Chapter 5: The Court

The nobles smiled at me whenever I walked through the halls of the Ice Castle, and that was how I knew they wanted me dead, because I had learned to read smiles a long time ago, back when I was a child who needed to know whether the person approaching him was going to hurt him or just walk past.

My stepmother had smiled before she hit me, a wide bright smile that never reached her eyes, and my father had smiled before he locked me in the cellar, with a thin tight smile that said he was doing something he knew was wrong but did not care enough to stop.

The guards had smiled before they put me in chains. They were cold empty smiles that said I was nothing to them, just a job, and a body to be moved from one place to another.

A smile was a weapon in this world, and the nobles of the Ice Castle had the sharpest smiles I had ever seen, smiles that cut like knives and left wounds that did not bleed but still hurt just as much.

They watched me from doorways and from corners and from the edges of every room I entered, their golden eyes following me wherever I went, and their whispers followed me too, floating through the air like smoke from a fire that would not die.

"The human whore," they said when they thought I could not hear them, though I heard everything because my ears had learned to listen for danger in the same way my eyes had learned to watch for it. "The king's pet. How long do you think he will last in this place, with wolves like us circling him every day?"

"Not long," another voice answered, and this one sounded almost bored, like the speaker had seen this happen many times before and knew exactly how it would end. "The king grows bored quickly, and when he grows bored, he will toss the human aside like a toy that has lost its shine, and then we will see how long the little thing survives."

"Ramiro will make sure of that," someone else added, and the name hung in the air like a curse, like a warning, like the shadow of something sharp and deadly that was waiting to fall.

I learned their names slowly, piece by piece, whisper by whisper, because knowledge was power and power was survival and I intended to survive this place even if it killed me.

Lord Ramiro was the name I heard most often, spoken with fear and respect and something else I could not name, and everyone who said his name said it like a warning, like a prayer, and like the name of a storm that was still far away but coming closer every day.

I met him on the fifth day, when I was walking back to my chambers after one of my supervised walks through the halls, walks that the guards allowed now for reasons I did not understand and did not ask about because asking questions was dangerous and silence was safety.

The guards let me walk now, supervised but not chained, and I did not know why the king had given me this small freedom, and I did not know if it was a gift or a trap, and I did not ask because asking would have meant admitting that I cared about the answer.

I was walking with my head down and my shoulders hunched the way I had learned to walk when I was a child, small and invisible and not worth noticing, when I looked up and saw him standing in the middle of the hallway, blocking my path like a wall made of flesh and bone and teeth.

He was handsome in the way that wolves were handsome, with dark hair and sharp cheekbones and a smile that did not reach his eyes, and he was standing too close, much too close, close enough that I could smell the wolf on him, wild and ancient and hungry. He was smiling that smile that did not reach his eyes, and I knew before he spoke that he was dangerous in a way that my father and my stepmother had never been.

"Sergio," he said, like we were friends, like he had known me for years, like he had any right to speak my name at all.

I said nothing, because silence was safety, because the less I spoke the less they had to use against me, because every word out of my mouth was a weapon I was handing to my enemy.

"Lord Ramiro," he said, extending a hand toward me like he expected me to shake it, like we were two gentlemen meeting at a party instead of a wolf and his prey in a frozen castle full of monsters. "I wanted to introduce myself properly, since we will be seeing so much of each other in the coming weeks and months."

I did not take his hand, because taking his hand would have meant playing his game, and I had learned long ago that the only way to win a game you did not understand was to refuse to play at all.

His smile did not falter when I left his hand hanging in the air between us, and that was how I knew he was dangerous, because a man who could still smile after being rejected was a man who was patient, and a patient man was a man who was willing to wait for what he wanted.

"The king has a soft spot for you," Ramiro said, lowering his hand and stepping even closer, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his body, close enough that I could see the way his golden eyes flickered with something that might have been hunger or might have been amusement or might have been both. "That is dangerous, Sergio, dangerous for you and dangerous for him, because a king with a soft spot is a king with a weakness, and a king with a weakness is a king who can be destroyed."

I said nothing, because there was nothing to say, because everything I could have said would have been wrong, because silence was the only weapon I had left.

"You are not stupid," Ramiro continued, and his voice was soft now, almost gentle, the way my stepmother's voice had been soft before she raised her hand to hit me. "I can see it in your eyes, the way you watch and listen and learn, the way you give nothing away. You know you are a target, and you know you are a weakness, and you know that as long as you are alive, the king is vulnerable."

I still said nothing, though my heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it, though my hands were shaking inside the sleeves of my shirt, though every instinct I had was screaming at me to run.

"Leandro has ruled these lands for three centuries because he had no weaknesses," Ramiro said, and his voice dropped even lower, so low that I had to lean in to hear him, though I did not lean in because leaning in would have meant giving him something he wanted. "No one to love, no one to lose, no one to use against him. But now he has you, a human, a sacrifice, a boy who cannot even shift into a wolf to defend himself, and I am going to use you to destroy him, piece by piece, until there is nothing left of him but a memory and a warning."

My heart pounded and my hands shook and my throat went dry, but my face showed nothing because I had learned to hide my fear the way I had learned to hide everything else, behind walls of stone and silence and the careful blankness of a boy who had been beaten too many times to show what he was feeling.

Ramiro studied me for a long moment, waiting for a reaction, waiting for fear, waiting for something he could use, and I gave him nothing, nothing at all, just the empty mask I had worn since I was thirteen years old and my mother died and the world decided I was nothing.

His smile widened when he realized I was not going to break, and that was the scariest thing of all, because a man who smiled when he did not get what he wanted was a man who was enjoying the game, and a man who enjoyed the game was a man who would never stop playing.

"You are interesting," he said, and he sounded almost impressed, almost pleased, like I had passed some test I did not know I was taking. "I did not expect that from a human, from a sacrifice, from a boy who was sold to us like a piece of meat."

He stepped back and bowed, a deep bow like I was someone important, like I was a king instead of a prisoner, and the gesture was so wrong and so strange that it made my skin crawl.

"I look forward to getting to know you better, Sergio Herrera," he said, and then he walked away, his boots echoing on the stone floor, his shadow stretching long behind him in the light of the torches.

I stood there for a long time after he was gone, my hands shaking and my heart pounding and my throat so dry I could not swallow, but I had not spoken, I had given him nothing, and that was survival, that was what I did, I survived.

I walked back to my chambers on legs that felt like they might collapse beneath me at any moment, and I closed the door behind me and pressed my back against the headboard of the bed and watched the door the way I had been taught to watch, waiting for something that might never come.

And I thought about Ramiro's smile, the way it had not faded when he walked away, the way it had grown wider when I gave him nothing, and I realized that was what scared me most about him, more than his eyes and his voice and his words.

Because a man who smiled even when he did not get what he wanted was a man who was patient, and a patient man was a dangerous man, and I had survived my father and my stepmother and the chains, the journey and the snow, but I did not know if I could survive Ramiro, because he was not like the others, he was worse, and because he was willing to wait.