Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
Hanna
When we met them at the Dragons’ Teeth, Kaelan didn’t wait for me to cross the ice.
The moment he saw my eyes, he closed the distance in three long strides and caught my face between his hands like he needed to confirm I was real.
“Hanna,” he said, and the sound of my name broke something in his chest.
“I’m here,” I told him. “I’m me.”
He pulled me into him, hard enough that the cold vanished for a moment. His breath hitched against my hair before he mastered himself again.
Dare was there an instant later, grip firm on my arm, eyes searching my face with ruthless intensity. “You’re back.”
“Yes.”
He let out a breath that shook him outright and laughed once, sharp and disbelieving, before pressing his forehead to mine. “Gods. I was ready to burn the world down.”
Kaelan huffed a quiet sound that might have been laughter. “We all were.”
His hand slid to the back of my neck, steady and warm. “I knew Thorne would do it,” he added, softer now. “We all love you—but he’s the best at loving you.”
Something in my throat tightened. “You all have your ways. I’d crawl through fire to come back to any of you. But the three of you—how could I not come back?”
Behind us, the wind tore across the ice, carrying voices. The gathering site rose in a ring of ancient stone pillars, their jagged tops black against the sky. Fires burned between them now. Banners snapped.
Soldiers moved in disciplined waves, protecting the immense camp site, while others rested or prepared weapons.
The number of soldiers, camps, and houses gathered around the fire seemed to spread for miles. It seemed as if we were undefeatable, but then I tried to imagine Edric’s army.
“My father has tried to make the people afraid of you,” he murmured. “But they aren’t. They’ve heard about how you fought to save Thorne’s sisters, how you protected the crowd. Was that the Shadow Weaver who saved them? Or you?”
“Does it matter?” I asked lightly, because I didn’t know.
He studied my face as if he didn’t like that answer very much. But for once, he didn’t press an argument with me until either victory or a little light—and pleasant—violence. “I’m about to address my people. Will you stand beside me as my queen?”
“Of course.”
He took my hand over the curve of his muscular forearm, as if we were walking into a ball instead of war. Even dressed in our rough clothes and cloaks for combat, he looked like a king.
Thousands of voices fell quiet as Kaelan and I stepped onto the raised stone at the center of the ancient circle, the crowd instinctively drawing inward, as if gravity itself bent toward him.
He stood with his shoulders squared and his head high, the scars of his upbringing etched into the set of his jaw rather than his skin.
Ice creaked faintly beneath our boots as we walked forward.
Fires burned low between the pillars, throwing shadows across banners and armor and faces turned upward in expectation.
Kaelan lifted his voice.
“People of the Ice Kingdom,” he said, and the rich, sexy huskiness of his voice, his perfect formal diction, carried to every corner.
“You have been told your whole lives to obey, that the crown is stronger than the people who bleed to serve it. But the crown is nothing without you. Not my father’s crown, and not mine. ”
A murmur rippled through the assembly, then stilled.
“My father wants you to believe that resistance is futile. That standing against him will only end one way.” Kaelan’s gaze swept the crowd, steady and unflinching. “He executed Lord Mercant to prove he was right.”
My chest tightened at the memory of the nobles who had invited us into their home. They’d seemed like such a happy family. A low sound of anger rolled through the gathered ranks.
“Lord Mercant knew the risk,” Kaelan continued. “He chose it anyway. He chose freedom over safety. He chose to serve his kingdom knowing it might cost him everything, but that tyranny would cost him his soul.”
The air felt tight. Electric.
“I will not promise you that this war will be easy,” Kaelan said. “I will not promise that none of us will fall. But I swear no one will ever again rule you through terror. No king has the right to your fear.”
Something surged in the crowd then, hope sharp enough to hurt.
“No father has the right to turn his children into weapons.” The Shadow Weaver’s voice was in my mind, and I felt a ripple of confusion. Sometimes it seemed her thoughts were mine, but was my thought…hers?
“We stand here not as lords and peasants,” Kaelan said, his voice rising, “but as one people. And together—”
He stopped.
Not because he hesitated.
Kaelan’s entire body locked, muscles seizing as his breath left him in a sharp, involuntary gasp. I turned to him desperately.
“No,” Alys turned desperately toward Thorne. “Edric’s attacking—”
The wards shattered.
The sound wasn’t audible, but I felt it anyway. A tearing sensation, like glass ripping through my thoughts. Kaelan’s eyes went unfocused. His hand twitched at his side.
Slowly, inexorably, Kaelan’s hand rose to his belt.
To the dagger he always wore.
“No,” Dare said, already moving.
I grabbed Kaelan’s forearm, but he was so big, so powerful, and even though I could feel the muscles moving in his arm, feel him resisting, I couldn’t drag his hand away.
Kaelan’s fingers closed around the hilt. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together audibly.
“I won’t,” Kaelan rasped, speaking to someone none of us could see.
The dagger came free. I grabbed his wrist and slammed my knee up into his forearm, trying to break his grip. But he turned from me explosively, and my hands came loose. I stumbled back.
A collective gasp tore through the army as their prince raised the blade toward his own throat, his hands shaking violently as his body betrayed him.
Dare tackled him first.
The impact knocked Kaelan backward off the stone, the dagger skidding across the ice. Thorne was there an instant later, locking Kaelan’s arms behind his back, keeping him down.
My knees slammed into the cold as I grabbed the dagger, taking positive control of the blade. The crowd was a blur in front of me, but even as I feared most for Kaelan, I feared the crowd too.
These people would have followed him anywhere. Their fear and shock roiled in front of me now.
“The crown!” Dare shouted, his voice tearing through the chaos.
Kaelan convulsed beneath Dare and Thorne’s grips, his spine bowing, teeth snapping together. He looked more animal than anything else as his lips peeled back from his teeth, as he fought to escape his friends.
“Hanna!” Thorne shouted at me.
I rose to my feet, feeling the shadows press against my skin as I gazed out beyond the crowd.
Where was Edric? He had to be close to hurt Kaelan like this.
Alys skidded to her knees beside him, palms slamming down as light flared—gold and sharp, flickering like a dying flame. Ekardo followed, already chanting, his words clipped and desperate. Magic snapped back at them, sparks biting their fingers, leaving the sharp scent of burned skin.
“Hold him,” Ekardo barked. “Hold him still—”
“Trying,” Thorne growled, muscles standing out like carved stone as Kaelan thrashed again, head snapping back, mouth opening in a soundless scream. His eyes rolled white. Something else pushed behind them, pressing outward, clawing.
“What is that rotten king trying to do to our prince?” The Shadow Weaver’s voice was a growl in my mind.
Shadows whipped around my feet, little tendrils of darkness that sought to grow, to race out to find Edric.
“Let me go, little queen. Let us save this man you love.”
I wanted to seek out Edric with my shadows so badly. To tear him apart for hurting Kaelan like this. For trying to ruin not just Kaelan, but Kaelan’s rebellion.
But I wouldn’t lose myself to the shadows unless that was the cost to save my men and my kingdom.
Dare had the bonesteel crown now. The bonesteel was heavier than it had any right to be, white as bleached bone, its surface etched with runes that drank the light around them.
It pulsed in his hands like a heartbeat, and the Shadow Weaver’s curiosity rose in response, sharp and deadly.
“I wonder what kind of wicked spells they used to try to save our prince.”
“Put it on!” Ekardo shouted. “It’ll lock the intrusion out—now, now!”
Kaelan surged, nearly tearing free. Thorne swore as his grip slipped, ice shearing his palms raw. Alys screamed Kaelan’s name.
They didn’t lower the crown so much as slam it down.
Bone met bone with a dull, final sound.
The magic collapsed inward.
Kaelan’s body went still beneath Thorne’s hands, every muscle locked in place, like a statue carved mid-struggle.
Thorne knew it first. He leaned forward, his voice desperate. “Kaelan?”
Kaelan stared straight ahead, glassy and unfocused, reflecting nothing. The wild tension drained from his face, leaving it eerily smooth, eerily calm—as if someone had reached inside him and cut the strings.
Alys’s light sputtered out. Ekardo’s chant broke off in a ragged breath.
Thorne’s hands loosened on Kaelan. He sat back, his face etched with pain and horror.
“Hanna,” Dare said hoarsely. He began to say something else, couldn’t make himself finish.
I fell to my knees
The crown hadn’t saved him.
It had trapped him inside himself, locking the door when what he needed was to escape his father. We might have shut his father out, but Kaelan was still trapped in whatever nightmare he’d been locked in.
“Kae.” I shook his arm. “Kae, come back to me. You don’t get to order me to fight and then leave me.”
“Thorne.” Dare reached out and grabbed Thorne’s shoulder, shaking him out of his reverie. “Kaelan’s not going to be on his feet to lead these people anytime soon. You need to rise up. You need to raise them up.”
Thorne raised his dark, troubled gaze. “They’ll only follow Kaelan.”