The Snow Prince - Raleigh Ruebins Page 0,69

my mind,” I said, hating that there was a slight tremble in my voice.

“Oh, you might not change your mind,” she said. “But everything else has changed.”

“What are you talking about? I know you aren’t going to change your mind about the decree.”

She nodded once. “I never will, no,” she said.

“Then we have nothing to discuss,” I said. “I’m giving up my right to the throne.”

“It might be harder for you to give it up when you feel how good it is to sit in it,” she said. Her blue eyes held so much sadness.

“What?”

“This place is no longer mine,” she said. “It was made abundantly clear, today. Frostmonte must be yours, and no one else’s.”

I swallowed, my throat tight.

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ll understand very soon.”

“Tell me what you’re planning,” I said, my voice stern.

She let out a defeated laugh. “Everything that I was planning is over now,” she said. “So I am going to make you king.”

I was silent. Frozen in place. I watched her with suspicion, not believing a word she said.

“Why?” I whispered.

She swallowed, searching my face for a moment as if she was finally seeing me for the first time.

“When your father died, I was so lost,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “It was so long ago, now, but to me it feels like just yesterday. I didn’t know how to rule anything. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like nobody, from nowhere, and suddenly I was all alone and expected to represent an entire kingdom.”

“I thought you loved the power.”

“I would do anything to protect Frostmonte,” she said. “But I didn’t love being Queen.”

“You certainly always acted the part,” I said bitterly.

“I struck a deal,” she said forcefully.

“What?”

She looked out the window, her eyes somewhere far away. “The night I found you and Henry in the park, I was down in the village for a reason, Sebastian. I was alone in the church your father loved so much, the one he attended every Sunday with your aunt and uncle.”

I furrowed my brow. “I didn’t know you ever still went to the church.”

“Never when other people were there. It made me too sad. But sometimes at night, I would. I’d light a candle for your father. And I would cry.”

“So that night in Berrydale… you’d been there?”

She gave me a single nod. “I was weeping. As lost as I’d ever been. And a woman approached me, telling me she could help.”

“What woman?”

“I still don’t know her name,” my mother said. “There was something… off about her. She had this strange necklace, a tiny mirror that would catch the light and flash into my eyes every time she moved. But then again, everything always felt off since your father had died. It was like I was underwater. The woman being strange didn’t matter.”

“Because she told you she could help?”

“Yes,” she said. “She told me we could strike a deal. And claimed that she could cast one spell for me. Anything I wanted.”

I lifted an eyebrow.

“I told the woman it was absolute nonsense, of course,” she said. “I never believed in spells. I just wanted her to go away, so I could be alone and cry again. So I told her to just cast a spell already and get it over with.”

“Jesus, mother,” I said.

Her eyes were intense now. “The spell would keep you close to Frostmonte castle. Make you finally care about your legacy. As a child you never cared. You always wanted to leave, and I couldn’t lose you, Sebastian. Not after I’d already lost your father.”

My blood ran cold. “You asked her to cast a spell to make me… to make me finally care about being a prince?”

She swallowed. “Yes,” she whispered.

The pieces floated together slowly in my head.

All of the times when I’d felt inexplicably drawn to Frostmonte, even though I’d always hated it so much before. The reason I always stayed there, despite knowing I could have fled if I’d tried. It was as if the castle was a magnet, drawing me in against my will.

“I never thought it would do a damned thing,” she said. “I thought the woman was crazy. But then you stayed. You started to care about your legacy. Your duties. And it was a great gift, Sebastian.”

“Or a curse,” I said, my voice low.

Her eyes were still intense. “The woman had told me that the spell would lift when you finally decided you’d found the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.