Chapter 9 Andar
Ilay in bed and stared at the icy ceiling for hours before I fell asleep. Technically, sleep was not necessary either, as long as I was bound to the lamp, but lying on a bed—frozen as it was—did something to emotions that were not supposed to be involved in this manipulation.
The Snow Queen was a means to an end. A method to my freedom. The first step on my way to destroy Brintontoven.
She was not supposed to offer me a bed for the first time in centuries. It was certainly not supposed to make me want to protect her fragile feelings—feelings that I could see despite her efforts to bury and hide them.
Feelings that I was already taking advantage of to manipulate her into freeing me.
She was trouble wrapped in a pretty face and sculpted into a sword—a sharp-edged tool she used to protect herself while wishing she didn’t need to be guarded. How had she ever lasted this long without trusting someone?
She’d have to tell me her story eventually—I’d told her mine, and I was far too curious about hers to not get the details.
* * *
I woke up when light scrambled through the open windows. I found the Snow Queen outside, packing her leftover food into a saddlebag.
“Your Majesty.”
She tied the bag closed and turned to me. “I’ve decided to free you.”
And with those five words, my entire world froze.
Did she mean it?
She stepped closer to me. “I want your assurance, though, that you will not leave me before I have my revenge. I want a guarantee that you will use your magic and any means at your disposal to help me.”
How could I reassure her without actually binding myself? I bowed, deeply and slowly to hide any hesitation that might make its way to my face before I made a plan. What could I promise her?
I lifted my gaze slowly, focusing on the excitement that freedom promised.
“I swear I will accompany you on your journey for revenge,” I said.
“I will do everything in my power—whether magical or otherwise—to support you as long as our paths remain entwined, even if it extends longer than your plans for revenge.”
Her eyes widened at my last phrase. Hopefully, she focused on it and not on the fact that I did not promise to accompany her until the end of her journey.
She lifted the lamp off the top of a saddlebag and raised it toward me. “I’ll accept that. Andar, please use my last request to free you from your bond with the lamp.”
A violent tearing sensation ripped through my gut and shook my body, throwing me to the icy ground.
My arms thrashed until I thought they’d split from my body, and the ripping in my gut deepened.
A rending pain tore through my chest and scrambled out to my flesh.
For the first time since my imprisonment, I wondered if I could survive the separation.
Was this magic meant to bind me for the rest of my life?
Brintontoven was more cruel than I’d thought.
Black filled the edges of my vision. My body shook and writhed, but then—
The pain stopped abruptly. I squeezed my eyelids shut as my arms shook again—the pain left my body trembling and exhausted.
My chest heaved as I tried to catch my breath and regain control of my limbs. It was a wretched, embarrassing position to find myself in.
After at least a minute, I pushed myself up to sit, leaning forward so my forearms rested on my knees. Heavy breaths still punctuated my breathing. I had not expected such an agonizing separation.
But I had survived.
When I finally brought my eyes up to the queen, I found her focused on the lamp. Grateful she wasn’t staring at my weakness, I staggered to my feet and approached her.
“Are you recovered?” she asked, lifting her attention from the lamp to me.
“Enough.”
She tapped the lamp. “I can feel the magic now inside the lamp. Before, I only felt power radiating off of you. But now, I see what you said before. It is… brimming with energy.”
I grimaced, a remnant of pain skittering down the side of my face. “We should destroy it.”
She tapped a finger against the side of the lamp again. “Or we could save it to use against our enemies.”
We.
Our.
This was dangerous language she used, especially when I intended to leave as soon as possible.
But the lamp was more dangerous. I shook my head. “Nobody deserves that. I would kill a fae slowly, dragging him through a torturous death, before I forced him to bind himself to that lamp. And I would consider it a mercy.”
She stared at me, longer than I liked. What was she thinking? Would she argue with me? Insist on keeping it for her vengeance? There were better forms of vengeance, even for Brintontoven.
“Plus,” I added, “it would allow others access to the magic.” She tipped her head, as if unsure what I meant. I explained. “You will not always have the lamp. Others will get it eventually, and they could turn the slave on you. I have…”
I hesitated. My list of crimes was long and disgusting, even to a monster like myself.
“I have done the worst kinds of things to people who did not deserve them because my masters requested them. The lamp’s slave has no say in how the magic is used, no control.
The power to literally reroute stars is in that clump of metal, and if it gets in hands of someone who would hurt you—”
I trailed off, unsure how to convince her. “It’s not worth it, Your Majesty.”
She stared at me again, and for an instant I saw Kalshana’s terrifying queen. The one that had frozen a band of musicians for annoying her. Was she angry? Upset? Thoughtful? Plotting? There was no way to know.
“Do you have your magic back?” she finally asked. “And are you free to use it as you will?”
I turned my thoughts inward, deep in my chest, where I’d learned to concentrate if I wanted to feel my magic.
As if summoned, my power burst to life, filling my body and rushing out to my hands and feet so fast it left me nauseous.
One hand drifted to my stomach subconsciously while I extended my other and held a fireball.
A satisfied smile scrawled across my face. “Yes. It would seem so.”
Her eyes flitted from my fireball to my stomach to the lamp. “And how would you suggest we destroy it?”
Then she agreed? My smile grew. “Perhaps we can both shoot it with the most destructive magic we possess and see what happens?”
A conspiratorial glint filled her eyes, and I felt another quick stab of guilt. Working with her to destroy the lamp would only serve to make her think we were growing closer, collaborating to achieve common goals.
She set the lamp on the icy meadow twenty feet away and then stood next to me. “Now?”
I lifted an arm and pointed it at the lamp. “Yes, now.” I fired a glowing stream of molten lava, hotter than fire, at the cursed piece of metal.
At the same time, she shot an electric beam of ice, glittering with lightning.
Our two rays of magic met at the lamp and erupted in an explosion of furious fire.
Bursts of lightning and sprays of lava ejected from the glowing inferno, and we stepped back to avoid flying bits of fire and burning ice.
The magic coalesced around the lamp, growing until it built up an explosive pressure. It swirled and pounded against itself, and then—
It burst. Energy exploded on itself, shattering under our combined power, and releasing a surge of uncontrolled magic. That power rolled like a wave, upward, and then outward, coursing through the sky. We both stopped our assault of magic.
When the smoke and fire cleared, the lamp remained—unharmed—in the crater of destruction we’d wrought.
The queen’s eyes widened again, watching the air above us curve as unrestrained magic rolled through it. “That can’t be good,” she muttered.
I rolled my shoulders back. “No, I don’t expect so. Perhaps we should head toward—” I paused. We hadn’t actually discussed our destination. “Where do you expect to find the humans who trapped you?”
Her lips pursed with uncertainty before she answered. “One of the autumn realms. They seem most likely to be suited to human… fragility.”
An uninformed answer. I knew of an island in Veran that was full of humans. And weather in the spring kingdoms would be just as friendly as weather in the autumn realm.
So really, the queen had no idea what she was doing.
I would not tell her that. Not when she wanted my loyalty and support. And she had just freed me. I would disentangle myself from her in time to go to Veran and take care of my own vengeance.
But not now. Today, our paths would align, and I would protect her just as I’d promised myself. She wanted to go to the autumn kingdoms and, for the moment, that lay in the same direction as the summer realm. “So, south to the Summer Chasm?”
“Yes.” She retrieved the lamp. “All our magic, and it’s not even hot.”
Curse Brintontoven and his indestructible lamp. “Perhaps we’ll find a way to destroy it later.” At least it had made its way into the Kahunamon mountains and caught the imprisoned queen’s attention.
She nodded and tied it inside one of the bags on the heavy saddles, securing it with three layers of straps, before facing me again. “Since you are no longer my slave, perhaps we should discuss our travel arrangements.”
Travel arrangements? “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She waved at the saddles. “I will require assistance with preparing the horses, but I do not want to be in your debt.”
A reasonable concern—no fae wanted to owe an unknown debt to another, and she now expected to travel with me long enough to destroy her humans. I could temper those expectations with a deal. “Perhaps a bargain?”
Her grey eyes brightened. “What would you propose?”
I tamped down the way my chest lightened when her eyes lit up. She was excited about a bargain. It had nothing to do with me. “I can take care of the horses and bags, and you can be in charge of finding us food.”
She lifted her hand toward me. I took her fingers in mine.
It wasn’t necessary, but the way she lifted them was irresistible—like an invisible draw to the hand that had freed me.
Besides, touching her fingers while we formed the bargain would not make us any more connected than we already were. It hurt nothing.
As my flesh touched hers, a new sensation burned through me. It was only a hand, but I liked how it felt. I schooled my features to be sure I did not reveal the rush of feelings.
Her eyes fell to our hands, and her voice caught. Perhaps she felt something similar? Her emotions were completely veiled, but she swallowed and spoke quickly, as if trying to recover from a surprise. “I will find us food and you will take care of the horses and bags.”
“As long as we travel together,” I added. This bargain could not last after I disappeared.
She set her other hand on our joined fingers, and another thrill ran from her cool fingers straight to my heart. That cool rush could be addictive.
I should not have touched her.
“Agreed,” she said.
I stared at our hands and whispered, “It is a bargain.”
Magic swirled around us, pressed into our skin, and left a saddle-shaped symbol on each of our wrists. She now had two: the ice crystal from her deal with the singers and a saddle from her agreement with me.
The saddles would stay as long as we traveled together. The ice crystal? Who knew when the musicians would complete their bargain?