Chapter 3
“Ihave a bad feeling. Don’t you understand that?
” Colden Moeshka leans against the small hearth of my hunting shelter, picking at a loose thread dangling from the gold-ribboned cuff of his blue velvet coat.
I can smell the cold on him—that constant, crisp scent of winter that has clung to him for three centuries now.
He squats, tosses another log into the fire, and stokes the flames until the wood catches and sparks dance.
I can’t help but stare. His skin holds a golden undertone in the summer but grows pale with winter’s pallor.
Tonight, it glows under the firelight, and his dark eyes shine like black obsidian mined from the Mondulak Range.
Much of his wavy flaxen hair hangs loose from its tie, lending his perpetually twenty-year-old features an air of innocence he does not truly possess.
Shifting on my wooden stool, I rest my elbows on my knees and rub my tired eyes.
“Bad feeling or not, I have to go. I’ve never missed a Collecting Day.
The villagers’ lives must go on as normal, at least until we know the truth.
And the only way we can know the truth is if I go to the vale and get the girl. ”
I’m already late. Every Collecting Day, I wake before dawn to finish the last leg of a sennight-long journey through Frostwater Wood.
I usually reach Hampstead Loch—the closest village to my hunting shelter and Winter Road—a couple of hours after sunrise and end my day at Silver Hollow just after noon, if the weather and my horse permit.
Early this morning, however, I woke to Colden slipping through my cabin door in the darkness, alone and travel-weary from trying to catch up with me, all to deliver what I consider less than trustworthy news.
“We’ve heard rumors from the East along the spy chain before,” I remind him. “Nothing has ever come of them.”
“Yes, well, this rumor is different.” Colden holds a chilled hand over the rising heat from the fire, a useless effort to chase away the cold that forever lives in his veins.
“There’s only one reason the Prince of the East would break King Regner’s peace agreement with me, and that’s if he’s learned that I’m much more valuable as a weapon against Fia than as his ally. ”
Fia. I think of the Summerland queen often and wonder if she worries for Colden the way he worries for her.
“Everything I’ve ever done has been with Fia and all of Tiressia in mind,” he says. “If the prince knows my secret, they will come for me. You know they will. They will have to. And they will destroy anyone who stands in their way.”
“Our borders are protected,” I tell him for what feels like the hundredth time.
“Even without our Witch Walkers, the Iceland Plains and the Mondulak Range are impassable this time of year. The Eastlanders never have and never will survive sailing through the White Tides, nor can they make it past the Summerlander fleet to enter via the Western Drifts. The coasts are well fortified. You’re safe, Colden. ”
And Fia is safe. No king—and certainly no nameless prince—has bested her yet. She doesn’t need to deal with the Prince of the East getting his hands on her former lover, but if anyone can take care of themselves, it’s the Fire Queen.
Colden slices that black gaze across the room and arches a perfect brow.
“As well as you know me, do you really think I fear the Eastlanders for myself? If they come for me, I’ll turn their army into ice statues for courtyard decorations, hang the Prince of the East’s icy balls on Winterhold’s gates, and dance on the shards of his pathetic, frozen bones.
” Jaw clenched, he turns back to the fire as though some answer to our predicament lies in the flames and ashes.
“It’s the Northland people I’m concerned about, Alexus. I can’t be everywhere at once.”
I raise a brow. To anyone else, I’m sure his threat would sound convincing, but I know better. The truth that Colden won’t speak aloud is that the Prince of the East scares him, for more reasons than he cares to admit.
For one, the prince is said to bear the stains of walking in the Shadow World—another rumor, and one I don’t believe.
It’s been centuries since someone crossed the Shadow World’s dark shores.
He was no mere man and wouldn’t have survived otherwise.
For two, Colden’s feelings for the prince are…
complicated. They always have been. It’s a subject I haven’t broached with him in some thirty years and a topic I gladly avoid.
I’ve often wondered what might happen if Colden ever found himself forced to stand against the Prince of the East, though.
If their past is any indication, I fear he would fail, terribly, at being as vicious as he claims. Years of pent-up bitterness can lead to hatred.
That’s true enough. But I know my king. His bitterness toward the prince is a mask, one meant to hide a broken heart that has never healed.
I hold my hands up in mock defense. “I’m only trying to ease your mind. It’s hearsay. There’s no need for upheaval until we have more evidence.”
He drops into the chair beside me, and his irritated expression morphs into concern. “I also worry for you. I’ve had dreams,” he says, his brows pinched. “No, not dreams,” he clarifies. “Nightmares. For a while now.”
We’ve been back and forth about this situation since he arrived, but this is the first time he’s mentioned nightmares.
I gesture toward him. “Go on.”
“It’s like the Ancient Ones are warning me that danger is coming,” he says, “yet I don’t know how to stop it. All I know is that I fear the Eastlanders have discovered what I’ve been hiding, and that you don’t need to be in the vale tonight.”
Though I consider asking what he saw in his dreams to lead him to such conclusions, I lean over and rest my hand on his bouncing knee instead. His foot stills.
“You can’t have it both ways, my friend. We can’t get the truth without a seer, and we can’t consult a seer if I don’t go to the vale. I must get the girl. It’s the only way to end this worry.”
The girl with no voice and no witch’s marks. The so-called seer.
Raina Bloodgood.
Of all the names I might’ve written on my list, hers has never been a possibility. Not until this morning, anyway. Now that Nephele has decided to turn her sister into an asset.
Nephele has always been honest with me, or so I believed, but although she’s told me much about her younger sister, she’s never mentioned this valuable and hidden talent. Rather, she’s done everything in her power to protect Raina from ever making the journey with me along Winter Road.
I’ve always understood and agreed to leave Raina alone. In truth, I’ve never sensed strong enough power inside her to make her useful—not a witch’s mark one. But gods know a seer would’ve been a precious addition to Winterhold.
Why would Nephele deny the entire kingdom such rare protection? And if the girl is all Nephele claims, why isn’t her power visible with one glance?
I remind myself that Raina has long been a woman, not a girl. A woman whose face lingers in my mind when it has no reason to.
Colden fists his hand against his mouth, knuckles tight and white as snow. “She’d better be worth the risk I’m taking by allowing this.”
I pull my hand away from his knee. “You don’t trust Nephele’s word?”
I can’t blame him if he doesn’t. I even find myself doubting her, though the thought twists my insides. The truth I can’t ignore is that if Raina held such power, her skin would tell it.
Unless there’s greater magick at work.
“Of course I trust Nephele,” Colden answers. “But time blurs reality, or have you forgotten? Nephele and Raina have been apart for a long time. What Nephele remembers of her sister may not be the truth that exists now.”
Colden isn’t lying about Nephele’s wishes when it comes to Raina—I would sense it if he were—but it would help if Nephele were here. After eight years of swearing on my life to spare her sister the fate of duty at Winterhold, I don’t know how to feel about breaking my word.
I drag my hand over my beard. “The question is, are you willing to ignore the possibility that Raina has Sight, thanks to a bad feeling and a bad dream? If she is a seer, and if the rumor about the Prince of the East betraying your agreement holds even a grain of truth, then we need her. Unwarranted concern for my safety cannot stand in the way of that. I’ve faced far worse things than another Collecting Day. I’ll be careful.”
“I could ride with you,” Colden offers, eyes unguarded. “Alone, you’re formidable. Together, we’re a force of nature.”
“Absolutely not. If there’s danger, we’re both safer if you’re home, and all of Tiressia is safer if you’re shielded by the Witch Walkers’ protections. Please do not argue with me on this. You will not win.”
He leans forward, resting his forehead on steepled fingers, and exhales a long, chilled breath that hangs in the air before floating away. I know his dilemma. I can feel his turmoil. It’s impossible not to worry about someone with whom you’ve shared so much.
We are, after all, like two halves of the same whole.
“Go then.” He lifts his head. “Ride fast. Go straight to Silver Hollow. Find the girl and get back to the forest as soon as possible. I don’t want you in the vale after dark.”
He likes to think he rules me, but we both know I’m only still here because he needed me to be.
“Yes, my lord and mighty king. I was born to grant your every desire.” With as much of a smile as I can muster, I stand and give a spurious bow, hoping to lighten his mood before I go.
When I rise, I half expect Colden to roll his eyes at my antics, but his face is still serious, perhaps more so.
Any humor in my voice vanishes. “Fine. But tell me you’ll head back to Winterhold.
Don’t wait for me. I want you as safe as you want me. ”
“I know you do.” He gives me a look I know well. “And yes, I’ll go. I won’t like it, but I’ll go.”
We stare at one another for a long beat, then I put out the fire and set to strapping on my baldric, back scabbards, and swords.
“At least all you must do is get the girl.” Colden stands, sounding like he’s trying to convince himself that I’ll be all right. “Easy enough task.”
“That is the hope. I can’t imagine the woman I remember causing me any trouble.”
Colden gives me a dark half-smile. “If she’s anything like her sister, you might be very wrong about that.”
We head outside and mount our horses, facing one another under the sun’s dappled light filtering through the forest’s canopy. Colden wraps those deadly fists in his animal’s reins.
“Before I left,” he says, “I instructed Nephele and the others to focus their attention on the forest come sundown. If anyone enters the wood, my Witch Walkers will know. If they sense a threat, they’ll make sure the enemy regrets ever setting foot in our vale.
” Tiny shards of ice branch over the leather straps within his grasp.
“They won’t leave Frostwater Wood—at least not until they’ve endured me. ”
His eyes are black as soot, his face stone. Any vulnerability he permitted to creep beneath his skin moments before has now been buried in his bones.
Colden Moeshka, frigid Frost King, has returned.
“I’ll see you soon,” I tell him, and after he pounds a fist to his chest, his way of saying, Until we meet again, we part ways.
I dig my heels into my horse’s sides and bear down for a stealthy ride. “Like the wind, Mannus!” I call. “Let’s find Raina Bloodgood.”