Forbidden (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (25 page)

Her thoughts fled to Aein. Her last glimpse of him lingered like a footnote in the unclosed chapter of their memories.

“
Come,” Ghost urged her. “Remember everything we practiced together. Take a deep breath and keep calm.”

Easy for you to say, Snow White thought. You don’t have to see the look on the king’s face when I tell him his country’s freedom hinges on the dubious negotiations of my former boyfriend.

They sped into the great audience hall, only to be met by an officious-looking courtier who wore an even more officious-looking beard that fell to his navel. The beard was better groomed than Snow White’s hair.

“
I am Sir Aleric,” the courtier informed Snow White stiffly. “His Majesty is indisposed to see you even if you’ve brought half the Urskian imbeciles with you. You will need to put in a request for an appointment if you are truly who you say – ”

Snow White hurtled past him, pushing him aside. Several castle guards scuttled around her and Ghost in a nervous flurry.

“
Wait!” Sir Aleric cried. “You can’t go in there. There’s a – ”

Snow White shoved the ornate wooden doors of the throne room open. The chamber was very high. The domed ceiling was frescoed with white clouds against light blue paint. Black iron chandeliers hung above a floor made from stone slabs. A single red carpet track led from the doors to the throne, which was raised upon a dais. Courtiers were seated upon tiers of red velvet chairs on either side of the room.

The man who sat upon the throne was not what Snow White expected.
He was in his late twenties, blond, with tousled hair that suggested he had just tumbled out of bed. He was handsome in a rugged way with a broad nose, a strong bearded jaw and a complexion that suggested he spent a lot of time under whatever sun Lapland offered. His clothes, although plain, were made of thick sturdy wool.

He looked more like a commoner than a king. His eyebrows beetled as she approached the throne, her strides too purposeful be deferential. Murmurs rippled through the courtiers.

Castle guards in blue livery immediately rushed to seize Snow White, but Ghost blocked them with a few chopping moves that left the guards sprawling in agony on the floor.

“Your Majesty,” Snow White called out, trying to beat off the oncoming guards. “You have to listen to me! My name is Snow White, princess of Bavaria. I’ve come to warn you of a great threat to your kingdom.” She elbowed a guard who seized her waist. “Let go of me!”

Ghost stepped forward, but the King held up a palm.

“Let her go,” he said. He had a deep voice that made itself heard without booming throughout the hall.

The guards hung back, wary.

“Your Majesty.” Sir Aleric stormed through the doors. He was very red in the face. His beard quivered as he spoke. “I tried to stop this harridan from interrupting you while in court, but – ”

“Not a harridan but the princess of Bavaria, so say my guards from Ursk.” The King spoke German with only a trace of accent.

Sir Aleric let out a few Finnish words in a rapid stream, gesticulating wildly at Snow White.

“He’s saying that you’re an uncouth, irreverent imbecile with straggly hair,” Ghost translated, deadpan. “He used the word ‘imbecile’ seven times.”

“Enough,” the King said. “I hear you, but I do not think this girl is an impostor. The princess of Bavaria is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world aside from its Queen, and I can clearly see this.”

Thank you, Snow White thought. I think.

Aloud, she said, “Thank you for the audience.” She made no move to curtsey. She would have looked clumsy doing it in her whalebone structured gown. “I’d thought the King of Lapland to be old and infirmed.”

“You refer to my father. He passed on two months ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Snow White bowed her head stiffly.

“You don't sound sorry.” The King seemed amused.

“I didn’t know your father.”

“Truthful as well as beautiful. You have come to seek my help, no doubt.”

Snow White told him about the probable invasion. When she finished, half the courtiers looked upon her in bafflement. Sir Aleric’s face was as black as a thundercloud. The King ran a hand across his beard.

“What would you have me do?” he asked.

“Send your armies to Mt. Nordstrom,” Snow White immediately said. “Surround this mountain and let no enemy force breach your borders.”

More hushed conversation among the courtiers.

“This story is . . . fantastical,” the King said. “Otherworlders, you say.”

“She speaks the truth.” Ghost stepped forward, the milky orbs of her eyes shining. “Chiva has foreseen it, she who foretold the manner of your father’s true death.”

The muscles on the King’s neck tensed. “And what is the manner of my father’s true death?” he inquired, his fists balled upon the armrests of his wooden throne.

Sir Aleric danced uncomfortably on his feet.

“It is not for the ears of everyone present,” Ghost proclaimed. “If you may permit me to approach, Your Majesty, I will whisper it into your ear.”

“Your Majesty,” cried Sir Aleric, “it is a trap! This girl is a well-known assassin from the city of the blind. She seeks to kill you at close range!”

Ghost’s expression suggested she had just swallowed curdled milk.

“Nonsense, Aleric. The City of Joy has always been our ally, their assassins an integral part of our armies.”

“Your Majesty, I must protest. And so does the captain of your royal guard here.”

Snow White impatiently stepped up. “Then permit me, Your Majesty, to transmit the message. I daresay no one here fears a pen and paper. I will write down Ghost’s words and you can choose to read it for yourself.”

Titters ran nervously through the crowd. A look of admiration crossed the King’s face.

“By all means, Princess of Bavaria.”

A pageboy came up with a sheaf of parchment and a quill pen. I’m not going to write a book, Snow White thought, but graciously accepted them.

Ghost whispered in her ear, and Snow White painstakingly wrote: YOUR KINGDOM THINKS YOUR FATHER DIED IN HIS SLEEP, BUT HE WAS ABED WITH YOUR SISTER’S NEW HUSBAND WHEN HIS HEART GAVE.

She glanced at the words, taken aback. “Is this true?”

Ghost nodded.

The pageboy took the rolled parchment to the King. He read it, one side of his mouth twitching. Then he stood up and dropped it into a flickering brazier behind his throne. The parchment caught fire and shriveled into a curling black heap.

The King raised his gaze to Snow White’s expectant face. “Very well. You have my attention, Princess. Aleric, prepare the fifth squadron for the trek to Mt. Nordstrom. Prepare my horse. I intend to accompany the Princess here to see this possible invasion for myself.”

#

They set forth for Mt. Nordstrom in the morning. Snow White rode alongside Ghost while the fifth squadron, all two thousand cavalry strong, followed in orderly formation. The young King rode ahead with his captain. They conferred in low voices. When they were several miles into their journey, Snow White heard a familiar voice call out her name.

She turned in amazement. “Gustav!”

He galloped up on a roan mare, a broad grin on his face. “Can’t let you go to an alien visitation without me.”

She felt like clambering off her horse to hug him.

“How did you get here?” they said simultaneously, and laughed.

“The alien visitation was supposed to be top secret,” Snow White chided.

“You spilled it out in court. That’s as good as sending heralds to every hamlet and shepherd’s nook in Lapland. Besides, I always thought your boyfriend was a little off, especially with the daisies.”

“Dandelions.” Despite herself, Snow White felt a pang.

After exchanging pleasantries and introductions to Ghost, Gustav explained that he had boarded a ship to Rova with Wilhem and his mother.

“Where’s Wilhem?” Snow White asked.

“Apprenticing with the Grand Master archers outside Rova. As for me, I’m in the Astronomy faculty.” He beamed. “I did it all by myself. I didn’t even need your introduction.”

“There you go.” Snow White was genuinely proud of him. “Where’s your mother?”

“In the castle kitchens. She’s been made sous chef.”

Snow White raised her eyebrows, remembering the episode at the docks. “Seriously? And did she say anything about me?”

“Only that you’d left real quick and you reneged on your promise to us,” Gustav said solemnly. “I saw your ‘missing’ notifications around Skiva. So I don’t hold it against you. I would have run out of there real quick myself.”

So he doesn’t know his mother tried to sell me for a career in a hot kitchen. The old Snow White would have immediately corrected this. But the new her – more sober, less impulsive, but still dressed in the same crumpled clothes – merely nodded.

Gustav eyed Ghost with interest. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

Gustav held up his thumb and forefinger. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“How many testicles do you want me to crush?” Ghost countered.

“Oooh.” Gustav mock shuddered. “Scary.”

They traveled on, a little too slowly for Snow White’s taste. But she would rather have an army surrounding Mt. Nordstrom than none at all. At night under the Aurora, they set up pavilions for the King and Snow White. It was becoming marrow-chillingly cold, especially on the plains where the winds swept from the north without barriers or mercy. Snow White shared her pavilion with Ghost. Every night, they peered at the moon and its looming deadline.

“Aein said he had to reach Mt. Nordstrom by the time three moons become full in the sky,” Snow White said to Ghost. “That was two-and-a-half months ago. Do moons become full here or are they obscured by the Aurora?”

“I’ve never seen the Aurora,” Ghost replied with a straight face, “so you better ask Mr. ‘I Know Everything in Lapland’ here.”

“Whoa, your cactus prickles are beginning to show, Assassin Girl,” Gustav said, “I didn’t say I knew
everything
in Lapland. I just got here, so give me a couple of months, give or take a few days. But to answer your question, yes. The moon may be obscured by the Aurora. The Roman calendar is a better bet to go by if you want Aein’s exact date.”

“I don’t think Aein’s people knew the Romans,” Snow White said. The wind was too mournful in her ears for comfort.

Every morning when she woke up, more hairs appeared on her pillow. In the mirror, bald spots began to form on her scalp. Snow White was not normally conscious of her appearance, but this opened a whole plethora of anxiety-riddled concerns. She found herself combing her hair in imaginative ways to hide the spots. In the end, she wrapped her head in a scarf the way she had seen the Bambenga do.

Additionally, her nails were becoming splintered. When she bumped into things, she no longer bruised or felt pain. She could ride for long distances without tiring. She ate less, felt hungry and thirsty less. Her vision became sharper, her sense of smell keener. And with all that, an escalating alarm that she was turning more insect than human.

What then of the babe that grew within her womb? What would it resemble? Every time she contemplated it, the dread began to churn in her stomach just above the receptacle that held the unformed child. Or perhaps it was pregnancy nausea, she couldn’t tell which.

She tossed and turned over it several nights, the way one would worry about an incurable disease. In the end, she forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand.

Mt. Nordstrom was fast approaching.

#

Alone in a glen, Snow White chanced upon a beehive hanging from a low branch.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in delight as the bees streamed out from the hive and alighted on her arms and face. More buzzed around her thinning scalp and covered it like a living wig. They piled on top of one another in slathers so that they were four or five thick.

A yell splintered the air behind her. “Don’t move! Stay there with your feet planted to the ground!”

Snow White turned to see the panic-stricken King bearing down the slope, waving his arms. As he approached, his footsteps slowed.

“Easy,” he said, holding his palms up like a shield, “easy does it.” He took one tentative step, and then another.

“It’s OK,” Snow White said amid the bees crawling on her chin. “They’re friendly. Look.” She held out her bee-covered arms.

With an angry buzz, the bees flew in droves towards the King. He dove into a crouch, covering his head with his hands.

“No, no, no!” cried Snow White in despair. She was damned if this was a repeat of what happened to Wolfsbane.

The bees worried the cowering King. Snow White bolted to him and threw herself onto his balled-up body as the bees swarmed around them. The bees continued to dart and hum, alighting on her, and then flying off again. The King struggled beneath her grasp, but she hissed, “Keep still!” After several minutes of this, the buzzing tapered off as did the wings fanning both their faces.