Chapter 26
Had Fodur grown stronger, somehow, in the Ice Prison?
It shouldn’t have been possible, but for the tenth time in as many hours, Kyrja felt him break through her control of the tides, sending the other threads of Blessed magic scattering, and she had to scurry to reestablish her hold on them, let the others weave in again.
Maybe it was that he was focusing his already-considerable might only there.
Maybe it was that the rest inside the prison had given him a burst of strength.
Maybe, like her, he’d found that sudden necessity gave him new power.
Maybe allowing the other threads of magic into hers had made a hole he could exploit.
“You all right?”
She glanced over and found Nik’s eyes level with hers—she was walking atop the compact snow, he on the bare ground he’d exposed in their path.
It hadn’t taken long to discover that he was constantly melting through the snowpack, which meant trudging and cost far too much energy.
She could have worked to keep the snow frozen under him, like she’d done to the arena floor, but why?
It had been more expedient for him to melt a path for him and Raf to walk on.
Though the ground looked muddy ahead of them, by the time Nik’s boots touched down, it had baked hard.
Handy for those coming behind them to use, too. Kyrja glanced over her shoulder, where two dozen members of the outcast village brought up the rear of their little caravan, laughter on their lips.
Their elder blazed the path ahead of them, leading the way to the next village of outcasts.
Who knew that they had their own network of relationships and alliances?
This elder had promised he would give them safe passage to the next village, and that their elder would provide introductions to the next, and so on.
It meant a chance to get to know more and more of them. To introduce herself, establish herself.
Assuming she could stave off whatever her father was trying to do. To Nik’s question, she shrugged. “It’s Fodur. He’s…I don’t know what he’s trying to do, but he keeps breaking through my hold on the tides.”
Nik’s brows drew together. “How?”
Frustration with herself swelled. “I don’t know! He couldn’t shake my grip of the Ice Prison, couldn’t break through my locks—”
“No.” A soft smile on his lips, he reached over and tangled their fingers together.
“I don’t mean how is he strong enough. I mean what is he actually doing?
When you described the Challenge to me, you said you focused on the small, that the magic of the other Blessed was like a net you could sneak through.
So what is he doing to get past you? Can you tell? ”
She hadn’t thought to examine the how. Closing her eyes for a moment, she focused on her connection to the sea, the ice shelf that Stefanos’s triremes hovered beyond. The currents, the tides, the waves.
Fodur’s touch, amidst and among the twisting ropes of magic she’d had to make to allow the other Blessed to join with her. It went through her net, just as she’d slithered through his.
Her breath huffed out. “You’re right. He’s doing exactly what I did.”
Nik laughed and gave her fingers a squeeze. “I’m not right, I just asked a question. But now that you know?”
Her head was beginning to hurt. “I can’t hold it all on such a small level. Some, yes. It’s what I’ve always focused on. But the storms and the wall and the seas, and battling my father—it’s too much.”
“So what can you let go of?” His thumb stroked over her knuckles. “Daemon has the prison now. Can you let other Blessed take the snows?”
Her breath puffed out, though it made no vapor in the air, warm as it was around Nik. “He’s tugging at those too—and the others have never been close to matching him. I’m afraid if I let go, he’ll cover the whole continent in a blizzard. He feels so angry.”
Enraged, more like. Furious. Probably all the more so because he’d know it wasn’t just her touch in those waters, it was other Blessed. People he’d once held under his thumb.
Ahead of them, the elder paused. “We will soon enter the Great Forest, Your Majesty,” he called back. Worry saturated his tone.
She exchanged a look with Nik and Raf, who looked as confused as she. “Is this a problem, my friend?” Even as she asked, Fodur’s accusation flitted through her mind. Her magic is as untethered as the Great Forest.
The old man motioned to the dark patch on the horizon, obscured by a low-lying fog that often plagued the Ice Plains.
“It is changeable in there. Frozen fog one minute, freezing rain the next. My people have always called it the King’s Playground.
It seemed it was where he tried his hand at every possible foul weather to torment us and keep us from passing through.
Even these last two weeks, it has been nearly impassable. ”
Not the direct work of her father, then—unless it was something he’d set in motion that cycled without his constant input.
Kyrja sent her senses out, into the woods. She’d visited the southern half of the Great Forest once as a girl but had found it so very strange. Confining, with the tall trees looming over her, blocking the sky and interfering with the snow. Threatening.
It hadn’t even occurred to her to stretch into them in the last two weeks.
Now, she found the conditions wild. Untamed.
That was the best way she could think to describe them.
She sensed hot springs bubbling up, raising the temperature in one area, where the heat was trapped between rocky cliffs.
Steam rising, blowing, only to freeze again in the next valley, where no springs warmed them.
There she could feel the sleet pelting down, fog freezing to everything.
“Is it safe to proceed?” Raf asked, shifting the weight of his pack a bit. He glanced behind them, at the villagers who were ambling to a halt, their gazes locked onto the shadow ahead.
Their leader sighed. “It is always a risk. There are fjords in the path. We’ve made bridges over the years, of the rope and slat variety, but the conditions are hard on them.
I have no doubt that with our two Blessed, we will be fine.
I thought only to warn you, Your Majesty. And you, Lord Nikanor.”
She nodded. “I appreciate you drawing my attention to it. I knew the forests were wild, but I didn’t know the extent.”
Nik let go of her hand and crouched down, pressing his palm to the earth. “There’s a lot of activity down there. I know I’m not great at sensing the touches of the others yet, but I can’t find any evidence of even Daemon in it, and his signature is usually strong enough for me to follow.”
“Well, that makes sense. There are no people living in the Great Forest.” Kyrja shifted her own pack, filled with food generously donated by the village. “All the Aflame’s efforts, much like the Blessed’s, have been focused on what affects the population centers—the coastal regions and the plains.”
He looked up at her. “Perhaps now would be a good time to stop for the midday meal. Take a few minutes to get our bearings.”
“A wise idea.” She called it out to their guide, who nodded and backtracked to rejoin them.
Nik cleared the snow from an area large enough to seat everyone and started a fire for them.
Kyrja exchanged a few smiles and words but ended up standing on the outskirts of the gathering, face toward the unknown.
Was that the root of this feeling of foreboding in her chest—the fact that she just didn’t know much about the world they’d be passing through?
No. It was that every time she probed into it with her magical sense, she could feel her father withdraw a bit from the sea. Why? That made no sense, did it? Even if he felt her in the forest, shouldn’t he be using the distraction of it to pounce where he most wanted control back?
Though why the sea was his concern, she didn’t know.
“Your Majesty. Here.”
She turned at Raf’s voice, trying to conjure a smile when she saw him holding out a tin plate of food for her.
“Thanks,” she said, even though her stomach was in knots.
She knew she needed to eat. They had a long day—week, more likely—of traveling on foot ahead of them, and her life in the palace certainly hadn’t prepared her for it.
At least a kind woman from the village had given her comfortable fur boots to wear in place of the heeled version she’d had on. They’d offered her coats, hats, and scarves too, but these she’d refused with many words of gratitude for the offers.
She appreciated their generous hearts. But hiking in a coat would be miserable.
Raf looked over his shoulder, and apparently whatever he noted satisfied him, because he turned back toward the forest with her, shifting a bit closer.
She lifted a piece of dried fish from the plate without putting it in her mouth yet. “Are you going to quiz me on my intentions toward your best friend?”
His grin made it easy to see why he and Nik had always been inseparable. “It’s my sworn obligation as the closest thing he has left to family. I mean, other than his mother.” He screwed up his face. “That’s still weird.”
Nik had given Raf the full story as they walked this morning, and she hoped that as he told the tale, he’d been able to grapple with it a bit more. So much had happened so quickly. It was the sort of revelation he’d need months, years to sort through. Not the two weeks they’d had.
At least Elianne wouldn’t be going to Ellas, unless Stefanos changed his mind, which she didn’t anticipate. That was positive. They’d have the time to work through it, develop a real relationship. One based on the present, not the past he couldn’t remember and she couldn’t forget.