Before the Snow (9 page)

“I wasn't going after them. I was trying to get to you. I sent the soldiers after you.”

The King was looking at Nepenthe. She realized that there was no such thing as Outlanders. It was a cover for any awful thing that the King wanted to do. But it still made no sense. Why this? She had been just a little girl then. Why would he want her dead?

Lazar looked at his father with a new level of disgust and asked Nepenthe's question for her: “Why?”

“You see, the prophecy says that if my son were to be betrothed to a witch then it meant death for me. I figured you were that witch.”

“My mother helped you. And you . . . Why bring me back here? Why now? Why are you so sure I am no longer a threat?”

“I heard that you'd chosen the River. From what your mother told me about your ways, no witch has ever gone back on that choice. I thought we had escaped fate. But then you showed up with this pretty little witch and I was back to where I started.”

He thought first me and then Ora was the witch in the prophecy. He thought one of us would bring his death.

“I don't know about you witches, but it is human instinct to want to live. And son, don't you see, the easiest thing for me would have been to dispense of you. But I could not do that. You are mine. I loved you too much. I would kill everyone in Algid if I had to, but never you.”

“I don't want your brand of love, Father.”

And with that, Lazar stuck his sword into his father's side.

The ice began to radiate from the wound. I could see it through the King's silk shirt. He looked down and moaned, as if seeing it intensified the pain. His face was no longer a mask of pride. This was his own prophecy fulfilled. His son took his life just as it was written in the North Lights. The King's face said he was expecting this, only it still felt too soon.

“I shouldn't tell you this, son. You don't deserve it. But I love you and I will not see my line end. One day you will see that I wasn't just saving you now—I was saving your future.”

“What does he mean?” Ora said quietly. She rushed to his side, as Lazar looked on in disbelief.

“If you love him, tell him,” she cooed.

“He's just trying to spook us,” Lazar said, stunned that Ora could sympathize with the King after knowing the fate he had intended for her.

But Ora kept eye contact with Lazar's father, waiting for another word, another hint. Only one never came. His lights went out.

Lazar turned around. He looked at Nepenthe. She thought for a moment he was going to reach for her. But then Ora turned to him, burying her pretty head in his chest. Tears streaming.

Nepenthe left the room, her own tears threatening. She would not let them see.

21

Lazar chased after Nepenthe as she fled the palace, catching up to her on the marble foyer steps.

“I am sorry, Nepenthe,” he said solemnly.

“It's not your fault. You didn't do this. It was all him.”

“If you and your mother hadn't helped me, she would still be alive.”

“But it's not your fault,” Nepenthe reassured.

“Then where are you going? Why are you going?”

“Because you are free to marry Ora now. It's what you want. Your father was right. Once a witch chooses the River, she never changes her mind.”

Nepenthe knew what love was now. She had thought hers was different from Ora's and different from Lazar's and different from her mother and father's. The water didn't cheat. It didn't steal. The water didn't ask you to be more or less of yourself. It also didn't kiss like Lazar. But Nepenthe stuffed the memory down.

She put the kiss away. She vowed not to remember it or cherish it or pull it out again and again to relive it.

She was strong enough to give him up, but not strong enough to forget him. Especially when Lazar was standing in front of her like this. Looking at her like this.

“You cannot let this be the end of us,” he said.

“There is no us. You are betrothed to my sister. Contrary to what you believe, you cannot have everything.”

“Why not?” His voice was light, but he was sure. Nothing in his life had ever said that the Prince could be denied.

Nepenthe wondered if he even thought he had to choose between the two of them.

Anger rose in her and so did the water. She felt her tentacles stretching out. She felt herself losing control.

“How would you like this for a queen?” Nepenthe asked.

Would he want me to change? Would he want me to do what my mother had done for love? Traded herself for someone else.

Lazar looked at the River Witch. “I wouldn't want you to change for me, Nepenthe. We can make the world change. With my Snow and your water, we would be invincible.”

But the thing was . . . The thing was that she would want him to change. She would want him to control his Snow. But she felt like he was just beginning. He was just starting to explore his power, and he had no plans on stopping.

“We are infinite. Our power together? We would be unstoppable.”

He looked out across the land with a faraway look.

Was Lazar daydreaming about his power combined with mine?
Nepenthe felt drawn in and repulsed simultaneously.

“Could you promise not to hurt anyone?” The words stalled on her lips. “Could you promise to only use your power when it was necessary?”

“The beauty of what we are is that we don't have to promise. That we can do anything. That anything we think, we dream, is possible. We can be gods.”

Is he in love with me or in love with my power?
Being the River Witch wasn't about the power exactly. It was something else. A conversation with the water, perhaps. A lifelong conversation that never, ever let her down.

Nepenthe
tried to make excuses again—for him, for the way that he was raised. For the education he missed. His Snow was new, and that was why and how he was so different from her. His relationship with his power was at the blush of it—the excitement—the heady rush of having power for the first time. It was a new romance, one he just needed to come down from. But then again, Nepenthe still had not come down from feeling what she was feeling for him. Perhaps neither of them ever would.

“I don't want to be a god. I never have,” she countered.

“I don't think you hate what I did. I think you are looking for an excuse to run away from this. From me.”

Lazar was right. But she wasn't going to admit it. And she wasn't going to stand here and listen to another word from him. Because every word made her want to stay.

She turned and walked away from him toward the water.

“Don't walk away from me, Nepenthe. I can't bear it.”

She saw the Snow drifting toward her, a determined stream of flakes like what she'd seen right after the ball when the Prince had made that guard his puppet. It was coming for her now. It entered her ears and her eyes. It rattled around inside her. It was trying to take hold. It spoke to her. Like the River did, only his Snow was inside her head.

Nepenthe wanted to cry out. To scream. But she could only listen.

You want to stay.

Lazar, the new Snow King, had shown her this trick before. But this was different. This was a violation.

And he didn't even see it.

She used her arms and pushed him down.

A second ago she had been so close to betraying everything she believed. Her sisterhood. The water. But with a few flurries—he had changed everything again.

She ran for the River, his Snow, his voice still rattling around in her head.

You'll be back
, the voice said.

The River Witch didn't stop until her body hit the water.

She knew they would meet again. She was as sure of it as she was of the waves in the water. The first part of the prophecy had been fulfilled. Would the fates play out the rest of their story as it had been foretold? There would be a child of Snow, and she would change everything. That is what the oracle said. But how and who were questions that only the stones of time held the answers to.

With every passing minute underwater, Nepenthe felt herself grow stronger, more determined, readying herself for what was to come. She was the new River Witch. Her place was in the Coven. This was where she belonged.

It was like she had said to the Witch of the Woods:
sometimes it was love, but she had to drown it out.

Read
on for an excerpt from
Queen Rising
, Danielle Paige's second prequel novella to
Stealing Snow
!

“I am Cassia, Witch of the Woods,” she said as she took a step toward the treeline.

Margot fell in step with her. Her head filled with thoughts of what it meant to go home with a witch, thoughts culled mainly from fairy tales.
Would she be dinner? A servant? What on earth did the witch want her for? Was the person who bought children really any worse than the mother who sold them, especially if the person was a witch?

They stopped walking near the edge of the River and made a sharp turn along the bank. Margot looked up and saw what looked like a castle made entirely of trees. But the trees were still alive.

“Welcome to the Hollow,” the Witch of the Woods said. “When I gave your mother those coins, I was not buying you. I was buying your freedom. You are your own Margot now. I am not your mother or your family. I am your witch . . . if you choose to have me.”

Read
on for an excerpt from Danielle Paige's
Stealing Snow
!

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Who
you
are is what matters, Princess.”

I had been called a lot of names at Whittaker. “Princess” was never one of them.

He saw that he had my full attention. A smile spread across his face. He was pleased. Then he bent down, closer. “You need to leave this place, Princess. It's breaking your spirit. The gate on the north corner will open for you. Head north until you see the Tree.”

“The Tree?” I asked. I thought of the tree from my dreams.

This had to be another dream. It was too coincidental.

“You'll know it when you see it. I promise. When you get to the other side of the Tree, I'll be waiting. And they will kneel for you.”

Copyright
© 2016 by Danielle Paige

All rights reserved.
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in the United States of America in July 2016

by Bloomsbury Children's Books

www.bloomsbury.com