Page 73 of A Tale of Ice and Ash
“I didn’t know what to do. I gave her a comb a noble left behind, something that Queen Alba might have used… I thought maybe she had some way of enchanting it, that she was going to use it to guide her to Eirwen’s location, but–”
Cole froze. “Where is my mother now?”
“That’s just it,” said Niamh, “she… she disappeared for a few hours. No one could find her, and no one saw her leave, but… I just heard her in her room, talking to herself. She was… she was laughing.”
For a moment, Cole’s mind went blank.No. No, it couldn’t be…
“I’ll go talk to her,” he said. “I’m sure that… I’ll talk to her.”
It took all of his self-control not to run into her chambers, to keep himself steady and focused as he walked to the door.
The laughing echoed down the corridor, brimming with shadow. It was almost inhuman.
“Mother?” he said, closing the door behind him.
Bianca danced towards him, seizing his hands and twirling under his arm, her face still twisted in a grotesque picture of wild joy.
“You seem awfully cheerful, Mother, given what happened earlier–”
“All taken care of, my boy, all is well now.”
Cole stiffened. “What… what do you mean?”
“I mean, my darling, that I snuck into their little encampment myself and gave the little princess a gift she couldn’t refuse.”
Cole forced himself to smile, although every muscle fought against it. “By yourself?”
“If you want something done right…”
He wondered if there was more to it than that, if she didn’t trust her guards after the incident with the Huntsman. But that was not what he needed to know.
“Oh, pray tell, Mother, whatever did you do?”
“I disguised myself as that silly old maid of hers, and gave her an old comb of her mother’s laced with poison.”
“She… she took it?”
“I couldn’t stay to watch, alas, in case they realised my deception. Oh, how I wanted to see that girl squirm…”
The fire in his mother’s eyes chilled him. How could she enjoy this, killing a girl? Those were the same eyes that watched him with adoration, the same lips that sang him to sleep as a child.
What happened to you?
“I… I’m going to send someone to this encampment in disguise,” he said. “To confirm she’s dead.”
Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead…
“Such a wise boy,” his mother crooned. “The camp is in a glade about a mile south of the pedestrian bridge. Tell them to hurry!”
“I… I will.”
He backed out of the room, only holding his pace until he was out of sight of the guards, before racing to the stables.
“Ready my horse,” he barked at a hand, “quickly now!”
Eirwen, Eirwen, Eirwen...
