Chapter 28
Daggers of ice rained from the sky. Kyrja lashed out at them with her own ice, broke them into crystals, while Nik sent flames into the sky to melt them before they could reach the screaming outcasts pushing across the flimsy bridge.
Too many at once—the people, not the blades of ice. She tried to shout out a warning to trust her and Nik, to take their time, not to rush.
But why should they believe her when she said no harm would come to them? When had a Blessed ruler ever gone out of their way for them? They pushed and hurried, and the worn ropes creaked under them.
“Leave this part to me,” Nik called over the thunder crackling from the heavens. Fodur was sending far too much ice—it was making static in the clouds that kept splitting the sky in lightning. “You fortify the bridge!”
She nodded and fell back a step, putting herself out of range of Nik’s flames. The water she’d been calling from the stream wove its way toward them, but it must be colder here than where it was coming from. It kept trying to freeze over, making it sluggish.
A crack sliced through the air. Kyrja’s head snapped toward the bridge, fear and a prayer both pounding in her heart.
It still held, but one of the ropes was fraying.
She had no time to waste. Tugging on the water with her magic, she brought it up to the bridge and froze it, careful to keep the coating to the bottom of the planks, so that no one would slip on the sudden ice.
Then she slid it along the ropes too, hardening it all into place with the same attention she’d given the bars in the Ice Prison.
Something sliced her arm. She hissed in pain and spun to see a dagger of ice crashing to the ground.
Nik was wincing. “Sorry! Came from the other direction.”
No matter. “Focus on them. I’ll heal.”
He nodded and ran closer to the bridge, directing his fire up and over the thanes like a shield, melting and evaporating anything that came from above.
Even though the heat rose, it still radiated onto the bridge too. Kyrja had to keep a firm hand on the bridge’s ice so that it didn’t melt away.
Blood coursed down her arm. She needed to press some snow to it, and she would in a moment. But something about the red trickle, hot and sticky, made her throat go tight.
She had fought her father. She had sent him into the very prison he’d held so many people in before for crimes far from worthy of the punishment. But nothing she’d done was designed to hurt him, to bring him actual harm.
Yet he was throwing hardened ice daggers down where he knew she was. He knew she could fight them—but the sheer volume meant he hoped to overwhelm her. To slip one through her defenses, just like this.
He couldn’t know if he was aiming at her arm or her heart or her eye. He didn’t care. He wanted to hurt her. To kill her?
Why, Giver? Why does he hate me so? She’d always known she was a disappointment to him, but she’d proven herself. Yes, she’d stood against him, but shouldn’t some part of him have been proud that she was, in fact, strong? He was her father. He was supposed to love her. To guide her. To protect her.
Not be the one to hurl the blade.
“Hey.” Nik’s voice, slipping in quietly over the lashing hail, tugged her attention from her arm. He frowned. “I’d hand you some snow, but I’d melt it. You need to stop the bleeding, Kyrja.”
She nodded, stalked over to an untouched bank of it, and scooped up a handful to press to her arm.
Nik trailed her, his brows not smoothing. “Are you all right?”
She glanced from his gorgeous face to his canopy of fire protecting the group even as he focused on her, to the people finally staggering off the far end of the bridge. “My father’s trying to kill me.” The snow she held to her arm turned red, but she could feel the healing tingle.
“So, not all right.” Nik slid a warm hand onto her neck, under her hair. He kissed her forehead, then the tip of her nose, and finally her lips. “He’s a broken man.”
Because she knew that, she nodded. Because it didn’t matter, she sniffed. “He’s my father. But he’s not just trying to stop me. He’s trying to hurt me.”
“I know. I know.” He rested his head on hers for a moment but then stepped back. “We need to go. Get out of the forest.”
She let the blood-stained snow fall and moved with him toward the bridge. The last of the people had crossed to the other side, though many of them kept sending frightened looks down into the ravine.
What was she doing, leading them into danger like this? “We need to convince them to stay at the next village. I love that they want to accompany us, but with Fodur plaguing us…”
Nik blew out a long breath. “We’ll deal with that later. First, we just have to get there.”
She could feel Fodur chipping away at her ice as they crossed.
Could he tell what it was, sense it was supporting her?
Was he trying to send her hurtling to her death, or just to undo whatever work she was doing?
She held it firm while they were crossing, against both his attack and Nik’s heat, then let go of her hold on it.
Her stomach was in knots. She nodded to Nik, Raf, and the elder. “We need to hurry.”
It was better out of the forest. For a while. Or perhaps her father had simply been regrouping, because within an hour, the blades of ice were back. She turned some to snow while Nik melted others, but the shouts of dismay from the outcasts had her seeking out their leader.
The elder’s terrified gaze was latched on the sky, where black clouds were once again alive with electricity.
She cleared her throat. “Change of plans.”
He looked to her, concern etched on his face. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
“I need you to get everyone to Harroby. I don’t know how far my father’s storm will reach. You all need the protection of the dome.”
His face blanked for a moment, then hardened. “We are not welcome there.”
“Yes, you are. Raf!”
Rafnar jogged her way, determination on his own face. “What can I do?”
“I need you to get everyone to the safety of the dome. House them in the abandoned kyrka if there’s nowhere else large enough.
Here.” She scooped up a handful of snow and compressed it, hardened it, shaped it into the intricate snowflake she’d been using on all her official correspondence as her seal.
“If anyone in Harroby gives you trouble, they will answer to me. Take this as proof.”
Raf accepted the snowflake. “I assume this won’t melt inside the dome? Like your icographs?”
“It will last for at least a month. Well, assuming Nik doesn’t get hold of it.” She turned back to the elder. “Nik and I will angle away from the coast as soon as we can. Do you have a fast runner you can send to the other outcasts, telling them to head to Harroby as well?”
He nodded. “My grandson. But Your Majesty, we don’t want to abandon you.”
“You’re not. You’re helping me.” She reached out, clapped a hand to the old man’s fur-clad shoulder.
“I cannot bear the thought of any of you being hurt by my father’s rage.
It’s me he’s seeking, but he won’t care who gets harmed in the process.
” As far as Fodur was concerned, thanes only mattered insofar as they were working.
Outcasts? He would happily kill them all to get to her, she knew he would.
She wouldn’t put it past him to do it on purpose, even, if he knew they’d aligned themselves with her, just to upset her.
He looked about to argue, though he clearly didn’t know which words to use.
Because there weren’t any. There was nothing they could do to fight Fodur. “Please, my friend. Do this for me. Have your grandson go ahead of us and send any in our path to safety. This will free me to concentrate on counteracting my father, without worrying about everyone else.”
Another moment of struggle flashed over his face, but then he nodded. “As you wish, Your Majesty. So shall it be.”
“Thank you.” She looked to Raf again. “I know we thought you’d have a few more days with us before your new mission began, but…”
“If this is what you need me to do, then consider it done.” Raf pocketed the ice crystal and turned to the group. “Everyone, follow me! We’re going to the dome for safety, by order of the queen.”
Nik moved to her side. “We’ll be out of land soon. Maybe if we move quickly enough, I won’t have a chance to melt through. The ice here has to be thick, right?”
“Several feet.” But with only ice beneath them, he’d be cut off from his source, like on the trireme, when she’d awoken to find his brow sweat-soaked, the heat somehow different, more dangerous, than his usual kind—or like when they were in the water, when he’d so quickly succumbed to the cold.
“Nik.” She reached out, grasped his arm.
He looked over at her, curiosity hardening into rock. “No. Don’t even think about it.”
“This place is too dangerous for you. You won’t be able to use the very thing you need.”
“So I’m cut off from my source for a little while. I’ll be fine. I lived twenty-eight years without access to this magic, a few days won’t hurt me.”
Wouldn’t it? She supposed they’d survived in the crystal chamber, when they regulated each other.
And she was selfish enough to want his presence.
So…they’d figure it out. They’d trust the Giver to sustain them.
“All right. Then we need to get as far away from everyone else as quickly as we can, and I’ll use my magic as much as possible, root it, so Fodur knows where I am and can pinpoint his attacks. ”
Nik winced. “Great. Really looking forward to this.”
They watched their new friends turn toward the dome towering in the distance, Raf giving a wave and shouting, “See you soon!”
The elder’s grandson took off at a lope to the north. Good.
She took Nik’s proffered hand, and they set off at a brisk walk.
She called to the water, the ice, with every step, sending that beacon out to her father.
Nik kept the protective flame above the group as long as he could, and from the looks of the sky, their plan was working.
The darkest clouds hovered over them on the coast, so the thanes ought to be clear of it any moment now.
Magic surged in the seas, and she came to an abrupt halt.
“Kyrja?”
“There are more of them—more Blessed joining Laila and Magnus and their friends in weaving their magic into mine.” Her brows knit as she identified the other Blessed whose magic had been interwoven with hers.
Definitely not just the handful she’d invited to her conversation the other day—more.
At least half of the Blessed in Fjordlandi, and not just in the seas.
In the clouds over the cities too. They shifted, grew, nudged at her threads of power, as if asking her to release them.
Not a forceful shove, but a request. “They’re asking me to release the sea to them. And the storms over the cities.”
“Let them. It will free you up to focus on your father.”
Her brows knit. “They have to know Fodur’s free. Every Blessed must. Those still loyal to him will no doubt be backing his efforts.”
“And those loyal to you want to back yours.” Nik lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “Let them, Kyrja. Let them declare their allegiance, let them do what they can, so that you can focus on what only you can do.”
Grateful tears stung her eyes. She wasn’t alone. Even with Fodur free, more than half the Blessed had chosen her, her vision for Fjordlandi. They were casting their lot with hers.
With a long breath, she released control of the seas, of the clouds over their cities, to them.
For now, she needed to let go and focus on the skies above them on the plains. The moment they stepped onto the ice, Nik would need to relinquish his connection with the lava in the earth, and his protection would end.
She’d be ready to pick up the slack.