Kristian Frostborne's Arc

Chapter 1 of 9

Kristian Frostborne had not spoken to a living soul in seven years. Now the keep filled with them. He stood at the top of the great ice stair and watched nobles climb toward his throne, each one smiling. He knew the story they whispered: the frost heir, buried in grief, come down at last to claim Snowhaven and take a bride. That was his aim. Win the one he was meant to love, bind her by vow, and rule this cold kingdom as his blood demanded. But first he had to survive the smiles. A duchess reached him first. She pressed his cold hands and praised his return. A young lord bowed and offered his own sister's name for the marriage. A greybeard swore old loyalty. Kristian searched each face for the tell he once read so easily. He found nothing. Solitude had blunted him. Every voice sounded warm. Every warm voice might hide a knife. He could not tell the friend from the trap, and the wrong choice would cost him the throne and the vow both. He made an excuse and slipped down a servants' passage to breathe. An old man swept the corridor there. Bent, white-haired, a broom worn smooth in his grip. He did not bow. He did not stop sweeping. "You've been staring at their mouths, my lord," the old man said. "Mouths lie. Watch the feet." Kristian stiffened. "Who are you?" "Aldus Greybroome. I sweep these halls. I have swept them since before you were born." He nodded back toward the throne room. "Nobody guards their tongue in front of a broom. I hear it all." Kristian studied him. Here was a man who wanted nothing, offered nothing, bowed to no one. The first honest thing he had met all night. "The duchess who kissed your hands," Aldus went on. "Her feet pointed at the door the whole time. She came to measure your weakness, not your favor. The young lord who named his sister? He owes debts he cannot pay. He wants your treasury, not your heart." He leaned on the broom. "And the greybeard who swore loyalty stood too close to the duchess before you arrived." Kristian felt the room rearrange itself in his mind. What his own eye had lost, this old sweeper handed back. "Why tell me?" Kristian asked. "Because a dead heir cannot pay a sweeper." Aldus almost smiled. "And because I liked your father." Kristian returned to the throne. This time he watched feet, not faces. The duchess turned to leave the moment his back seemed weak. The young lord's eyes crawled toward the treasury doors. Now he saw them plainly. He would take no bride from this room of jackals. But he had gained something sharper than a wife. He had found the one pair of eyes in Snowhaven that saw everything and lied about none of it. He just did not yet know what that knowledge would cost him.