Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26
LARA
M id-afternoon, two of Ivrael’s footmen ride into the courtyard on the ice horses the duke favors. I hadn’t realized Ivrael had sent anyone out to keep watch—though I guess it makes sense that he’d want to know when Jonyk got close.
With the footmen’s return, the news rushes through the manor: Prince Jonyk’s entourage is set to arrive within the quintclick—roughly an hour on Trasq.
All the servants in the house sweep into a flurry of activity, adding final touches to the preparations.
“Finish spicing the meats,” Adefina instructs Kila before turning to me. “And you, arrange them on the plates.”
Moments later, the housemaids begin trooping in, gathering trays in their arms to set out the welcoming feast. I place the cold, raw meats artistically on the platters Adefina has set out for me and hand them off, ignoring Oriana’s sneer as she pointedly avoids touching me when she accepts the food.
Hefting a large crockery jug into my arms, Adefina says, “Take this and have Ramira give it to one of the footmen. ”
I grunt at the weight of it but stagger off to follow the cook’s instructions.
I follow Oriana into the dining room and stop with a gasp. I haven’t been in this part of the house recently—we’ve been too busy preparing food to have had much part of preparing the manor, so all I’ve seen is the ballroom—but what had been a small dining room has been transformed into a banquet hall. Walls I hadn’t even realized could be moved have been retracted, combining what had been several rooms into one large space.
It truly is beautiful, with its blue and white walls, long tables draped in white tablecloths, and silver and white china. I shake off my wonder and track down a footman. “I think this is the chilled wine for tonight,” I tell him.
Like Oriana, he is careful not to touch me when he relieves me of my burden. I have a sudden urge to lunge forward and wipe my hands down the sides of his face. It’s all I can do to repress a snort at the thought.
Instead, though, I take one more look at the transformed hall. That’s when I finally notice something that’s been niggling at my subconscious since I walked in, something so out of place that even a stranger to this realm could notice it.
The head table sits at the front of the room, and the food is set out buffet-style along one wall. In the center of the buffet table stands an enormous ice sculpture.
A dragon.
“Odd choice, isn’t it, to have a firelord carved of ice as a decoration?” Adefina says from behind me, having entered the room without me noticing.
“Seems strange, for sure. I thought the firelords were enemies of the Caix.”
“Nobles do strange things, sometimes.” Adefina shrugs and moves toward the table, where she places yet another platter of raw meat. I shudder at the sight of it, blood pooling under the cuts and freezing in the cold air.
And yet, the dark reddish-brown of the blood provides a colorful counterpoint to all the icy blue and white and silver in the room, and I have to admit that, despite my revulsion for the bloody meat, I can see the aesthetic appeal of the color in this sea of neutrality.
With a shake of my head, I leave the dining hall and head back to the kitchen. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing, though—my mind is entirely elsewhere.
On my escape.
I know there are untold dangers waiting for me outside the manor. Undead Caix in the cemeteries, monsters—or something like them—in the woods, and countless miles of magical, snowy landscape between me and the means of getting back to my world.
Simply running away isn’t going to work. I am going to need help.
And I have a plan.
For a while, I thought I might get Fintan to help me. But for all he doesn’t belong in the Icecaix lands, or even on Trasq at all, he isn’t discontent here. He even confessed to me once that he kind of likes his job in the duke’s household. And I don’t know about Adefina. I don’t think she likes it here—but she seems resigned to it, as if there’s nothing she can do to change her fate.
Of course, I’m taking Kila with me when I go. But I’ll have to protect her, and I worry that it’s going to take every ounce of strength she has to survive crossing the winter lands.
No—there’s no one in the duke’s household who can help me. But I’m right about who can.
The firelords.
P rince Jonyk doesn’t bother to show for the party Duke Ivrael is holding for him.
For some reason, that feels significant.
The first I hear of this is Ramira and Oriana whispering about it in the corner of the newly transformed banquet hall. I’m bringing in the last overflowing platter of raw food, wishing I could hold my nose against the scent of the fish that takes up the plate as I wonder how far away the nearest un-frozen river is, how long it might take to get fish to Starfrost Manor. If the Icecaix prefer their sushi to smell slightly rotten.
When I walk into the former dining room, I realize that the fish isn’t the worst of the fragrances. There’s enough bloody meat in the banquet hall that I can smell the metallic tang of iron and copper in the air even over the other scents.
“Prince Jonyk has continued to the Ice Palace.” Ramira’s disapproval feels sharp enough to cut me if I get too close. But I can’t stop myself. I pause beside the two housemaids, even though it means holding onto the fish platter longer.
“I didn’t think the Icecaix were allowed to criticize their sovereign,” I say, raising one eyebrow. It was a trick Izzy and I had gotten from Mr. Spock and perfected one summer after Roland forgot to pay the cable bill—or chose to buy beer instead—and we were left with nothing but old original Star Trek DVDs to watch.
“I am not criticizing His Royal Highness,” Ramira says. “Merely stating a fact.”
“Yeah, right.” Ready to ditch the fishy platter, I head toward the buffet. “You better watch out who you spend your time with, Oriana,” I call back over my shoulder. “That one could get you in trouble if you’re not careful.”
Suppressing my grin isn’t easy when I hear the two of them sputtering in outrage behind me.
Then, not only do I manage to get one of the footmen to look at me, but he also actually responds to me when I ask, “Should I take this food back to the kitchen? If Prince Jonyk isn’t coming, do we even need to have it in here?”
The fine-boned Icecaix looks at me as if I’ve suddenly sprouted an extra head—or as if I’m a piece of furniture that has suddenly started talking. “Of course we still need the food,” he said, his nostrils flaring as he sneers down at me. “His Highness’s retinue will still be breaking their journey here.”
“Journey from where?” I ask. It’s a question I haven’t been able to get Adefina to answer, and Kila swears she doesn’t know .
“They are returning from the firelands.” Oddly enough, Ramira is the one who answers. She takes the fish tray from me, and I’m happy enough to hand it over.
All this time I’ve been asking Adefina about the firelords, when apparently, it’s the one topic Ramira is eager to discuss with me.
Well, the one topic other than my own human inferiority to all things Icecaix.
“The firelands? What were they doing there?” I ask, hoping she’ll continue communicating with me just a little longer.
“Prince Jonyk was ratifying the Icecaix-Firelord Treaty, just as he does every five cycles.”
“So that’s why the Ice Court is traveling across the duke’s land?”
“Of course.” As if she has suddenly realized who she’s talking to, Ramira tosses her head and spins away from me. “And I don’t blame His Highness for wanting to get as far away from the firelords as possible. They’re horrifying half-breeds. I’m sure he’s disgusted by them.”
“And also possibly afraid of them,” I murmur aloud to myself as the housemaid stalks away.
Of course, I don’t have anything to prove that theory. But if my suspicions are right, and the prince fears dragons, then I want to talk to one of these firelords even more than before.
But first, I have to figure out how to get to them.
For a brief time, I think that maybe I will be able to backtrack along whatever trail Prince Jonyk and his entourage left behind them in their trek down from the mountain pass.
But apparently Jonyk and all his people went back to using their Caix magic to fly the instant they left the mountain pass, because they all arrive from the air. Those guests with their own wings fly themselves in, and the rest ride in on a variety of winged and otherwise magically flying animals.
I only see all this because I’m outside inviting Fintan into the kitchen for our usual afternoon tea—today, a reward for all the work we’ve done to prepare for this party—when the Ice Court, sans prince, arrives.
“Inside,” Fintan says gruffly, ushering me in front of him. “Now.”
As he pulls the kitchen door closed behind us, I catch a glimpse of one of the Icecaix in the prince’s retinue, and we make eye contact. He’s small, roughly the size of a human child, maybe a kindergartener—but this guy is obviously full-grown.
I don’t know what to call this one, since he’s not like any of the other Caix I’ve seen. But like the rest of the Icecaix, he has white-blond hair and pale skin. His eyes are oversized and slightly bulbous, his ears long and pointed, and when he flashes a cruel grin at me, his teeth are sharply pointed; I’m certain there are more of them in his mouth than there ought to be.
“Don’t let any of them catch you alone,” Fintan says, and I nod emphatically. That single, hungry stare was enough to convince me I need to steer clear of whatever will be partying in Starfrost Manor tonight.
The house erupts in a flurry of activity as the Icecaix are shown to their quarters and the duke’s household prepares to host the revels that their prince will not be attending.
But I can’t allow any of that to change my own plans.
L ess than an hour later, the Ice Court descends on Ivrael’s banquet hall. Taking Fintan’s advice, I hunker down in the kitchen with him, Adefina, and Kila.
Right up until the moment Oriana shows up, demanding my assistance in particular.
“I can help you,” Adefina says to her, stepping between us.
“It has to be the human.” Oriana’s mock-sad tone sets my teeth on edge. “The Court is eager to see His Lordship’s pet.”
Fintan starts to move forward, but I forestall him with a hand on his arm.
“I’ll go,” I say. “The duke won’t let anything happen to me.” I don’t know if that’s actually true, but it mollifies Fintan and Adefina.
Good. I don’t want either of them getting hurt in my place .
“I’m coming, too,” Kila announces, grabbing a toothpick and brandishing it like a sword. “If anyone tries anything, I’ll poke their eyes out.”
“No.” I cast about for something that might convince her to stay behind. I believed Ramira when she said she used to pull the wings off of rayas for fun, and the Ice Court Caix I watched arriving earlier looked even crueler than that.
Dropping my voice, I lead her into a corner of the kitchen. “I need you to stay behind to protect Adefina.”
Kila’s shoulders slump, and I can’t tell if it’s in relief or dismay. “Are you certain?”
“Positive. I can take care of myself. I’m not sure about her.”
Kila sets her jaw and squares her shoulders. “All right. We’ll be here when you return.”
As I follow Oriana through the door into the main house, she glances over her shoulder at me with a smirk. “Sure you don’t want to bring your raya with you? The food table might be getting a little low. And the duke’s guests would probably enjoy something crunchy. Like raya bones.”
My stomach heaves with the combination of nerves and horror at her words, and I swallow hard, taking a deep breath before we go through the door into the banquet hall. The whole room glitters, and the ice-dragon’s frozen wings stretch out to the sides of the table practically groaning under all the food it’s laden with.
So much for Oriana’s thought that they might need more to eat.
“Here she is,” the maid says in a sing-song voice as we reach the buffet table, and I’m reminded of children taunting one another on a playground.
An Icecaix woman, taller and thinner than me, stands with a short, squat male. They turn to face us, and I realize the male is the same one I saw arriving.
“Duke Ivrael’s human pet,” the woman cries out happily. “Come play with us.”
She’s wearing an ivory ball gown draped across her body, and I realize it’s practically transparent—I can see her slim body under it, the darker tint of her nipples. The male catches me looking and flashes a hungry smile, baring sharp, pointed teeth coated with blood.
The woman delicately chooses a thin slice of raw venison, leaving behind tiny red splatters on the snowy white tablecloth as she lifts it from the serving platter, blood trickling from the spiced cut to pool under it on her own plate.
“Have a drink,” she says.
I try politeness first. “No, thank you.”
“I said you should drink,” she insists.
The male grabs me by the back of my neck and the woman tilts the wineglass against my lips. The red liquid inside smells both fruity and rank, and my stomach turns.
The last thing I want is to drink from her cup. I shake my head mutely, but she’s insistent, tilting the cup higher and higher, and the male’s hold on my neck is like iron. When I still don’t drink, she snarls and reaches over to pinch my nose closed. I try to pull away, but I can’t. Unable to stop, I gasp for air and choke on the fetid wine, spitting it out but also finally swallowing some despite myself.
Both Caix laugh, and the room spins around me. He gazes at me ravenously, his bulbous eyes glowing. Her long white hair falls like silk across her bare, marble-white shoulders, and once again, I mentally compare the pallor of most of the Icecaix to Duke Ivrael’s more golden-toned skin.
Suddenly, I want to see the duke more than anything else in the world. But when I search the banquet hall for him, he’s nowhere to be found—and oddly, I find myself unnerved by his absence. I try to tell myself it’s only the Icecaix lady’s overly avid expression, that I’d feel better if I knew Duke Ivrael was around to step in for me, that I’m uncomfortable with the thought of the Ice Court roaming unsupervised in the duke’s home.
But none of it rings true.
I simply want Ivrael.
“Come with us, human,” the woman says, her voice reverberating oddly in my ears. I try to resist, but my words slur into incomprehensible echoes, and everything around me smears into a blurry haze .
Someone—the woman?—takes my hand and draws me away from the food table, then backs me into a corner of the room, their bodies blocking any exit I might try to make. Not that I’m trying to leave. Something has made me complacent, pliant, willing to follow directions.
“Drink more,” the woman says, handing me a wine glass filled almost to the brim. This time I upend it myself, swallowing down the entire putrid concoction. Within seconds, my head is spinning.
It crosses my mind that the couple must have drugged the wine, but I can’t bring myself to care. I lean back into my corner, peering around the two Caix hemming me in as I search for a glimpse of Ivrael.
The room spins and rolls, the walls expanding and contracting as if breathing, and I watch them, forgetting to look for him for a long moment. Then a strange golden light flashes past me, and I’m reminded of the duke’s hair color.
“So pretty,” I murmur aloud—at least, I think it’s aloud, but I can’t actually hear myself speak—and go back to looking for Ivrael.
When I don’t see him, I thump my head back against the wall and sigh out his name.
The two Icecaix glance at each other and snicker, their high-pitched laughter distorting into synesthetic neon flashes flickering across their faces as the room tilts sideways.
“Kiss me, human pet,” the male says, his voice turning to smoke as he steps closer to me and licks his thick lips with a tongue that slides out of his mouth like a snake, sinuous and scaled.
I nod and bend toward him—but something buzzes in front of my eyes, distracting me.
“Ooh,” I say. “That’s cool.”
It’s tiny and leaves sparkling lines of green glitter behind it when it speaks. “What are you doing? Come with me.”
I stare at it, enchanted.
“Lara! Come with me.”
Oh, and it knows my name, too.
“How lovely,” I murmur, but the words get lost on their way through the room.
The male Caix, whose whole face has morphed into the head of a snake, tries to grab it out of the air, but he misses—probably because his fingers are turning serpentine, too. He still manages to grab me, though, and when he tugs at my upper arm to pull me out of the corner, I stumble behind him. “We’ll find a better place to play with the human toy.”
But then the green glitter buzz resolves into Kila, and she glares at the Icecaix couple. In a moment of clarity, I realize how dangerous it is for her here—not only is it far too cold in this room for the Starcaix raya to survive long, it’s full of Icecaix who would happily rip off her wings and eat her as a snack, if Ramira’s threats are any indication.
“Wait. No,” I say, and pull away from the male.
The room spins faster as Kila hovers before me, her wings a desperate blur.
My tiny friend glows like starlight against the darkness gathering in my mind. I try to focus on her tiny form, but the room keeps dissolving into prisms and shadows. I reach for her, my hands passing through rainbows instead.
The room smears and shifts, my thoughts scattering. Reality fractures around me as I struggle to focus. I’ve never seen Kila look so fierce or so fragile.
“Wait,” I try to say again, but the word dissolves on my tongue like snowflakes.
Kila is so small against their hunger. The Icecaix’s serpentine features morph, but the raya remains clear as crystal. Too clear. Too bright. Too vulnerable.
God. Kila is in danger, and I’m too drugged to save her. If she dies trying to save me, I’ll never forgive myself—assuming I remember any of this tomorrow.