44. Isla
44
ISLA
M estyla’s human head pokes out of the tempestuous surf. She blinks wildly at Vance, who snatched her around the neck the instant he realized that the girl couldn’t swim in this form. I hover my talons over their heads. Once he’s clutched one, I beat my wings to carry them up.
I jerk when my body bumps into another. Aodhan? I hiss. What are you doing here?
Kostya sent me. He glides over me, keeping the hail from clubbing my body.
Go back! I whirl on myself, trying to spot the hill with Konstantin’s sleigh, but the air is so white I can’t discern north from south. Where is he? Do you see anything?
No, but I left him with soldiers.
You left him with Ksenia! Panic crisps my larynx.
He isn’t weak, Isla.
She fucking isn’t either. We need to go back! I growl. Where is the hill?
Follow me. His tone is flat. Either I’ve wounded his pride, or he’s just grasped his mistake.
As we carve through the worsening weather, I say into the pack link: It’s done. Mestyla shifted.
Has she talked? both my father and Jaytair ask at the very same time.
Not yet, I say. We’re flying back to the castle. Any news from Imogen?
I just heard back. She’s fine. Inspecting the cargo. Tell Vance not to worry and not to leave your side, all right? Like earlier, my father’s voice shakes with nerves, unsettling me.
The current weather conditions wouldn’t be of your making by any chance? Though Aodhan shields me from hailstones, he cannot shield me from the lashing wind.
No.
Shame. I was going to ask you to tone it down a few notches.
I will. As soon as I’m near enough, I will. Except he won’t be near enough for several more hours, having only left Luce when Aodhan broadcasted the stabbing.
As I fly against the tempest, I say, to no one in particular, Do you know how certain I was that Salom had harmed Imogen with obsidian?
So was I… Aodhan murmurs.
A bloom of red develops against the white beneath me. We’ve reached the hill.
Where’s the sleigh? I ask. Do you see it?
No. When he growls a deep fuck, my heart bangs.
What?
Two of Kostya’s guards…
What about them?
Dead.
Terror crashes through my veins. What about…? I cannot even think the end of my question, much less propel it through the mind link.
Aodhan surfs past me, downy barbs gleaming sapphire-black in the unremitting lightning. I see fresh tracks ? —
When he, too, doesn’t finish his sentence, I snap my gaze off the blood-soaked snow and hunt the sky. Aodhan?
It’s a straight shot to the castle. His tone is ragged now.
What’s going on? Is it Izolda?
Silence.
Horrifying, bitter silence.
Aodhan! I scream.
As his quiet endures, I picture Izolda wounded and captive. Not dead. I refuse to so much as entertain that possibility.
Dádhi, Aodhan just rushed off. Do you know what happened?
Where are you? he queries instead. Is Vance with you?
Yes. He’s with me.
I’ll see what I can find out.
I keep my gaze on the tracks, not caring if I end up miles away from the castle. As long as they lead me to Konstantin.
A sleigh parked haphazardly comes into focus and so does the palace. I sink, lowering too brusquely. I snap my wings to avoid ramming my passengers into the ground. Serpents might be strong and almost invulnerable but their bones can still break, and their skin still tear. Like mine.
By some ergonomic miracle, I manage to straighten out and hover just above the sleigh.
Vance and Mestyla let go of my talons just as a hailstone the size of Salom’s head thwacks my spine, bowing my whole body. My talons clip wood, then snow, as I smack down ungracefully on the ground.
Oomph.
What happened? my father cries out. Isla?
Poor landing. No need to fret. I try to add a smile, sensing my poor father is on the verge of heart failure.
Has Mestyla talked?
I’m still in feathers. Will shift and get back to you. The instant I’m in skin, I turn toward the Serpents, who’ve remained on the sleigh.
Vance is painting a sigil on the bench—one that encloses it in a skin of protective magic.
I lunge up the footboard. “What was your plan, Mestyla? To snatch Konstantin’s necklace? His throne?”
Mestyla startles at my harried pitch, or is it my proximity that sends her scurrying backward like a spooked child? Her knees buckle, and she drops onto the leather bench.
“It’s all right,” Vance says. “The princess means you no harm.” To me, he asks: “Where did Aodhan fly off to?”
“I don’t know but I imagine he went to see Izolda.”
“Means me no harm?” Mestyla squeaks. “The Crow Princess murdered my father!”
My head rears back. “What?”
The new Serpent’s eyes shine like black ice. “Ksenia said you killed him.”
I fold my arms, my heart banging as hard as the hailstones against our invisible ceiling. “Are you seriously trusting the word of the homicidal bitch who just planted a dagger inside your heart?”
Mestyla’s forehead pleats around her retracted tusk.
“Isla didn’t murder Svyato, Mestyla. In truth, we’re not certain who did,” Vance says calmly.
A tear trundles down her colorless cheeks.
“I promise to help you find his killer later,” he says. “But first, you need to tell us what happened between you and Ksenia. Why did she kill you?”
Mestyla presses her now-brassy tresses off her wet cheeks. “I came to the capital to meet my uncle. Ksenia convinced me her brother would kill me on sight, though, so I stayed hidden. She promised we’d come out when it was time.
“Tonight, someone knocked on the bunker door and told us it was time. I thought I was going to find Konstantin sitting on one of the sofas.” Mestyla wrings her fingers in her lap. “Ksenia laughed at me when I mentioned this, then explained that I would get to meet him, but not around vodka and canapés. That’s when she explained that she’d tried to make him see reason, but he’d been brainwashed and blinded by a Crow. By it was time , her subordinate meant everyone was in position inside the castle.”
My ears begin to roar with a thunder of my body’s making.
“ Inside …?” I cannot even get the rest of my iteration out.
“Ksenia’s militia infiltrated the castle,” Vance murmurs.
My blood rushes, jumbling the beats of my heart. “How?”
“I heard them speak about an underground railway,” Mestyla says through chattering teeth.
“The inbound tunnel entrance is sealed with a blood-lock.” Vance’s emphasis on ‘inbound’ isn’t lost on me—departure is unrestricted, but entry is rigorously controlled.
The news should ease my trepidation, since blood-locks are intricate protection sigils that must not only contain the spellcaster’s blood but also the blood of those given access to whatever has been sealed away.
“Who possesses a blood-key?” I croak, as lightning flares, bleaching the land and the Serpents.
“From what I heard,” Vance says, “Konstantin and Salom. But there must be others.”
My heartbeats swell so violently that my tongue feels crafted from solid iron. Dádhi said Salom wasn’t the enemy—what if he was wrong?
As theories coalesce in my skull, I swirl toward the castle that glows yellow against the polar night’s blueness and the storm’s whiteness.
Both trains had departed the castle this afternoon—Ilya on one, Milana on the other.
Were brother and mother part of Ksenia’s coup?
Did they possess a blood-key?
Had they boarded the trains in order to collect rebels and transfer them into the belly of the castle?