Page 37 of This Frozen Heart

Those ice-cold eyes lock on mine, and his scowl deepens. “This was all part of your plan, wasn’t it?”

“My— myplan?”

“To make me fall for you so I’d sacrifice myself in your place.”

I stare at him, trying to make sense of the strange dichotomy of him confessing feelings for me with such an icy tone. “No! I would never. I wanted usbothto be free.”

The Snow Queen chuckles behind me. “That was never going to happen. One of you had to pay, and this is where the lots have fallen.”

Whirling around, I clench my fists. “Thaw his heart! Let him go!”

Throwing her head back, the Snow Queen full-on laughs, the wind echoing the sound in the most horrifying way. Then, in one moment, all mirth is gone, and she’s staring coldly down at me. “Even if I wanted to, it is beyond my power to grant your request. My magic allows me to freeze, not release. Not to worry, though; the life I offer is not cruel. The cold shall no longer touch his skin, and ice shall become a beautiful comfort to him.”

“What?”

The Snow Queen ignores me, as does Kay, who is now on his feet and trying to walk past me.

I grasp his hand desperately.

Kay glances back at me, his cold gaze nearly as painful as the Snow Queen’s ice spike looked to be.

Then, despite his warm words earlier, he yanks his hand free of both his glove and my hold like I am repulsive to him.

“In fact,” the Snow Queen adds, “ice will be theonlything that holds any beauty to him.”

“What?” I turn back to her.

She winks. “Not to worry. I live in an ice palace. There will be plenty of beauty for him to enjoy as he serves his beloved queen, thetruesovereign of Gaelia.” The Snow Queen turns from me to hold out her hand to Kay.

“No!” I scream, launching myself at him and grabbing his hand. “You can’t go with her!”

He glances back at me, looking at me as one might a rat in the food stores. “Why not? You’re the one who drove me to this, enemy of mine. I should never have let my guard down around you.”

With that announcement, he wrenches his hand free of mine and places it in the Snow Queen’s waiting one.

She yanks him into the air with her. Then, with a gust of wind that knocks me back, they both sail toward the First Heaven, toward Schneekönigin Mountain.

Once again sitting in the snow, I stare helplessly after them as my heart throbs like it is what took the Snow Queen’s curse, not the captain who called himself my enemy. Not the man who set me free only to enslave himself for me. Not the boy who almost kissed me.

Kay . . .

Chapter Nineteen

Gerta

Eventually, I pick myself out of the snow and start walking. My chest feels hollow, like the Snow Queen confiscated my heart when she stole Kay— which is folly. She only required one heart.

I don’t even know where my feet are taking me until my camp comes into view.

For a moment, I just gape at it and my makeshift clan milling around. Prince and Biggs are carrying handfuls of firewood into the cave for storage. Smalls is roasting something at the firepit, and Wolf is sitting ontopof the cave, sniffing the air even though she’s in her mortal form.

The normalcy of it transports me back several days, to before I captured Kay, he arrested me, and the Snow Queen abducted him. The coziness of my home and family has me eagerly running down the incline to where they are nestled safely into a perfectly safe mountainside.

But then I take a halting step as the cushion of comfort I found is punctured by the reminder of the horrors of the dusk.

Smalls glances up and drops the ladle he was using in whatever he was boiling in the firepit cauldron. “Gertie!”

Every head swivels at me at once except for Wolf’s— I suspect because she smelled me while I was out of sight.

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