Page 48 of Heart of the Summer Queen

We hesitate briefly before picking our way through the heaps of books and potion bottles.

The couch is too small to comfortably fit both Elaric and me. It’s such a tight squeeze that my legs press against his. While I feel awkward sitting this close to him, I’d rather sit beside him than the witch.

“Something to eat?” Belinda asks.

“I’m not hungry, but thank you,” Elaric says.

“What are you cooking?” Despite the swamp’s awful smell, the faint scent of warm food is making me ravenous.

Belinda flashes me a toothy grin. “Frog spawn and dandelion soup.”

“Frog spawn?” I repeat, my appetite vanishing in a bout of nausea.

“It adds a delightful tang to an otherwise bland dish,” Belinda says. “Shall I fetch you a bowl?”

“No,” I blurt. Noticing her sharpening expression, I quickly add, “It sounds lovely, but I’ll pass thank you. I’m not too hungry.”

Belinda just shrugs and heads through the door to the right.

Though I have plenty of questions to ask Elaric, whether her house has always been this way and whether he’s ever tried any of her peculiar dishes on previous visits, it’s best not to risk Belinda overhearing.

The two of us stare into the fireplace while we wait. Unlike the fire in the palace, conjured from Elaric’s power, these flames appear to be perfectly normal ones. I wonder if they would also feel normal if I held my fingers to them, but I don’t move to check.

Belinda returns a few minutes later, carrying a bowl in one hand and leaning on her wooden staff with the other. She tilts the bowl toward me. “Sure you don’t fancy a bowl?”

I peer inside. The soup is thick and yellow and frothy, with a bubbly texture that’s undoubtedly frog spawn. I do my best notto pull a face. As unsettling as the soup is, at least it doesn’t smell too awful. “I... I’m sure, thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” Belinda says, settling down onto the couch opposite us. “All the more for me.”

She sets her staff down beside her and picks up the spoon from her bowl and shovels it into her mouth, slurping noisily. When she misses her mouth, drops trickle down her chin and onto the collar of her robes. I do my best not to stare.

“So,” she says after another two slurps of soup, “I already know this one.” She gestures to Elaric with her spoon, and a bead of soup flies through the air, landing on the dusty rug. Then she turns to me, scanning over me from my red curls to my muddy boots. “But who are you, girl?”

“Adara,” I reply. “Adara Lansford.” Only after I speak do I realize my name is technically no longer Lansford. It should be Elaric’s now—at least for as long as we stay married. Tirling, as was written on the front of his father’s journal.

“Adara is my wife,” Elaric says. My heart skips a beat.Wife. “The Queen of Avella.”

“The Queen of Avella,” Belinda muses, stirring her soup with her spoon. “Have the two of you kissed at the altar? Consummated your marriage on your wedding night?”

Warmth surges across my face. I’m grateful for the dimness of her house, or else my embarrassment would be noticeable to both of them.

At least I’m not the only who reacts. Elaric’s whole body stiffens.

“Well?” the witch prompts, glancing between us.

My tongue feels too thick for my mouth. Words are impossible to form.

Luckily, Elaric answers for us both. “Yes,” he says, the syllable strained.

“And here you are, still flesh and blood,” Belinda says to me. She examines me for a moment longer before her eyes shift over to Elaric. “It seems you have found your true queen after all these years, and yet you sit here unchanged.”

Unchanged?

I can’t help my frown.

Does the witch mean she can still detect the magic flowing through Elaric’s body? The frozen heart in his chest?

Or does she mean his appearance? It wouldn’t be surprising if Elaric wasn’t born looking as he does now. No one could naturally have skin as pale as snow, hair as silver as the moon, eyes as cold as frost.

---