Chapter 21 Alarik
Alarik
Alarik rode so fast the wind dislodged his crown.
He ripped it off, clenching it in his fist. His breath sawed out of him, joining with Borvil’s heaves.
In the distance, smoke curled around the spires of Grinstad Palace, like greedy serpents.
The sky above was amber, painted by the same flames that were devouring his beasts.
What the hell was taking his guards so long? The fires should be out by now.
Unless …
Unless they were worse than he could see from here.
He fisted his hands in Borvil’s fur, urging the bear faster.
He cursed himself for leaving the palace in the first place, for letting adrenaline get the better of him.
He should have sent Captain Vine while he stayed behind, preparing for the rest of Regna’s assault.
A smarter king would not have acted so rashly.
His father would have known better.
Alairk should have known better.
He cleared the mountain pass, the ice bear never tiring despite the strain of both journeys. The rock groaned, as though the earth itself was flexing, preparing for the coming war. Cracks spiderwebbed up the mountain and the peak trembled, shaking off its snow.
The creature was wide awake somewhere deep in the rock face. Unsettled. Angry. Alarik shoved the thought from his mind. He couldn’t afford to think about the unknowable beast right now. Not while his own ones were suffering. Burning.
He urged Borvil on, the snow kicking up around them until the world turned gauzy and white.
On and on they rode, until at last the palace gates groaned open.
Soldiers rushed across the front lawn to meet their king, and he roared at them to turn around, to run towards the frightened howls at the back of the palace and all that choking smoke.
Alarik arced around the side, galloping right into the plumes.
He tugged up his collar to cover his mouth as they made for the courtyard, which was heaving with soldiers. There were beasts there, too, wolves and bears and mountain lions, tigers and snow leopards and foxes, all pacing and growling as they were corralled into the arena.
Alarik leaped off Borvil and raced across the courtyard, keeping one eye on the forest. Most of the flames had been put out but the trees in the back quarter were burnt to cinders, and at least half of the pens were destroyed.
Guards yelled back and forth as they drove sleds through the woods, carting huge buckets of snow to douse the last of the fires.
The servants hung back, filling troughs for the beasts to drink from.
Smoke stung Alarik’s eyes and clung to his clothes as he made his way into the arena, trying to count the beasts there. At least a hundred, he guessed, and there were plenty more milling around outside, struck by panic and confusion.
Alarik grabbed the nearest guard, yanking her towards him. ‘How many beasts did we lose?’
She blinked in alarm. ‘Your M-m-majesty,’ she stammered. ‘Eight. Only eight, so far.’
Eight. A paltry number compared to the massacre of elks. But a sour loss, nonetheless.
His brow furrowed. ‘But half of the pens are destroyed.’
‘The wrangler got most of them out.’
‘Oh.’ Alarik’s shoulders relaxed, his breath leaving him in a short sigh. He turned, scanning the figures moving around him. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know, Your Majesty. I only saw her run down to the pens. Then all the beasts came rushing out. They were roaring, trying to get away from the flames … I never saw her come back.’
Alarik froze. A terrible chill went through him as he pictured his wrangler running headlong into the fire.
He thought of his dead beasts and wondered if she was among them, if she had gone too far in her haste to rescue them.
He closed his eyes and cursed. He could imagine her all too clearly, running recklessly into the belly of Regna’s inferno.
That damned wildling.
He released the guard and left the arena without another word. Soldiers and beasts parted as he marched across the courtyard, his eyes aching as he squinted through the smoke.
He grabbed soldier after soldier, the same question growling through his teeth. ‘Where is my wrangler?’
No one had seen her, not since the fires started. Dread gathered in his chest, shoving him onwards, towards the forest. A tall man bounded into his path – and it took Alarik a moment to recognize his spymaster. He grabbed his shoulders, pulling him close. ‘Give me good news, Elias.’
‘We have a survivor.’ Elias flashed a wolfish smile. ‘The rest of the gliders are impaled on the trees in the forest, but Vine picked up one by the mountain face. He was trying to break into the old mining tunnels. Bumbling fool must have lost his way.’
Dread pounded in Alarik’s heart.
Regna knows about the beast.
Or at the very least, the queen of Vask suspected something was awake inside his mountains.
Something that could quite possibly burn him to ash in the blink of an eye.
Did she mean to free it? To use it against him?
‘Don’t worry, he’s still squirming,’ said Elias, misreading the horror on Alarik’s face. ‘I’ll make him sing.’
Alarik snapped back into himself.
Forget the beast. Find your wrangler.
He shoved his crown at his cousin. ‘Put this somewhere safe. Then find Vine and drag that glider down to the dungeons. You can begin the interrogation.’
‘Aren’t you coming?’ said Elias, clutching the gilded crown to his chest in confusion.
Alarik was already stalking past him. ‘Later.’
Once he reached the treeline, the commotion faded. The call of his soldiers and the whimpering howls of his beasts were swept away by the wind. The smoke was thinning, enough that Alarik could make out the skeleton trees at the back of the forest and the charred pens beyond.
He whipped his head around as he walked, taking in the destruction. Hatred burned deep in his bones, for Regna and her gliders and her cloying avarice. Their war would come, and she would suffer dearly. He would see to it himself, slowly and painstakingly, until his blade turned red with her blood.
But revenge would have to wait. His wrangler was missing, and every step into his blackened forest made his chest tighten. There was no sign of her in the trees or down by the burnt pens. Unless she had gotten trapped inside one, hemmed in by a ring of flames …
The thought made him break into a run. For too long, there was only the gasp of his own panicked breaths and the thunder of his heartbeat in his ears, but as the rest of the smoke cleared and the wind quietened, he became aware of another sound. Not a cry or a howl, but a lullaby.
It was faint and lilting, and as lovely as birdsong.
Alarik chased it, his heart climbing into his throat as it got closer, louder.
He was halfway through the forest, following the melody like a stream of sunlight, when he spotted his wrangler.
She was sitting inside Saga’s pen, with the snow leopard stretched lazily across her ankles and her two young cubs curled up in her lap.
She was singing to them, and when Alarik realized the lullaby was hers – and that she was alive – he nearly fell to his knees in relief.
He gripped the wooden slats as he stood by the pen, watching her. She was sitting in a pool of fractured moonlight, smiling as she sang. Her gown was ripped and covered in mud, and one of her silver slippers had come off. The snow leopard was chewing on it happily.
There were smudges of ash on the wrangler’s cheeks and her copper hair had fallen from its crown of braids. She was ruffled and snow-mussed and singing like a nightingale, more beautiful in this mucky pen than she had been in that ballroom when Alarik couldn’t take his eyes off her.
He wasn’t just relieved at the sight of her. He was mesmerized.
Saga chirruped, noticing him, and the wrangler looked up, gasping as she fell out of her song.