Page 102 of Midwinter Wiles & Valerian Dreams
I step aside so she can see him standing with Talvie’s prone body. The kids have gathered close, eavesdropping on our conversation with wide-eyed looks.
The queen’s shoulders remain stiff. “Why did you do this? What was the purpose of that play? The potions, the illusions, these—these emotions? I didn’t ask for this.”
“It wasn’t for you.”
Her gaze sharpens.
“It was for Talvie. She still believes there’s something left of the woman who braided flowers into her hair and stayed up talking with her late into the night. You meant the world to her once. I wanted to give her a chance to have that again. A chance to reach you.”
“She hates me. She must.”
Slowly, I shake my head. “No. She might want to hate you, but I don’t think she’s capable of it. You shut her out, and she hardened her walls in kind, feigned uncaring, but she never stopped loving you.”
Taynia’s face crumples ever so slightly. “She started calling me Ice Queen and ‘her father’s widow’. She stopped calling meÏti.”
“You hurt her,” I say, not unkindly, but not mincing words. “She didn’t deserve your coldness when she needed warmth, and she certainly didn’t deserve to be chased from her home.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“And she doesn’t deserve to be cursed to endless sleep now.”
Taynia’s brow furrows.
“Help me wake her. There must be a way.”
She tilts her head, letting the words hang between us. “Why do you care?”
Air punches from my lungs. There’s no way this goes well. I’m not worthy of feeling the way I do, but I can’t deny it either. I can’t lie when this moment is so fraught and fragile.
“Tell her,” Lumi urges.
“Because I love her.”
“You?” The queen recoils, looking me over from head to toe as if seeing me for the first time. I stand stiff in the scrutiny, feeling every stitch of my embroidered tunic and every point of my hat weighing on my body. “But…you’reWilder.”
“I know. And I never meant to fall in love with her, but how could I not? Talvie is the most kind-hearted, generous soul I’ve ever met. And I know it’s impossible. I know it can never lead to anything, and that she could never feel the same about someone like me. I know if we save her, it will only be to say goodbye. Because she has to return to the palace and the people. Talvie could never belong with someone like me, nor does she belong to you. She belongs to all the Hinterlands. The world of Havansarr without Talvie in it is not a world I want to live in. Nor should you.”
Her gaze searches me. I’m sure she finds me wanting.
Just when I think she’s about to freeze over again, or possibly order Beron to kill me for daring to fall in love with a princess, she surprises me.
“Beron, take this beast,” she says, holding out Tahto’s lead. “He’s filthy, and he smells of apples.”
Several giggles escape the circle around Talvie, but Beron fights his own smile and says only, “Of course, my Queen,” coming to take the mule from her.
“Right, then.” Taynia wipes her hands daintily on an embroidered handkerchief. “There is a counterspell, but the ingredients are impossible to gather.”
“I can get whatever we need. Please,” I say.
“Moonflower nectar, dawn dew, captured sunbeams, and a drop of the same belladonna extract used in the curse. Even if you can somehow locate all of those, you’ll never gather the final item.”
I gulp. We found moonflowers by the spring, and sunbeams are easy enough to capture with a shimmer-flask. If we hurry, we could gather dawn dew right now in the glasshouse. But the belladonna extract would have to come from her, and I fear what she’s about to say next.
“The counterspell requires a single tear from the one who cast the original.”
I close my eyes. “So…you.”
“I can’t,” she says flatly. “You may have cracked the ice walls inside me, but my tears froze long ago. Besides, I gave the last of that belladonna to Beron for the spell. There’s none left.”
