Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,118

Paradyian king. Her marriage to the Kerce king was political in nature, but it was a happy one. They had children. Two princes.”

“Shyne only mentioned one.”

“There were two,” he says. “I have it on good authority. When the Majority invaded, the king loaded his wife and children onto the royal ship along with the queen’s retinue and they set sail for the safety of Paradyia. They were to ask the king to send help, but they never made it there. The ship ran afoul of the Kol Sea. Like much of the party, the eldest prince, heir to the Kerce throne, was lost. His mind addled by kol, his body thrown over the side of the ship and dragged beneath the waves by Winter’s monsters.”

Mars breathes deep, his eyes wandering away. To a ship maybe. And a boy long forgotten.

“No one talks about him,” I say. “The crown prince. He’s not mentioned in the stories.”

“No,” Mars says, his voice quiet, his brow furrowed. “He’s not. And he should be remembered. He would have been an excellent king.”

I don’t ask him how he knows, how he could possibly know anything about a boy who died centuries ago. “His brother survived though.”

“Only just. The young prince washed ashore with his mother and the remaining members of the royal party. Not far from here actually.” He looks toward the shore, toward the low mountains separating the camp from the sea. “The Shiv found them—saved them, to be sure—brought them to the waters of Begynd and nursed them back to health. And though their dissimilar languages presented difficulty, they lived in peace for a short time.”

“But the queen was curious,” I say, remembering the cautionary angle to this tale.

“She was. She wanted to understand Begynd. Her Paradyian upbringing had taught her to probe and to seek, but the Shiv were different. They did not question the ways of Begynd. He cut them from stone, breathed life into their bodies, and he cared for them. How his magic worked was not a thing they sought to understand.

“Despite warnings from the Shiv, the queen took her people west. She was heavy with child at that point and thought to establish her kingdom on the other side of the Kol Mountains.”

“But she never made it.”

“No,” he says, averting his eyes, chewing at his lip, “by the time the party had reached High Pass, they were sick and failing. The farther they wandered from Begynd’s Pool, the higher they climbed, the more rapidly they were undone. The queen was close to her time and she was angry. At the Shiv. At their creator. And Winter took advantage. Seeing the opportunity to blot out Begynd and secure the companionship she had long desired, she whispered promises to the Kerce queen, whispers that drove the queen further and further into madness. By the time Winter laid out her bargain, the queen could think of little but the destruction of the Shiv who had banished her people from their pool.”

Mars licks his lips, adjusts the cuffs on his jacket.

“Winter’s proposal was simple: If Maree Vale, queen of the Kerce, would carry a phial of Winter’s magic down to Begynd, if she would ensure it reached the fount deep below, Winter promised that the Shiv would suffer for their crimes against her. She promised to swear allegiance to the Kerce, to bow as a subject to the rule of Maree Vale and her children.

“But though Maree was frail, she knew better than to leave the fate of her kingdom to the word of a winter spirit. She demanded they strike a proper covenant—a Paradyian tradition that Maree knew well. Winter had faith in her own strength and agreed to the queen’s demands. She would do anything to end the reign of Begynd.”

“A covenant?” I ask, the word drying my mouth, the idea worse. “Like Hyla made with you and Kyn?”

“Yes, Miss Quine. Though ours wasn’t nearly so formal. Paradyian tradition demands that a covenant be witnessed by two others. The queen offered her remaining son as witness, but Winter had only the kol. It wasn’t quite proper, but the queen knew her time was short and she knew that her unborn child’s best chance at survival lay in the great pool, not in the clutches of Winter.”

“So they agreed,” I say.

Mars nods. “Winter mixed her magic with kol and encapsulated it in the curio on the queen’s medallion.”

His eyes drop to the heavy triangle resting against my sternum. He reaches out and