46
Quiet settled like a blanket drifting into place over the valley—as all of us realized it was still alive. Still here.
The serakan.
My breath fogged before me in sharp puffs as the fissure widened.
“Come, Princess,” called the king. “Walk around it. Quickly now.”
But I couldn’t move.
The dark mass shrank—retreated. I knew why before it grew once more. Before it neared the ice entrapping it.
I scuttled back right as it slammed into the crack. Water rushed through it and spilled over the ice toward me. I flinched as it covered my hands, but kept moving back.
I didn’t stop. Didn’t look at the scales peeking through the ice. I retreated until I felt safe enough to stand, then ran down the middle of the river toward the frozen waterfall. I veered sharply, suddenly, and ran toward the shore again.
But I should have known. No matter how deceitful or fast I was, the ancient creature beneath the ice was much bigger and faster.
It rammed into the ice again—six feet ahead of me.
I tried to change direction and slipped. My shoulder screamed as I skidded across the river.
Free me.
The voice was muffled beneath an onslaught of shouts and violent jeers from the citizens and warriors at the banks. Only when I climbed to my feet and dared to look at the broken ice behind me—spearing toward the lowering sun—did I hear it again.
Freedom or failure.
I turned to run when it dawned. When I realized the serakan had gone still beneath the ice it had broken. Waiting.
Breathing hard, I exhaled, “Free you?”
No answer.
Thinking I’d hit my head, I ran toward the shore.
Only for the serakan to slam into the ice before me. It exploded. Shards shot through the air like glass, scratching my bare legs. I covered my eyes, gripped the pelt, and hurried around the water expanding over the broken surface.
Freedom or failure.
Once more, the serakan threw its bulk against the iced ceiling of its home. And once more, I retreated and tried to evade and outrun it.
Freedom or failure.
Over and over, I heard that eerie voice as, again and again, my attempts to reach the riverbank were thwarted. Ice rained in a torrent of sharp shards. Water sprayed and sloshed around my numb feet.
Freedom or failure.
Failure indeed, I thought, panting and panicked as I retreated yet again. As I contemplated going back to Strenard. I couldn’t get across. The serakan was determined to destroy any path I took forward.
No one has chosen failure before.
I stopped.
I looked at the monster beneath the ice—dared to absorb the darkness that seemed to stretch in an endless and curving mass. A myth older than many myths. And I was standing atop it while it spoke mind-to-mind with me.
I am big, and I am old. I am scaled, and I am cold.
“Princess, hold on,” the king said. “We’re going to distract it.”
I ignored him and instead thought, You can hear my thoughts?
Yes, the serakan hissed.
You said free me. Are you trapped?
I am.
I gazed down the river, remembering how it narrowed and flared beyond the bridge. Are you too large for the bends?
I fit where I wish, and I wish to fit someplace other than this.
Growling sounded. My eyes swung across the river, and my breath caught at the sight of steel hair.
Voran.
Three wolves walked behind him—toward the piles of broken ice ahead of me.
“Stop.” I held up my hands. “Wait. I just need a few minutes.”
Though his brethren faltered, Voran didn’t. Laughter came from those along the shore who’d heard me. The king paced alongside it, barking orders I couldn’t decipher.
Failure, the serakan said, or freedom.
Tell me what is trapping you.
Rock and steel, it hissed. Where the river first tightens.
At the bridge. As I looked back down the river to it, my chest clenched. This area was vast to me. To the serakan, it was but a large bathing pool.
And it had been here for centuries.
I cannot remove that on my own, I thought, knowing the rocks would be ginormous and the steel reinforcement. But what if I promise to return with help? When I am queen, I will have the power to arrange such aid.
A vicious snarl entered my head before the serakan’s words. Similar promises were given to me so many eons ago that I thought those queens would be the last to lie to me.
I cannot do anything for you if I forfeit the trial.
Make those lupines move them.
They won’t listen to me, I thought. Not yet. Not here. And this king may order you killed for merely suggesting he submit to your wishes.
Very well. The serakan retreated once more.
Wait, I yelled in my mind.
But there was no response.
“Princess.” Voran. “Walk to your right,” he ordered. “Now.”
His voice shouldn’t have been a comfort. Nor a terror. “You need to leave.” I looked beyond him to the wolves at his back. Silver glinted in their hands. “You all need to leave this insta—”
Ice and water exploded near the warriors, arcing through the air.
Fissures spread beneath my feet.
A shout came, and Voran cursed. He turned back to pull a warrior from the water as the serakan submerged into the depths of the river again.
Freedom or failure.
Stop this, I said in my head. I will give you what you want. I swear it.
Promises are merely words.
Voran dragged the male across the river. I retreated from the cracks, wincing as I trod on something sharp.
A piece of ice.
I picked it up and hurried to a hole in the ice ahead. Halting close to it, I thought, What about a blood vow?
The serakan ceased moving. Three stunted breaths later, it strayed from the surface it had been about to destroy. A vow made from blood.
Voran leapt from one patch of ice to another, headed toward me.
I forced myself to focus on the serakan. Yes. They are unbreakable. Sacred. Those who fail to honor a blood vow are hunted by the goddess in their dreams. Some claim that people have met untimely deaths for not upholding one.
Voran rounded an ice pile. “Ayla.”
I may get free of this river, but you won’t. Let me make the vow. I kneeled a safe distance from the large gap. Show yourself, and I’ll give you my blood.
I do not like Seelie blood. So sweet it sours.
You do not need to like it. You just need to accept it with my solemn—
Water gushed from the hole in a small wave and surrounded me. The ice shook, groaned, and teetered as the river tried to break and swallow it. My hands slapped against it. My heart ceased beating when a large, glowing yellow eye emerged.
Black scales encircled it.
And I realized this monster was far bigger than I’d feared, if a single eye was all I could see in such a large gap.
Give me your vow, almost queen. Vow that you will return with your king and warriors to free me, and I shall not interrupt your trial again.
“Ayla,” Voran barked.
“Wait,” I said. “Stay back.”
I didn’t look to see if he did. Didn’t dare let my eyes leave the beast beneath the ice I knelt upon. I sucked in a hissed breath as I cut into my palm with the shard, and thought, I need you to show me your maw.
Water sloshed again as the serakan moved its head to reveal part of a flat snout.
Thank you. I then searched for the words I’d heard people say to my father when they couldn’t pay during tithe season. In exchange for safe passage across this river, I, Ayla Cloverleaf, soon-to-be Ayla Valadorn, vow to return to this river when the winter thaws to rid the barrier entrapping you.
Bracing my hand on the water-covered ice, I held my bloodied one over the serakan’s snout and made a fist.
Blood trickled onto the leathery skin surrounding the serakan’s slit nostrils. I squeezed and squeezed until there was enough for the beast to expose a long gray tongue and lick it. You are change, indeed, it hissed. I taste it.
Then water rushed toward me as the serakan submerged into the river.
For a moment, I just sat there. I stared into the gloom of the river until the noise of onlookers reached through my confusion and terror and awe.
Until hands dug under my arms and pulled me to my feet.