I WAS ESCORTED AGAINST my will back to my chamber, but not without a fight. I knew there would be bruises on my arms from how hard the knights were gripping me, something Calder would have caused an uproar about. As we reached the door I jerked myself free from them and gave my disapproval.

"I'm your princess, you do know that right? You're to listen to my orders, not Eeira's or the Clan's. Disobeying me is its own treason, is it not? Because I can certainly have you all demoted if I wish."

The two beefy men laughed, "Only the captain can discharge us, and that's only if he has orders from Madam Eeira or the Clan. You have a lot to learn when you become queen, mouse."

I felt my cheeks boil at the man mocking my size. "It may have been that way for seventeen years while I was gone, but I'm here now. And you can bet things are going to change even before that crown is on my head. Calder didn't let a single one of you breathe without his order, and neither will I."

Thorne glanced between me and his guards, breaking up the tension before it went any further. He could probably tell I was ready to jump on their backs and snap their necks.

"Alright boys, I'll take it from here."

"Madam Eeira told us to guard the princess's door," the other man said.

I watched a look of annoyance cross Thorne's face. "And I told you to dismiss your posts. Go fondle around with the maids in the wash room, I know how much you like to do that."

Their faces turning red and hanging their heads low, the men scurried off. A scoff left my mouth at their exit, crossing my arms.

"Great. I won't be able to get the image of my guards "fondling" with my maids out of my head now."

"At least you don't have to hear them talk about it in extreme detail all the time," Thorne shuddered. "I might as well have been the one in the act."

"Well, I will definitely have a strong talking to each of the maids to stop that," I declared. "So you shouldn't have to hear any more about it."

"I don't know if that's the best thing to do," Thorne objected. "Some of the guys and maids are together. Some have declared to the other that they love them, so they're bound."

A heartstring tugged inside me remembering that Calder had told me he loved me in my dreams while I was out. Maybe if he had really told me that, or I to him, he couldn't have left me. . .

"And as for the ones just playing around, well if you stopped that it would only stir up things," Thorne explained. "After it was discovered that Calder is Sylvi's son and considered a traitor, a maid mentioned to one of the guys that she saw Calder coming from your room in the mornings and going in at night several times. She'd be happy to spill to everyone here. You don't want to risk the chance of ruining yourself with that little secret."

"We didn't do anything so there's nothing that could ruin me," I spat at him in offense. "And even if we had, that is no one's business but mine and Calder's."

"Hey, I'm just trying to help you out here, Princess. Eeira was furious enough when she found out you and Calder had been together all this time."

I felt a sickness churn in my stomach, and I dismissed the conversation before I broke down in front of him. "You need to leave. Now."

I turned to the door and pushed it open, slamming it in Thorne's face before he could get out another word.

I heard him sigh from the other side. "Fine. I'll check on you later. I'll cover for you with Eeira so you can truly be alone."

His footsteps then echoed along the hall as he left, and a sigh of relief left me. I slid down the door and brought my knees to my chest, gazing around the dim lit room. Tears burned in my eyes like acid and fell down my face. I buried my head in my thighs as my body shook, the sound of my sobs drowning out the silence.



I didn't know how long I stayed there by the door. If there had been a clock ticking in my room I would've gone mad, so I was glad of the silence only for that reason. I felt drained even though I had slept for three weeks straight. I was out of tears, and now all I seemed to do was dryly sob. Why did it have to be like this? Why did everything come crashing down around me in what seemed like a single blink of my eye?

The moment Sylvi's sword pierced my flesh came across my mind, and the sound of Calder's agony at my near death was like it was right in my ear. Now I wished it had been the other way around. No way did I want Calder to have gone through the pain that I did, but if our fates had been reversed perhaps I could have saved him and I would have been taken.

No. She would have killed me right there in the snow and then finished off Calder some other way. Now he was enduring torture far worse than I did. I was sure of it. And it was all because of me. Maybe it wasn't the sword that didn't work. Maybe it was because I didn't have the confidence in my heart that I did in my head at that moment. I had no confidence in getting Calder back, either. Where were things going to go from here?

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. I raised my head from my knees and leaned it against the wood, keeping my eyes tightly shut as I would this room.

"Go away!" I hoarsely ordered whoever was on the other side.

I heard the soft spoken voice of Bryndis reply, "Miss? Are you well?"

I quickly cut her off, "I'm fine! Just, please, leave me alone!"

Bryndis knocked once more. "Your Majesty, please open up. I-I don't mean to pry. It is morning after all. I have your breakfast."

Morning? Had I been here that long?

I stood from the floor and walked over to the large curtains covering the balcony doors. I pushed them aside to see the break of dawn over the mountains, casting its yellow glow into the room. Another day that Calder would be under Sylvi's torture.

"Princess?" Bryndis continued, and with a groan I wiped my face and stormed to the door.

"I ordered you to go away!" I said as I flung it open to reveal her startled face.

Seeing the wide doe-like eyes of Bryndis made me regret being so harsh, and I then sighed.

"I'm sorry, Bryndis. I just. . .don't feel like eating anything right now."

"Oh please Miss, you must eat something. You've had nothing but fluids for three weeks. You'll grow sick if you don't eat and drink."

I already felt sick, to my very core. Shrugging off Bryndis's pleas I glanced around her. "I'm surprised Eeira doesn't have her goons guarding my door so I can't escape."

"That would be because of my impeccable charm," Thorne smirked as he approached from around the corner, his hands laced behind him.

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. "You actually mean cockiness, don't you?"

Thorne shrugged without giving me a direct answer. "I spoke to Eeira and wavered her decision. She's letting you have free reign."

"Free reign? Of my own castle? Really? Oh, how generous of her! I'll have to give my immense thanks at her feet."

Thorne chuckled, "Alright sassy-pants. Come with me. There's something I want to show you."

"And why would I go anywhere with you?" I asked.

Thorne gestured in front of him. "Because you're going to want to see this."



I followed Thorne down one corridor after another, and it felt like a winding maze. I had wandered most of the palace and yet some stairways I'd never went up or down and several doors never passed through. I was actually kind of amazed and confused at the sights of this weird unknown journey. Had this room been glamoured before? Had I walked past this corridor and paid no mind to it?

I repeatedly asked Thorne where we were going and each time I was given responses like, "you'll see" and "just a little further".

Finally we came to a door with swirling script-like carvings. I began to ask why Thorne had brought me here and what this room was, but he grabbed the handle and pushed the door open for me.

"After you, Princess," he gestured.

Throwing him a wary glare I stepped inside the dark room with Thorne following behind. I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face, and it made my heartbeat slightly speed up.

"What the hell is in here that you want me to see?" I asked Thorne, wherever he was.

"Take a load of this," he said somewhere to my right, and with the sound of a tug of fabric light bursted into the room. I shielded my eyes until they adjusted, and Thorne pulled two more curtains down to reveal seven feet tall windows on two different floors. Bookcases lined every inch of the walls, on every side of the room, on both levels. There had to have been a thousand books or more, and I couldn't suppress a gasp.

"Wow."

"Right?" Thorne smiled, spreading his arms out to the sight. "I just found this place a couple weeks ago while making my very first rounds. Gulbrand had it glamoured so no one would know it was here. Since he died there's actually a whole other floor of this place that was revealed, that he'd kept hidden."

"Why?" I asked more myself than him, running my finger along a table next to me and picking up dust.

"I don't know what you might be guessing, but my guess is. . .he was hiding it from you."

I jerked my head in his direction. "Me? What would be the purpose to hide a library from me, of all things?"

"Oh it's not just the library, it's the whole floor. There's rooms where I assume your sisters stayed, an armory, a piano room. But look at all these books around us," Thorne pointed. "There's hundreds of them, all incredibly old and full of lore and legends of our kind and this world. I think there might be—or might've been—books here on how to defeat someone like the frozen queen. And if so, he kept this room hidden so you couldn't find out how."

I shook my head, feeling unconvinced. "Calder never told me about this room, so he must've not known about it either. It's been hidden for a lot longer than my first arrival. The reason has to be more complex than that."

"I think it was the king's library," Thorne said, and it made me freeze a moment where I stood to grab a book from a shelf. He waited for me to say something back, and I hesitated to do so.

"I'm sure it was," I replied without moving, my voice echoing off the tall walls. "He was a sort of philosopher, I guess you could say. He loved research and history. I could tell from. . .how much he read into his books, to try to reverse the fate that fell upon the family. At least that was what I was told."

It was silent a moment and I could almost feel Thorne's awkwardness hit my back like a blast of ice.

"I'm sorry. I. . .didn't mean to bring up bad thoughts."

"It's fine," I dismissed, turning back around to face him. "Why did you want to show me this in the first place? I may have been a school nerd back in the human world but I was no book worm. Not unless it was one on snowflakes, and there were very few of those. And I wasn't exactly nice to you yesterday. Frankly I'm still not in the best of terms with you now."

"Well I don't know what there's not to like, as I said I'm a very charming person," Thorne said with a smirk. "But I didn't bring you here for brownie points. If Gulbrand wasn't the one who hid this room, someone else still did. And when someone is hiding something, it obviously means there's something to be found. I think in one of these dusty books, there's the answer to the frozen queen's demise. And you, Your Majesty, just have to find it."

I lightly scoffed, "Find what? The iron sword, the sverdet my father found out about that was said by the sidhe keeper herself that it would kill Sylvi didn't do a damn thing. I watched Sylvi break it into pieces right before my eyes, with just a crush of her hand. All of the obstacles Calder and I had to go through to get it and it was useless, like a toy. If something as powerful as that sword was couldn't even prick her finger, there's nothing else out there that will destroy her."

I then bit my lip and turned my gaze to the floor. "I don't know what I'm going to do. Calder is out there right now, and Sylvi is doing god knows what to him. All while Eeira and the Clan wants to do nothing about it."

"Then maybe you can," Thorne said, confusing me.

I raised my head back up, eyebrows furrowed at him. "What do you mean? Get Calder back, defeat Sylvi? Even if I could take her down, Calder would still be seen as a traitor. They wouldn't let him back into the palace. And if he was, he would take back his position as Captain from you. Why would someone like you give up that big of a title?"

Thorne shrugged, obviously his trademark as Calder's was clenching his jaw or running his hands through his hair. "Because maybe I like doing the right thing."

"Well you're a very confusing person."

"It's one of my many mysteries, Your Majesty. Now I'll leave you to play librarian. Maybe you can find a book for the cook on how to make pizza."

I was taken back by his reference to a food I used to love, something only someone from the human world would know of.

"How do you-"

"Let me know what you find out," Thorne said, smiling cheekily as he left.

Feeling now puzzled at that last notion, I decided to shelf it for now and come back to it later. I turned and ran my hand along the stair bar as I started up it to sift through the bookcases.