The merchant stopped several times along the way, either to feed the horses or to wait while the roads were cleared of snow or to sleep for the night. At each stop, Lynet took the opportunity to explore the northern villages, always hoping it would be different from the last.
Lynet had felt a thrill of excitement when she had first stepped into North Peak. Her father had never allowed her to go into town on market days, insisting that if she wanted anything, he would send someone to buy it for her. Still, Mina had told her stories of her home in the South, and some part of Lynet had imagined that all towns were the same—bright and bustling, full of color and movement. North Peak had been nothing like that. Lynet had walked past figures hunched over from the many layers of mismatched clothing they wore to protect them against the cold, their faces lined with fatigue.
No one looked at her. No one looked at anything. It was like … like walking among ghosts, she had thought with a shiver the first time. Of course she hadn’t understood what it was like for northerners who couldn’t buy their warmth at Whitespring—she never felt cold at all.
Wandering now through another bleak village, Lynet had the same feeling she’d had in North Peak, that she was walking among ghosts. She walked through the market, hoping to find a fruit stall, but most of the fruit had already begun to spoil. And there were no signs of the luxuries the North was so proud of—no gems or metalwork from the mines, no intricate wooden carvings—only necessities.
Nothing grows here, Nadia had said. With a pang of shame, she guessed that any food that stayed fresh during the journey north probably went to Whitespring.
Another girl near her age was also looking at the spoiled fruit, her nose wrinkling in disappointment. Still, she bought a single mealy apple and went on her way, while Lynet went the other direction, knowing that she could take a handful of snow and make her own fruit. She paused in her step, wondering if she should make an apple and chase after that girl, to offer her something better than what she could find here. And from there, her thoughts expanded—if she could make one, then why not a cartful? Why not feed an entire town if she had the capability to do so?
Because you’re supposed to be dead, she reminded herself. She hadn’t heard any news of either the king or the princess dying in her time traveling south, but she was sure Mina’s soldiers had found the body by now. She couldn’t afford to be heroic, either—she needed to be someone new and invisible, at least until she reached the South.
And perhaps it was selfish of her, but she liked being invisible. She had no name, no face, no connection to Emilia at all. She simply existed in her own right, and for the first time, the future was a vast unknown, a road cleared from snow.
She was walking back to the cart on the edge of town when a hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm. Lynet jumped, but it was only an old woman, wisps of white hair escaping from beneath her tattered shawl. “Is it you?” she muttered, peering past Lynet’s hood to her face. “Are you the princess?”
Lynet went rigid in fear, looking around to make sure that no one was paying them any attention. The woman’s grip on her arm was stronger than she would have expected from someone who looked so small and frail, but then, the woman would have to be strong to live so long in the North.
“No, ma’am. You’re mistaken,” Lynet managed to say in a broken whisper.
“I worked at Whitespring, in the kitchens,” the woman said. “You wouldn’t have noticed me, but I know your face—it was your mother’s face too.”
The woman was speaking more loudly now, and Lynet didn’t know how to make her stop, to release her arm. Bribe her? But that would only confirm her suspicions, and then she might tell someone else, and the news would spread through the North that the princess had been seen in one of the villages on the way to the South.
If Lynet wanted to get away, she would have to convince the woman that she was no delicate princess, no fragile butterfly. Lynet wrenched her arm from the old woman’s grip, and the woman almost lost her balance from the violent movement. Lynet opened her cloak just a little, placing her hand lightly on the hilt of the dagger at her waist. “You’re mistaken,” she said again, more firmly this time. “Now leave me be.”
The woman stared at the weapon as she retreated. “Of course,” she said. “Of course. Sorry to bother you.” And then she turned and hurried away.
Lynet let out a long breath as she continued back to the cart. She felt more shame than relief. She wasn’t used to this kind of guardedness; it felt unnatural on her, like a dress that didn’t quite fit. There was a kind of ache in her chest, a gaping feeling. Is this how it feels to be strong?
Back in the cart, she kept thinking of the old woman, of the girl and her spoiled apple, of how easy it would be for Lynet to step outside of the cart and clear these roads herself just by telling the snow what she wanted. She’d caught sight of a few workers along the way, shoveling snow off the road, and she was tempted to help them, to simply ask the snow to move aside and watch as it obeyed. Clean roads, fresh food—she could see the ways to counteract the hardships of Sybil’s curse, yet she was running away.
But wasn’t that what she had to do to survive? Hadn’t Mina kept her own secrets rather than use them for anyone’s good but her own? If Lynet wanted to match her stepmother’s fierceness, to be stronger than she used to be, then she would have to learn to keep her own secrets as well.
* * *
The cart emptied a little more at each stop until Lynet was alone with the merchant, who thankfully paid no attention to her. She was fortunate she was alone when they crossed the Frost Line, because the moment it happened, she visibly jolted.
Even if she couldn’t see for herself that the snow was gone, she would have known it at once. She simply couldn’t feel the snow anymore. She had never thought she could feel snow in the first place, but now that it was gone, she could sense its absence, like a low buzzing in her ear that had suddenly been silenced.
And then there was the warmth that was slowly spreading through her body, making her feel heavy and listless. When she lifted her arm, it seemed to move more slowly than usual, like the air itself was trying to push it back down. Looking at her hand, she remembered her experiments with Nadia, and she wondered if her skin was still cold to the touch. She’d have to be careful not to let anyone brush against her here; her cold skin wasn’t too strange in the North among the snow, but people would probably think she was ill if she was icy to the touch even under the sun.
I don’t fit here, she thought suddenly, and she wondered if Mina had felt the same way when she had first crossed the Frost Line from the other direction. Mina always felt cold, no matter how many years she had spent in the North, and Lynet knew, without being able to explain why, that she would never get used to the heat under her skin now.
Lynet looked around and found an entire world she had never seen before. Green hills rose up near the horizon, and above them the sun was almost painfully bright now that it wasn’t hidden by dense clouds. She had seen trees before, of course, but she only knew them to come in two varieties: green or bare. As the cart jostled along the path, she watched their surroundings change. She saw trees with red and gold leaves, trees with pink flowers, trees full of fruit or berries. She marveled at them all, thinking of Mina’s rooms, her attempt to bring these colors to Whitespring. How faded those colors seemed now, compared to the sights in front of her.