Page 50 of The Prince and the Ice King

“I am. I have. She cursed you to find your way to becoming a better king, and that is exactly what you did.”

“If that were true, if that were all it took, then I would no longer be this.” Jack lifted one of his clawed hands, large enough that he could have gripped Reardon’s head with ease and crushed it. “Yet here I am. There is no cure. There is no end.”

Reardon’s need to rail back—todefend—rose within him, but then he exhaled with a slump in his chair. “Perhaps we simply need to find the right answer.”

He was foolhardy indeed, but not because he was wily and selfish. He was kind and wanted everyone to have what he sought.

“Maybe that’s for another day,” he said before Jack could answer, not pushing, merely leaning forward on his knees, as close to Jack as he could without being in the trench with him. “Tell me more.”

“More?”

“About your favorite tales, maybe? What tomes have been your favorite?” Reardon looked curiously around them, leaving talk of the curse behind as if it changed nothing of his opinion of Jack or his court. “What types of stories warm the mighty Ice King? Always romance?”

Jack couldn’t express, didn’t dare, that the only thing that had warmed him in over two centuries was sitting right in front of him. “Have you never ventured into those depths, little prince?”

“I have. In books anyway.” Reardon blushed.

Jack didn’t want to inspire pity, but the truth was it was always romantic tales he pursued, because after years of dallying with no substance, now he could have neither, and substance was what he craved.

Though dallying still held its appeal.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken this freely. Not to Branwen. Not even to Josie. But with Reardon, it came so easy. “My favorite was a rare tale, because it wasn’t traditional romance, but the love story was clear between two knights who appeared to be best friends. The author must have been trying to tell the real story in secret. The truth was in the underbelly, waiting for anyone clever enough to see it.

“The knights, both men, never once kissed or intimately embraced, yet their passion and loyalty to one another was stronger than most obvious romances I’ve ever read.” Jack smiled to remember it, how the knights were the perfect examples of stalwartness, especially when protecting each other, and he’d often close the book while reading it to imagine unwritten scenes where they ravaged one another.

“What was it called?” Reardon asked, looking around again with an eager eye.

“I can’t remember. You’ll have to see if you can find it.”

“Seriously?” Reardon balked. “That could take years without knowing the title!”

The amusement Jack had been feeling, and the soft, wonderful warmth Reardon instilled in him went suddenly cold as he recalled thatyearswasn’t part of the bargain. “When do you plan to leave?”

Reardon startled, as the truth must have only then washed over him too. “You’ll… let me leave?”

Somehow, Jack had forgotten that he’d initially promised not to. “I require that you stay two weeks to prove you aren’t an enemy in disguise. After that, the choice is yours.”

Because after two weeks, Reardon would know the final secrets of the castle.

They spent hours trading stories, Reardon perusing the shelves and occasionally finding a tome that he loved and placing it on Jack’s pedestal for them to read his favorite passages. Jack could almost haveforgotten that he was a monster in a ditch, unable to touch the young prince who stood just out of reach.

They might have stayed hours more if Reardon’s stomach hadn’t grumbled.

“Is it lunchtime already? Let me put your book back for you.” Reardon traded out the book he’d been reading from, careful to return to the exact page the original book had been on. “If it’s any good, Majesty, perhaps you’ll loan it to me. I can imagine a princess is someone else too.” He flushed, ever so quick, to slips of phrase that he didn’t seem to intend.

Jack stood to head back into the tunnels, while Reardon started for the door, but then the prince stopped with a glance over his shoulder.

“Oh, um… you could come with me, Majesty. I know you don’t eat but—”

“I have very specific places I tread, little prince, or it leads to messy cleanup. And we don’t have quite that much potion to spare for everyone.”

Reardon hadn’t shivered once during today’s audience, and he didn’t now, though his potion had to have worn off. “What company do you keep,” he asked, smiling as he finished, “when bothersome princes aren’t around? Oliver, I suppose? The other soldiers with Branwen?”

Reardon guessed that because they were the only people he’d seen Jack with, but the truth was… Jack was usually alone. “Not often.”

“Then…?”

Jack couldn’t answer, but Reardon didn’t leave him at a quiet stalemate for long.

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