16. Raengar
Deimos Ice-Born was said to be the father of all House of Ice’s dragons—their war dragons, and carrier dragons alike. According to legend, Deimos had been K??n’s dragon, made of nothing more than a fistful of frost, and left behind after the gods left Illus. Even if that was legend and nothing more, he was the largest and oldest war dragon on the continent and had been passed down through the Kings of Ice from father to first born since the Rip, when the beginning of the Gifted’s recorded history began over ten thousand years ago.
King Raengar Carbore was arguably the most powerful man in the Realms. He was the King of Ice, Guardian of Elu, Commander of the Iskriger Army, and rider of Deimos Ice-Born. Raengar had won Deimos after he’d killed his father, King Katalong Carbore, and usurped the throne.
Deimos and Raengar were a fitting pair, matched in both spirit and temperament. Soulmates of the platonic, dragon riding sort.
Currently, they were also matching in other ways, both covered in blood, and their temper hanging by a frayed thread.
Deimos’s wings pumped and tensed under Raengar’s thighs as the great dragon banked to the side, coasting over the glittering city of Morvarand, aiming for a small House of Ice war camp erected half a mile from the city gates.
Eshaal, the leader of the second unit of the Heilstorms leaned against one of the poles that kept the tent erect; she gave Raengar a respectful bow but kept her eyes hesitantly on Deimos. Her gaze was full of respect and a healthy amount of fear as she watched his personal guards unsaddle him, feed him two large moose carcasses, and wash the encrusted blood off his ice-blue scales and claws.
“Hello, Your Grace.” Eshaal offered him a scroll. “Your sister’s Blood Hawk just arrived with this. It’s probably the Council of Houses’ answer about what to do with the minotaur news.”
Raengar’s mood darkened further, and he rolled his jaw as he took the parchment from her hand and grunted his thanks. He didn’t even need to break the seal to know what was inside.
“Do you need anything else, Your Grace? Kiniera just arrived, I wanted to go and welcome her.”
Raengar shook his head. “No but ask Kiniera if we can have our meeting after breakfast. I need a bath and some whiskey.”
Eshaal nodded and left him with one last nervous gaze to Deimos.
Raengar pushed into his tent and made his way to his desk, then he cracked the wax seal of the Council of Houses and read every damned word they had written him.
They would not approve of a war with Lyondrea without proof or reliable witnesses.
Raengar tossed the scroll on his desk in disgust.
He was the King of Ice for fuck’s sake, the most powerful House in the Realms by leagues, in every ranking system imaginable.
So why he was putting up with the bureaucratic bullshit or playing the mind games of the Council of Houses and the Trigonal Throne was beyond him. Valitlinn could burn for all he cared. Raengar drummed his blood-encrusted fingertips on the wooden pallets that had been stacked together to make his makeshift desk and started reading over his morning reports of any overnight news. Nothing good awaited him. He had lost three men in an overnight skirmish that still bloodied his skin, but no signs of any more Pit monsters.
Raengar had stationed himself in the gap between the High Queens Mountain and the Jagamine Mountains on the border of House of Death, watching helplessly as the Realms all slowly bled out money, men, and morale.
Raengar wanted to move more men to the border, had wanted to push into Lyondrea with the full force of the House of Ice and completely eradicate the Pits and any Lyondrean foolish enough to think opening the Pits was a good idea. But the matter had been brought to the Council of Houses in Valitlinn and had been rejected.
So, here he would stay at the border with only a small contingent of men, supporting House of Death”s small but ferocious army, and putter around uselessly, waiting for Lyondrea to show its teeth.
He rubbed the back of his neck with his palm, trying to soothe the tension away before he poured himself a drink in a glass tumbler. He had the glass to his lips when the flap to his tent ripped open and Kiniera and Eshaal rushed inside. Kiniera Kulltoug was his spymaster, and Eshaal, the leader of the Heilstorm’s second unit, were complete opposites. Eshaal had light brown skin, a prominent nose, and bobbed black hair. Her eyes were always warm.
Kiniera was normally so pale her white skin was borderline translucent, showing off the perpetual dark circles she had under her eyes along with the blue and purple veins at her wrists and elbows. Her long moon-white hair was nearly the same color as her skin, and even her eyes were almost colorless—an icy pale blue.
Something had happened to drain all the color in Kiniera’s cheeks. She looked ill, almost corpse-like. In fact, Eshaal looked uncharacteristically pale, too.
Something shiny fell from the corner of Kiniera’s eye. A tear?
“What’s wrong?” Dread curdled in Raengar’s chest. He hadn’t seen his spymaster cry in nearly fifty-five years.
“Unit One was attacked,” Kiniera whispered, another tear escaping her wide, shocked eyes. “I just received a letter from Jia Frostguard. Sahana and Volla were both killed.”
Raengar’s whole body froze, like his magick had decided to turn inward and frost his insides into a glacier. Kiniera kept speaking to him, but it was like he was underwater. He could barely comprehend her words.
“We recovered Volla’s body, but we were unable to recover Sahana. It was either burned beyond recognition—”
“Where is Rorax?” Raengar interrupted, his ears starting a low hum in his ears. Gods above, he had known. He had known it was a bad idea to send her to Lyondrea and had approved it anyway.
Kiniera and Eshaal shared a glance, the little spark of fear that had been in Kiniera’s eyes before was back. “Jia and Rorax are on the way to the Northern Castle as we speak. They should arrive today.” Kiniera’s throat bobbed.
Raengar gritted his teeth. “Why is Rorax going to the Northern Castle and not coming home?”
Home. Where she belonged. With him.
His heart beat so hard he felt it in his fingertips. He was banned from meddling in Lyondrea, but he would create a task force to get her brother back, the Guardians and the Council of the Houses be damned. He would shatter the Guardian’s Law and not even ask them.
Rorax was too important, and Raengar felt like he was playing a dangerous game he wouldn’t win if he kept playing like this.
“She’s going to the Northern Castle . . . because the Hunter tracked her, captured her, and is taking her there.”
Raengar blinked down at Kiniera. That low humming noise growing louder in his ears. The Hunter? The last Raengar had heard, the Hunter had been commissioned by the Guardian to find the lost Contestar . . .
“Why?” Raengar snapped, hating that he already knew the answer, hating that the most important woman of his life had lied. She had hidden it from him.
“Because she’s the missing Contestar.”