Her laughter sounded like the shattering of glass, and I fought the urge to clap my hands over my ears. “Perhaps it is only that an immortal such as I,” she said the words in a perfect mimicry of my voice, “becomes easily bored.”
She rose to her feet, and two winged creatures scuttled over to the dais to offer their hands as she walked down the steps. It made me wonder who – and what – else was present in her icy throne room. As if in answer to my question, clawed hands folded around the tear between our worlds, drawing the edges back.
“And besides–” she stopped just before the tear “–you are no mere mortal, but one who is bonded to the prince of the trolls.” She cocked her head to one side and peered through the opening. “He is not with you.”
Her voice was toneless, nothing in her expression telling me whether she considered Tristan’s absence a good or bad thing, or whether she cared at all. And before I could so much as blink, she had stepped into our world. Although stepped wasn’t the right word – one moment she was there and the next moment here. And while there she’d seemed as solid as Sabine or me, here she appeared like a mist that had coalesced into the shape of a woman, fluid, shifting, and changing. Her eyes met mine, and I swore they delved into the depths of my soul, flipping through my memories like pages of a book. Tristan had told me that the trolls’ magic had been corrupted by iron and mortality, that it was nothing like that of their immortal ancestors. But he’d never told me what they could do, and I was starting to fear what it would mean to find out.
“What is it you want, Princess?” The Queen’s voice was mocking, but that concerned me far less than my growing suspicion that she had plans for me. Plans that I wouldn’t like. That she’d ask me for something I didn’t want to give. But I’d come too far to come away with nothing.
“You can see anywhere you want?” I asked. “Anyone?”
“What will you give me for the answer?” The settee was coated with ice, but it gave beneath her as she settled as though it were stuffed with down.
I nibbled on my lip. “Nothing. I already know you can. What I want is to see… and hear what our enemy is up to. What they’re planning. Where they are now.”
She tapped a claw – no, a fingernail – against one tooth. “What will you give me in return?”
“What do you want?” I countered.
Her lips pursed, and she drifted one hand through the air as though conducting an orchestra. “A song.”
I blinked, more stunned by the odd request than I would have been if she’d asked for my life. “A song?”
She held up one finger. “Your favorite song.”
I glanced sideways at Sabine, who had been silent through the exchange thus far. Her back was pressed against the wall. Despite the chill, her cheeks were leached of color, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the lamplight. Without taking her gaze off the fairy, she shook her head.
I ground my teeth, and glanced back at the queen. Looking at her gave me a headache – I kept seeing one thing and then another, and I didn’t know what was real. “How is it even possible for me to give you a song?”
“Agree to the bargain. Sing the song. Then it will be mine.”
It couldn’t be as easy as that, but try as I might, I couldn’t think of any consequences worth declining the bargain. “And if I do this, you’ll give me what I asked for? Right now,” I added, remembering the importance of specificity.
She smiled, and Sabine made a soft choking noise. “Yes.”
“All right, then,” I said. “I agree.”
The air flashed frigid, the bare skin of my face burning and my bones aching, and I felt the weight of the bargain clamp down on me like pinchers on the back of my neck. While I’d had some small ability to resist the troll king’s compulsion, resisting her was impossible. I was a feather and she a hurricane, and I was more likely to cut out my own heart than resist her power. I began to sing.
My song was no half-hearted means to an end. The ballad tore from my lips, filled with all the passion, heartbreak, and joy that I associated with the lyrics. And it felt like each word, each note, was being excised by a straight razor. I wanted to cry, to scream, to throw myself on the floor and claw at my skull, but I did none of those things for they would have stolen some of what I owed. When it was over, I clenched my eyes shut and fell to my knees, so taxed that all I could do was breathe.
“That was lovely.”
The voice was too close. Opening my eyes revealed the Winter Queen’s face only inches from my own, her breath smelling like a midwinter’s night, and it was all I could do not to cringe.
“Lovely,” she repeated, her head tipping back and forth as though she were listening to my voice inside her head. “A treasure.”
“Your turn.” My voice rasped against my aching throat.