Chapter 26 #2
And as they walked, they’d devised another plan too, which would start as soon as they reached the next village.
Raf would be their emissary, first to Harroby and then to the other domes.
He would spread the knowledge of what her father and grandfather had been doing.
The people they’d been stealing, feeding to Helviti.
They’d tell every thane in Fjordlandi about the Aflame—about the potential for that magic in their own blood, and offer Awakening Ceremonies to any who desired it.
They’d strike the flint. Fan the flames. So that even if Fodur managed to wrest a bit of control back from her, it wouldn’t do any good.
The people wouldn’t accept his tyranny any longer.
Not when they realized that freedom could lie dormant even now in their blood.
And with some of the Aflame already planning that expedition to Radsla, they could begin Awakening their family within the week.
Any new Aflame who were discovered could then be taken to the nearest volcano for purification and training.
Kyrja was still more than a little impressed that Tristan had figured out what had become of his wife. And now that she understood what that kind of love felt like? Her heart broke all over again for him.
As for Raf’s mention of Nik’s mother, she nodded and took a bite of the dried fish.
Not exactly her favorite meal, but she would never complain.
“I’m not sure what Elianne thinks of me either, honestly.
Of us.” The fog bank obscuring the forest lifted a bit, giving her an actual view of the towering pines.
They looked every bit as threatening and looming as she remembered from her childhood.
“I suspect she volunteered to go with Stefanos in part because she saw how the contracted betrothal upset Nik. Maybe entirely because of that. But she all but rolls her eyes at me at least once every time we’re in the same room. ”
Raf chuckled. “I imagine it’s tough, to be reunited with her son and yet realize he’d rather focus on getting to know you than her.”
She winced. “Completely understandable.” Should Kyrja have been more cognizant of that? Withdrawn?
The very thought made her throat go dry. Nik had been the bright spot of her days, not only since becoming queen, since his blood had lit this new life in hers, but since the bombing. Those hours spent sitting on the floor of the prison cell had changed her life. Her outlook. Her understanding.
“Do you love him?”
She swallowed the fish and looked over, met Raf’s earnest blue gaze. “With everything I am.”
He tore a piece of flatbread in half. “What if the Test says he isn’t a viable match for you?”
The salt from the fish seemed to leave a trail of burning down her throat.
“I’m not going to take the Test.” She must have decided it even before Phoenix said the Machine was what Stefanos craved.
Because some part of her, even as she denied that she could give away her country’s asset like that, was thinking, Oh good.
It’ll be gone, and I won’t have to defend my particular decision.
But she would defend it if she must. Because she didn’t care if Nik was Test-approved.
She wanted to marry him, in the thane fashion.
Forever. She wanted to wake every morning at his side.
To welcome him home from the volcano each evening with a kiss, to snuggle against him and let his warmth scatter the frost of her own day.
Raf sucked in a breath. “Even if you give it to Ellas—you know what they’ll say.
The Two Councils, I mean. That you should take it first. Guarantee the next generation, anyway, before you send the machine off.
Perhaps negotiate to get it back before your own children would be grown. A trade, for a set period of time.”
“No.” She bypassed the next kipper for her own round of flatbread—warm, which made her think Nik had been at work before it made its way to her.
“I don’t need to know what it says. I know my own heart.
” Phoenix’s words to Nik still echoed in her mind too.
Fjordlandi has waited long enough for its Aflame king.
Take your place at her side without reservation.
What could those words possibly be but a true Blessing from on high?
“And I know the Giver’s will. That’s enough for me.
” He wouldn’t just be her consort. He’d be king beside her, equal with her.
Raf nodded. “Good. Nik—he deserves every happiness. Even if I’m the one who had the good sense to paper my walls with your posters.”
Because he clearly saw it as amusing, Kyrja laughed along with him. “Raf…thank you. For being willing to take what Tristan had learned to the people for us. To spread the word about the Awakenings. I know you’d rather stay by Nik’s side. And that he’d rather you did too.”
With a grin and a shrug, Raf said, “There’ll be time enough for that. I’ll think up some ostentatious title for myself that I’ll petition you for, to give me an excuse to serve beside him for the next couple decades.”
A chuckle warmed her throat. “I hear you know how to make stained glass—I intend to commission repairs on all the kyrkas through the land. We’ll need your expertise on that. And we’ll want to visit each one, to inspect and then dedicate it.”
Raf’s eyes lit. “Royal window artist?”
“Is that ostentatious enough for you?”
He laughed. “I don’t know about ostentatious—but it’s perfect. After we right a few other wrongs first.”
“Yes. After that.”
Nik joined them a few minutes later, no food in hand but gaze on the now-visible line of trees. “The elder says that once we clear the forest, we’ll quickly run out of land. We’ll be hiking on ice to the next village, and most of the way back to Reykstoll.”
Raf frowned. “Can you do that and keep from melting a hole straight down to seawater?”
Nik shrugged. “I’ll try to contain my heat but…” He turned to Kyrja, flashed her a grin. “I might need a little help.”
She made a show of considering. “Well then, I suggest you don’t do anything to annoy me.”
He chuckled and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her against him.
“I’ll try my best.” He pressed a kiss to her temple that made warmth bloom all through her and nodded toward the tree line.
“That feel as chaotic to you as it does to me? The geothermal activity is unstable, at best. Like what Daemon described much of Fjordlandi as being when he was first Awakened. I don’t think I had any idea how much work he and the others have really been doing all these years. ”
Kyrja had to grant the point. “Even I noticed in my history lessons that eruptions and random vents calmed down a lot in the last hundred fifty years. But I had no reason, then, to doubt that it was because first my grandfather and then my father had such skill at countering the heat with ice. As for your question—yes. It’s like the water cycle is in every stage all at once. ”
His gaze moved to her face, that crease forming between his brows. “Nothing you can’t handle.”
“I appreciate the confidence, but…” Her breath eased out. “I don’t know what my father’s doing. Every time I ease into the forest, he eases out of the sea. It’s a strange correlation.”
“Hmm.” His fingers tapped a rhythm of thought on her waist. “Could it just be that he’s trying to observe? If this region is foreign even to his control historically, he could be curious about what you’re doing there.”
“Maybe.” More, she’d be blazing a trail for him to track.
Thus far, since they landed, all her interactions with Fjordlandi’s waters had been from a distance—not where she was.
It was possible, perhaps, that he hadn’t known exactly where she was until now.
Perhaps he thought she’d head straight for Harroby Dome once she reached land.
Or take the usual route around the bases of first Mt.
Radsla and then, forty miles later, Helviti, with the plains in between.
He surely assumed she’d be heading to Reykstoll, but the details could well have been hidden.
Much like his were to her. There was no way he was in the seas where she sensed him most. He could be anywhere, reaching out along the magical paths he’d forged over so many decades. A man of his power didn’t have to be near the waters to influence them, so long as he had some sort of connection.
Although, could she trace that connection? Pinpoint his location?
“What’s that look for?”
She blinked back to the here and now, shook her head. “Just musing about how to locate my father. But that’s for later. For now, the Great Forest.”
They conferred with the elder about where the main path through the forest went, trying their best to get a gauge on what they could influence as he described it for them. Eventually, there was nothing for it but to head into the trees and do their best to mitigate any dangers.
At first, she thought her sense of foreboding had been misleading. She had no trouble holding back the curtain of icy fog, and Nik said the path veered clear of the nearest vents and lava-fed hot springs.
Then they reached the rope and slat bridge the elder had mentioned, and Kyrja sucked in a breath. “That is not a bridge. That’s a half-finished knitting project.”
Nik snorted a laugh but surveyed it just as dubiously. “Can you reinforce it with some ice?”
She pursed her lips. The crevasse it spanned was not over water. In fact, the nearest stream was half a mile away, and though there were some underground sources, they were beneath the same rocks that formed the chasm. “I can, but it’ll take me a few minutes to bring in enough water.”
His hand rubbed encouragement into her back. “No rush.”
“What about rain?” Raf had his face tilted up to the sky. Not that much of it was visible between the towering trees.
“Also possible, just not as simple as manipulating a stream, had there been one here.” But she gathered the clouds above them. Reached for the nearest water source on the ground.
Fodur’s magic sliced through the clouds, so sharp and unexpected that she screamed, lifting her arms and pointing them upward.