Chapter 7
Kyrja shook her head, spun, and sprinted from the kyrka, forcing herself to slow to a hurried walk on the avenue outside.
The crowds on the streets were still sparser than usual, those that did occupy the paths subdued, as if fearful that something else in the city would explode and come crashing down around them.
Earlier, she had mourned the lack of people. Just now, she was glad of the clear sidewalks that allowed her to be bounding up the steps toward the palace far more quickly than usual.
She didn’t know where she meant to go. Her instinct was to point herself to the apartment she’d called her own since she turned twenty-one, but it had been destroyed in the attack.
Her new rooms were in the guest wing, but they didn’t feel like home.
Nothing felt like home. How could it, when her family wasn’t there?
“The king will hear about this!”
Kyrja spun toward the voice, her panicked mind certain that whoever spoke had been in the kyrka and was going to give her up.
It took her a long moment to realize that the man stalking down the corridor toward the doors was not Fjordic.
He wore the rich blue tunic and trousers of Daryatla, the crest of the Sea King embroidered on it.
Ambassador. Though she couldn’t remember this one’s name. Each of the other kingdoms had embassies in Reykstoll, but their staffs were in constant fluctuation. She’d given up trying to keep them all straight a decade ago, when none of them lasted more than a quarter of a year.
No need to wonder why—the reason stalked after the Daryatlean, Fodur’s face its usual mask of cold disdain. “I should think he will. And please, tell Seidon that I grow weary of this.”
Sometimes it was strange to see emotion play so easily across the face of a diplomat. Fury, yes, but something more. Something almost…smug?
That couldn’t be right. What would an ambassador being expelled have to be smug about?
The man spun to face her father, posture rigid.
“In keeping with the Accord of Nations, it is more than the right of Daryatla to have a representative in Fjordlandi, Isidor. It is required. If you do not provide these seats for the other nations in the alliance, then you effectually withdraw, which is paramount to a declaration of war against them. Is that what you want? The full force of Daryatla, the Sunken Kingdom, Soltierra, and Ellas all coming against you as one?”
Kyrja slid out of the way of the doors, toward the Vektor stationed in the shadows. With any luck, neither Fodur nor the ambassador would notice her. Or her shock at the visitor’s audacity in calling her father by his given name.
No one did that. Even Mamma hadn’t. But then, Daryatla was infamous for its lack of formality.
Fodur’s chin ticked up a single notch. “But according to the same agreement, I do have the right to refuse any ambassador I find unsatisfactory.”
The ambassador laughed, low and rough. Then he pivoted, presenting his back to Fodur again. “Well, my successor has already been named, knowing we’d need one. And I dare you to find her ‘unsatisfactory.’”
Kyrja’s stomach twisted. She’d never understood why her father antagonized all the foreign diplomats, given how serious an offense it would be to break an international Accord. The ambassador was not exaggerating—it would cause a war.
Fodur claimed it was to make clear to the rulers of the larger nations that they were not to be toyed with just because they were small, but he’d clearly pushed too far for too long.
She didn’t know who King Seidon and Queen Arden would send next, but the man’s tone said Fjordlandi wouldn’t like it.
The ambassador stomped toward the door, gaze flicking her way as he neared, despite Kyrja’s attempts to remain perfectly still. He paused. Sketched a perfunctory bow. “Your Highness.”
The title chafed, scraped along her skin like a claw.
Wrong. Ill-fitting. Uncomfortable enough that she had to straighten her spine and roll back her shoulders, even though it made no sense at all.
She had been Your Highness her entire life.
Why react to it now? “Ambassador. I pray you have safe travels back to your home. I will cut a path through the storms for you, of course, to fuel your solar sails.”
Fodur’s head snapped her way.
Hope. She should have said hope, not pray. Where had that come from?
She couldn’t back down from it now, though, or it would draw more attention to the slip. She held out a hand, as propriety dictated.
The ambassador changed his trajectory, moved to her side, and took her hand, bowing over it. “And I pray, Your Highness, that your nation survives the storm your family has kept raging around it for so long.”
She jerked her fingers from his, less because of his words and the flurry of questions that blossomed inside her than because of the snarling sound that came from her father. “Out!” He jabbed a finger toward the door in clear command, and the floor beneath them turned to an ice rink.
Rather than slip, the ambassador made a motion of his own, and the ice beneath his feet melted.
He was a Blessed? Or—no. That wasn’t what they called them in Daryatla. Just Awakened—he was Awakened. And powerful enough to counter her father’s magic, at least under his own feet, which was no small accomplishment.
That knot in her stomach cinched tighter.
An Awakened that strong, chosen as an ambassador, must be an intimate of King Seidon and Queen Arden.
Which meant his dismissal would not go over well with the sovereigns of the largest nation on the planet.
A nation which continued to grow year by year, as the unclaimed Wastelands on the continent came under the Sea King’s ever-growing protection.
She shuddered and looked at her father. He was making an enemy of Daryatla and its rulers, and he was doing it deliberately.
Why? Seidon had been ruling for over three hundred fifty years, Arden for more than a century and a half beside him.
They were known worldwide to be two of the most powerful Blessed—Awakened—ever to live.
He controlled the weather and tides of an entire hemisphere at this point, and she?
She held the winds in the palm of her hand.
Something no one else could do, aside from their two children.
Was it true that the queen’s mother was a seraph? Fodur had scoffed when Mamma spoke of it, claiming it was impossible because there was no such thing as seraphim or cherubim or any other type of angel—which everyone but the thanes knew. No angels, no daemons, no Giver.
The crystal’s melody whispered through her mind, into her heart.
Fodur had never experienced that. Never heard the Song. Could he deny the Giver if he had?
The ambassador gave one more bow that felt like mockery, spun, and splashed his way out the doors.
Fodur turned his angry gaze toward her. “You. Come with me.”
Her father’s tone chafed as much as the ambassador’s honorific, scraping at her in a way it never had before.
Her feet refused to obey. “Is something the matter, Fodur?” Her voice didn’t come out right, either.
Where was the deference she’d always felt, always shown?
She sounded almost insolent. And if she sounded so to her own ears, then Himmel help her, because it would sound even worse to his.
Indeed, he paused mid-turn. Pivoted slowly to face her again. His usual mask of indifference morphed into the fury she’d seen far too often these last few days. “I beg your pardon? I issued you an order.”
“Did you? I’m unaccustomed to answering to ‘you.’ My father taught me from the time I was a toddler that I was only to respond to my proper name or title.” Frost and snow, did she have a death wish? What was wrong with her? “Even from him.”
Fodur’s nostrils flared, his hand clenched into a fist, but then his calm returned.
“Well done, daughter.” He flicked a glance at the guard, let it skid over her, and motioned with a hand.
“I am always pleased when you pass my little tests. Though I do require your presence, so if you would join me, Valkyrja?”
Mask or not, he was angry—and he couldn’t possibly know what had transpired in the Grand Kyrka, which meant it was about something else. Or perhaps just an extension of the state he’d been in since the attack.
She could understand that. If she thought too long about Nik’s father, anger welled up in her too. What right did anyone have to kill innocents? Even if his cause was just, he lost that edge by attacking a peaceful family like a coward in the night.
But sorrow always swamped the anger. Grief eclipsed indignation. And then, somehow, sympathy snuck in. How hopeless must that man have felt, to resort to such violence? How powerless did one have to feel to lash out in the way that would hurt most, and then remove oneself from the equation?
But to shove it all on his son’s shoulders?
Her sympathy ran dry when she considered the position he’d left Nik in.
She’d only known Nik for a handful of hours, but even so little time had been enough to show her he was not a revolutionary.
He didn’t want to pick up where his father left off, even if he survived.
She strode after her father, of course, and drew even with him once he turned into the guest wing that now served as the residential quarters for the royal family—all two of them. Her mouth opened to ask him again what was wrong, but then she snapped it shut when something tugged at her ice-sense.
Another test? A few days ago, it would have made her anxious and brought her brother’s three-fold advice to the front of her mind.
Focus. Will. Act.
Strange. She didn’t have to think through it at all. She simply clamped down on the control she’d taken over the Ice Prison, forbidding entrance to whoever was trying to influence it.