The king sends a steady stream of craftspeople my way in preparation for our wedding. I was questioned about the menu by two harried Folk who smelled of cake and had icicles spiking their beards—whether I preferred, for instance, star-brewed wine or ale spiced with salt from the sea beneath the sea, and similar nonsensical queries.
I maintained my equanimity as best as I could, knowing that panic was the surest way of losing one’s mind in any faerie realm, but I admit that I lost patience a few times.
“I despise wine,” I snapped at one of the poor faerie chefs, who leaned back from me as if I’d breathed fire at him. “You will serve beer from barley that grows only during the new moon, which has been brewed together with the bones of singing fish fed a diet solely consisting of honey.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the faerie whispered over and over, bowing low, and went away weeping. I refused to speak to the dressmakers who swept into the room after he left and ordered them away before they could even take my measurements.
22nd December （？）
It occurred to me today as I stood gazing out my window, which made up the entire southern wall of my chamber, that the forest was nearly buried in snow. In places, the drifts covered all but the tips of the trees.
“Has there been an avalanche?” I demanded of the small army of florists currently filling my chamber, offering me samples of this bloom or that.
The senior florist, a small woman with eyes like black ink and a dress made entirely of ice-glazed petals, frowned down at the trees.
“It is winter, Your Highness,” she said.
“Yes,” I said through my teeth. “But it seems there is rather more winter than there was before.”
She exchanged a nervous look with another florist, a narrow man holding an armful of black and grey roses. “The king has returned,” he said slowly, as if he didn’t understand my question at all and was merely taking a shot in the dark.
A little bead of fear slid down my back at that. When I next saw the king—I believe it was at supper, though it’s entirely possible I saw him before then—I raised the question with him.
“Yes, it will be a winter the likes of which has never been seen in Ljosland,” he said cheerily, helping himself to more fish. The Folk pulled their fish from a frozen mountain lake and served them raw on a bed of ice or swimming in a sweet, creamy sauce that tasted faintly of apples. Several varieties were spread before us, the smallest ones—vibrantly striped grey and green—retaining their head and bones, which were meant to be eaten together. We were seated in a cavernous banquet hall with walls of black stone and another floor of ice cobbles, this time with leaves and fir boughs prisoned inside, so that you felt as if you were walking atop a forest canopy. The table was crowded with Folk—what seemed like a mixture of courtly and common, though their faces often blended together in the bone-coloured light. I caught a sneer here, a beseeching look there; the minstrels were playing their flutes, and although the king had ordered them not to enchant me, their songs often made my head swim.
“But what will become of the mortal villages?” I said. “You can’t bury them in snow!”
He touched my hand reassuringly, his beautiful face full of adoration. “The mortals here are used to winter, my dear.”
“They are not used to fifty feet of it being deposited on their doorsteps,” I said, fists clenched on my skirts.
“It will last only as long as my coronation festivities,” he promised, and that really worried me, for it suggested that he planned to extend the winter until he had finished revelling in his triumph—and anyone who knows a thing about the Folk will easily guess that this would be a substantial period of time.
“You must pull back the snows from the mortal world,” I said. “Their animals will die. Their children will starve.”
He was only half listening—he motioned to one of the minstrels, and they switched to a song he liked better.
“Children!” he said, smiling. “I’m glad you mentioned them. Children adore winter—do you know they used to leave offerings for us at the centre of frozen lakes at the solstice, to ask us for heaps of snow on Christmas. As if we know anything about Christmas, the silly darlings. I wonder if they still do that?”
The music swelled then, and I forgot what we had been talking about.
23rd December （？）
The worst part of my day is when the king receives visitors. These are supplicants, mostly, faeries both courtly and common who come with gifts and congratulations expressed in varying degrees of desperation. Occasionally, such gifts include the heads of the king’s enemies, who conspired to shut him away in the tree or turned a blind eye to the queen’s machinations. The heads do not bleed—I am spared that, at least—but they do melt, which might sound easier to bear the sight of, but should you ever witness a corpse whose nose or eyes have simply melted away, you will know what nonsense that is.
Each time, the king exclaims over the cruelty of it. Once he exclaimed for so long that several of the servants began shuffling their feet, their eyes gone glassy with boredom. The lords and ladies bear his displeasure remarkably well, bowing their heads humbly and murmuring apologies, all the while looking pleased with themselves. Invariably, I will find the head turned into some ghastly decoration somewhere, usually placed upon a pedestal and decorated with jewels to make it beautiful, while the lord or lady who so angered the king with their barbarity is suddenly being invited to dine at the king’s table and granted tokens of his favour in the form of furs, minstrels, or minor enchantments. When I pointed out that this hardly set a good example, he shook his head and smiled at me.
“The ability to forgive is a great virtue,” he said. “Indeed, there are few qualities that are more exquisite or more rare.”
He was also given to expatiating on the dire punishments he would dole out to his former wife, the now-deposed queen, who I understood was in hiding somewhere, if his nature was not so magnanimous. As it was, he said, he wished only that she be brought before him so that he could forgive her publicly and gift her with a little land to heal the wound between them. I began to dread the arrival of every messenger, certain that they would bring news that the ex-queen had been disposed of in a dozen stomach-churning ways, perhaps even bringing as proof something worse than her severed head—I did not know what could be worse than that, but I had no doubt the king’s courtiers would work it out. I was almost relieved when word finally came that she had been torn apart by the king’s wolves, who had mysteriously escaped their kennel one starless night. The king wept for more than an hour, and then at his next banquet, the lady who had gifted him the wolves was seated at his right hand, smirking victoriously at the assembled guests, many of whom fixed her with scowls betraying a grudging admiration.
25th December （？）
As often as I can, I try coming up with reasons why he shouldn’t marry me. I tried telling him that I am too dull, as I know no poetry and have a dreadful singing voice; I argued that I know nothing of the politics of his world and would surely make a mess of things.
“Your thoughtfulness knows no bounds, my dearest,” he said. “But it’s of no matter to me that you are dull or ignorant, as you mortals do not live very long—one hardly has to turn around to find that you have expired. I intend for you to enjoy the brief time you have in this world, and then I will marry a woman of my stature. You needn’t worry.”