Oak gets up and pours himself a glass of wine. He suspects he is going to need it. “I overheard you,” he says. “In your rooms, with Jude. I overheard you talking about Madoc.”
“Yes,” Cardan says. “Belatedly, that became obvious.”
If I didn’t know better, I might think this is your brother’s fault. Oak tries to remember the exact words the High King chose. He’s more like you than you want to see. “You didn’t trust me.”
“Having spent a great deal of time playing the fool myself,” Cardan says, “I recognized your game. Not at first, but long before Jude. She didn’t want to believe me, and I am never going to tire of crowing about being right.”
“So you didn’t think I was really allied with Randalin?”
Cardan smiles. “No,” he says. “But I wasn’t certain which of your allies were actually on your side. And I was rather hoping you’d let us lock you up and protect you.”
“You could have given me some sort of hint!” Oak says.
Cardan raises a single brow.
Oak shakes his head. “Yes, well, fine. I could have done the same. And fine, you were losing blood.”
Cardan makes a gesture as though tossing off Oak’s words. “I have little experience of dispensing brotherly wisdom, but I know a great deal about mistakes. And about hiding behind a mask.” He salutes with his wineglass. “Some might say that I still do, but they would be wrong. To those I love, I am myself. Too much myself sometimes.”
Oak laughs. “Jude wouldn’t say that.”
Cardan takes a deep swallow of plum-dark wine, looking pleased with himself. “She would, but she’d be lying. But, most important”—he raises a single finger—“I knew what you were up to before she did.” Then a second. “And if you decide you want to risk your life, perhaps you could also risk a little personal discomfort and let your family in on your plans.”
Oak lets out a long sigh. “I will take that under advisement.”
“Please do,” says Cardan. “And there is one more thing.”
Oak takes an even bigger slug of his wine.
“You may recall that Jude gave you permission to abdicate? Well, that’s all well and good, but you can’t do it immediately. We’ll need several months more of your being our heir.”
“Months?” Oak echoes, completely puzzled.
The High King shrugs. “More or less. Maybe a little longer. Just to make the Court feel as though there’s some kind of backup plan if something happens while we’re away.”
“Away?” After so many surprises, Oak seems unable to do more than repeat the things Cardan tells him. “You want me to stay the heir while you two go off somewhere? And then I can step down, be de-princed, whatever?”
“Exactly that,” says Cardan.
“Like on a vacation?”
Cardan snorts.
“I don’t understand,” Oak says. “Where are you going?”
“A diplomatic mission,” says Cardan, leaning back on the cushions. “After that last little rescue, Nicasia has demanded we honor our treaty, meet her suitors, and witness the contest for her hand and crown. And so Jude and I are headed to the Undersea, where we will go to a lot of parties and try very hard not to die.”
CHAPTER
25
O
ak steps onto the crust of ice, his breath clouding in the air.
He is dressed in thick furs, his hands wrapped in wool and then in leather, even his hooves wrapped, and yet he can still feel the chill of this place. He shivers, thinks of Wren, and shivers again.
The Stone Forest is different from what he remembers, lush instead of menacing. He is not pulled toward it now, nor does he feel pursued by it. As he passes, he attempts to see the troll kings, but the landscape has swallowed them up. All he can see is the wall they built.
When he approaches it, he finds that a great ice gate—newly built— stands open. He passes through. As he does, some falcons fly into the air from the top, probably to announce his arrival.
Beyond, he expects to see the same Citadel that he invaded with Wren, the one in which he was imprisoned, but a new structure has taken its place. A castle all of obsidian instead of ice. The rock shines as though it were made of black glass.
If anything, it looks more forbidding and impossible than what was there before. Certainly more pointy.
Hag Queen. He thinks of those whispered words and is more aware than ever why Folk are afraid of this kind of power.
Oak trods past copses made entirely from ice, animals sculpted from snow peering out from their branches. It makes him think, eerily, of the forest in which he found Wren. As though she has re-created parts of it from memory.