CHARLESIAN Nehaa 2019-2020

Upstairs was colder yet. She put on her thick, rich boots and
continued seeking the icebound king.
"Your majesty?" called the princess. Her voice echoed eerily down
the icy halls. "I've come to open diplomatic relations between our
kingdoms." She had decided on that language while traveling, since
she hated to overpromise. Still, there came no reply.
At the very end of the hall she came to a grand set of carved wooden
doors that glistened with frost and were so cold that even the winter
princess hesitated to touch them. She put on her thick, rich gloves and
opened the door.
The bedchamber was hung with silks and tapestries, with shelves full
of books and a great canopied bed, the air so cold she saw every
breath. In an armchair sat a man engrossed in reading. He looked up
at her in astonishment. She was pleased to see that he had not been
frozen into a block of ice at all, although his skin was faintly blue,
and frost clung to his clothes and beard.
"Your majesty," said the princess, "I've come to--" But his surprise at
seeing her and his grave solitude struck her with such pity that
instead of her prepared speech, she finished, "--to break your curse."
"Break my curse?" echoed the icebound king.
She nodded firmly.
"There's no way to break my curse," said the icebound king. "Or
rather, the way to break my curse was to marry the witch who cast it,
for a year and a day. The curse froze her solid before she finished her
sentence." He sniffed and wiped an icicle from his moustache. "She
didn't think things through."
"I suppose you could marry the corpse," the princess suggested.
"It didn't work," said the king glumly.
She gazed at him for a moment: a solitary king in a lavish, empty
castle. Then she smiled.
"Then we shall break what makes your situation seem like a curse,"
she said. "Would you be glad of some company?"
"Glad!" he said. "I am starving for it."
So, the princess kept the icebound king company for many days, and
they both found it very pleasant company indeed. After some time,