.
She saw a few people in the streets, hurrying purposefully, but far fewer than she would have expected in a city this size. And in the center of the city, towering above the other buildings, stood Winterhold. Hundreds of diamond-paned windows reflected the rays of the setting sun, and the blue banner of the royal family fluttered gaily from many of the taller towers. Andy shook her head at the incongruousness of it.
She wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself and trudged forward through the churned-up slush and into the city proper.
Her heart pounded as she picked her way through the muck, keeping her head down and her hood tight. She passed several pedestrians on her way to the city center, but none of them accosted her.
By the time she was approaching the palace itself, night had finally fallen, and the palace windows no longer sparkled in the sunlight. Instead, Andy peered up at a hundred dark voids concealing whatever terrible evil had struck down Queen Miranda.
Andy shuddered. She swallowed several times, reminding herself that her chances of success would only diminish the longer she waited to complete her quest. It was hard to tell whether fear or exhaustion was more responsible for her quaking knees, but she knew she must conquer both if she wanted to save Illyria.
She felt weak as a kitten, and she longed to rest, but she didn't dare. The weakness would only get worse unless she ate. And where would she get food, here among strangers in Illyria’s capital?
No, Andy's course lay up the side of this hill, up the famous Thousand Steps.
Finally, with a furtive glance over her shoulder to make sure that no one was observing her, Andy began to climb.
Slowly, carefully, she picked her way up the stairs. She couldn't see the steps themselves except in a few spots where the bitter wind had swept them clean of snow, and she shuddered to think of what would happen if she fell anywhere on this dizzying ascent.
A hundred steps up, Andy was already gasping for breath. A hundred more steps and she swayed so much she nearly fell backwards down the wide stone stairs.
Andy sighed deeply and wondered why royals insisted on such impractical grand entrances. With a quiet groan, she bent forward and used her hands to help keep her going. Her sodden cloak kept getting in her way, but even Andy was feeling the cold by now, and she didn't dare remove it. She shuddered to think how cold a normal person would have been up here.
She stumbled a few times, but only fell forward, catching herself on shaky arms. Her fingers were stiff and clumsy with cold. She tripped and almost split her face open once, but caught herself just in time.
Andy could feel herself slowing down as she inched closer and closer to the end of her quest. Eventually she grew so unsteady that she had to crawl on her hands and knees. Bruised and aching, she dragged herself onward, step by exhausted step.
Step. Sarah. Step. Margaret. Step. Queen Miranda. Step. Illyria. Step. Worthy. Step. Hero.
She had been looking down at her hands and feet for so long that Andy was stunned to look up and realize she had almost reached the palace gates
As she drew near, she thought she saw lumps in the snow near the gates. On trembling legs, Andy finally surmounted the last step and cautiously approached.
She began to brush snow off of one of the lumps outside the gates, hoping it would provide a clue to what lay inside. A few moments later, she finally uncovered the top of one of the lumps, only to discover a palace guard, blue with cold.
Andy stumbled backward in horror, stomach lurching as she stared into the terrified brown eyes of a young man who had clearly been frozen in the act of fleeing.
She turned her head and closed her eyes, focusing all her energy on not throwing up.
Long moments later, after Andy had mastered herself, she cautiously stepped past the unfortunate guards and through the gates themselves, into what was surely an impressive courtyard underneath its thick blanket of snow.
There were many more lumps here, and Andy’s stomach threatened to rebel again as she thought of how many bodies were buried under the snow. Some of them surely had come here on a similar mission to Andy’s. The irregular shapes were eerie and frightening in the moonlight, casting sinister shadows everywhere she looked.
It was so cold. Andy had never in her life been cold before today. She hadn’t been prepared for how stiff she felt, how the cold sapped what little strength she had left. It was so tempting to just lie down. Just give up on pushing through the huge snow drifts, and let herself fall into the soft, pillowy snow. It would be easy. She could just go to sleep. She was so tired. Just a little nap—
No! Andy thought sharply, sucking in a cold breath through her teeth as she realized how close she had come to giving up, to becoming another dead lump under the snow. She wondered if that was part of the spell.
Andy shook her head and pushed forward again, shuddering as snow crept under her hood and inside her cloak. She was soaked to the skin now. Her teeth were chattering uncontrollably.
Sarah. Margaret. Queen Miranda. Illyria. Worthy. Hero.
An eternity later, Andy finally reached the imposing front doors of Winterhold. They were flung wide, and the strong winds had blown drifts of snow many yards into the corridor beyond. Andy shuddered at the sight of dozens more human statues near the entryway. They looked like they had all been running for the doors.
Andy wished fervently that she had had the foresight to bring a torch. She would not have much light to guide her through the unfamiliar halls of Winterhold. But now more than ever, Andy understood that her time here was limited. Even she would not be able to withstand this cold for long. Her mission was clear: find the queen or die trying.
Andy tiptoed through the silent palace, hearing only the whistle of wind and the creaking of the roof under its burden of snow. Thanks to the many windows, it was not as dark as she had feared. But the moonlight only allowed her to see more clearly the terrified faces of the frozen men and women she passed.
Andy was choking with grief and horror, trembling in her icy clothes, but she forced herself to press on, to examine each person’s face and clothing in search of the queen. She hoped she was able to recognize Queen Miranda from her profile on Illyria’s coinage, because otherwise Andy didn’t think she had a very good chance of finding her in this huge labyrinth of a building.
Andy felt certain she’d spent at least an hour searching the first floor of the palace, wandering down corridor after splendid corridor, through chamber after grisly chamber. She had found no Queen Miranda so far, but a huge array of frozen courtiers, guards, servants, and even a mage or two.
By the time she reached the fourth floor of the palace, the moon was well past its zenith and Andy was dizzy with fatigue, staggering from guest room to guest room in a fog of despair. Surely she must have missed the queen? Andy had passed hundreds of bodies by now—hundreds of human statues. She knew she was drawing close to the top of the palace, with the exception of one or two towers. And surely the queen wouldn’t be in a tower, would she? Andy and her shaking legs certainly hoped not.
With a sinking heart, Andy realized that she was now in the last unexplored part of the fourth floor. If she didn’t find Queen Miranda on this corridor or in a tower, Andy must have missed her. She’d have to work her way back down and look at each human statue again.
Andy quailed at the thought. She was already stumbling with hunger and cold and bone-deep weariness. Did she have the strength to search each cold, dead face again? Even with her legendary stubbornness, Andy wasn’t sure. The numbness in her extremities suggested that she was living on borrowed time.
Andy opened door after door, each revealing a luxurious chamber beyond. Her heart fell further with each empty room, each statue that was not the queen.
When she reached the end of the corridor, Andy jerked to a stop with her hand halfway to the final gleaming door knob.
Her mouth fell open as a new, even more awful possibility occurred to her: Queen Miranda might not be in the palace at all. She could have been kidnapped, for all Andy knew.
Andy sobbed and leaned her head against the door, clutching at the knob to hold herself up. What if she’s not even here? What if I came all this way for nothing? What if I die for nothing?
Weeping, Andy pushed open the final door, certain that her quest was doomed to fail.
She was astonished, then, to find herself face to face with the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. An elegant, imposing woman with white hair and pale eyes and a long, delicately arched nose.
She was wearing rich, dark robes. More importantly, she looked just like the woman on every Illyrian coin Andy had ever seen.
Against all odds, she’d found Queen Miranda. Andy gaped at her, stunned into breathless immobility.
She scrubbed at her cheeks, wiping the tears away so that she could look more closely. This room had enormous windows, and the moon highlighted the lines of Queen Miranda’s face, surprise and anger clear in her expression.
Andy took a step to her left, preparing to walk around the statue of the queen’s body, and jumped when she saw another, shorter woman behind the queen. Andy scanned the other woman curiously, certain that she couldn’t be a servant. She was dressed too finely. Seductively, Andy might even venture to say. That neckline was really quite deep—it would certainly have caused a scandal in Cordham.
But then why was she reaching out to the queen, so close behind her, holding a hand to the queen’s back?
Andy stepped sideways, away from the queen, so that the other woman’s arm was no longer in her shadow. Then she gasped as she saw the moonlight glinting off the crossguard of a dagger. I was right! An assassin!
Andy continued walking in a slow circle around the two women, taking in the frozen tableau. She was disheartened to see that the dagger had clearly penetrated Queen Miranda’s shoulder by an inch or more. She was also incredibly confused.
If this woman had come to assassinate Queen Miranda with a dagger, and had succeeded, then why would she use magic to freeze everything around her in the moment before total victory? It didn’t make any sense.
Andy cudgeled her sluggish brain for ideas. Then she slapped herself in the forehead. The assassin hadn’t frozen anything. Who did Andy know of that had incredible power over ice and snow? Queen Miranda!
Queen Miranda had felt the dagger at her back and cast the spell, had frozen both herself and the assassin to buy time for her own rescue. And that meant…surely Queen Miranda would not have frozen herself and everyone in her palace to death? If this was Queen Miranda’s spell, maybe it was more of a magical suspension? Maybe…maybe Queen Miranda could break the spell and bring them all back?
Andy’s heart began to thump faster as a tiny spark of hope kindled in her chest.
If Andy’s theory was correct, all she had to do was find a way to thaw Queen Miranda, and then the queen could thaw everyone else.
There were, however, just a few small problems with that plan: she had no idea how to thaw Queen Miranda, she didn’t know how serious the dagger wound was, and she was already close to unconsciousness herself.
First things first: Andy felt certain that she needed to remove the dagger. Maybe if Queen Miranda’s magic no longer felt the threat touching her, she would return to awareness.
Andy clumsily wrapped her frozen fingers around the hilt of the assassin’s dagger, attempting to work it free of the woman’s icy grip. Unfortunately, she was unable to budge the woman’s fingers, and she didn’t want to risk moving the dagger sideways and making the wound bigger.
Instead, she wrapped her hands around the woman’s hand and arm, pushing them away from the queen as hard as she dared. To her relief, she felt the assassin’s hand begin to move, and finally the dagger pulled free. The assassin toppled over, dagger still clutched in her hand. Andy winced as she saw the queen’s blood coating the last two inches of it.
Then the queen’s body began teetering as well. Andy lunged forward, catching a handful of the queen’s robes to slow her descent.
Andy lowered Queen Miranda to the floor with trembling arms, turning the queen’s body on its side so that she could see her face. Unfortunately, the queen showed no signs of waking, even with the dagger removed.
Andy set down her pack and grabbed a few strips of cloth out of it. Since she had used some of the bandages earlier on her trip, she didn’t have enough to both pack the wound and bind it. With a grim smile, she pulled out her knife and cut a few uneven pieces of cloth off the bottom of the assassin’s cape.
Then she ripped the queen’s robes open around the site of the dagger wound, glad to see that the entry point was small. Andy went to pour water from her waterskin, only to find it frozen nearly solid. A few pitiful drops trickled out. Andy shook her head, pressing the waterskin under her clothes, next to her skin. She inhaled sharply when she felt how cold the leather was, but she knew she had no choice.
A few minutes of uncontrollable shivering later, Andy had enough water to do a passable job cleaning the wound. She bound the queen’s shoulder with clumsy, trembling fingers, hoping against hope that she had learned the way of it well enough from old Helen, Cordham’s wise woman. She certainly hadn’t expected to use those long-ago lessons from her teenage years to save the queen’s life.
Now that the queen’s wound was bound, It suddenly occurred to Andy that if the queen thawed everyone, the assassin would be a potential threat again. Andy frowned, considering.
Now that she didn’t have to worry about injuring the queen, Andy was able to wrestle the dagger out of the assassin’s hand. She tossed it to the other side of the room, then turned back to the assassin. With shaky hands, she cut the rest of the assassin’s cape into strips, using them to bind the woman’s feet together, then using more to cover each hand and tie them to two bedposts of the huge bed that dominated the room. She assumed it was Queen Miranda’s.
After the assassin was—possibly, hopefully—dealt with, Andy thought long and hard about how to thaw or awaken Queen Miranda.
She glanced around the room, hoping for inspiration. Her eyes landed on the slightly charred logs in the fireplace. For the first time in days, Andy smiled. Please don’t fail me now, weird firestarting powers.
Andy knelt in front of the fireplace, pulled out her tinderbox, and attempted to strike a spark off her flint. Her cold fingers were so clumsy that it took more tries than she would have liked. She ended up with a couple new gashes on her hand, but eventually a spark caught in a little strip of linen. She transferred it carefully to the fireplace, using the poker to help guide the flames from log to log.
After she had a good blaze going, Andy staggered to the queen’s body and attempted to move it. Instead, Andy lost her balance and fell on her face, narrowly avoiding falling on top of the queen’s body.
She groaned pitifully. The thought of climbing to her icy, blistered, bloody feet again was almost more than she could bear. But there was no choice, was there? Queen Miranda. Sarah. Margaret. Illyria.
Andy struggled to her hands and knees, then pushed herself upright, swaying as she looked down at the queen’s beautiful, angry countenance. She hoped Queen Miranda wasn’t upset about the clumsy way Andy had bound her wound. She certainly looked like her temper was as fierce as the stories always said it was.
Shaking herself out of her irreverent speculation, Andy rose to her feet and began to haul the queen toward the fireplace, doing her best not to stress the wound or disturb the bandages.
With one last heave, Andy arranged the queen’s limbs a few feet in front of the fireplace.
The warmth of the fire was heavenly, but Andy was still shivering in her icy clothes. She felt liable to pass out at any moment, but she forced herself to stay awake. Andy commanded her trembling arms and hands to accomplish one last task—to haul the luxurious bedclothes off Queen Miranda’s bed and cover the queen with them. Then she stripped off her own damp clothing and crawled beneath the covers herself, rolling herself up from one edge until she was in a little cocoon.
Facing the queen from scarcely a foot away was certainly not how Andy had expected to spend the early morning hours. It was overwhelming.
The queen looked stern, uncompromising, and yet there were laugh-lines around her mouth. Andy wondered what she looked like when she smiled. What her laugh sounded like, her voice. She smelled wonderful, and Andy found herself leaning closer and closer as she studied every inch of the queen’s countenance. Was there more color in her cheeks? Andy could swear she saw a hint of pink on her cheekbones.
Andy felt herself start to drift off as the warmth of the fire and the dry bedclothes allowed her hot-blooded nature to reassert itself. Alarmed, she shook herself awake, knowing that she might not wake for a long time, or possibly ever again, based on her fatigued and weakened state. She had to wake the queen. Had to. This whole quest would be for nothing if Queen Miranda died on Andy’s watch.
But what more could she do? They said that body heat helped people who had been in the cold too long, didn’t they? Surely the queen couldn’t be too upset about Andy taking liberties if it was to save her life. Besides, they were both women. It was perfectly innocent.
Hesitantly, hardly able to believe she was doing it, Andy scooted close enough to wrap her arm around Queen Miranda’s waist. Oh, she smelled divine up close. Like the earth after a cool spring rain, like dew-laden flowers in the crisp, early morning air. Andy had never smelled anything half so lovely. Inhaling her scent greedily, Andy scooted even nearer.
For some reason, her eyes dropped to the queen’s mouth. She had a sudden flash of inspiration. How many tales had she read in which a dashing prince kissed the princess to save her from an evil spell?
Queen Miranda’s spell wasn’t evil, only overpowered. And Andy was certainly not a prince, nor particularly dashing. But Andy was the only hero available.
It had to work. It just had to.
Andy dared, somehow, to cup the queen’s soft cheek in her trembling hand. She dared to lean forward, closer and closer, until the only thing she could see was that lovely face, those pale eyes. And she dared, finally, to press her chapped lips against the queen’s cold, petal-soft mouth.
Andy felt a spark of something stir inside her. A flicker, like a flame had been lit in her chest. She blinked her eyes open in surprise (when had she closed them?). Surely this strange feeling meant that the kiss must have worked.
But no. The queen was just as still, and cold, and silent as she had been the whole time. And what was worse, Andy was now completely out of ideas.
Tears sprang once more to Andy’s eyes, and this time she let them come.
Winnifred was right. I am worthless. A burden. Unnatural. I had the only chance to save the queen, and I failed. Now Illyria really is doomed, and it’s all my fault.
Exhausted and heartsick, Andy cried herself to sleep.