Lips Like Ice

XXXI

Before the crowd there is a dais. On the dais there are a pair of thrones and a dark green carpet edged in gold. And upon the carpet lies the Prince.

He is curled partially on his side, hands up, face a study in terror. Above him, feet on either side of his legs, is the largest ice-elf-thing Lydia has ever seen. It is muscled near to the point of being barrel-shaped, with long brown feather-hair bound back in an elaborate queue and dotted all over with stones that glimmer and spark in the torchlight. The creature's skin is darker than the Prince's, more purple than blue, and Lydia lets her gaze glance off the crowd to verify her suspicion—yes, most of them are more purple, too. The creature threatening the Prince wears a net of precious-looking metal across its forehead, clipped to the tip of its wide, pointed ears, and Lydia thinks crown.

Is this... this monstrosity the Queen?

Dear god.

The Prince makes a sound, low and chirruping, and Lydia is startled out of her horrified daze. His hands are held before him,palm out and painted with intricate patterns that remind Lydia of Indian brides. His arms jingle with bracelets and bangles and clink with coins and gems, wound over with an intricate net of gold that looks nothing so much as like a set of prison chains. His legs are similarly adorned, bare up to the knee where his customary leather breeches and tunic have been replaced with a floaty pair of trousers made of a pink gauze that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.

Had he been married in that?

The shirt that must have accompanied the trousers lies in a pile to the side, one of his arms still in the torn sleeve. He click-hums again, says something jumbled that Lydia can't hear, the noise high and whining and the crowd surges and laughs.

God, the Prince is begging and they... they're just...

Monsters.

The indigo-colored Queen puts her hands on her hips and laughs. Her own attire is serviceable and stark, a vast contrast to her peacock husband. It's very, very clear who is the bauble here.

She speaks, and the Prince rises to his knees, dashing at the running liner on his cheeks, taking deep breaths and trying to compose himself. Lydia knows that face he wears intimately—it's the one he uses when he is furious, and shamed, and hurting, and knows that he has absolutely no recourse for revenging himself and so shoves his fury down, down...

Lydia used to fear that face, because he would wear it right before he took his frustrations out on her. Now she only pities him when he wears it, because he refuses to hurt her and has no other way to purge the poison that is building in his gullet.

He says something, low and furious, and all Lydia hears is "...as you command... wife..." amid more clicking and whistling that she can't parse.

Whatever magic the scar-spell gave her to understand these things is faded almost to the point of uselessness. Lydia feels a strange, nauseating sense of loss. She doesn't mourn the spell's ability to bring back the fire she died in, doesn't miss the enforced 'obedience,' but the 'understanding'; she needs that.

And the 'forgetting'? She wonders, suddenly. Will that fade too? Below her, the crowd screams in delight.

"... customary... open a gift before .... court!" The Indigo Queen sneers, her words punctuated by whistle-click-snarls that Lydia can't parse. "... little Princeling. ... bargain chip.... My

possession." She reaches for the clasp on the Prince's belt, takes the whole of the elaborate buckle into her massive paw, and crushes it.

Lydia puts her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp.