Four
Kyrundar
Rengiri didn’t panic. Before we took our vows, we spent years training and honing our reflexes. We studied tactics, tested our abilities in a variety of simulated and real challenges, and learned to read situations, people, and animals. Even after we left Harcos, we practiced in order to keep our skills sharp. When we weren’t training, fighting, or serving, we spent time praying and reading holy texts. Rengiri had every reason to be confident and relaxed.
None of that changed the fact that my heart pounded and a cold sweat slicked my skin when Zidra’s head of brown curls disappeared into the ground.
Whatever information she was looking for, if she didn’t get it because I barged in, she would never forgive me. Assuming she would ever forgive me for whatever she was already angry with me about. But I’d agreed to keep watch. Even if the urge to throw myself into the cellar in a cyclone of ice was growing, I would wait until she called for help.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t get a little closer, though. And call up just enough of my magic that it wouldn’t be very noticeable but would help me sense any…
My jaw went slack. From the direction of the root cellar, I sensed a trace of ice elf power—potent and vicious in a way I’d never felt before. The ice magic was active, as if someone were preparing to unleash it.
This was a trap.
I darted through the darkness to the square hole in the ground and threw a blast of snow. My magic’s light helped me see, but I also got a faint sense of the room below. A few small crates were scattered around. Only three people were down here besides Zidra, but she was surrounded. Ignoring the rickety ladder, I floated down on swirling ice crystals.
“Trap!” I shouted at the same time as Zidra barked, “Ilifir!”
She faced me, her face reddening. “What—oof!” A thin band of metal whipped around her and melded together over her chest, pinning her arms to her sides.
“Zee!” I raced forward in a blast of icy wind, ducking to avoid hanging roots.
The woman who had greeted us jerked away from Zidra’s back and looked toward me. Great. I hated fighting metalmages. They tended to break my swords and turn my jewelry against me. Thank Iskyr most of them went into craftsman trades or became guardsmen .
Before I could get to Zidra or the metalmage, one of the other assailants leaped into my path with twin daggers at the ready. His eyes flashed orange in the faint glow of my power. A shifter of some kind, but he probably wouldn’t have enough room to shift in this space.
A growl vibrated my bones. Zidra’s skin transformed to scales, and my eyes widened. The metalmage swore under her breath. Even my opponent partly turned his back on me.
“Is she out of her mind?” the shifter demanded.
Zidra grew, and the metal banding her chest snapped into pieces. In a blink, she shrank back to her human size and drew her sword. I grinned. Leave it to Zidra to pull off such a rapid and controlled partial shift.
The shifter in front of me snarled and swung one of his blades at my face.
“Whoa!” I parried his blade with a scowl. “Not my face of legendary beauty!”
“Ilifir, you vain fool!” Zidra shouted as she pulled her sword from the woman’s torso. Great Iskyr above, sometimes I forgot how fast she could move.
I was too busy deflecting the shifter’s rapid strikes and sending tendrils of ice in search of the third combatant to respond beyond a laugh. My magic brushed against other ice magic. I almost cried out at the sensation—far colder than anything I’d felt before, it burned against my power and pulsed with a darkness that made me recoil.
In my distraction, the shifter darted inside my guard and stabbed toward my heart. Cursing myself for leaving Laedresh without my armor, I formed a shell of ice over my chest. The shifter’s curved blade screeched across the ice, then glanced against my arm. I gasped in pain.
“Kyr?” Zidra called, sounding worried.
The fact that she cared renewed my focus. A blast of my cold magic sent my assailant stumbling back. Before I could press my advantage, a sword’s blade burst through his chest, then withdrew. The dead shifter crumpled, revealing Zidra.
Our eyes met. A smile broke across my face at the concern in her eyes. “Thank you. See? We’re a good team.”
She rolled her eyes. “The third one fled, but I want to catch him.”
Part of me was tempted to advocate letting the ice elf go, but Zidra would never agree. “All right, but we should be careful—”
I sensed the bolt of icy magic rushing at my back too late to counter it. Instead, I threw myself onto Zidra, knocking her to the ground. She released a pained oof as I landed on top of her. The bolt of ice magic crashed into a dirt wall. Its midnight-blue color was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
“Get off me!” Zidra shoved me hard enough I tumbled onto my back next to her.
“Wait—”
As Zidra sat up, another bolt flew through the darkness. This time, it made right for Zidra. I threw up a protective barrier of shimmering ice in front of her and scrambled to my feet. The two magics exploded against each other with a flash. My ice shield exploded into powder with a force that sent me staggering sideways. I blinked dancing spots of light from my eyes.
Zidra stood, her sword at the ready. “Who are you? What do you really want?”
The ice elf glided forward on swishing snow. I loathed the rare instances when I had to fight a fellow ice elf who had chosen a path of lawlessness. Even if we weren’t related, it felt like battling family. Not so this time. Something about the twisted power I’d sensed from this ice elf disturbed me. I felt no kinship with him.
He reached into a quiver at his hip and pulled out what looked like an unfletched crossbow bolt, but it was dark blue and pulsed with a wicked light. “To fulfill my mission.” He threw out his empty left hand, blasting me with a volley of sharp ice needles. Despite the intensity of his unrelenting attack, I easily blocked it.
“Farewell, rengir.” The way he said rengir made the word sound like a curse. His hate-filled gaze remained focused on me, even as Zidra growled and sprinted toward the would-be assassin.
He raised the bolt of corrupt magic…
And at the last moment, threw it directly at Zidra.
“Zee!” I punched toward the bolt, sending an arc of ice and snow toward it, but the magic-powered bolt was faster.
Zidra dodged—
Too late. Too slow.
The bolt pierced her right arm.
Her earsplitting scream melded with a dragon roar and shook the cellar. Dirt rained from the ceiling. Her sword slipped from her fingers, and she fell to her knees.
In a haze of fear and fury, I unleashed a blast of power beyond anything I had before at the elf. The thunk of icicles embedding in flesh and a strangled cry that cut off in a gurgle confirmed I’d hit my mark.
Zidra collapsed.
“Zee!” I dropped my swords and scrambled to her side. My knees hit the packed dirt.
“It burns,” she screamed. Tears streaked her face, glistening in the weak light of the candlestick resting on a nearby crate.
I stumbled over tangled reassurances, hardly knowing what I said. The bolt was embedded in her arm, pulsing with a darkness that chilled my soul. Zidra shivered and curled up like a child trying to get warm.
This was a tainted form of elf magic. I’d never encountered it before, but I’d heard of it. An ice curse. The magic was racing toward Zidra’s heart and would freeze her from the inside out.
I coated my hand in pliable ice, then gripped the bolt. Even through my protective layer of magic, the bolt was freezing. I yanked the weapon of pure magic out and threw it aside with furious strength despite how my hands trembled.
Zidra’s teeth continued to chatter, and she didn’t stop shivering.
Iskyr, how do I help her?
“It’s going to be all right; just hold on.” I placed my clammy hands over the puncture in her arm. Trying to ignore the slick warmth of her blood, I focused on carefully sending my magic into her.
My magic didn’t have to have ice or snow in it, but it was always cold. Would this make things worse? My throat tightened so I could hardly breathe. What if I killed her? My rival, my best friend, my only true equal among the rengiri.
No, I needed to focus. Not imagine my failure and her death before I’d even tried.
I sensed the twisted magic spreading ice through Zidra’s veins.
“Iskyr,” I prayed aloud. My voice warbled. “Guide me and save her.”
I latched onto the dark magic with my own. My scream of pain mingled with Zidra’s, but I gritted my teeth and continued. Slowly, bit by bit, I dragged the tainted ice magic away from her heart and back toward the entry point. Sweat ran into my eyes. The curse raged, trying to escape my hold. Every time I neared her wound, the magic not only strengthened but burned against my power, causing both Zidra and me pain.
“I can’t—I can’t do it.” My arms vibrated from the strain. “I can’t extract it.”
But maybe I didn’t need to. Maybe all I needed was to hold it back until we could find a healer.
I couldn’t hold this and move her, though. Unless…?
Ice elves could embed magic into almost anything for defensive traps—stone, wood, cloth, metal, trees. Living plants were the most difficult, but I had managed it many times .
This time, I would embed my magic as a barrier to bind the magic poisoning Zidra. I poured my magic into her arm, using the techniques used on plants to ensure I wouldn’t cause her frostbite or otherwise harm her.
“Please, Iskyr, make this work.”
I withdrew my magic and then released my crushing grip on Zidra’s upper arm. My body felt heavy and numb as I sat back. My toes tapped a rhythm on the dirt. I pinched a gemstone earring and rubbed the stone between my fingers.
A relieved sigh eased from Zidra. Her shivers slowed, then stopped, and her teeth ceased chattering.
“Zidra?” I asked hoarsely.
When she didn’t respond, I rolled her onto her back. Her eyes were closed, her breath slow and even.
She must have passed out.
I found the thin knife Zidra kept in her right boot in case of emergencies and used it to cut a strip of cloth off the edge of my tunic. After I bandaged her wound, I checked my own injury. The short, shallow cut had already scabbed over. It looked a mess and twinged with certain movements, but it could wait until I had access to clean water and bandages. In the flickering light of the dying candle, I retrieved my swords and returned to Zidra’s side.
She was still unconscious. The longer that ice curse and my magic remained in her arm, the greater the risk of something going wrong. She needed to see a healer at once. When an attempt to wake her didn’t work, I scooped her into my arms. Her cheek rested against the buckle on one of my baldrics. Murmuring apologies, I jostled her and wiggled until she seemed more comfortably tucked against my chest.
At least my misjudgment in leaving the city ill-prepared meant she could rest against my soft tunic rather than hard armor.
I carried her to the base of the ladder just as the candle sputtered out. My magic lifted us out of the cellar. A glittering slab of ice crystalized beneath my feet, and soon we were flying over the countryside, back toward Laedresh.
Between the imperial palace and Harcos Academy stood Merael’s Infirmary and University. Founded five hundred years ago in honor of a great light elf healer, the infirmary was still mostly staffed by elves, but human and shifter healers worked and studied there as well. The best healers in the Laedreshian Empire trained at Merael’s, and many of them served there.
The front doors were locked when I arrived. Only moonlight illuminated the sprawling building of white stone, as the lanterns framing the entryway had been extinguished. Unwilling to put Zidra down, I kicked the door.
“Hello! I need help! Is anyone here?” I slammed my boot into the wood, not caring if I damaged the carvings. “Please! We need a healer! It’s urgent!”
Zidra stirred in my arms, but instead of waking, she buried her face in my tunic with a groan.
The door shook beneath my persistent kicking. “Is anyone in the infirmary? Please!”
Muffled sounds of shouting filtered through the door. Something heavy shifted with a scrape and a clang, and then one of the doors swung inward. I blinked against the candle burning in the hand of the petite human woman in the dark entry.
“What’s all this—Kyrundar Ilifir?” Her lower jaw went slack.
Oh no. Right now was not the time to deal with an admirer.
“Please,” I said. “Are you a healer?”
“Yes…well, no.” Her bronze skin took on a ruddy hue. “I’m an apprentice.”
“Are there any senior healers here?” I demanded. “Preferably an ice elf. Zidra Eilmaris was struck by an ice curse.”
The dreamy expression fled the woman’s face. She blinked and lowered her gaze, as if she hadn’t noticed the unconscious rengir in my arms. “And she’s still alive?” Her voice rose to a shout.
“I stopped its progress, but it’s too powerful for me to extract—”
“Come in, come!” The apprentice frantically waved us inside. I’d barely cleared the doorway when she set off at a brisk pace. “The senior physician on overnight emergency duty is sleeping, but I’ll wake him at once. Through here.” She motioned into a room.
I angled through the doorway, careful not to catch Zidra’s feet on the frame. Why was she still unconscious? What if I’d failed to save her?
The human scurried around, lighting candles set in sconces. Golden light spread, illuminating a narrow but unusually tall bed covered in crisp white linens. I eased Zidra onto it, grateful for its height. I brushed curls out of her face, then adjusted her limbs until she looked comfortable. At least, as comfortable as someone could be while wounded and wearing armor.
When I turned to ask the apprentice how long it would take the physician to arrive, she was gone.
A stool stood in the corner opposite the bed next to a narrow table with neatly arranged containers. In the diagonal corner, next to the door, was an upholstered armchair with a blanket tossed over one arm. Instead of taking either, I perched on the edge of the bed near Zidra’s feet and waited, praying with all my might that she would live.