Queen Ingrid had white-blond hair arranged atop her head, her silver and gold crown spearing toward the sky like rays of sunlight. Her voluminous icy blue dress belled so wide around her that the doting courtiers circling her were beyond arm’s reach. I couldn’t make out her eyes in the shadows of her diamond-studded mask, but I knew she was watching me from the curious cock of her head as she fanned herself.
I wished Briar were there. She might’ve never wanted to be a queen, but she would’ve loved to come to a ball like this—to wear fine gowns, to dance among royal Wolf family, to relish the long evenings that stretched out to dawn. She might never get a chance.
Not unless I made this count, right here, right now.
The hall was so crammed with masked faces that I couldn’t see the far doors. Was the Ice Wolf pack this large? Unless Queen Ingrid invited Wolves from other realms to her soiree . . . It seemed unlikely that any of them were human.
Malou’s bow tapped me on the calf and the crowd tittered. I glanced to the side and saw her frowning up at me.
Oh Gods, I’d missed my cue—too mesmerized by the giant crowd and opulent room.
The strings swelled again and this time I began to sing. Ora accompanied me, though their voice was considerably softer than the day before in the plaza.
The crowd was supposed to dance and chat while I sang, but first they joked about my miscue, and now every partygoer stood still, watching me like I was a famous opera singer. My heart pounded in my ears, but I forced my voice louder, praying it didn’t wobble.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted Grae’s twisted black mask. He was tucked in the corner, barely visible behind a white marble pillar, but knowing he watched strengthened my voice. I gave him a warning look. Even with his mask, it was dangerous for him to be out here.
When I hit my final note, the crowd burst into applause and I dropped into a bow, humbled by their ovation.
“Encore, encore!” they cheered.
They began calling out the titles of songs, many I hadn’t heard before, requests I didn’t know. My brows pinched together as my eyes darted from one voice to the next.
Queen Ingrid took a decisive step forward and said, “Do ‘The Sleeping Queen.’ Everyone knows that one.”
My stomach dropped. “The Sleeping Queen,” the song about my mother. I glanced to where Grae leaned against the wall. How could I get myself out of this? I couldn’t tell if it was a trick of the light, but Grae seemed to nod his head, an infinitesimal movement. The way Queen Ingrid requested it left no room to refute. I clasped my hands together and bobbed my head to her.
The musicians began the faster refrain. It was a happy tune, a tale of true love triumphing in the face of unbeatable odds. Gratefully, the crowd broke apart and began to dance as I sang, spurred on by the jolly melodies. But the joy of my mother’s tale felt horribly hollow to me. She didn’t have her happy ending, and her daughter had befallen the same fate, and this time Sawyn was wise enough not to leave her mate around to break the curse.
They were gone. My family was gone. My kingdom was in ruin. Our people, like Navin, suffered at the hands of a sorceress. And here I was singing a merry tune about a love story whose true ending was one of death and grief. If my mother’s soul had a song, it wouldn’t be this one.
A knot formed in my throat and I wasn’t sure if I would make it to the end. My body felt impossibly light. This wasn’t just a story to me anymore, but I couldn’t let this Wolf pack know it. Why would a human cry over the sad fate of the Gold Wolves?
My voice began to rasp, but with the crowd now diverted back to the dancing and the instruments nearly drowning me out, it didn’t matter so much. I wondered if the troupe did it on purpose, or if they were simply lost in the song, but I was grateful.
Each wooden note felt harder than the last. I didn’t know if I could do it, if I could reach the last line and sing about my parents’ “happy” ending. How could I form those words? Sweat broke out along my brow, my stomach dropping as I realized I might reveal my secret right then and there in front of hundreds of Wolves.
Keep going, I prayed, but the words were sandpaper against my windpipe. It all came crashing down on me in this one sweet song. Fear gripped me—the lights blinding, the final words choking in my throat and, in my panic, my eyes found Grae.
As if hearing my plea, he pushed off from the marble column and strode toward me. As the last notes died on my lips, he grabbed me and kissed me.
The crowd laughed and cheered, delighted by the seemingly playful act of a partygoer interrupting the song. The kiss pushed all other thoughts to the recesses of my mind, and I finally found my breath again. Grae’s lips lingered, his wide body shielding mine from onlookers. For that one brief moment, it was as if the rest of the room disappeared and only he and I existed.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, his warm breath making my lips tingle.
As the applause died down, I was reminded of the audience and took another steadying breath. Grae threaded his fingers through mine and led me back into the corridor. Galen den’ Mora had already moved on to a new jaunty tune.
Thirty
The empty hallways echoed with the sound of my ragged breath.
“Where are we going?” I whispered as Grae shouldered open a little door to a courtyard. The sound of strings echoed up the tall stone walls. Golden light filtered from a high-arched window, a sliver of chandelier peeking through the glass. We were so close to the ballroom and yet we felt a world away.
I lifted my train with my free hand and stepped into the dusting of snow. Crates and buckets lined the far wall, probably from the overflowing kitchens. We hadn’t seen much of the castle on our ride through the back entrance, just the tips of the white needle-like spires above a towering white wall of snow. I was certain the front entrance would be grand, but humans didn’t enter that way.
The far door had the symbol of a Wolf and the Taigosi words Da Lothien Ostrosko. It roughly meant “hospitality closet,” where Wolves could find clothing if they traveled to the palace on all four paws. How well the Wolves treated their own kind . . . how poorly they treated everyone else.
“Thank you,” I said to Grae, releasing his hand and leaning against the cold white stone. The coolness soothed the torrent of emotion swirling inside me.
Grae cupped my cheek. “You were wonderful, little fox.”
“I don’t know what overcame me,” I breathed. “I’ve heard that song a million times before—heard it just recently, in fact—but something about actually singing my parents’ love song in front of an entire pack of Ice Wolves . . .”
“Your parents’ story had only ever been that—a story. But the closer we creep to Olmdere, the more real it becomes.”
“From the moment Sawyn cursed Briar, it became real.” I wiped my clammy hand across the back of my neck. “Remembering her on that stone tomb only reminds me that their story didn’t end like that song, no happily ever afters for them.”
“They had many years of happiness together, though,” Grae said. “Some would trade a lifetime for those years they spent together. Their lives were more than just their endings.”