Chapter 20
Allie
My boots crunched the ice and snow with no remorse.
No strange light pulses tried to stop me.
No civilians stood in my way.
Even Mrs. Mallowmere, the sweets shop owner who had shown me nothing but kindness, had looked at me strangely when I’d arrived on her doorstep the second she’d opened, asking for pyrroot in a monotone voice I didn’t recognize.
If I couldn’t sleep, I could at least make myself useful.
She’d fussed around, milking small talk out of me with that trilling tone of hers, and by the end of it, I’d exited her shop weighed down by too many sweets to count and a package of red, stringy, dried pyrroot.
“This is the last of it, the next shipment is in four weeks.” She’d patted the pyrroot in my hand tenderly. “Careful with the ratios.”
I nodded like her warmth could actually reach me.
“It can sting,” she said. “Both on the way in and the way out.”
Poor Dax.
“Will do. Thank you and have a productive day of sales.” I’d forced a smile and turned.
“Dear,” she’d called after me.
I swallowed my sigh and turned. All I wanted was to be alone with my troubles, but duty came first.
Mrs. Mallowmere’s heart-shaped mouth opened and closed.
“I’m sure you’re all busy with training up at the fortress,” she said at last, wringing her fingers. “But could you tell the Commander that the east spring is behaving rather oddly?”
Alarm bells rang in my ears. I closed the distance between us, lowering my voice. “Odd how?”
“It’s swelled too much for this time of the year. I haven’t seen it so large in…” Her soft curls bounced and she shook her head. “Ever. I get water from there for the taffy, it’s difficult when it’s spilling over the banks, you know?”
I knew something was seriously wrong.
I thanked Mrs. Mallowmere again and raced back to the fortress, a million different thoughts fighting for my energy.
Lake defrosting, springs breaching their banks, Veghearas falling from the sky.
The magic that held this crater stuck in a never-ending winter was thawing.
As I escaped the labyrinth of back streets, my gaze roamed over the vast expanse of snow. Even the crater’s walls, hazy in the distance, were glazed with a thick, shiny layer of ice.
If it all melted, this crater would become one lethal lake.
City destroyed.
Solkar’s Heart flooded.
Civilians drowned–
A glimmer at the rim caught my attention.
It looked like one of the shards pulsed in the light of the rising sun.
I was so absorbed by the sight, I almost walked into another body. A prickly body, that instantly flinched, fists raised, scowl on her face.
“Good morning, Nadya,” I said.
“You sure know how to sneak up on people.” She exhaled and ran her hands down her leather uniform as if I’d stained it, though we hadn’t even touched. Then she frowned at the same shard, now devoid of any glint. Which only made it worse. “Did you see that, too, or am I imagining things?”
I looked again, but my Huntress eyes detected nothing. “Does the rim usually glow?”
“Sometimes. At sunrise and sunset. But I’ve never seen it so bright.” She shrugged and licked her teeth. “Any idea what could it be?”
“I’ve been an outsider for a shorter time than you.” And I was still one, shut out of everything that truly mattered. I kept walking. “But we both know there’s someone else you can ask.”
Someone whose mere name rattled my heart.
Someone I hadn’t wanted to think about since yesterday, but who’d haunted me just the same.
“What are you even doing here so early?” I asked when we neared the patch of forest flanking the fortress.
Other than the guards permanently stationed at the entrance, Nadya and I were the only two souls to brave the cold at this ungodly hour.
“Pretty boys in the training arena think they’re better than me. I need to prove them wrong. That means more practice.” She patted Francisca, strapped to her side. “I need to squeeze in any chance of training I get since I promised the Commander I’d keep an eye on–”
She missed a step and pursed her lips so hard, they disappeared in one line.
Blisters of anger burned at the edges of the numbness I’d cocooned myself in. It had been the only way to survive staring at that dagger. “Me?”
Nadya took one look at my frown and quickly shook her head. “No, no, he trusts you.”
No, he didn’t.
He truly didn’t and it broke my heart.
“Dax.” I let out a frustrated sigh and marched harder up the steps, uncaring of the curious looks. I got them any time I breathed, anyway.
All the fury I’d suppressed burned the emptiness away.
“Sorry.” Nadya chased after me. “If it helps, I would have done it even if the Commander hadn’t mentioned it.”
“It does not.” I pushed the doors open before they had a chance to swing wide by themselves.
Gods help whoever stood in my way.
The absolute gall of him to suspect my cousin when his dagger had been stolen and used for murder.
My father’s murder.
“Where is he?” I barked.
Nadya raised her brows at me. “Where do you think he is?”
“Probably destroying something.” I sneered. “Or rescuing a wounded doe.”
There was no in-between with him.
He was either the unflinching Commander or the calm Ryker who plundered my thoughts all the godsdamned time.
He didn’t know how to meld the two together and just be.
I shouldn’t have judged, since just yesterday I’d been wondering who I truly was, but judge I did. It only made me angrier and angrier as I marched up neverending steps, guided by a force stronger than me. One I didn’t dare look at too closely right now.
“How’s Geryll?” I asked to keep from screaming.
“Beside himself.” She rolled her eyes. “All he talks about is going to the Capital and studying boring, dusty parchments. I’ve never seen him so excited.”
The rage boiled hotter. Another detail he hadn’t bothered to share with me. “He’s going to the Capital?”
“Yeah, the Commander thought it would do him some good to pause the training for a while. Until his leg heals, you know?”
I did not know.
Because he didn’t bother to share it with me.
I couldn’t even congratulate the Commander on the brilliant idea–Geryll had no place on a battlefield.
But his secrecy had stolen this opportunity from us.
“Will you join them?” I asked as we reached the third floor.
I remembered this hallway.
The soles of my feet still ached from traipsing around it barefoot and frozen. After he had brought me here.
“Gods, no. My duty is here.” Something in her tone stopped my rush. Something dark. “I’ve seen what the rest of the world is like. I don’t need a reminder.”
“You’re safe now,” I said.
Though I wanted to smash his head right now, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he would move mountains, lakes, and seas to protect her and Geryll.
But he hadn’t been able to open that damn mouth of his for me.
“I know.” Nadya’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “That’s why I’m staying.”
I had no ready reply for that.
No true composure to think about it now.
But she was worried and I’d been raised to abate concerns, even at my own expense.
It was strange, to bear the responsibility of experience.
Nadya was eighteen or nineteen to my twenty-one and fierce in her own way, but the entire air of her carried a strange, innocent energy that pricked my protective instincts.
She could hold her own in battle and that mouth of hers ran fast and unbending, but she was still raw in so many ways.
Both her and Geryll tugged on the heartstrings, but in different ways.
They both needed a good hug, but while Geryll might have sunk into the embrace, Nadya gave off the feeling that if you squeezed too tightly or too long, she’d push you away without remorse.
She had a cutting way about her that made me pause and measure words I normally wouldn’t. Wondering which thread I needed to pull to get my point across without her bristling.
“Sometimes, we cage ourselves out of fear,” I said evenly.
Gods knew I’d done it more than once.
Still doing it.
“I was raised for this cage,” Nadya said, sounding suddenly wise beyond her years. “I’m good.”
I opened my mouth, but whatever wisdom I would have scrounged up after a night of unrest were stolen from my lips by quick steps and Dax’s hiss.
“Where have you been?” he whispered, half his body hidden by the column he’d stopped behind.
“Getting your things,” I said, just as annoyed. “It’s not eight yet and I’m busy.”
Busy trying to stop my heart from cracking, my mind from whirling between grim thoughts, and getting ready to spill all of that poison on the one who’d infected me.
“No, you are not.” He shrugged his elbow enough for me to see the corner of Evie’s palaver. My heart dropped. “We have a problem.”