Page 64 of A Throne of Blood and Ice

Because though the sun looks down upon me, it chooses not to warm me, and I am going to die.

I feel that twelve is an unrighteous age to die, especially since it’s my birthday.

When I snuck out of the castle this morning through a burrow I’ve been digging for weeks underneath the relatively abandoned south wall, I did not know this would be my last day on this side of the sun.

The Serpentine is only a few paces away. I’ve been skirting along the outskirts of its winding path, figuring the road is exactly where the queen will send her search party once she realizes I’m gone.

It’s still the fastest way back home, so I’ve been following it from a distance. Besides, it’s allowed me to keep an eye out for the queen’s entourage. I figure the simplest way to keep my family out of trouble for my disappearance is for them to be unaware of my escape by the time the queen’s soldiers question them.

So it’s better if the soldiers make it to my home before I do.

Then I can wait until they’re certain of my family’s innocence before I reveal myself to my parents and sister.

At least, that was the plan when I believed I would make it all the way back to Otho alive.

But now my limbs ache—down to the very bones—and I know it will not be long before the aching fades to numbness fades to the shadow of death.

I don’t think I’d mind so much if I didn’t have to imagine Father’s face—sunken with grief—when they tell him what became of me. If I couldn’t hear Mama and Zora’s screams, reaching out to me from the future, stretching themselves across time to reach my frozen ears.

When even my knees can no longer support my weight, I make sure to fall backward. At least then I’ll die with the sun on my face. Indeed, as my heart drags itself upward to knock against my chest for what must be one of the last times, the sun brushes my forehead with its rays, and I decide to forgive it for not saving me.

Then I succumb to the darkness and feel nothing for a long while.

Someone is murmuring above me,stroking my forehead with their long fingers and whispering frantic words of comfort in my ear. Those same fingers run themselves through my soaked hair, and through the fog in my mind I hear someone mention a fever.

“Mama?” The word forms on my lips without effort, though I’m sure if I tried I couldn’t speak anything else.

There’s a staccato sob in response to that one word, Mama. “I’m here, baby,” she says, but she doesn’t sound like Mama. Mama’s voice is like the thrumming of a kettle above a smoldering fire, and this voice is like the howl of the winter wind through the mountain passes.

“I’m here, baby. Mama’s here, Farin.”

I don’t know who Farin is, but I am not him and the female speaking to me is not Mama, but she sounds so worried over me, I don’t have the heart to tell her.

When I wakethe second time, I don’t allow my eyes to open.

It’s the same female voice that wakes me. Her tone is sharp and demanding, and there’s a male’s voice too.

Gunter.

At least I’m not alone with her.

I knowwhere I am now, but I’d rather not.

So I keep my eyes sealed shut and focus on the crackling of brush in the fireplace. I focus on the warmth radiating in the cozy room that breathes life into my aching limbs. I focus on the warm quilts that fasten me to the bed.

And I pretend that I’m home. That my father is stoking the fire and that mother quilted my bedsheets herself and that it’s Zora’s voice whining and demanding in my ear.

I forget to keep my breathing shallow with sleep, though, and I’m only Fates-blessed with a few fleeting moments before the queen realizes I’m awake.

“Farin? Oh, Farin.”

The name makes the muscles in my shoulders tense, but it’s nothing like how they react when the queen rushes to my side and runs her fingers through my hair, wiping the sweat from my forehead with her palm.

When she buries her head into my chest and presses her ear against my ribcage, as if to feel the steady thrum of my heartbeat, I squeeze my eyes shut to hold back the tears.

My chest starts to heave in short bursts, and though I can feel it rising and falling, it’s as if the air does me no good. As if my body has lost the ability to use it. Something howls, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s me gasping for air.

“Farin? Farin,” the queen says, and as soon as she removes her head from my chest, some of the air slips through to my lungs.

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