Ice Kissed (15 page)

“Everyone here is
so
stuffy and dull,” she said with a dramatic eye roll and took the last bite of her tart. Today she’d gone for minimal jewelry, wearing only her large diamond wedding band along with white lace fingerless gloves. “Even the ones my age.”

Since I’d known Linnea, she seemed far more excited about the idea of having a new friend to talk to than having a guard to watch her back, and I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that.

While I liked Linnea just fine, I didn’t want to be chosen for a job because she thought we’d make great pals. I was here to show my merits as a guard and to get to the bottom of what Konstantin had been doing here in the first place. But perhaps I could use the Queen’s need for a friend to get her to confide in me about what was really going on around here.

When Ridley and I had been looking for her before, we had suspected that she might be too demanding or childish for Mikko. Maybe she annoyed him, or he simply didn’t want to spend the rest of his life trapped in a loveless arranged marriage to her.

How Konstantin tied into a possible plan to do away with her, I had no idea. But maybe she knew something that could help.

“The King must be happy to have you back.” I poured myself a cup of tea and watched for her response out of the corner of my eye.

“Yes, he’s thrilled!” Linnea laughed. “The first night we were back together, I didn’t think he’d ever let me go. He held on to me for hours and made me promise that I’d never leave him again.”

“
Really
?” I asked, then hurried to correct myself so I didn’t sound quite so shocked. “I mean, he seems so … in control of his emotions.”

“I know, I know.” She laughed again. “It’s the craziest thing, because he’s such a big strong man, and he’s the King of an entire kingdom. A small one, but a kingdom nonetheless. You’d think he’d be so brave and tough, and oh he tries to be. But do you want to know a secret?”

I nodded. “Yes. I would.”

Linnea leaned forward over the table, so I did the same, and even though we were alone, she whispered. “Mikko is terribly shy. Almost pathologically.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s really so sad.” She leaned back in her chair and returned to her normal volume. “That’s why whenever he’s at dinner with people, he’s so quiet, and he seems so cold and stoic, but that’s not who he is at all.”

“I never would’ve guessed that.” I settled back in my chair, trying to run through all my encounters with the King.

“Before we were wed, I did
not
want to marry him,” Linnea confessed. “It had all been arranged since I was twelve, but with the age gap, we’d hardly spent a moment together before the wedding, and when we did he said nary a word to me.”

“That sounds dreadful,” I said.

“It really was.” She nodded, her transparent gills flaring slightly under her jawline. “I mean, it was just after my sixteenth birthday, and I wanted to fall in love, and I thought there was absolutely no way I could do that with this cold brute of a man.

“But the truth is that Mikko is one of the kindest, most loving, most caring men I’ve ever met.” Linnea smiled, the soft, wistful kind that barely graced her lips—and her aqua eyes sparkled. “And as I got to know him—the
real
him—I began to fall madly in love with him.”

“That’s … amazing,” I said, unsure of how else to respond.

She leaned forward again and lowered her voice. “It wasn’t until we’d been married for four months that we even, you know …
shared
a bed together. Mikko wanted to wait until I was completely comfortable with it.”

“He sounds like a very honorable man,” I said.

If what Linnea said was true, then he definitely was. But I was having a hard time reconciling this information with the cold, aloof King I’d considered him to be.

Although, when the Queen had been missing, a different side of Mikko had emerged. He’d been visibly distraught and inconsolable. At the time, I’d thought it was all a melodramatic act, but if Linnea was telling the truth, he might have been so afraid of losing her that he’d let his guard down and shown his real feelings.

Of course, that made everything even more confusing. If Mikko hadn’t grown tired of or irritated with his wife, then why had anybody wanted to get rid of her?

Not to mention the fact that Mikko had thwarted our investigation when Linnea was missing. We’d wanted to interview guards and look at reports, but we were denied access.

“Have you talked to Mikko about what happened before you went missing?” I asked.

“I talk to Mikko about everything,” Linnea said, and with her love of chatting, I had a feeling that was very true.

That probably made them very compatible. She enjoyed talking, and Mikko was more of a listener, so they balanced each other out.

“Did he say anything about Konstantin Black?” I asked. “Does he know anything about him?”

“Everything he knows, he’s heard from you.” Linnea shook her head. “He is grateful that Konstantin warned me to run away, though, and Mikko is relieved he wasn’t executed. Konstantin may have saved my life.”

I rested my arms on the table. “From whom, though? Does Mikko have any idea who might have wanted to hurt you?”

“No. He’s tried talking to the guard, but the unfortunate truth is that he’s been very hands-off about most things,” Linnea admitted, frowning. “His social anxiety makes it so hard for him to interact sometimes, so he’s really left Bayle Lundeen to handle everything.”

“Do you trust Bayle?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Her eyes widened, as if it had just occurred to her that she shouldn’t. “Do you?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure I trust any of the guards around here. It’s hard to tell who knows what,” I said.

“I know.” She nodded. “What I said the other night about overreacting and running away, that was for the benefit of the guards. I have no idea who we can trust anymore. But to tell you the truth, I’d never considered that Bayle might be involved.”

“He’s the head guard, and this is all happening on his watch. Either he’s involved, or he’s too incompetent to stop it.”

Linnea exhaled deeply and rested her chin on her hand. “Rune trusted Bayle and appointed him, and both Mikko and Kennet are loyal to him and seem to trust him. Their father was a terrifying man, and even after his death neither of the boys wants to defy him. But…” She chewed the inside of her cheek, pondering the situation. “You’re right, and I know you’re right.”

“I know it’s tough for the King to go against what he believes his father’s wishes were, but the guard needs an overhaul to keep you all safe,” I said. “Whether your husband is comfortable with it or not, he needs to start taking control of his guards. If he wants to keep you safe, the King needs to be in charge.”

Linnea nodded. “He needs to hear it from you though.”

“What?” I asked.

I’d gone into this luncheon thinking that Mikko might be the one behind everything, or at the very least a participant in Konstantin’s plot. But Linnea had just turned that theory on its head, and now she wanted me to go to Mikko and tell the King he needed to get rid of his top guard.

“You’re an expert on these matters, and you’re right.” Linnea pushed back her chair and stood up. “We should go now. He’s down in his office. It’s the perfect time for you to go tell him what you think.”

“We should set up a meeting with Kasper, maybe even your grandmother and the Prince,” I suggested, since I felt unprepared to present my case to the King—especially considering I didn’t completely know what my case was.

“We’ll have a proper meeting later.” Linnea waved it off. “Let’s go.”

The Queen had given me an order, so I had to obey. As we walked downstairs toward the King’s office, Linnea chattered the whole way, although I’m ashamed to admit that I’m not entirely sure what about. My mind was focused on trying to figure out what exactly I would say to the King, and how I should phrase everything.

Linnea pushed open the door to her husband’s office without knocking. I was still lost in thought, but Linnea’s scream pulled me into the moment instantly.

Mikko’s desk faced the water, so his back was to the door. He was hunched over his desk, hard at work on something, so he didn’t see the man standing behind him with a sword raised above his head, about to strike and cut off the King’s head.

TWENTY-THREE

impact

Training kicked in, and I didn’t have to think—my body just sprang into motion. I ran at the man, knocking him to the ground and grabbing his wrist. I slammed it into the floor, forcing him to drop the sword.

He tried to crawl toward it, and the satin of his uniform made it easier for him to slip out from underneath me. But I knelt on his back, pressing my knees into his kidneys as I pinned him in place.

With one swift move, he tilted to the side and thrust his elbow up, hitting me squarely in the chin. It was just enough to throw me off balance, and he scrambled out from under me. He grabbed the sword, but I was already on my feet when he jumped up and pointed it at me.

There was a split second of shock when I realized who it was—Cyrano Moen, Linnea’s personal guard.

Cyrano tried to run at me. I dodged to the side, avoiding the blade of the sword, then I grabbed his arm. I turned him around, bending his arm at a painful angle, and he let out a yelp. If I applied more pressure, I would break his arm, and that caused him to release his sword again.

I took it from him this time, letting him go so he fell on the ground. Cyrano lay before me, panting, and I hoped this meant the fight was over. In the background, I heard Linnea crying and demanding to know why he would do this.

But he didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for the spare dagger in his boot.

“Drop it,” I commanded, and his hard blue eyes were locked on mine. He had to know I meant it, but there was a determined mania in his gaze that I didn’t understand.

He slowly got up, still holding the dagger, so I repeated, “Drop it.”

“Cyrano!” Mikko’s voice boomed from somewhere behind me. “Do as she says!”

“I’d like her to make me,” Cyrano snarled, and then he lunged at me.

In my days of training as a tracker, I had run a sword through hundreds of dummies. They were built to have the same feel as a troll, so we’d know how much resistance a body would give and how much force we’d need to get the sword through.

Still, I can’t explain how different it felt, or even what the difference was, when I pushed the blade straight through Cyrano. It was easier than I expected—the flesh gave way, and when the bell of the sword handle pressed against his stomach, I felt the warmth of his blood as it spilled over.

The only light came from a desk lamp, casting too much of the room in shadows. Everything seemed to have an eerie, yellow hue to it, thanks to the way the light played off the reflective glass and the water outside.

We had turned, so the window was behind me, and the light bounced onto Cyrano’s face. It cast a shadow across his mouth and body, but his eyes were wide and I could see the yellow dancing in them, like fiery waves.

His eyes stayed locked on me still, filled with that strange mania. Not until the final seconds, when I was lowering him back to the ground and pulling the sword out of him, did the frenzied look finally give way. A glassy peace seemed to come over him, and he was dead.

Linnea ran over to Cyrano’s body, pounding on his chest and screaming, demanding why he’d want to hurt her husband. She’d never been anything but kind to him. How could he betray her like this?

Her words eventually seemed to fade away, becoming a distant foggy sound, like something from a dream. Mikko came over and pulled her off.

I don’t remember letting go of the sword, but I remember the sound it made, clattering against the floor. I didn’t move or speak until Bayle Lundeen came in, asking me questions.

I answered them as directly and simply as I could, but the words felt detached from me, as if they were coming from someone else. It was my voice, it was the truth about what I’d done, but it wasn’t me.

Nobody told me that I was acting strangely or that I didn’t seem present, so I must’ve been performing normally. I have no idea how long I talked to Bayle and King Mikko. It might have been minutes. It might have been an hour.

Eventually, Kasper came and took me back to my room. He suggested I shower, since I had Cyrano’s blood all over me, and then he headed back upstairs, promising to help with the investigation.

The shower lasted a very long time. I know this because it started out hot, but when I’d finished, the water was icy cold. I walked across the hall from the bathroom, wearing only a white robe. I’d thrown my clothes away in the trash can. I didn’t need them anymore.

When I went into my room, I still felt vaguely as though I was in a dream. I just couldn’t seem to feel my body. It was as if I were floating above everything, not a part of this world, and I wondered if this was what it felt like to be a ghost.

“Bryn?” Kennet asked, and I looked over to see him sitting on my bed. His usual smile was gone, and his eyes were dark.

“How long have you been there?” I asked.

“Long enough,” he said, like I would know what that meant, and he stood up so he could walk closer to me. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, and I wasn’t sure I had the ability to lie right then. It seemed out of the realm of my abilities to make things up. “I just killed a man.”

“I know.”

I waited a beat before adding, “I’ve never killed anyone before.”

It was so much simpler than I expected. Taking a life seemed like it should be a much greater challenge, but my sword had gone through him just like it would through anything else. And then he was dead.

There was a weight to that that I hadn’t expected. No amount of training or even belief that I had done the right thing could change the way it felt. A man had been alive. Now he wasn’t. And it was because of me.

“You were doing your job, what you needed to do,” Kennet said. “That’s why I came here. To thank you for saving my brother’s life.”