Chapter 12: The Snow Maiden

When it rained, the thirsty desert that hid the Opal couldn’t handle it. It was almost as though the ground had gotten too used to being roasted dry by the sun that it couldn’t remember what it was supposed to do with water. Rather than soaking it in, the land drowned. Flash floods killed the unwary within seconds and whole hillsides could be swept away within a breath.

Such was the case with the Genie’s heart. Any kindness or care he poured into her was responded to with bared teeth and deadly intent. The moment she caught him unawares he’d drown in the affliction of a heart too hard to keep what it so desperately needed to live.

But if given enough water over time, even a desert can soften and change.

***

Once she had successfully escaped out of the castle at night, back when she could still justify acting like a child. At the time she thought herself so clever and brave, even with a tired Hope tagging along quietly to keep an eye on her. Every breath to her was fresher than ever before, tingling with the taste of the unknown. What would happen to her tonight? She remembered thinking. Something had to happen in this mysterious black. Would she find a magical stone that would give her amazing powers? Be greeted by a wizard who she had to defeat to save her kingdom? Get sucked into a portal to another dimension? Not daring to voice her thoughts in case they jinxed her, she merely told Hope to stay on the alert for the uncanny and tromped on through the dewy grass of the castle grounds.

The cook just sighed. She would have been asleep by now if she hadn’t caught the princess using the kitchen door to escape her guards.

Which the princess couldn’t get over. “I can’t believe I finally made it! I really gave them the slip, hee! They can’t contain me for too long, I’m a shadow! I’m the wind! Lousy guards, lousy maids…”

The cook just sighed again.

“I mean you’d think with mother all sick and near to giving birth as she is they’d let off on me a bit and give her the attention, but no. If anything they’re more alert than ever. I bet mother put them up to it. Yeah, that’s it. Having withdrawals from nagging me about being a ‘proper lady.’ Why is she so difficult, Hope? I mean honestly, nothing can be as boring or useless as being a ‘lady’, or at least it isn’t the way she puts it.” Kyanna let out a puff of frustration as she began a climb up a grassy hill that separated the castle gardens and the small, royal glen. Upon reaching the top she flung herself onto the grass and let the full blow of her triumph sink in with a breathless giggle. She soon took notice of what she lay beneath.

“Look at those stars. Aren’t they beautiful?”

And indeed Kyanna had thought they were. Even though they had been a little paled by the light of the castle behind them, they gleamed out by the thousands. She had thought the sky so black then. Black like velvet and scattered with diamonds. She loved diamonds. Perhaps a diamond would fall from the sky—now wouldn’t that be an experience! Or perhaps a great, flying creature as black as this night with twinkling stars for eyes hid up there, watching her. If only she could fly, she thought, then she could fully explore and make sure of it. Kyanna shared this insight with the weary cook, hoping she’d have an old story from her village to tell. The older woman carefully sat herself down by the princess, her thick lips pressed into their usual perpetual line. This was as close to a smile as she got lately.

“Perhaps,” she said simply.

“Do you think when my sibling is born Mom will let me do more stuff, you know, ’cause she gets busy with the baby? I mean, like play outside more and maybe even learn some sword stuff? Because honestly, what kind of stuff happens to Princesses? Nothing, unless you count being locked up in a tower or kidnapped by a dragon. Not like that ever happens, even.” A sudden thought occurred to her, one that made her mouth twitch into a huge grin. “What if I get a brother! Yeah! Boys are always willing to do awesome stuff! We could climb trees together and chase fairies and—and when he gets all, you know, grown up, he could teach me sword fighting in secret—yeah!” she let out a self-satisfied chuckle. “No one will suspect it. The beautiful but dangerous princess of Karpathia! And then we’ll run away and explore the world and eat funny colored mushrooms and befriend ogres and…it’d be awesome.”

The cook sighed once more, this one wearier than before, but spoke, “Just be happy if the baby makes it, Princess. Your mother will not care any less for your upbringing simply because a new baby enters the family.”

The small girl gave this a moment of thought before allowing herself to wilt. The stars suddenly felt so very far away.

“But…but what if I don’t want to be a princess? If there’s someone else for the throne, doesn’t it mean I get a choice? Why would they still make me do all this stupid stuff—how will I have a life?” Grumbling to herself, she added, “I’ll die if my whole life is this boring. This is so unfair.”

Hope glanced down at her, the line of her mouth lowering back slightly. In the pale starlight the dark circles beneath her eyes made her eyes seem bigger, like a ghoul. This too sent Kyanna’s imagination wild, but the sudden mellow mood of her thoughts dampened it from fully birthing new possibilities.

After examining the princess’s downtrodden expression, Hope adjusted her bulk with a grunt and leaned over to point towards the sky.

“Do you see that bright star almost directly above us, Princess? The one just above the moon?”

The moon in question that night had been little more than a sliver, like a mark left by a fingernail tip. The star had been easy to find as it stood bright and unblinking next to its smaller neighbors.

“It is a star that you will find never moves throughout the night, though all the other stars may pass by. Sailors use this star to direct them across the seas, and travelers use it when they find they are lost. That star goes by many names. But the name they called it back in my old village was Choice.”

Kyanna raised an eyebrow in the cook’s direction. “A bit of an odd name, don’t you think?”

“Like the night sky,” she continued, ignoring Kyanna’s comment, “life is in constant change. The stars move whether you want them to or not. But there is one thing that will always be constant and that is your ability to choose. You may not be able to choose how life decides to pattern itself about you, or the consequences of your choices, but you can always choose what you will do about it. And with that is all the freedom you could possibly want.”

Of course, being only ten, Kyanna only had the attention span to take in so much deepness. Not wanting to be scolded, however, she tried her best to be involved with, “So, even if I can’t control the fact that I am a princess and born to certain rules, I can still decide whether to enjoy it or not?”

Hope leaned away from her with another groan. “More or less. I’m getting too old to sit on the ground like this.”

“More like you’re too fat.”

Hope made a swing at the girl’s head, but it didn’t have the force to actually hit and Kyanna dodged with a cackle. But with that, Kyanna happily returned to star-gazing and dreaming of black velveteen creatures and hidden secrets.

Three days later, however, the subject returned when her mother died after giving birth to her first, and only, stillborn brother.

Suddenly there was no one to berate her for tearing her skirts on fence pikes and tree branches. No one to scold her for sliding down the banisters or sneaking baby birds into the kitchens. No one to remind her to sit up straight. No one to nag her to use the proper intonations and diction when presenting herself to others. Even her loving father, who had doted on her and her wild ways behind her mother’s back, had become too overwhelmed with grief to give enough notice to her doings, and Hope had always only had half a mind to spare on her, having her own responsibilities in the kitchens. In a way, a strange freedom had been given back to her, with the price of an awful emptiness that was as black as the night sky, but devoid of any kind of diamond.

After her mother’s death, Kyanna realized there were no creatures in the sky. There was never any magical item waiting for her to find. Fairies were just a made-up bedtime story for children. There weren’t even such things as dragons that guarded maidens up in towers—for that was ridiculous. Such shallow, stupid, childish fairytales that would get her nowhere.

Now, grown and married, stretched out next to Einar on a blanket, the night sky wasn’t black like she had thought it was. It was blue and purple, with streaks of stars spanning the entire sky like clouds, making her think of the robe worn by the daughter of the Moon and Sun.

“…and that one right there, the big shiny one just a little north of that constellation,” Einar was saying to her, pointing before her, “do you see it?”

“You keep trying to get me to see constellations, but unless you had a way to point at them literally, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see them,” she said. “How people even find them in the first place…”

“No really! This one is really easy to see! Look straight where my finger is.” In his effort, he brought his wrist against her cheek and his head next to hers, so as to better align her eye to what he saw. “Don’t you see that triangle made by three bright stars? One of these stars is shaded a bit bluer than the other. That’s the one.”

And to her amazement, she thought she could see it.

“Wait…is it below a smaller set of stars sort of shaped like a crooked square?”

“Yeah! That’s the one! That star and its triangle connect with the closest bright star and that funny little square,” his finger moved across her vision, “to form the constellation Yonchiva, which is Ancient Karpathian for the Snow Maiden.”

“Snow Maiden?” she examined the vague outline she could see. “I don’t see how that could make a person, let alone a beautiful maiden.”

“Well, you’ve got to use the blank spaces in-between the stars as well. That funny square of stars makes her head. It’s bowed to the side, as though she is weary.”

She cocked her head to the side, her scalp prickling as she felt their hair mix. The tickle of his shorter hair brought his proximity into hyperawareness. She could even feel the vibrations from his throat as he spoke, as though their hair had turned into tendrils of connections.

Crickets creaked about them.

“I’m guessing you’ve never heard the story of the Snow Maiden, have you?”

Of course he would mention a story. But Kyanna was finding more and more that she didn’t mind his stories as much as she thought she would.

“No, I haven’t.”

He let his hand fall. “Not even the Karpathian version?”

“Nope.” She said. “Why? Is it better?”

“That’s up to your tastes. The version I’m fonder of is one told to me by the wife of an abominable snowman.”

“Abominable—excuse me?” She had to pull her head away from his to give him a sharp look.

“Yeah, I’m not too fond of the nickname. Basically they’re these big ape men who live in the mountains. There’s not many of them left. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of them either. Goodness, Kyanna, you need to get out more.”

Instead of huffing, she sighed and rolled her head back to face the stars. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, the story of the Snow Maiden, in all its versions, circulates around a young woman somehow connected with the winter. In the Karpathian version she is simply a girl that came to life after an old couple built a girl out of snow in their desire to have their own child. The Snowman’s version, however, is quite different. In theirs, the Snow Maiden is the spirit of winter. Her story came from a land that knew no winter, but when she still dwelt in the land, winter would prevail and the whole earth would be put to sleep under a blanket of white. All the men knew her somehow through instinct. Long before they knew her name, they made one for her that was simply Adour. The stories they told of her were always the same, starting with a peasant resting alone in a clearing, burning a small flame for warmth in the dead of winter, and then suddenly seeing these sky-gray eyes of hers watching. Many would call to her, inviting her to the fire, but she always kept a careful distance, unaware of their ulterior motives. They knew of the beauty that would be revealed by Adour stepping into the light of the fires: skin like snow and fair breasts like snowcaps hidden beneath a blizzard of hair. But they also longed for the spring she brought with her when their fires melted her away.”

“It’s sad how that can’t be called mean,” she said. A cool breeze brushed over her and she shivered. Einar, noting this, sat up to reach for the far edge of the quilt to pull over her. His kindness made her smile and she thanked him.

“It is sad.” He said. “Especially when they made a contest out of her and grew deceptive and cruel in their attempts to lure her out. They would sing to her of beauty and love and promise her warmth and kindness. They would do all sorts of fanciful tricks to impress her, tell her stories, lie to her, do tricks for her, anything to bring her end. But the moment she came even close to the fire it would melt off her clothes of snow, her protection, and she would drop naked and cold to the ground. One winter she didn’t come out. She simply refused to be tricked again. Men went out into the bitter cold, but no matter how they would sing around campfires or recite sonnets to the empty woods, there was no sight of her. Only ice and snow. Soon the time for spring had long gone by. The summer months passed filled with snow and the people’s reserves of food had begun to grow thin. By the time many had died from starvation, another winter had passed, skipping over the other seasons completely. Many beseeched the King of that land to find a way to tame the Snow Maiden. Many of the men who had before lured her out had gone crazy with hunger and sought to slay her with their bare hands.”

Kyanna had been tracing out the constellation in the sky as he spoke. She thought she could see the maiden now. Stars still dusted behind her, blocking out any kind of blank space Einar had referred to, but she thought she could make out her long, wavy hair in the way the star-clouds rippled behind her.

“Their just desserts,” she said, frowning to herself.

“Why do you say that? What other way were they to survive and bring spring if they didn’t draw her to the fire someway, even through trickery?”

“But she was lonely,” said Kyanna, and as she said this, she was reminded of the long expanse of snow of the field around the castle in the winter time. It always grew silent in winter, and Kyanna couldn’t help but think lonely. Winter was lonely. Was it really the Snow Maiden’s loneliness they were trying to melt, even if at the same time they were taking advantage of it? Her eyes caught on to Hope’s star Choice in the sky and wondered, in her being born a spirit of the winter, Adour didn’t have a choice in the circumstances given to her, much as Kyanna being born a princess had done to her.

Einar turned his head enough to press his forehead against her hair. His breath blew over her collarbone in a warm gust, making her shiver. She should push him away, shouldn’t she? But before she could say anything, he was speaking again.

“Finally, even the King had nothing left but his son to send from his castle for firewood to warm his gruel. The young man had been quite young, no more than sixteen, and only knew of Adour as a monster, insatiable for her want of human life. He knew well to fear her by then, for he knew it was she who caused this great death to come upon his people. So he dressed himself in furs and his father threw his royal mantle over him for warmth.”

“Would you stop?” she said at last. Einar paused, his hand just brushing hers. His breath smelled faintly of something earthy and fresh, like leather with mint, and this kept distracting her. It was hard to listen with him nuzzling into her hair like that. Not to mention it reminded her far too much of how Jeremy would do the same thing.

“Stop what?” he asked innocently.

“Panting all over me like that or whatever you call what you’re doing.” With a huff she shoved him away, to which he just smirked at her.

“I’m sorry. Your hair is just so soft.”

She felt a fluttering in her chest at the words. Yes. That was something Jeremy had loved too. Determined to not get confused, she gave him a warning look. He pouted at her but scooted away, resting his head on his hands. Instantly, she found herself missing his warmth as the cool night came back in.

“Do you still want to hear the rest of the story?”

When she quietly agreed, he continued.

“The young man didn’t know that he wasn’t alone at first. But when he reached the deeper part of the woods, he turned to see a pair of stormy grey eyes watching him. The eyes belonged to a girl of the likes he had never seen before, with great cold storms whipping about her. He drew near to her, colder and colder, with only the desire to get closer. He should have had the desire to slay her, but he did not see the monster in Adour as he thought. Instead, all he saw was a beautiful girl in need of shelter from the cold. As he came to her, his fingers reached through the arctic air to brush off her mantle of snow, which was as soft as fur. In turn, she reached out to him to take off his father’s mantle as well, the frost melting off of her skin to leave her bare and naked before him. After that, many said she led him away into that deepness where she came from. Soon thereafter the winter snows melted away and the kingdom experienced a warm, fruitful spring. The King sent out scouts for his son, but all they found was the royal mantle with not a sign of blood or even bones to bury. When fall came in, it skipped right into spring, so the men were forced to work and toil from one season to the next. Two, three, and four years passed without winter and on. Because of this the Kingdom had great prosperity. Yet the King forever mourned the loss of his son.”

Kyanna’s mind went elsewhere with this. The Snow Maiden in the stars had become more and more visible to her by the minute. She could see the whirling snow about her and the weary patience of her bowed head. She thought she could even make out her figure in the blank spaces between stars, with breasts as steep as snowy mountains and that storm of hair about her head. She thought nothing of Einar’s hand slipping into her own as she stared up.

“The Abominable Snowmen believe themselves to be children of the young man and Adour, raised in the mountains with the eternal snow and cold.”

“Oh,” she said simply. Unbidden, the genie of his first story reappeared in her mind. Adour had to be the complete opposite of the genie with her dependency on men. Time after time she was betrayed until she finally found her young lover. The Soan, on the other hand, one betrayal was enough to know men weren’t worth it. And yet both their vengeances had been just as deadly. To this, she couldn’t help but smile and think more to the truth of the star of Choice. Both seemed to have similar circumstances with no control over how they were treated by men, and yet they choose in such completely different ways how to react to them.

As Einar continued to point out stars, her mind wandered. Desert suns, blurring snows, and that image of the endless sky imprinted into her mind from when she had climbed that tree. What had happened to her sense of choice? What had happened to her wild spirit she thought had died six years ago? What could it be that she was missing? She could remember the desire to run as fast as she could without a thought to her own weight so clearly now; of the wind sweeping by and carrying her away to that childish dream of the black creature in the sky with stars for eyes. And yet at the same time, her adult dreams of Jeremy frequently crossed her mind and she wondered about him, as well as to the growing respect she held for Einar. With her head spinning at this point, she attempted to clear her mind and listen to Einar as he went on about another constellation. But she hardly got even a gist of the story. A sense of unease coming over her, she tugged her hand from his grasp.

He stopped mid-sentence and sat up.

“Einar?”

She could almost see his neck muscles tighten. Then, after a minute or so, he turned to her, a casual smile on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I think we should turn in for the night. It’s getting rather cold, don’t you think?”

“You sure? We haven’t been out that long.”

“Oh, yeah.” His forced cool tone unnerved her. Nonetheless, she accepted his hand in helping her up and the quilt he put into her arms.

Rather than allow her to limp back, he lifted her up into his arms and her stomach, as it had the previous times, jerked and squirmed at the lack of effort on his part. It didn’t matter who had her heart, any woman could appreciate that kind of strength, as well as the sensation of his heat and muscles pressed in around her.

She fought down the blush all the way back into the manor and through the quiet halls and stairs. He didn’t put her down until they had reached their bedroom, where he set her gently on the couch. His carefully flat expression belied his nerves all too easily, and she couldn’t help but find it endearing. That was going to ruin him as a politician.

“Einar, what’s bothering you?”

“I’m not quite sure. Just thought I saw something out there,” he flashed her a quirky grin. “Not that I can’t handle anything that could come our way, but I’d rather not have to fight someone in the dark with an injured you around.”

She scowled, making him laugh.

“I know I don’t know how to wrack death and mayhem like you,” she said with a sniff. “But you don’t have to make it sound so demeaning.”

“It’s called teasing, my Princess,” and having yet to step back after setting her on the couch, he took advantage of their close quarters to dart in a quick nuzzle of her hair.

She pushed his grinning face away, wondering why’d she even worried.

“Aw, don’t be like that, Princess. I am your husband.”

“That doesn’t excuse your lack of invitation.”

“Can I rub my face against your silky soft hair, Princess?”

“No! Now back off, I’d like to get dressed for bed. You’ve been absolutely exhausting today.”

“You make it sound like we’ve been doing more than lounging around,” and he even dared to flash his teeth at her and raise a suggestive eyebrow.

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t find it in herself to be angry. “You’re obnoxious.”

“I think the correct term is ‘flirting,’ but as you like it.”

She allowed him to help her to her wardrobe before telling him to turn away so she could quickly slip into her nightgown. Once dressed, she flopped onto her bed with her favorite ivory handled brush. As she went at tugging the ribbons and braids out of her hair, Einar removed his own boots and tunic. Kyanna had grown somewhat used to his undressing to his undershorts after the swimming incident, but it didn’t stop the heat from crawling up her neck when he tugged off his shirt. She dared any woman not to blush. Riddled with scars or not, each muscle was clearly defined under a layer of sun-kissed skin. Yet, even if they were married, it still felt like some sort of betrayal on her part, and she interpreted the sudden tremors in her torso and lower body as something dirty and shameful. She could not degrade herself to feel like this. A virtuous woman, especially of her status, should be too pure and inexperienced to understand the pleasures a man could get. And yet she was not blind to them. She was not that naïve, thanks to Jeremy, even if the farthest they had ever gotten was kisses in the hay.

And that was shameful.

Any heat coursing through her went cold. The brushing of her hair slowed till she simply sat there, brush propped against her shoulder, and her eyes staring unseeingly at the off-white wall.

Warm, but rough, fingers brushed through her hair. She flinched at the touch. Einar had approached without her notice and leaned against the bed, stroking her hair. To her chagrin, his shirt was still off, and the return of her tremors only increased the painfully chilly guilt in her chest. He had that unfathomable softness to him as he looked down at her, eventually coming to sit by her.

She vaguely wondered why she hadn’t smacked him yet.

“Beautiful. You’re very…” but whatever he was about to say somehow got lost and his fingers paused at the beginning of her jaw line, strands of her golden hair intertwined between his knuckles. Very gently, like the time he had held her like glass at their wedding, he traced his calloused fingertips across her jaw. His breath once more warmed her skin, his nose close enough to hint at tracing the curve of her cheekbones.

She shuddered, suddenly wishing she could just fall into his arms and forget everything. It would be warm, and his touch would be so gentle, and everything would become blessedly simple.

In one last attempt to regain herself, she asked, albeit softly, “What are you doing?”

He paused. Blinking as though just awakening to his own actions, he pulled his hand away and put some distance between them, his silver and crystal wedding pendant swinging like a pendulum as he did so. He forced himself to look the other way, running a hand through his own hair.

“I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I should have asked. It’s just…” but he shook his head. “I should put a shirt on. These scars are probably making you really uncomfortable right now. I’m sorry for not considering that.” And he moved to stand.

“Wait—” But whatever she had to say she herself would never know.

A window crashed open with a startling bang. The curtains billowed out. A dark form had appeared crouched in the middle of the room, silhouetted by the fire.

Einar whirled around. Two more figures wrapped head to toe in black leapt in to join the first. She didn’t even have time to scream as they shot forward in a blur, metal blades flashing. In a blink Einar yanked out a sword from underneath the bed. Before he could unsheathe it, they were upon him.

Black limbs enveloped him. One of the men reached for her. But the moment his fingers brushed he, Einar reappeared to hammer his fist across the man’s head, knocking him to the floor.

“Run!”

She scrambled off the bed and lurched towards the door on her good foot just to be set upon by another man, who grabbed her neck and slammed her against the wall. She gasped for breath, stars popping before her vision. A long, wicked stiletto, filed to a fine point, leveled at her heart. Out from between the folds of black peered a pair of dark, bright eyes.

Her mind flew to Jeremy.

Einar’s clenched fists came down like a hammer on the man’s head, smashing him to the floor. She fell from the wall, coughing, but not before she caught sight of the furious, feral blaze of the Desert Hero’s face. The black man didn’t even stand a chance as Einar slammed his heel on the back of his neck with an awful snap. The last black man dashed forward, wrapping his arms about Einar’s neck, a bright blade aimed at his jaw and bending Einar back nearly to the floor. Before he could make the slice, Einar, his teeth bared, heaved himself back, flinging his perpetrator against the wall. The man’s own dagger flew from his hands. Einar retrieved his sword.

And at last unsheathed it.

With a thrilling burst of horror, Kyanna clenched her eyes shut with a cry and turned away, clamping her hands over her ears. But what was she doing? Those dark eyes! There was a harsh shout—a whistle of a blade through air—a thud and groan—

“No!”

But only silence remained. Not even Einar’s heavy, but even breathing could break it. An eternity spun within that awful quiet. She couldn’t pull her hands away. She couldn’t open her eyes. Her heart pounded in her ears, and behind her eyelids she could once more see how the livid fierceness had made Einar unrecognizable.