Page 4 of The Prince and the Ice King

“Alchemy is science,” Henry affirmed.

Reardon had never understood why such seemingly simple differences should matter. “Not even you, Master Wells, will vouch for Barclay, after all these years training him to succeed you?”

Wells looked away, but his expression wasn’t resentment, or even only fear, but guilt.

“Corroboration including by you, Father said. You turned him in, didn’t you? His own family shuns him, yet I thought you, of all people….” Reardon trailed off, too angry to finish the thought. “Of course you turned him in, because you’re a coward like everyone else, afraid you’ll be counted a witch with him if you don’t throw him to the wolves.”

“Reardon—” Henry tried, but Reardon whirled on him too.

“You’ll never listen. Tradition, old ways, old laws. You’ll uphold them even over me.” Reardon had never told his father the truth of his heart’s desires. How could he?

“When you are king, the decisions will be yours.”

“By then it will be too late.” Barclay would be gone, and besides, Reardon knew his father was right; that was why he’d never looked forward to his coronation.

He couldn’t marry to become king, and then turn around and admit the marriage a sham, changing everything the kingdom believed in. It would cause a revolt. The people already believed that those who yearned for their same gender were corrupt, poisoned by magic somehow too, against science and nature and all that made sense to them. Reardon was helpless and about to lose the one person who understood him.

“When I am king, maybe there will be so little left of me, I won’t care if they revolt…,” he muttered and turned on his heel to leave before his father could call him back.

Reardon was denied an audience with Barclay until the day came for him to be taken to the Ice King’s gate. Reardon had never seen someone bid a heartfelt farewell to those taken away. He tried not to attend the departure of the offerings either, tried not to watch, to will it all away, but with Barclay, he couldn’t be so blind and apathetic, not like Master Wells and Barclay’s own family.

Reardon went right up to the prison cart that was attended to by Lombard and two of his soldiers. He reached for Barclay’s hand through the bars before the cart could be covered and start down the main road, ignoring the confused murmurs from the watching townsfolk.

“I tried, Barclay. I swear I tried.”

“I know. It’s okay. They were bound to find out eventually.”

“Don’t be scared. Whatever the stories say, we don’t know what happens.”

Barclay put on a brave smile. “At least I’ll make an attractive ice sculpture. I will, right? And don’t only say it because you’re my friend.”

Reardon laughed despite his tears. “Barclay….”

“I love you, Reardon. Don’t do anything stupid, okay? Whatever befalls me, I don’t want it to befall you too. Be a good king and wait for your love. You’ll find him.”

The clop of Lombard’s horse coming closer was all the warning Reardon received before the cart lurched forward, tearing their hands apart. Reardon stood in the dirt and watched after his friend until he was nothing but a distant haze on the horizon.

He tried for weeks,monthsto follow Barclay’s wishes, wondering if his friend was even still alive. He did not want to believe the stories, but those sent to the Ice King never returned.

Reardon had so few friends who were real, though it wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own. Both nobles and commoners alike were welcoming wherever Reardon went, appreciative that he was never boastful about his station. Reardon enjoyed their company too, but he felt like a fraud, like a half-formed shadow of himself, except around Barclay, because no one else knew his secret.

It was lonely, and lonelier still with fresh whispers about Reardon’s overly kind heart.

“He must have been bewitched,” he’d hear someone say, sympathetic, just out of earshot, “to mourn so for one of the corrupt.”

“Ever our sweet prince,” another would mutter, “too soft, like his mother.”

On Barclay’s birthday, Reardon got so drunk at the tavern, he couldn’t walk straight along the cobbled streets when he tried to go out back for a piss in the troughs. Several of the patrons inside, including the barkeep, had offered to assist him out the door, but he had been too stubborn to accept. He made his aim, thankfully. It was a modest sewer system, but still kept the filth from running into the streets.

Just as Reardon was about to finish doing up his trousers, rough hands seized his shoulders and the world spun.

“If it isn’t His Highness,” someone said—a tall someone.

And broad. And reeking of ale.

Unless that was Reardon’s own stench.

“S’Reardon,” he corrected, slurring slightly. “And I don’ wanna be prince no more.”

---