Chapter 19
Lark
Idon’t realize we’ve wandered straight into a trap until a snowball slaps me full in the neck.
“AMBUSH!” someone shrieks.
The twins erupt from behind a drift like howling goblins. Aili’s teal hair peeks over a log, accompanied by another lobbed snowball. Mika, the quiet traitor, calmly aims one at my chest from the trees. It hits with surgical precision.
Val’s laugh cuts through the chaos, clear and bright as the sky above. I spin, already scooping snow while diving for cover behind a stump. If this is what hurting later looks like, I don’t care.
At first, Val hovers on the fringes of the madness. I can feel her eyes on me.
Then the twins charge again, their war cries echoing. She ducks as a pair of snowballs sail past, and she makes her first mistake, darting to hide behind me.
“I’m on your side,” she whispers, conspiratorial and breathless.
“Are you now?” I glance down, snow crusting the tips of my lashes. “You sure about that?”
“Yes?”
I lean in, so close I could kiss her again. Just like before, dizzying and drugging and oh so tempting. She catches the glint in my eye a second too late.
The snow I surreptitiously gathered cascades down her hair and into her collar. Her shriek is deafening.
“Lark!” She freezes.
No…everything freezes.
The temperature drops all around us, falling with the stillness that means you’ve just awakened a sleeping storm. Ice crystals gather behind her like a cape with a sharp frosted edge.
Um, oops?
I should stop giggling like an evil fiend.
The frost ripples behind her like a general’s banner. “Oh, you should not have done that.”
Why does terror seize my heart at that sparkle in her eyes?
She rises like a wave and pivots away from me. “Katja! Joha! Gather ammunition. Mika, take cover on the lee side. We flank him on my signal.”
Wind gusts through the clearing out of nowhere, laced with glittering ice. Walls of snow rise like summoned spirits, forming battlements, towers…even a precarious snow trebuchet.
Snowballs form in mid-air and begin stacking themselves into piles with smug precision.
I blink. “Wait, what—?”
It appears I may have underestimated our darling princess.
And this is her Royal Highness I’m witnessing, just not in ballgowns and glamours. This is our battle-ready future queen before me. Even Hugo senses the shift. The hedgehog bolts from my inner pocket, scrambles down my leg, and scurries off for safety.
No faith. No loyalty. “You spiky traitor!”
Katja’s already hurling snow, her dainty wings flared behind her.
The twins whoop and disappear behind their new icy fortress.
Aili has upgraded her position to below a turret, from whence she chucks multiple snowballs in my direction with gritted determination.
Deeps only knows where Helkki is, but I’m sure she’s staging a grand attack.
“Beasties! All of you!” I’m laughing as I duck and weave, scrambling for cover. I summon a ripple of illusion behind me, sending a flurry of fake snowballs to rush at the kids like a magical barrage. They shriek and scatter, ducking wildly behind their fort.
“Cheap shot!” Juani hollers.
“It was glorious, and you know it,” I shout back.
But my victory is short-lived. Mikael rises from behind a drift, a snowball in each hand and Eevi giggling on his back like a tiny warlord. The next hit catches me in the ear.
“Nooo! Not you, Mika! You were my favorite!”
His laugh is darkly ominous. I whirl to retreat, only to be pelted from all sides. Real snowballs, magical snowballs, sibling-launched violence. There’s no end in sight.
I collapse backward into a snowbank with a dramatic groan.
Val saunters up through the flurry, her cheeks flushed with battle-lust. “You’re yielding already?”
“I cannot possibly stand up to your greatness, my better half. Also, eight against one. Highly unethical.”
“You brought this on yourself.”
I grin up at her. I’m drenched, freezing, and possibly missing a sock. And utterly, thoroughly undone.
All I can think is: Deeps, she’s stunning.
Falling for her may be the most dangerous, most deliciously reckless trick I’ve ever played on myself.
By the time we finally trudge back to the cottage, the twins are singing some battle chant, Eevi’s asleep on Mika’s back, and somehow I’m wearing one of Joha’s mitts. Helkki reappears at my side, looking as messy as me.
“Where were you? Did you get some licks in like the hellion you are?”
“Who me? I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Well, that’s not suspicious at all.” I tug her cap down over her ears, dislodging tree needles everywhere.
We’re quite a picture. My trousers are soaked. My hair is a frozen mop. There’s snow in places I’m not going to talk about.
But my heart?
My heart’s never been warmer.
I’m high up a ladder in the glasshouse two days later, when the door at the far end creaks open.
I finish fastening the last pane into place above a bed of lehtok—a bitter, blue-leafed plant that turns nutty and rich when sautéed with salt.
Daria’s tavern meals use a lot of it, since it grows so fast. I’m being paid for this repair job in vegetables, so I’ll need to pick up something in town later to round out dinner.
Keeping eight bellies full is no small feat, especially when one of them is Mika.
Val’s curious face comes into view. Nine bellies, I remind myself.
It looks like Val is discovering this warm little world tucked behind the tavern for the first time.
Sunlight from the slanted roof panes gleams in her starlit hair, while bright sapphire eyes ping from blue arguta vines to clusters of orange tuliroot like she’s trying to identify anything familiar.
Her gaze catches on the fuzzy blooms of mullein curling under the cold frames.
“Val! Taking a break from charming guests?” I call down.
She startles, spinning to face the hillaberry shrub like it might have sprouted vocal cords. Finally, she spots the ladder rising above. “There you are! Oh…that’s high.”
“Don’t worry. I have cat-like balance.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” Despite the assurance, she hurries over to brace the ladder. There’s no danger to someone with Lyslander reflexes, but her concern sends a flicker of warmth through me.
“Thanks for the assist, fiancée.”
“You’re welcome, fiancé.” She gives me a proud smile as I descend, and just like that, my heart trips down the rungs.
Here, among the richly scented soil and blossoms, she glows. She’s a rare flower, and I’m just a nectar-drunk butterfly, helpless to keep from fluttering to her bloom.
I nod at the basket on her arm. “Is that for me?”
It’s loaded with a wedge of Daria’s nut-crusted potato bread and a chunk of oltermanni cheese, plus two ripe, glistening sinkkaplums—those golden fruits that taste like summer got high on honey. Daria is lucky to have a tree that survived this long thanks to her glasshouse.
“No,” Val says sweetly. “I thought I’d come eat it in front of you without sharing.”
“Oho, look who thinks she’s funny.”
“I can joke,” she grumbles.
Storms. If she starts slaying me with humor too, I’m doomed.
We settle on an overturned crate, passing bread and cheese between us and chatting about our days while sunlight steams the glass panes around us. As Val finishes her last bite, she tells me, “Daria asked if I could pick up the butcher’s delivery in town.”
“She’s trusting you more and more.”
Val shrugs, but her small smile is telling. “I haven’t spilled anything in two days.”
“Congratulations!” I chuckle. “And I’m guessing you’ll need some help hitching the mule to the sled?”
I already needed to go into town. Being able to help her and spend more time with her is only a bonus. Plus, I don't want to imagine what disasters she could meet trying to coax a stubborn mule into doing her bidding.
“Oh, yes please,” she says, relief pouring through her words. “I’ve heard tales about Tahto.”
“The legendary namesake of the Laisi Mula, yes. As stubborn as he is lazy.”
“That does not sound promising.”
I’m still grinning as we enter the stable after returning the basket to the kitchens.
Val approaches confidently at first, and I’m reminded that a princess must go riding and be around carriage reindeer often enough.
But her offered carrot is no match for Tahto, who merely blinks at it and shifts his weight with all the urgency of a glacier.
Val frowns. “He's broken."
“No, he’s just deeply committed to not doing things.”
The mule lets out a heartfelt sigh of agreement, then closes his eyes and promptly falls asleep.
“Perfect,” Val mutters.
Once I step in, we get Tahto and the sled to the market with only three bruised toes between us. A miracle, really.
“He listens to you. Animals seem to do that around you,” Val comments.
“You noticed that, did you?”
“Can you talk to them?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Animals respond to me.”
Her sidelong look tells me she thinks there’s more to it.
The market square is busy with bright awnings flapping and steam curling from food carts like delicious incense. Val’s hood is up, scarf snug around her chin, but her eyes are bright as she drinks it all in. I stay close.
We’re halfway down the farm stands, passing a cart of dried herbs, when she freezes.
“That’s him,” she breathes. “The trader. Locke.”
I follow her gaze to a tall, dark-haired human in a long quilted coat. He’s inspecting a cart piled with glittering curiosities. I would never dream of approaching the likes of him. He’s a gatekeeper. He walks between worlds. Men like that don’t deal with fae like me.
But Val’s already striding toward him. No fear. No hesitation.
“Wait—” Too late. “Storms.”
She slips between stalls. “Excuse me!” she calls out. “Do you have anything for allergies? For human children?”
Locke glances up, tense and wary—a man ready for anything. “I might. Who’s it for?”
“A boy. He’s a changeling. Always sneezing and red-eyed. It’s worse outdoors.”
That she would chase down a globetrotting trader for Johannes—well, that just about wrecks me.
“Sounds like hay fever. I think I’ve got some Claritin.” Locke watches her reaction as if the words he just said make any sense. “What’ve you got to trade?”
“I have something,” I say, catching up. Digging into my inner pocket, I withdraw a tiny vial wrapped in cloth, harvested during the last frost eclipse. I was saving it for an emergency, but if this could help poor sneezy Joha… “Captured moonbeams.”
Locke’s brows lift. “May I?”
I hand it over, pulse hammering. The gatekeeper turns it in his fingers with a low whistle. Light catches on a ring he wears with a big black stone. “Nice purity. You harvested this?”
I nod.
“Do you have any more?”
“Not now, but I can get more. Is it not enough?”
Locke grins. “It’s plenty.” From one of the many pockets lining his long coat, he fishes out a blue box with writing on it, then several coins from his trousers’ pocket. Seeing my confusion, he adds, “This vial is worth more than a quick pharmacy run back home.”
I accept the coins, but he hesitates with the box.
“How old’s the kid?”
“Thirteen, why?” I have no clue what to do with this strange box. Does it go under his pillow? Do we burn it? Is there a spell to speak?
“Good. One pill a day.” Then he laughs. “They’re inside the box. He swallows them. I can bring more the next time I’m here. Can you get more moonbeams? Anything rare?”
“Um…yes? I have moonpetals at home. Dust, occasionally.”
His eyes gleam with interest. “You in trade?”
“Not—not officially.”
“Well, if you ever want to get serious, come find me. I could use a source like you.”
He moves on, leaving me standing with the foreign box and unexpected coin in my palm, and a strange flutter of hope in my chest. Val’s looking at me like this all makes perfect sense—me, bartering with a gatekeeper.
As if a half-Lyslander orphan with a ragtag acting troupe could work with a trader (who’s probably also a smuggler, but who’s checking).
Nope. Does not make sense.
“Johannes is going to feel so much better,” Val says.
I smile.
Then I see it. A poster tacked to the pole behind her:
WANTED. Princess Talvie.
No. Make that tacked to every pole, all the way down the market.
It’s the same flyer as before. Iridescent hair, aubergine eyes, the familiar features I see beneath her moon’s reflection magic stare back at me.
The real princess gasps.
With a tight grip on my treasures, I tug Val with me to the sled, heart racing. Even if no one else can see through her disguise, we shouldn’t linger.
Just before we reach the butcher’s shop, a pair of cloaked figures step out of a side street. Their precise gait and the royal blue collars of their cloaks give them away immediately.
Huntsmen.
I scan the square, and—Oh no! A rugged figure stands at the edge, eerily still. Watching.
Beron is here.
Val squeaks. Then she’s gone, ducking into the wool shop and vanishing from the street.
Beron’s on me in moments. “Illusionist,” he snarls. “I thought your troupe had moved on.”
“Well…see…circumstances…”
“Who was that with you?”
“Who?”
A steely glare.
“Oh, you mean my fiancée. She popped in for wool.”
“You’re betrothed.”
“Yes. Absolutely. It’s new.”
“Is that so?” He sounds threatening.
“Yep.”
His lip curls. “I hope you keep her close, and your secrets closer.”
Definitely a threat.
“I will. You can count on it,” I say, my voice only slightly shaky.
Beron’s eyes narrow. “Now, listen to me very carefully…”