The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein

Author:Elizabeth Wein
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781480433243
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-07-09T07:00:00+00:00

ily, and his skin was so pale it seemed faintly cast with blue. As I turned to go I deliberately stepped on his circlet: I kept my foot there for half a moment and added, without looking back, “But I am not going to.”

His voice when he spoke next was uncertain and low, but he dared to say, “Must I command you?”

I shook my head in disbelief and answered quietly, “You must never command me.” I left him so, alone with his glittering mosaic in the dying firelight.

XI

The Prince Betrayed

THE WOMAN SET TO watch you was asleep, nodding over the garment she had been hemming. “Have you—,” I began to ask, but you shook your head and put a discreet finger to your lips. “Speak low. I’ve done nothing to her.”

“You have to another!”

“That was for you.”

“For me!” I laughed. “Well, thank you. But no more of it, Godmother.”

“No.” You sliced back and forth across the floor, exactly like one of your caged wildcats, I the hare or moorhen that ought to be cowering in a corner and hoping you would not notice that I was there. But I was there of my own will. I waited, waited, wondering how you would strike.

You were winking hard, fitting what you had to say to words that only I could understand should someone else happen to hear you. “I want you to hunt for me,” you said at last.

“What quarry?” I asked cauti v toously.

“I want the sun.” Then you fell silent for a time, and ceased pacing as you cloaked your treachery in words mysterious as mummers’ costumes. “If you were a prisoner in blackness, in the cold, if you were an exile in a place of chill and darkness, you would wish that the sun were yours to command: then you could have light and warmth to your whim and pleasure. The sun in your hand, the sun for a ransom—then see the oppressive shadows bend to your will!”

You stopped, facing me, your hands in fists. “The sun,” I repeated, my voice flat. “How am I to get you the sun?”

You hissed in disgust, “You stupid boy!” and turned away, to strip leaves from the little lemon tree Ginevra had set in the window, and then to tear them to shreds between fierce fingers.

I hissed in answer, “Godmother, I do know what you mean.” You stood silent, so still that I could hear the slight patter on the tiles as the torn leaves fell from your fingers. I said, “I am pledged to serve the light.”

“You are pledged to me first.”

“As I am pledged to both, I may decide not to fail either trust.” But I waited to hear what else you might say. “Why should I hunt for you more than another?”

You did not speak aloud. For answer your lips formed one single silent word, which I heard as clearly as if you had shouted it: “Kingship.”

“Temptress,” I taunted, tempted.

You whispered, “The boy outshines you as surely as the noon sun outshines the moon in eclipse.

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