Chapter 35 #2
The dreki gave a final cry, a sound like crumbling mountains, before its form began to dissolve mid-air. Scales splintered into snowflakes. Wings broke apart into drifting frost. The creature unraveled in the sky, falling like ash over the ruined camp.
And I…
I crashed to the ground, knees slamming onto the earth, my chest aching as if I’d been the one to breathe frostfire. My sword dropped from my hand, and I fell on my back, heart thundering, erratic, panicked. I tried raising my head, but the world swam with smoke and snow.
“Sylvi…” I rasped, my head falling back again, everything almost fading to black.
A set of strong arms hauled me to my feet. “Holy fuck, princeling,” General Brigmir muttered, steadying me with a firm grip on my shoulder. “That was fucking incredible.”
I swayed, coughing into my arm, my lungs raw from the smoke. The camp was a wasteland of shattered tents and scorched earth. The air still crackled with the ghost of my magic, and the acrid scent of ash stung my nostrils.
Brigmir’s sharp eyes scanned my face. “You breathing?”
“Barely,” I rasped. “The princess?”
Before he could answer, Isolde emerged from the billowing smoke, flanked by her two attendants, their faces streaked with soot, gowns torn and dripping with blackened slush.
The once-immaculate fabric of her dress was now crusted in mud and ash like shavings of snow.
Her tiara tilted crooked atop her tangled braid.
“Where is my brother?” she shrieked. When she saw him helping to steady me on my feet, she stormed forward.
“What in the name of Náldrún was that? Are we under siege?” Her voice pierced through the groans of the wounded, shrill and imperious.
She was frantic, unharmed, but rattled. As if that counted for anything.
Still staggering on my feet, I continued to cough, smoke burning my throat. “We should’ve kept moving. I knew setting up camp wasn’t a good idea.”
She stalked toward me, almost slipping on the slick ground. “Are you suggesting this was my fault?”
“I’m suggesting I should’ve listened to my gut and not some spoiled princess,” I muttered.
Before she could retort, Ravin stumbled into view, arm pressed to his side where blood seeped through torn fabric. “Jack,” he called, eyes wide despite the gushing wound. “You’re alive.”
I rushed to him, catching his elbow. “You okay?”
He blinked. “I’m not dead. Thanks to you. That was you, right? The dreki?”
I nodded, my bones still feeling weak. “Sylvi? Have you seen her?” I asked, my chest constricting.
“Last I saw, she was near the healer’s tent before one of those fireballs tore right through that area in a massive explosion.”
My lungs caved. “Did you see her after the explosion?”
Ravin’s eyes went dark, but he didn’t speak. I took him by the shoulders. “Rav, I need you to be honest with me.”
“I didn’t see her,” he said cautiously. “But that doesn’t mean she’s…” He paused, measuring his words. “She could be among the wounded, Jack.”
I scanned the camp, my heart practically galloping out of my chest. Sascha moved through the carnage, tending to wounded soldiers, face pale, hands red with blood.
Her sleeves were torn, and ash clung to her lashes.
She whispered prayers between calls for aid, but there were too many bodies, too much blood.
Only one other healer worked beside her, and it was clear she was drowning under the weight.
I approached quickly. “Sascha. Have you seen Sylvi?”
She looked up, dazed, eyes wide with grief. Then she shook her head, and her gaze fell on someone lying in the snow. Her body sagged.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no—”
She dropped to her knees beside a body, a young female attendant, and a sob ripped from her chest. Ravin knelt beside her, holding her close as she wept into his ruined tunic.
Panic surged up my throat, but I forced it down. Now wasn’t the time. Not with Isolde shrieking beside me like a banshee, not with wounded soldiers dying before our eyes.
I needed to find Sylvi.
Before I could mount a search, Astrid’s voice piped through the cries of those still alive. “My Prince!” She limped toward me, one arm slung over a soldier’s shoulder, her face streaked with soot and tears. Blood soaked her thigh.
I rushed toward her and helped her sit on a nearby log.
She gritted her teeth. “They took her…”
“Took who?” I asked, though a sinking feeling settled in my stomach.
“Sylvi. She was running toward the pavilion. Told me to secure the western flank, that she needed to make sure you and the princess were safe. That’s when I saw her get ambushed by half a dozen masked soldiers.
Then the dreki appeared.” Her eyes flicked to mine, as if seeking confirmation that the dreki had in fact been me.
I nodded, urging her to go on.
“Everyone scattered, and I lost sight of her.”
My heart dropped.
“Once they began to retreat into the forest, that’s when I saw they’d bound her and were dragging her into the trees. I tried to follow, Your Highness, I swear I did. But I was shot.” Her leg trembled violently, a piece of the arrow’s wooden shaft still poking from her thigh.
Gods. If I’d known she’d been chasing after Sylvi…
I placed a hand on her shoulder. “You did everything right, Lieutenant. See to that leg because I’m going to need you back on your feet.”
My eyes burned as I scanned the battered remains of our camp. My magic stirred beneath my skin, but it was barely alive. I’d drained myself almost completely of my power by conjuring that ice dreki.
I fisted my hands. That wouldn’t stop me from going after my—
Solstice. A thread pulled inside me, as if someone had plucked the string of a harp, the soft lilting sound resonating within me, summoning a word that shimmered at the edge of my mind, that sat at the tip of my tongue. A word long lost to our ancient past…
Skyrmaki.
A word once used to describe the sacred mating bonds of the hrímdreki.
Bound by blood, by flame, by fate.
I had no time to explore the meaning behind the sensation simmering in my chest. I needed to find Sylvi.
“General,” I said, approaching Isolde’s brother.
“Astrid has command of my soldiers. Gather the wounded and burn the dead. By first light, she will lead the envoy back to Isenheim. Stick to the path, ride through the night. You’ll need to travel light, so bring only the essentials.
Until we know more about who attacked us, we need to assume they’re licking their wounds, but that doesn’t mean they won’t attack again.
You need to get inside the protective walls of the capital. ”
Isolde looked puzzled as I kneeled where Ravin sat on a boulder, Sascha tending to his wound. “Get word to my mother about this attack. Skadgard needs to be put on alert.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“I’m going after Sylvi.”
“What!” Isolde stomped toward me, her hands flailing. “What do you mean, you’re going after her?”
“Exactly what I said. Sylvi wasn’t dressed as a soldier; she didn’t have her captain’s insignia. If they took her alive, that means they knew who she was, and they need her for something. I’m not about to let them use her life as leverage against me or my kingdom.”
“But you’re my betrothed. What if they attack again? What if they come after me?”
“Your brother did a fine job of protecting you. Besides, if they’d been looking for you, they would’ve found you. Seems to me they came for someone else.”
“What is that supposed to mean? You can’t leave me alone on this envoy. You’re the prince. How’s that going to look when we arrive at the capital, and I show up without my betrothed? When everyone finds out you abandoned me to go after a common nobody.”
I snarled and black blood ignited in my veins, roping around my fingers and straining up my neck. Icy shadows swirled over my hands. “I warned you already, Princess. Come after Sylvi again, hurtling insults, and next time, I will not hesitate to use my magic.”
“Don’t you fucking threaten me, Son of Ice,” she snarled right back, her black magic swirling in her eyes.
General Brigmir stepped between us, a hand on my chest. “Prince…this is not necessary.”
“Tame your sister, General,” I gritted. “I will not have this nonsense in my court.”
“Tame?” Isolde shouted. “You self-assured, arrogant prick! How dare you!”
But I’d already turned toward where the pages were trying to calm the horses, her screeches nothing but wind and smoke, a buzzing insect I’d already swatted away.
Though a smirk danced on my lips.
A page had tacked up Draumskelmir and was holding his reins. Strapping Vetrslaga to the saddle, I hauled myself onto my horse.
Ravin strolled over to me, a hand still clutching his side. “You can’t go alone, Jack. Did you see the number of warriors that were sent to attack us? Those weren’t regular soldiers.”
“I know. They looked like mercenaries.”
“They came with fire-hauling machines, Jack.”
“I get it. But I’m not letting them take Sylvi. And I’m certainly not risking anybody else, either. Please, Rav, I need you to do what I asked. Help Astrid. Plus,” I said, my voice lowered, “I need you to keep an eye on that elf. I still don’t trust him.”
He nodded, but his eyes were dimmed, his expression defeated.
“I’ll see you in Isenheim.” With that, I pulled the reins and spurred my horse toward the woods, galloping straight into the shadows of the Wildlands.