Page 1 of The Prince and the Ice King

Chapter 1

Reardon

Reardon shivered with abone-deep chill. Despite hugging the thick furs of his winter cloak around him, he thought he might never be warm again.

Ice clung to the castle walls both outside and in, spreading from the corners of the interior chamber like mold. The deeper Reardon went, the less tolerable the cold became, like being dropped to the bottom of a frozen lake with no hope of surfacing.

Here the walls were not merely dusted with ice, they were coated, covered, practically made of it, and so were the ceiling and floor. The décor looked as though it might have been beautiful once, elegant and exquisitely made, but it was all distorted now, the tapestries faded, their original colors impossible to determine.

As Reardon continued, he stopped and shivered for a different reason.

There were frozen remains against the wall.

No, not remains like a pile of bones, but a full, undecayed corpse, with its mouth wide open in a preserved scream.

“That was the last outsider who found his way to my door,” a low, resonant voice rumbled through the chamber, making Reardon shiver harder. “He tried to break into my castle, to steal from me, before stumbling across the same threshold where you stand now.”

A powerful arm struck out and smashed the body into broken chunks—all clear, like ice, not red and bloody as Reardon had feared. But still, he believed that had been a man once, shattered now.

Dead.

He dared not move to face where the brief glimpse of a bestial hand had come from, but it had to be behind him. He could feel breath like an icy wind on his neck that made his skin prickle.

“And what did you come here for? Hmm? To slay me?”

“If I have to,” Reardon answered, because that had indeed been his intention when he made his way to the Frozen Kingdom—to end this once and for all.

“Try it, then,” the voice said, “but be warned, if your skin touches me, you will end up just like he did.”

Reardon spun, reaching for his sword, but while the monster he expected did indeed tower over him—a great, jagged creature made of ice, with angular features, clawed hands and feet that crunched into the floor, fangs as clear as ice themselves, and its head lengthening upward into what appeared to be an icy crown—the eyes made him pause.

Because those eyes, crystal clear and sparkling blue, held intelligence and curiosity that something otherwise out of a nightmare had no right to—entirely human.

Blue eyes in a sea of white.

Just like Barclay’s prophecy.

“Blue eyes in a sea of white? You meanold. My true love is aged and wrinkled with white hair?” Reardon exclaimed. He had nothing against those lucky enough to live to see old age, but he couldn’t bear the thought of waiting another fifty or more years to finally be happy.

“I didn’t say old,” Barclay countered. “I didn’tnotsay old. You know my visions aren’t always clear!”

They sat huddled at the table in the back room of the alchemist’s shop where Barclay was apprenticed. They had met right there, years ago, on Reardon’s first solo outing from the castle. Or he’d assumed he was solo at the time, though he’d learned later that General Lombard had accompanied him unseen, like a silent bodyguard.

Reardon had always found alchemy fascinating, so the shop had been his first destination that day. Not many practiced the art, but those who did were often great healers, able to create potions that could make someone stronger, faster, more resilient, think clearer, sleep better. The effects only lasted a short time, but it was as close to magic as anyone in the Emerald Kingdom could ever get.

Reardon found magic fascinating too, even more so than alchemy since it was forbidden, but he dared not tell his father or anyone other than Barclay, who was secretly gifted with mystic blood himself and saw visions when he touched people.

Usually it was flashes of the past or present, which could be useful when Reardon forgot where he put his cloak pin or if someone had justnicked something from the shop, but the brief glimpses into the future were what Reardon truly coveted.

“You said ‘Love, death, and blue eyes in a sea of white.’ How else am I supposed to interpret that? I’m not going to find love until I’m old and dying!”

Barclay snorted. The teakettle whistled on the hearth, prompting him to rise from the table to remove it. “You know I can’t always tell what the visions mean. It could be saying that you’ll find love during wartime or… um… after stepping on a bug!”

“And what about the sea of white?” Reardon pressed, sitting back in his chair to watch his friend.

Barclay was slight, compact of stature but bursting with energy that made his brown cheeks glow. His long dark hair was tied up messily to keep out of his face while he worked—which he still would be if Master Wells, the High Alchemist who’d chosen Barclay as his apprentice, hadn’t stepped out for the afternoon after Reardon came for a visit.

It wasn’t because Barclay was a commoner that he was the one making the tea. Reardon never wanted special treatment for being the prince. They alternated. Today was simply Barclay’s day.

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