The Cold King Read Free

learned that night. With a sigh, Calia turned back to her chores.
    She washed the dinner from the babies faces and began to clean the dishes and table. After she wrestled her siblings into bed she continued with her chores. Exhausted, she finally allowed herself to collapse into her mother’s arm chair just as she came home.
    “Mother! What happened? Who volunteered?” she asked, jumping up from the chair.
    If Mrs. Thorne had noticed her daughter sitting in the chair specifically reserved for her and her alone, she said nothing. She kept her back to her daughter while she removed her coat and hat and kept her silence as she removed her shoes and moved into the kitchen to push the kettle over the fire.
    “Mother?” Calia asked again.
    “No one volunteered,” her mother finally said, but she still did not turn to face her daughter.
    Calia waited for more but Mrs. Thorne just fiddled with her tea leaves and cup. “So what happened?” she finally burst out. “Who did they choose?”
    The silence stretched out and the skin at the back of her neck began to prickle.
    “We chose you,” her mother finally answered.
    Calia pulled in a shuddery breath. “Me?” Suddenly her tiny world of cooking and cleaning for her mother and tending her siblings didn’t seem so terrible.
    Mrs. Thorne turned to face her daughter. “Yes girl, you. You were the best choice.” Her cold words matched her cold demeanor perfectly and it chilled Calia to her core.
    “But I do not want to go! I—”
    Her mother cut in angrily. “Well someone has to go and you were the one chosen.” Her face held no remorse or sadness, only annoyance and aggravation.
    Calia clutched her hands over her chest in panicky disbelief. “But why? Surely the Cold King won’t be happy with someone as lowly as me.”
    “He’s happy with whoever we send,” her mother snapped. “And we’re sending you.” She noticed the tears welling in her daughters eyes and softened the tiniest bit. “Really, it’s for the best. All the other girls have prospects and you have none. You could have a better life being a servant in a castle than being an old spinster in town.”
    Calia reared up, tears no longer threatening. “I could get married,” she argued indignantly. “Someone could want me; I would make a more useful wife than most of the girls in this town.”
    Mrs. Thorne snorted. “Useful, yes. But young men aren’t looking for useful, they want beautiful. Who’s going to fall in love with a girl like you? You are nothing to look at, you aren’t lady like in the least, your manners are atrocious and then there’s the matter of your father.” Her words hurt Calia so fiercely she could hardly breathe. She knew she wasn’t the loveliest or politest or most charming girl but her mother’s harsh assessment left her feeling as though there was nothing special or lovable about her at all. And the double meaning of her mother’s words had not escaped her. The villagers hadn’t chosen her to go, they had all chosen her, her mother included.
    “And what about you?” Calia asked. Her lips quivered and she bit down before continuing. “Do you not need me?”
    Her mother sighed. “Calia, it’s time you moved on—”
    “I am only seventeen!”
    “Yes, seventeen. And next year all the girls your age will begin to receive offers of courtship and the year after that they will be married. They’ll go on to have children and contribute to our town. What will you do here? You cannot live in my home forever and you cannot work and live on your own, it would be disgraceful.”
    Calia’s thoughts were racing and she reached out for any argument that would keep her from being sent to the Cold King. “But who will help you? Surely you cannot do everything by yourself.”
    Mrs. Thorne poured steaming water over her tea leaves. “Your sister is old enough to take on more chores.”
    “Moli is only eleven; she cannot do everything I can do.”
    Mrs. Thorn slammed her cup