Lips Like Ice

XIV

"I am a sentient creature!" Lydia cries, desperate. She ducks under Elder Brother's swinging grip and runs to the bottom of the stairs. She pleads up into the Queen's face. "Please!"

"Sing for us, then, if it is cultured!" cries a voice from somewhere off to the left and Lydia doesn't hesitate.

"Are you going to Scarborough fair?

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Remember me to one who lives there,

For once he was a true love of mine!"*

"Dance, creature!" yells another voice.

Lydia springs into a waltz in time to her own song, then speeds up, sliding into a quick set of tap dance footwork that she hasn't messed around with since she was seven and taking after-school lessons.

The sharp bright thrill of the gauze of veiled memory blasting open in the sharp wind of fear and self-preservation sends a jolt of adrenaline through her guts, makes her head spin and the lights of the feast hall quaver and dance. Lydia wants to stop, to savor the sudden recollection of schoolroom forced memorization, of high school dances, of her bohemian drama teacher. Instead she squeezes her eyes shut, lets a few fat tears escape, and lets the memories go.

Uses them and releases them.

Soon enough she won't even care that she remembered. And right now, she cannot stop to savor it. She can only dance. And sing. And in doing so, beg for her life.

"Verses!" calls another, and Lydia turns on the spot and bows, and silently thanks the half-recollected English teacher who had forced them all to memorize sonnets.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.
Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,
Nor bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

"A riddle, then!" cries the first voice. "Something challenging!"

Lydia pauses, and realizes that her gaze is darting, her breath coming in harsh pants, her face flushed. It is not in triumph; it is desperation and fear. She looks to her Prince and his face reflects the same harsh rictus of growing terror that she can feel upon her own. To the side, Elder Brother is scowling, speaking up to a pack of other young roughs who are leaning over the feast table and positively leering at Lydia.

"What... uh..." Lydia thinks, blinking rapidly, trying to keep her mind from drawing a blank. Her memory skitters over a dozen riddles from The Hobbit and isn't able to gain a finger hold in one. "What..."

"We're waiting, little thing," Elder Brother sneers.

Lydia turns and points straight at him, her skirts and sleeves belling out and swirling tight around her with the motion, her hair flying loose behind her like a cape. "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?" she yells, feeling smug. No way they'll get this one!