Interlude
LORD ROAR LISIKA, WARDEN OF THE WEST, HOUSE OF THE SNOW LEOPARD
Atop a knoll overlooking the forested land outside of Avaldenn, the Warden of the West could not help but wonder how his plan regarding a certain lost princess had gone so far astray.
Twenty-five thousand fae had gathered outside the capital, and they were on the brink of war.
House Balik, House Riis, and House Virtoris all claimed loyalty to the Falk princesses. With that recent revelation, Roar questioned things. Mostly, the true motives of Magnus’s newest ally.
Before he sailed south, the king had called Roar to his study, to join him and the prince, seemingly finally himself after many days of acting oddly. There Roar had met King érebo and heard the tale of Isolde and her twin, Thyra, freeing him. Denying him.
The darkness in the Shadow Fae’s eyes burned with black fire as he recounted the events beneath that mountain. And yet, despite also hating Isolde and Vale, throughout the tale, Roar got the sense the Shadow Fae king was hiding something. Not telling the entire story.
Roar was quite glad that King érebo was sailing to Grindavik with his other allies, playing out some plan devised by Prince Rhistel.
A plan in which Roar suspected he knew the bare minimum about and, truth be told, he was fine with that.
At least for the time being. As the lord currently presiding over Avaldenn and the gathering armies, he had quite enough on his plate.
“Lord Lisika?” a voice came from behind, and the warden turned to find a soldier. He’d spoken to her before, many times, but she had the sort of forgettable face that meant her name vanished as quickly as the wind.
“Yes?”
The fae shifted in the mud that the melted snow had left behind. “The captains are in the central square.”
Roar’s lips curled upwards in his first smile in days. “Very good.”
He left the knoll and with enhanced speed and agility thanks to his brand-new metal leg, Roar made his way into the field of soldiers from all around the kingdom.
The scents and sounds of camp came at him from all angles.
Crackling embers, unwashed bodies, and dirty canvases.
None of the scents were pleasant. Just another thing that made Roar wish he was at the castle.
Relaxing in comfort—or better yet, having already seen his long-held plan to fruition and calling Frostveil his own.
Many of the soldiers hailed from the west, and they bowed to him, but many others were not.
Those fae stared at Roar with a sort of curious wonder, equally studying his new leg and the lord himself—how he moved through the world in a manner that they never could.
Most soldiers were used to lords from lesser noble houses; not a high lord of the Sacred Eight.
Some may never have seen someone of his status until arriving in Avaldenn.
Here, however, each soldier fought not only for their own lord or lady, but for the Warden of the West. For Prince Rhistel. For King Magnus. And unbeknownst to them, a shadowy abomination too.
The Warden of the West neared the heart of the camp. The path between tents opened into the square, and as Roar had predicted, a crowd surrounded the captains he’d called for.
Roar, ever the showman, smiled and swaggered up to the captains, waiting in a line, their hands and feet shackled to posts.
Traitors. In the king’s own army.
Never would Roar find such traitors among his own soldiers.
Never would they write to the Warrior Bear and proclaim their loyalty like these idiots.
Maybe the captains thought he wasn’t watching the ravens coming and going, but since he’d been tossed into lordship as a youngling, Roar watched everything.
“You did not get far,” Roar spoke just loud enough that those closest could hear him. Loud enough for people to lean in. For everyone in the square and beyond to understand without a shadow of a doubt who was in control.
Two males and one female were tied up. Not one of them answered, although the female, the one with the most ice in her spine, spat on the ground in front of her.
“Imagine if you channeled that righteous anger correctly. Fates, you’d be unstoppable.”
“Prince Vale fights for the fae of Winter’s Realm. For what’s right,” the female growled. “He always has.”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
The high lord paced in front of the poles. “Then why is he with a Falk? Have you not heard the stories of the Cruel King?”
“Of course we have,” a male said, and recognition sparked within the Warden of the West.
“Captain Gorm, is it? Originally from the easternlands?”
“I’ve lived in Avaldenn for ten turns and reported to Prince Vale’s command for five of them.” The captain was decorated, though he’d left all those decorations behind after Vale’s letter had been found and he’d fled into the woods.
“And so you sought to abandon your fellows and fight with the prince who has joined up with the Cruel King’s daughters? Those females have as much murderous ice in their veins as their father.”
Not that he knew anything of Thyra, but he did know Isolde. That was enough to pass judgment on the twin sister.
“I’m with Vale,” Gorm replied stoutly.
“As am I.” Asmund pulled against the metal that bound him.
“As we all should be!” Helga shouted.
The crowd took a collective step back, as though the idea might spread like the blight. Roar’s jaw flexed. Though his wings had been mangled for so long, he still hated being reminded of what had been stolen from him. That he’d never fly again.
While that had been devastating in that same turn, his mother, father, and older brother had all been killed during an effort to better his house. Roar could not help but put partial blame on the power and allure of the Ice Scepter.
The same Scepter the Shadow King had gotten his hands on, though he’d been evasive when Roar asked how that occurred. Another reason Roar didn’t trust the shadow wielder.
“Your loyalty is admirable,” Roar said after a pause that was long enough for the crowd to be focused on him once again. “But ultimately misplaced. The king is who you swore to. The House of Aaberg. Vale the traitor is no longer a part of that house.”
Roar had learned of the queen’s infidelity, right before word came that deep in the south of Winter’s Realm, Vale had publicly proclaimed himself a Riis.
“The spare heir renounced his blood and stayed true to the Falk whore!”
“Say the Falk lady is better though.” Asmund scanned the crowd, as if to sway them. “What do we know of her? Not much. But was she not engaged to you, Lord Roar? She couldn’t have been all that bad, right?”
Roar snarled. “Isolde Falk betrayed me, and I have entertained you for far too long.”
He called his power, the shifting magic that outshone his winter magic. The power that had saved his life. Without it, he would never have been able to fly from that deep, dark pit.
Whispers rippled through the crowd as his magic strengthened, changing his body, growing it.
Fur sprouted. He fell to all fours. The pain of shifting used to be far worse, but Roar had grown used to it.
And when compared to the agony he’d been in when the blight ravaged his body, this rearrangement of bones, sprouting of fur, and growing of new appendages was nothing.
The snow leopard grew so large it dwarfed Roar’s largest sleigh.
A size the cats would never reach in the wild, but over his turns of practice, Roar had adapted his form to this for a specific reason.
Awe. Shock. He’d always loved his shifter forms for the effect they had on others, and now he loved them even more.
When he shifted he was finally whole again.
His back leg returned, and in his frostfly form his wings were functional.
His claws gripped the ground, free of snow. They flexed and released, flexed and released, as a low rumble carried from his chest up his windpipe.
“Dead gods save us,” Gorm prayed.
Roar took his time prowling closer to the traitors, teeth bared. Let them quiver before the creature that would end their lives.
He closed in, sensing their spiking fear. His heart rate sped up, the predator alive at the prospect of a chase. And though there would be no hunt today, Roar knew how to dull that need.
His claws ripped into flesh. Innards spilled, the tang of metal filled the air—the scent of justice and a warning to any who contemplated betrayal.