Ice Kissed Page 3

The panic of the illness was also quickly overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the King’s death and the appointment of his heir. The most direct heir to the throne at the time was been his niece, but she was only ten.

  There also hadn’t been a Queen in power without a King by her side in well over two hundred years, and while I would have liked to believe the patriarchal nature of Kanin society hadn’t affected the decision to pass over the King’s niece, that was most likely wishful thinking.

  Chancellor Berit—along with a board of advisors—had decided to appoint Elliot’s cousin Evert Strinne as King, despite Viktor Dålig’s protests that his daughter should be next in line. On January 15, 1999—two weeks after Elliot’s death—Evert was crowned as the King of the Kanin.

  It was then, while I was reading the passage about Evert being sworn in, that my heart froze.

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  At 1:08 p. m. on the fifteenth of January in the year nineteen-hundred-ninety-nine, Evert Henrik Strinne took the oath of the King, with the acting-Chancellor Iver Aven officiating.

  In the late 1990s, my father, Iver Aven, had been working his way up the political ladder, and eventually he worked underneath the Chancellor. When Berit Abbott had become ill with symptoms of meningitis, he’d had to take a step back from his duties to focus on his recuperation. That left my father to fill in as the Chancellor.

  When King Evert had been sworn in, I had just turned four, so I have only vague memories of the time—mostly the dark colors of the funeral and the bright colors of the banners and flowers at the coronation. I had known that my father worked for his predecessor, Chancellor Berit, and I had heard that Dad had sworn in the King, but that fact had never seemed important.

  In history class, that bit had always been glossed over—the King was sworn in by the Chancellor, blah blah blah, and since my father was acting under the umbrella of Berit Abbott’s authority, it was Berit who had signed the official document. My dad acting in the Chancellor’s absence was perhaps the most benign part of how Evert had become King, but now I realized it might hold extreme weight: it was the connection between Konstantin Black and Viktor Dålig.

  Two days after Evert was crowned, Viktor Dålig had led a coup trying to overthrow Evert in an effort to get the “rightful” monarch—his daughter—on the throne. He’d killed four members of the Högdragen before being captured. Over the next week, a brief trial was held, with the King presiding. Viktor was convicted of treason, stripped of his title, and sentenced to be executed the following day.

  In a move that many believed extreme, King Evert also stripped Viktor Dålig’s three young daughters of their titles and inheritance, and banished them from Doldastam and Kanin society. This enraged Viktor, leading him to swear vengeance on anyone who had anything to do with the verdict.

  At the time, Evert had laughed it off, but during the night Viktor Dålig managed to escape from his cell, and he had been on the run for the past fifteen years.

  My father had nothing to do with Viktor’s conviction, since it was King Evert’s decision and his alone. But Viktor had been in attendance at the coronation, as had everyone in Doldastam, when Evert was crowned. He had to have seen my father swearing him in, and with Berit Abbott’s illness, it was easy to believe that my dad had helped the council decide that Evert should be crowned over Viktor’s daughter.

  This could finally be the explanation for Konstantin Black’s attempt on my dad’s life four years ago. It was just an extension of Viktor’s revenge.

  The actual Chancellor at the time of Evert’s ascension to the throne, Berit Abbott, had succumbed to the damages of his disease, forcing him to step down in 2001 when my dad took over his job. Berit died not much longer after that. Time had already gotten its vengeance on Berit, so Konstantin had moved on to the next guilty party—my dad.

  But why would Konstantin care? He’d been seventeen at the time of that whole mess, a tracker with aspirations of becoming a member of the Högdragen, but no affiliations with the royalty. By all accounts, he was a loyal servant of the kingdom, with no hints of rebellion or mutiny.

  How would Viktor have recruited Konstantin to join him for his vengeance? And why wait so long to get started on it? When Konstantin had attempted to kill my dad, it was eleven years since Viktor declared vengeance on the King.

  And what did any of this have to do with Konstantin going after the changelings? Perhaps he was attempting to be some kind of Pied Piper—taking all the children until he received his payment, which in this scenario I could only imagine would be the King’s head.

  But that didn’t explain Viktor’s interest in the Skojare. They had nothing to do with the perceived slight against Viktor or his family, so they did nothing for his for retribution.

  I could see connections that hadn’t been clear before, but there were still pieces missing, leaving me feeling more frustrated than ever. Surrounded by books and all the information of my people, I could find no answers.

  The fire was now only embers, but I preferred the cold, hoping it would help keep me awake as I sat hunched over the old books. Eventually, though, my body collapsed with exhaustion. I don’t even remember falling asleep.

  One moment I was reading, the lines of text blurring in the dim light, and the next I was dreaming nothing but white. Then, slowly, I saw a face begin to take shape, and eyelids fluttered open, revealing startling sapphire eyes.

  Somehow, I knew it was Linnea, the missing Skojare Queen.

  Her lips appeared, bright red from the lipstick she wore, and her face was fully visible, surrounded by a halo of platinum blond curls and backlit by a bright white light. And then, as if she were whispering right in my ear, I heard her.

  Come find me.

  SIX

  tonåren

  As I approached the house where I’d grown up, I could see my mom shoveling snow off the front walk.

  Her long blond waves of hair were falling free from their loose bun, and the cold had left a bit of rose on her fair cheeks. Mom was on the tall side, and while her beauty and lithe figure appeared deceptively delicate, she was athletic and strong, able to toss away shovels full of heavy, wet snow with ease.

  “Bryn!” Mom smiled broadly at me. “I wasn’t expecting you today. I would’ve thought you had training today. ”

  “It’s Saturday, so we have a break,” I lied.

  While preparing for war, there were no breaks. On Sundays, our training would be slightly more relaxed, but we never had a day off. I was skipping today—and probably tomorrow, and the day after that—but I didn’t plan on telling my mom that. At least not yet.

  After I’d woken up in the library with a horrible crick in my neck, my dream had haunted me. It felt ethereal but all too real. I was positive it was a lysa, even though I’d never had one before. While lysas were more common among the Trylle, who had the strongest gift of psychokinesis, they weren’t unheard of in the Kanin, the Skojare, and even the Vittra.

  A lysa is something between shared dreaming and astral projection. It’s the ability to psychically enter someone else’s thoughts through a vision, usually a dream. Unless the troll giving the lysa is very powerful, it’s usually brief, and in tribes like the Skojare who aren’t known for their psychic abilities, it only works in an emergency. Necessity and fear tend to strengthen telekinesis enough to enable a lysa.

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  I didn’t know why Linnea had picked me to receive her lysa, but now that I had proof she was alive, I knew one thing for certain—I had to find her.

  I’d wanted to rush out and talk to my mom immediately, but if I was unkempt and unshowered, that would alarm her. So I’d hurried back to my apartment and gotten cleaned up before trekking to my parents’ house. I had to be as careful and discreet as possible, since I was supposed to be working today. If someone saw me—especially Ember or Tilda or Ridley—things would get unnecessarily complicated, and I didn’t have time for that. />
  “Is something wrong?” Mom asked, narrowing her eyes in concern. She reached out, gently touching a gloved hand to the fading bruise on my temple. It had been worse the day I’d returned home after the attack, and when she had seen it then, she’d been frantic.

  “I’m fine,” I tried to assure her with a smile. “I was hoping we could talk for a minute, though. ”

  “Yeah, of course. ” She dropped her hand and motioned to the house. “Let’s go inside. ”

  I waited until after we’d both peeled off our winter jackets and heavy boots, and I even waited until after my mom made us cups of hot blackberry tea. All I wanted to do was rush through, asking my questions, but I did the best I could to make this seem like a normal visit.

  “Your dad’s at a meeting in the palace,” Mom said as she set a cup of tea in front of me at the kitchen table, and then she sat down across from me, sipping her own tea.

  “It has to be so hectic for him, with everything’s that’s going on,” I said.

  She nodded. “I’m sure things are just as crazy for you. ”

  “Yeah, things are busy,” I said before lapsing into an awkward silence.

  “Just spit it out. ” Mom leaned back in her chair, appraising me with a bemused smile. “You came over here to talk about something, and there’s no point in dancing around it. ”

  I took a deep breath before launching into it. “Konstantin Black went to Storvatten to take Queen Linnea, but he didn’t. He swore on his life that he had no idea where she was, and it didn’t appear that anyone in Storvatten knew where she was either. At least not the people who cared the most about her. ”

  Mom considered this for a moment. “And you believe Konstantin?”

  “I do,” I told her, and she inhaled sharply but said nothing. “There are three options—Konstantin took her and killed her, someone in Storvatten killed her and tried to frame Konstantin, or she ran off. In the first two scenarios, she’s dead, so the only one that’s really worth following up on is the third option. ”

  “You think she ran away?” Mom asked, her interest piqued. “Why would she run off?”

  I pursed my lips, wishing there was another way to say it. My mom was not a particularly hateful or vengeful person, but I couldn’t blame her for the anger and distrust she still felt toward Konstantin. After all, he had nearly killed both her husband and her daughter.

  “I think Konstantin warned her,” I said finally. Mom lowered her eyes and shifted her weight in her chair, growing irritated, but I pressed on. “After what happened with Emma Costar in Calgary, when Bent Stum killed her, I think Konstantin didn’t want anybody else to get hurt. ”

  “Bryn. ” She raised her eyes so she could stare harshly at me. “You can’t possibly believe that. ”

  “There’s something really weird going on in Storvatten,” I said, ignoring my mom’s challenge. I couldn’t win that argument, so I didn’t engage it. “It doesn’t fit Konstantin’s pattern—he had been targeting Kanin changelings still living with humans. Linnea was a Skojare Queen in her palace, and she’d never even been a changeling. ”

  Mom fidgeted with her tea cup, twisting it on the table and staring down at it. Her shoulders were rigid, her entire body held at nervous attention.

  “Let’s say I believe you,” she said, almost reluctantly. “Why are you here? What light do you hope I can shed on any of this?”

  “If I’m right, and somebody warned Linnea that she had better get out of Storvatten, where would she go?” I asked.

  Like my mother, Linnea had been born and raised in Storvatten. She had probably never met a human and hardly stepped out of the palace, except to go for a swim or visit other royalty. Thanks to her Skojare gills, she would never be able to blend with human society.

  The Skojare didn’t have that much money anymore, and most of what they did have of value were jewels locked up in safes. None of it had been reported missing when Linnea had disappeared, so if she was on the run, she had no money with her.

  Her options as a penniless, sheltered, beautiful but mutated teenager were extremely limited.

  “When I was growing up in Storvatten, locked up in that frozen palace while my parents tried to sell me off to a suitor for the highest price, I often dreamed of running away,” Mom admitted quietly. “I finally did when I ran off with your father, but I hardly imagine that Linnea is hiding among us in Doldastam. We Skojare tend to stand out here. ”

  She offered me a weak smile then, and I knew how painfully true her statement was. Thanks to the unique fair skin of the Skojare, Linnea would be unable to blend in with any of the other tribes of trolls.

  “There’s nowhere?” I pressed. “Didn’t you tell me once about how you and some of your friends took off somewhere for a week when you were a teenager?”

  A look of wistful surprise passed across her face, and the corner of her mouth curled up slightly. “The tonåren. I’d nearly forgotten about that. ”

  “Yeah, the tonåren,” I said, trying to remember what she’d told me about it.

  “It wasn’t an official thing,” Mom explained. “That’s just the word we used for when the royal teenagers grew restless and didn’t want to stay cooped up anymore. Those without gills would sometimes try to make a break for the human world, heading out to cities for a week or two before coming back.

  “But my best friend had gills, and I didn’t want to leave her behind, so we had to choose another option. ” Mom took a long drink of her tea. “Lake Isolera. ”

  “Lake Isolera?” I asked. “You never told me about that. ”

  “I’d nearly forgotten, and it feels like a half-remembered dream. ” She shook her head. “It was a story we’d heard from our childhood. A magical place that an ancient powerful Queen had a put spell on, so it would always be warm and private. An oasis to swim in when the harsh Canadian winters bore down on us.

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  “But it had an enchantment on it, to keep humans or unwanted trolls from stumbling upon it,” Mom went on. “Everyone who says they’ve been there is never entirely sure if they really went or if they only imagined it. ”

  “So, is it real?” I asked her directly.

  “I…” She furrowed her brow in concentration and sighed. “Honestly, I can’t say for certain. But if Linnea was running from someone, and she believed Lake Isolera was real, the same way I believed it was real when I was her age, then that’s where she would head. ”

  “Where is it?” I asked, stifling my excitement.

  “Swim one day along the shore, and then walk half a day due north, and you’ll find it under the brightest star if you’ve followed the right course,” Mom said, sounding as though she were reciting an old nursery rhyme.

  “You don’t have more accurate directions than that?” I asked hopefully.

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “For a magical place that probably doesn’t really exist? No, I’m sorry, I don’t. It’s like asking for specific directions to Narnia. ”

  “You just go through the wardrobe to get to Narnia. That’s pretty specific. ”

  Mom rolled her eyes, but she pushed her chair back and stood up. “Let’s go to your dad’s study. If we look at a map, I might be able to figure it out better. ”

  I followed her back to my dad’s cluttered office, and she pulled down his heavy, worn atlas from a shelf and spread it out on his desk. Unlike the atlases humans might find in their world, this one was marked for troll territories, major cities, and places of importance, all overlaid atop the human landmarks so we could find the troll locations when we ventured out into the human world.

  As Mom bent over the atlas, she mumbled to herself. I stood beside her. I didn’t catch every word she said, but from what I gathered she was trying to remember how fast she could swim.

  Then finally, after some deliberation, she took a pen off my dad’s desk and circled a blank spot on the map in Ontario.

  �
�There. That’s Lake Isolera,” she proclaimed rather proudly.

  I leaned forward, squinting at the map. There were plenty of blue splotches covering the area, indicating all of the lakes. But the spot Mom had circled was completely devoid of water, an odd dry patch in an otherwise watery land.

  “Are you sure that’s the right place?” I asked. “There’s nothing there, but there are tons of lakes around it. ”

  “Well, either it isn’t real or it’s hidden under a magic spell, so of course there wouldn’t be anything on the map. ” She straightened up and folded her arms over her chest. “But if it does exist, that’s where it is. ”

  “If Linnea ran away, you think that’s where she would be?” I looked up at her.

  “Either at the lake, or trying to find it. ” Mom nodded, her lips pressed into a grim line. “Assuming she isn’t dead, of course. ”

  SEVEN

  abscond

  “You have to talk to Ridley,” Tilda told me firmly, and I groaned and slumped back against the wall.

  After talking with my mom, I’d snuck into the school, barely managing not to be seen, and then lay in wait in the locker room that doubled as a women’s restroom. Thanks to her pregnancy, Tilda had to use the bathroom rather frequently—as she had lamented several times—so I knew it wouldn’t be too long before she came in.

  In fact, I’d only hidden in a stall for fifteen minutes before she entered. I waited until she’d finished, and when she came out of the stall she nearly screamed at the sight of me. Once she calmed herself, she gave me a hard look—one that could cut twice as deep as any lecture.

  I hurriedly explained my absence from training today, and my plan to find Linnea and why I thought it was so important. As she listened, the steel in her gray eyes began to soften, but she didn’t exactly look at me with approval either.

  “But you’re my commanding officer,” I insisted. “You should be able to give me the go-ahead. ”

  Tilda shook her head. “You know I have no authority to release you from your duties. Even if I did, it would mean nothing. Unless you get Ridley’s approval, you’ll be considered AWOL. ”

  I leaned my head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, weighing my options. On one hand, if I left without permission, not only would I lose any hope of being on the Högdragen, but I’d most likely be fired as a tracker. I’d still have to stay in the army until after this “war” was over, but as soon as it was, I’d be out of work.

  And on the other hand, getting permission meant I’d have to talk to Ridley.

  “If you think this is the right thing to do, and it seems that you really do, then you need to talk to him,” Tilda said, her voice low and comforting. “Whatever is going on between the two of you, he’ll still be fair and hear you out. ”