Glaciana Frostcall's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

Glaciana found Kristian in the hall, standing where the morning light fell through the high ice. He turned when she came in. The half-beat under her ribs moved again. She stopped walking because she did not trust it. Here was the trouble. Her song had touched him on the day he arrived. He had walked through it without flinching, but he had still walked through it. She could not tell if what stirred in her now was her own feeling or the backwash of her own spell, caught in him and thrown back at her. If she guessed wrong and said the wrong word, she would bind him to her by enchantment and call it love. "Kristian," she said. "I need you to leave the castle for a day." His blue eyes did not change. "Why." "Because my song reached you once. I don't know if what I feel is mine. If you go past the ice shelf, past where my voice can carry, and I still feel it when you're gone, then it's mine. If it fades, it was never mine to give." He considered her. He wore the white coat and the crown of pale points he had arrived in. He looked like something carved to stand in her hall. "And if it's yours?" "Then I'll say so when you come back." He nodded once and went. She watched from the tower until his figure crossed the shelf and dropped out of sight beyond it. Then she sat on the cold floor and waited. The half-beat stayed. It did not fade at noon. It did not fade when the sun dropped. By dusk it had grown into a full ache under her collarbone, steady, patient, hers. She was smiling at the empty floor when the doors opened behind her. It was not Kristian. The woman who walked in wore a black gown scaled like a fish and set with pink hearts that pulsed as she moved. A crown of black branches sat on pink hair. Her eyes were pink and level. Glaciana had never met her, but every siren knew the face. Coraline Heartsong, who sang men into loving her and kept them until their hearts gave out. "Sister," Coraline said. Her voice was warm as bathwater. "I heard you were learning to feel. I came to congratulate you." Glaciana stood. "I didn't call you." "No. Vladislas did." Coraline smiled. "He thinks your ice prince is worth a great deal to someone. He wanted a second opinion. I give excellent second opinions." Glaciana's ache did not waver. That was the answer she had waited all day to have. Her heart was hers. Kristian was hers to want. And now two of the oldest predators she knew wanted him too. "Get out of my hall," Glaciana said. Coraline sat down instead.