Chapter 12 #2
It said much. A century’s worth of things.
Daemon sighed. “This may be our only chance to overwhelm him, Eldrid. If he’s fighting his daughter, he’ll be distracted.
And whoever that woman of wind is”—even as he said it, realization dawned.
It had to be either Queen Arden or her daughter, they were the only two women in the world with such abilities, so far as he knew—“she’s antagonizing Isidor too, which means she could be on our side. ”
“He’ll kill you.” Eldrid’s tone said it wasn’t a reason not to try. Just a reminder of the likely cost.
Daemon clapped a hand to his brother’s massive shoulder. “Then lead our family to freedom beginning with Elianne, just as we’ve discussed. Giver willing, I’ll at least punch a hole for you.”
Without another word, they both leapt out into the lava, Eldrid darting toward Nik while Daemon made for the wall.
He’d climbed plenty of them in the lifetimes he’d been down here, but never this central one, the throat of Helviti.
According to the tyrant who’d tossed him into the volcano’s teeth, there would be Blessed Vektors stationed always at the openings, ready to shove water into his lungs if he tried to escape.
He’d had no reason to doubt it and had always assumed there were easier paths out, if he decided to. But still, he’d mapped that route up the concave side. Now he grabbed the first handhold, hauled himself up, reached higher.
As the shaft narrowed toward the mountain’s peak, gravity fought him, but he fought back—melting each handhold enough to make it sticky, giving himself just enough purchase to move on.
Wind whipped. Snow somehow blustered past him at one point, defying the heat as audaciously as he did the pull downward. He moved as quickly as he could, looking down only once to see Nik tugging on the black leathers and Eldrid explaining something to him with his usual expressive hand gestures.
He fully expected the woman in blue to notice him, but by the time he should have been in her line of sight, she’d moved back onto solid ground and was clapping and whistling.
Impossibly, Valkyrja’s voice rang out next. “Let the record reflect the results of the thirteen Challenges, scribe. Isidor has forfeited his crown and each of the twelve High Council members their seats and titles.”
Daemon paused, her claim undoing everything he thought he knew. Was she…lying? Wrong? Deceived?
Or, more likely, worse than her father, just as Isidor had been worse than Axel?
Regardless, his words to Eldrid stood. This was the best time for him to make a move.
He hesitated another moment when Isidor called for his guards, their footsteps vibrating through his rock and spears clanging in two beats. But when they shouted, “Hail, Queen Valkyrja!” he knew he didn’t dare wait any longer.
He pulled himself over the ledge, onto the rocky platform he hadn’t stood on for at least a century and a half.
He didn’t know what he expected to see. But it certainly wasn’t all twelve High Council members encased in blocks of ice to match the king’s, their thirteen matching guards saluting the woman who looked to be wearing a dress made of snow, and the wind-woman cheering like a fan at an iceball match.
One of the frozen Blessed spotted him first. She couldn’t manage a shout, given the ice-muzzle over her mouth—he was growing fonder of the new queen by the second—but her grunts and squeals and wide eyes directed his way were an effective enough alarm.
He straightened from his crouch, pulling heat from the lava below into his hands, ready to blast the flames at whomever moved against him first.
The Daryatlean was nearest to him. She spun, her startlingly-blue eyes going wide.
And then smiling. “Well. Hello, hot and handsome.” She held out a hand, blue sparks arcing from finger to finger.
“I ought to have known our friend Nik wasn’t the first. Is he all right down there?
” She moved toward Daemon as if she expected to shake his hand.
Like two friends meeting on the village green.
He didn’t have time for whatever distraction she posed. He had to evaluate, act, and win whatever freedom he could for the others. His fire blazed as his gaze darted around the gathering, hunting for the most serious threat.
“I warned you!” Isidor shouted. But, strangely, not at Daemon, it seemed. “You’ve loosed the king of the daemons!”
Daemon’s lips tugged up, even as he measured each movement of the guards. “Thanks for the promotion, Iz. Last we spoke, I was mere spawn.”
The Council were immobilized, they were no threat. And surely the amount of effort it took to restrain them all was costing the new queen, who’d halted the guards with a raised hand. But as she too turned to greet him, she didn’t look so much as winded.
And her eyes—they were nothing like her father’s, nor was the look on her face. He saw warmth there, something that ought to be foreign to the ice-hearted Blessed. Relief, too, and something else it took him a long moment to name.
Welcome.
He lowered his hands, banking the flames a bit. The supposed-weakling was even then raising ice over her father’s mouth, and the only one moving was the wind woman. He sidestepped her electric touch, raising one hand again in defense.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, relax, King of the Daemons. It won’t hurt.”
He let the fire blaze, but she only sighed, sent a gust of wind to blow it out like a candle, then doused his hand with a spurt of water for good measure.
Frustration heated his veins.
She grabbed his hand, zapped his marked palm with a finger, and squealed in delight like a child.
Daemon moved his gaze from the bizarre woman back to Valkyrja. “What is wrong with her?”
The queen shrugged. “We only just met. This is Perla, princess of Daryatla.”
Of course. He’d only registered the wind, not the water, which her mother wouldn’t have had.
Still, he pulled his hand free of her fingers.
And kept his focus on the Blessed. “I’m less interested in introductions than assurances.
For over a century, your father and his father before him have made slaves of me and my people. It ends now—or we set loose the lava.”
They would never do that—it would be their own people, the thanes, who would pay. Which Isidor and Axel had both known. It was what had kept them locked in this mountain all these years. How could they harm their own people, just to pay back the tyrant?
With a bit of luck, this girl wouldn’t know that.
Perla tapped a polished fingernail to her lip. “How much over a century?”
He spared her a snarl, then turned back to the queen.
Valkyrja’s fingers had curled into her palms. “I don’t know what my father has done, nor his father before him, but I promise you this—a new Fjordlandi begins today.
If your words mean that you and your people have been helping us control the Ring of Flame with this new magic I see you hold, then we owe you our gratitude.
And at least one seat on my new Great Council, I’d say, depending on how many of you there are who need representation.
And quite possibly seats on the High Council. ”
Isidor writhed in his block of ice.
Well. Daemon didn’t know if this woman was as true an ally as she seemed, but at the very least, they shared an enemy.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Seats on the Councils are a good place to start.” He flicked a grin at the Blessed that he hoped looked as wicked as they thought him.
“Do I get to Challenge one of them for it? Or face their ilk in the Proving?” The thought of torching a few coldhearted Blessed was a dream he’d had more than once over the years.
Valkyrja smiled back. “I’m afraid I’ve already done that part. Now I have a few vacancies to fill—and since I was the one to defeat them, I can appoint whomever I please, no Proving required and no Challenges allowed for four years.”
Another muted-shout and squirm from her father.
Daemon felt the shift of the lava below them, the way it slid its way up the wall and crusted over into a ramp—a faster way to climb, yes, but not nearly so subtle to anyone watching.
No one else would have sensed the change, though, nor was anyone peering over the side anymore.
He shifted, gave Perla a wide berth, and moved to the edge.
Eldrid and Nik were halfway up. Apparently his brother had heard enough to decide it was safe to join them.
In fact… “Would you fetch the others, Eldrid? I think our new queen would like to meet them.”
Nik met his gaze while Eldrid nodded and leapt back down to the pool. “You…he said…”
Were they in the safety of their own tunnels, Daemon would have offered a smile. An assurance that, odd as it seemed, he wasn’t alone. Though he’d surely thought he was plunging to his death, he’d in fact dropped into a new family. “Save it until you’re on solid ground, brother. Nik, is it?”
Nik nodded and increased his pace.
Daemon watched him carefully. It was Eldrid who had built the ramp, he could tell, but he pulled his power out with him as he left—maybe as a bit of a welcome prank, so that the newcomer would start to sink, but just as likely from habit.
Daemon prepared himself to steady the ramp, given that it was the first few minutes of this new life for Nik.
But the crust didn’t vanish. In fact, it thickened as Nik jogged up it, enough to sustain his weight.
Impressive. Daemon moved back to give the man room to clear the edge.
“Nik.” Valkyrja surged forward.
Nik dropped to a knee the moment he was back on rock. “My queen.” He tilted his left hand, palm up, and flexed his fingers to reveal his mark. “I owe you my life.”
She reached out, rested a hand on his bowed head. “There are no debts between us.”
“Aww.” Perla eased up to Daemon’s side, brushed her shoulder against his arm. “Aren’t they cute?”