Chapter 47
Forty-Seven
Fire and Ice
My breath was ragged, and sweat beaded across my skin despite the cold air seeping around the door overhead. I wanted to go out there, needed to.
But Thain had told me to stay here, and I was determined to do it. Gritting my teeth, I formed a mantra and chanted it in my head.
Stay here.
Stay here.
Stay here.
Yelling outside clawed at my self-control, and I squeezed my eyes shut, continuing the thought on repeat.
Stay here!
STAY HERE!
The railing under my white-knuckled grip bit a splinter into my hand. The top of the steps just under the door were cramped with the heavy wood closed above, and I pressed my forehead to it.
More voices. Snarling, fighting, a bellowing roar.
“Stay here.” I whispered the plea, begging my bones to still. “Stay here, stay here!”
Breathing didn’t help. I tried to dip into the serenity of that magic place I’d learned to go to, but I couldn’t quite reach it. It took another burst of effort to force my way there.
All the air was knocked out of me. The white spark, the one I’d seen just before Nassir first met me in my cabin, was screaming. Pain. Fear. Love. Regret.
The spark sent me through a whirlwind of thoughts and feelings, and I felt her in her rawest magical state. My white spark. Schula.
My eyes popped open. I couldn’t do this; the pull was too strong. Nothing was going to make the urgency in this connection ease until Schula was safe.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved the door above me open, flooding the stairs with daylight. Thain would be pissed, but I could worry about that later.
The climb out of the doorway was slick with ice on smooth stone, but even with the distraction of watching my footing, my head swiveled to the far side of the training yard. Schula, bound by chains and with a blizzard swirling at her feet, lifted her head and met my gaze.
Thain, or at least I was fairly certain it was him, was hunched over nearly on all fours in a blur of midnight fury.
He was more beast than fae, his eyes almost aglow with silver fire, his fingers longer, ending in claws.
His posture had lost all its civility but none of its grace.
I’d seen glimpses of this from him, the fangs and claws, on more than one occasion.
But this was the largest shedding of his glamour that I’d seen yet.
Thain lunged, fighting for every footstep he could gain between Schula and the enemy, but he was terribly outnumbered, and it struck my heart with fear to see a dash of red that had opened on his shoulder, dripping onto the stone.
There was no time to think before I moved. Leaning down, I scooped up the wooden practice axe I had dropped and hauled myself out toward the fight. Thain had all their attention on him and Schula, and he didn’t look my way until I was right behind one of the enemy warriors.
Lifting the wooden axe, I slammed the thick edge of it into the back of someone’s head, since the bladed end wasn’t sharp or metal.
The fae was knocked forward into Thain, who met him with a brutal ripping motion to the throat that I had to look away from.
Keeping the momentum from that first blow, I swung for the next fighter and missed horribly as she turned to defend herself.
“Wren, no!” Schula managed a scream as I stumbled, and the fighter bared her teeth.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that my opponent was turning around at the last second, I wouldn’t have bloodied her nose the way I did. The snap of cartilage rang clear as she fell to the ground, clutching the slippery mess of her face.
Keep going.
Two more fighters tried to turn on me, but Thain was faster, taking a swipe at one of them, leaving me with only one to deal with.
And if I had been a trained fighter like they were, maybe I could have.
My few weeks of work with Schula were not going to help me here.
Not against the giant in front of me with arms like tree trunks and a nasty snarl on his face.
I took a wild swing with the axe and missed horribly. This fae was much more ready for a fight than the one whose nose I’d broken. He landed a punch right in the soft spot under my rib cage. The wind was knocked out of me as I rolled across the stone training grounds.
“No!” A weak cry came from Schula, who struggled against her chains.
That made me angry. They’d chained her up. They’d chained up what could quite possibly be DuVarick’s own daughter and done who knew what to her while she was helpless. Did they know why they tormented her? Did they care?
What else has she endured here? Not only now, but before she left in the first place?
I unclenched my fist and let the wooden axe clatter to the floor. I watched, panting, as the big fae came after me for another attack. And then I set the world on fire.
No control, no holding back. I let it out. I roared as my back arched on the cold stone beneath me, and I threw flames out around me. I knew I caught the fae charging at me because he screamed as the heat and flame hit his clothing.
I hoped I hadn’t hit Thain, but I was pretty sure I was well away from him at this point.
My little show got the attention of more than just my attacker.
Several heads turned my way. Thain took the opportunity to attack anyone who was distracted.
Schula’s eyes bored into me with a desperate want, and I was sure my face mirrored hers as I called out, “I’m coming! ”
I climbed to my feet, slightly shaky but mostly intact.
A few of the fae tried to use their magics against me, but no wind, rain, snow, or anything else was able to penetrate my radius of fire.
I quickly positioned myself behind Thain, who took up the mantle of protecting me and Schula, though he didn’t look too good.
There had been an awful lot of warriors to fight, and as powerful as he was, Thain was only one person amid them.
But my eyes were locked on Schula. Up close, I could see healing-over bruises, and the scars on her body that I had seen in the bath were joined now by new lacerations.
I snarled as I attacked the chains. “Let go!”
I reached out with my hands and grabbed the links, burning them, melting them, pulling them off her and off the tower that held her.
Schula whimpered, but I was being as careful as I could.
I tried a little harder to be gentle as I pulled the metal from her wrists and ankles.
I sagged with relief when she fell into my arms, extinguishing my fire, then both of us fell over.
She was in my arms, finally, and she was safe.
And she would never be hurt like this again as long as I drew breath. She buried her face into my neck.
“Wren,” she sobbed.
“We have you now,” I whispered, stroking her hair. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Wren, you beautiful fool.” She let out a choked laugh among her tears. “If anything happened to you . . . You shouldn’t have come for me.”
“Why?” My heart tightened.
She does hate me after all, doesn’t she?
No matter, she was safe.
She placed a soft kiss on the tip of my nose. “Wren, you’re mine, and I’m yours. Of course I don’t want any harm to come to you, you’re my triquetram.”
Triquetram.
It hadn’t occurred to me that somewhere out there I might have one. To have found one of them, and for it to have been Schula all along, was unbelievable.
I blinked at her.
“I finally found you,” Schula whispered.
An angry roar brought us back to the world around us. Thain was furiously fighting the Winter Court warriors, more of them pouring into the open grounds from wooden doors like the one I’d come through.
“Shit.” Schula coughed.
I took off my training coat and slipped it over her. She needed the padding more than me. I discarded the helmet and was left with boots, padded pants, and the undershirt from my servant disguise.
“We need to go,” I said. She nodded, and we turned to see how Thain was faring.
He had taken several blows but was still standing.
Blood dripped on the ground around him, mixing with the snow and making his footing treacherous and slippery.
I turned my head, trying to find a closer door than the one on the other side of the training grounds.
There were several, but they all had at least one fae between us and escape.
Since there was little difference between them, I chose the closest one and ignited my flames again.
I made a sudden push for the door, but the warrior wasn’t surprised by my actions.
I flung one arm out before me, the other supporting Schula.
Fire spat toward the big fae and threatened to engulf him, but his own powers were just barely pushing mine back.
Schula threw an arm out to mirror my own, and my eyes grew wide as the air around us gathered into little ice crystals and reinforced my attack tenfold. It knocked the warrior aside as though he were a doll in a windstorm.
I felt it, her presence and powers supporting mine. This was what Thain had meant all along. Her strength was my strength, and my weakness was her weakness. I could see how in DuVarick’s madness he could lock Nassir up, though it didn’t quell my anger at him for it.
I trusted Thain to follow when he was able and pulled Schula to the doorway. Inside, without the elements barraging us, I looked her over again. She was tired, and she was hurt, but it was survivable.
“Can you walk?” I asked.
“I think so,” she said. She stood but kept a solid hold of my hand. I was happy to let her have it. I pulled us along blindly, not knowing where I was going but knowing we needed to leave Icehold entirely.
The tunnels were nothing like the servants’ ones I’d traveled before. These had less decoration and had probably been added long after Nassir had been imprisoned.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Schula panted.
“No,” I answered.
We walked quietly, as fast as I thought Schula could be pushed. I heard the distant sounds of Thain fighting on the roof, until I didn’t.
“Do you hear that?” I asked.
“What?” Schula whispered.
“Nothing. Thain was fighting, and now he isn’t,” I said.
She tilted her head to the side, pointing one ear to where we had come from. “Nothing. You’re right.”
Neither of us wanted to ask the question, but we were both thinking it.
Is Thain okay?
“Hey,” I whispered. “We’re nowhere near the ballroom, right?”
“I—oh!” Schula was snatched inside a darkened room, and the surprise of it caused me to lose my grip on her hand.
“Schula!” I hissed and pushed into the room, only to be pulled further into it by a thin hand with long, claw-like nails.
The room was black. I panicked and brought up a flame to my hands as I searched desperately for Schula.
A pink figure closed the door swiftly and pressed a hand to my mouth firmly.
“Shh,” it whispered.
I was about to lose it when I spotted a wide-eyed Schula sitting on a bed.
She was unharmed, sitting there in shock.
I noted the nature of the room. I would have thought it was someone’s living quarters, but there were no chests or wardrobes, and candles lined every corner, flickering temptation and secrets making the room look eerie.
There was a seductive musk in the air that reminded me of something.
This room had one purpose, and the bed being the sole furniture in it attested to that.
I was about to pull the hand from my mouth when the footsteps started.
Right outside the door, six or seven beings were running.
My heart pounded for Thain. Was he okay? Was he being chased?
The footsteps slowed, and I distinctly heard doors being opened and closed around us.
Panic started to set in when I was gently tugged to the bed. I was urged, along with Schula, to get under the blankets, and then I turned and recognized the pink figure with short black hair and crystal-white eyes. She was naked as the day she was born, save for a diamond collar and a golden ring.
Krissaph? I mouthed.
She winked at me and pulled the blankets over my head, covering me and Schula in one swoop. I heard her blow out a few of the candles before I heard the door pull open.
“Oh, excuse me, Ambassador Krissaph,” a rough voice said. “Have you seen a white fae and an accomplice come by here?”
I began to sweat under the heat of the blankets. Schula reached out and held my hand, which helped my nerves.
“No, I’ve been quite busy.” She paused, and I could swear the hum I heard meant she’d turned her head toward the blankets. “Getting ready for the ball, of course. I haven’t noticed anyone else.”
“You’re sure?” the voice asked.
“Would you care to join us, Captain?” Krissaph asked. “I’d be delighted to help you find out just how distracting I can be.”
“No,” the voice said curtly. “Go about your business, but alert us if you see anyone suspicious.”
“Your loss,” Krissaph purred. “I’ll let you know, Captain.”
“Right,” the captain said, and then I heard the none-too-gentle closing of the door.
The opening and closing around us continued for several minutes before fading. Krissaph finally pulled the blankets from over us and peered down at us with a sly grin.
“Hello, you two,” she mused. “I got your birdie, and I’m here to help.”