Truth in the Blood of Traitors

Chapter 1

Sometimes life twists and turns and sends you on paths untrodden and unknown. It can force you down routes you didn’t expect and lead you to learn lessons that you never realised you had to learn.

You think you know where you’re heading, your focus fixed on a destination you’re certain will be the answer to all your problems, only to reach your endpoint and a fucking great chasm opens in front of you instead.

Bridges burned to ash, roads flooded and impassable.

And the journey you thought you were on?

It turns out you were going somewhere else the whole damned time.

That’s what my life has felt like since I won the Retterheld. Since Etta granted me the gift I thought I needed to put my life back together. And now things are more screwed up than ever, and no matter what I do, I can’t predict the next turn, let alone the final destination.

Standing on a snow-covered mountain ledge, I stare down at the sweeping valley where a wide river winds lazily alongside an impossibility: an icy-white city stretching out into a pearlescent mist, the spires and rooftops of its buildings glimmering in the light. An Issen city.

It’s a city that shouldn’t exist. It’s certainly not on any map I’ve ever seen.

Even from up here, it’s a long way away from the uncivilised, barbaric land my father warned me of.

Turning away from the view, my attention refocuses on the Issen guards. A dozen of them surround us, the icy white of their irises barely visible as they remain on their knees, bowing. Not to Kyor, the prince who stands beside me, but to me.

‘It is as we have always hoped,’ one of them whispers. ‘The lost princess has returned to us.’

Lost princess? The air tightens in my lungs.

There’s no way that’s possible.

It would appear as though they believe it is, Little Raven. My dire wolf Fen’s voice filters into my mind, breaking my stream of thoughts. They are waiting for your response.

But I’m not royalty. My reply is instinctive and instant. I can’t be royalty.

I’m a slum rat – though elevated now, thanks to Etta and winning the Retterheld, back to the position of my birth – and I will carry my decade in the slums with me for the rest of my life.

I cannot be royalty. It’s impossible.

Impossible, like my brother Florian still living, albeit under another name. Impossible, like the ice magic that flows through my veins, for which I would be killed were it ever discovered. Impossible, like loving the man who destroyed my family.

Impossible, like the city before me.

Before the Retterheld, before the trials I undertook to get my powers back, I believed I knew who I was. Rose Kultavaris, Morathkian through and through.

But now … there’s no denying the Issen blood that flows through my veins. Torailian, too, apparently. But to say that my secret Issen heritage carries royal blood? No, that can’t be possible.

I look at the men kneeling in the snow. Several pairs of niveous eyes flicker up towards me, but most are cast down in reverence.

My attention locks onto the visible patches of their skin not covered by furs and leather.

Mostly their foreheads. A delicate lace pattern, with lines as thin and intricate as the thread of a spider’s web, weaves across the surface – the markings of the Issen.

Markings that will be my brother’s death sentence if they’re ever discovered.

There’s no doubt that the men seem to believe I’m something I’m not. But why?

My eyes fall back to my mother’s dagger that I placed on the ground. Slowly, I lean down and pick it up, only for the ring on my finger to glint with a light so luminous it’s as though it has reflected the entirety of the sun’s gaze.

‘It’s true.’

‘The ring.’

‘The lost princess.’

The whispers ripple through the guards again as I straighten.

Several tilt their heads, watching me, yet they remain where they are, hands stretched out in front of them as if they dare not move. As if they are waiting for something.

They won’t move until you instruct them, Little Raven.

My jaw clicks. The last thing I want to do is enter Issen land under false pretences. After all, they might be bowing to me now, but that will change the instant they realise I’m not whoever the hell they think I am.

Still, we can’t stay here all day. There’s very little shelter, and if the wind changes, there’s a good chance we could be blown from the precarious ledge entirely.

‘Please, stand.’

The words sound far more like an order than I intend, and they obey within a heartbeat. Every single man – and they are all men, I note – springs to his feet.

None of them speak, and it’s clear they are waiting for me to do so. Yet my mind is blank. I expected battles and blades to greet me, not bows and obeisance.

Behind me, I can feel the rest of the group – my friends – waiting, their tension palpable. They’ve all come so far with me, risked their lives time and time again. Now we will discover if it was worth the risk.

‘I am Lady Rose Kultavaris,’ I begin, my voice sounding far steadier than it should, ‘and it seems I have Issen heritage. I would like to speak to someone who can help me understand my ice powers.’

‘We need to take her to Magnus,’ a young man murmurs. ‘It is her. I’m certain.’ The Issen guards stand in a semicircle around us, white eyes fixed eerily on me.

‘Should we not take them to one of the generals first?’ someone else questions. ‘That is the law if someone comes through the pyrrhic.’

‘That is what we do if Morathkians come through the pyrrhic. This is different. We take her to Magnus. Now.’

Given how they’re all dressed in identical stone-grey garb – almost the exact colour of the mountainside rocks – I have no way of telling which one is in charge, and so I glance at Benny.

With his power to see minute details, he’ll have picked up on any telling glances that give away the identity of the leader.

Clearly anticipating my unasked question, Benny nods towards one of the guards standing to the right of me. The lace patterns on his face fade and ripple like the reflection of winter sunlight on a still lake, and it takes all my focus not to gawp as I twist to face him fully.

‘Please, can you take me to this Magnus? Or to anyone who might be able to help me? We’re happy to leave our weapons with you, if you would prefer. All except the dagger,’ I add hurriedly. ‘That I will keep on my person, but I’ll keep it sheathed.’ I do so and hold up my bare hands.

I don’t worry about giving up our armoury. Kyor is a better weapon than any blade we could carry. And with Ruben’s flame-wielding and two dire wolves in our party, we could put up a damned good fight.

The Issen leader smiles, as if he knows what I’m thinking.

‘You can bring your weapons, Your Highness. Come, we will find King Magnus now.’

I’m being taken straight to the king? My stomach clenches.

It’s impossible not to picture Korvane, seated upon his throne, surrounded by sycophants and an obscene display of plenty.

The image alone causes the coil of nerves to tighten within me.

Nerves which only increase when the Issen gestures to a set of narrow steps carved into the side of the mountain. ‘This way.’

Fabulous. Ice steps. Nothing could go wrong here.

As I move towards the cusp of the ledge and see how far I could fall, the fluttering nerves are replaced by a sweeping roar of outright terror.

Nope. I do not want to walk down the slippery, slidey ice steps.

Maybe, despite their bowing and smiles, this is a test? If we survive the steps, then we get to meet the king.

‘Are you kidding?’ Benny complains from behind me. ‘We have to walk down those?’

‘Do not worry.’ A younger male Issen warrior flashes a reassuring smile at us. ‘They are wider than they look. And they will not break.’

The timbre of his voice tells me this is the guard who has repeatedly mentioned the ‘lost princess’, and my gaze lingers on the young man.

From the broadness of his shoulders and the patchiness of his stubble, he can only be a few years older than my teenage brother William, yet every inch of his visible skin is already covered in the white lace pattern.

It’s darker on him than some of the others, as though his veins run bright white.

The reminder of my brother steels me. William needs me to survive walking down this path of ice so I can learn from the Issen and then run back to teach him all I know before the pattern encroaches on his face.

If I don’t, how long before my brother can’t step outside in Morathka without receiving a blade through the heart? His life is in my hands.

I know I need to move, but my feet won’t obey.

‘You go first,’ Kyor orders the foreign soldiers, his royal bearing shining through, giving me a chance to breathe.

‘Ruben and Fen will lead our group.’ He locks eyes with me, and I hope he can see how grateful I am that he’s taken charge.

‘Then it will be Caz, Thessa, and Loch, with you following them, Rose. Elska, Benny, and I will bring up the rear.’

It will give Benny more time unobserved to study the sprawling icy city below us, assessing its strengths and, if need be, its weaknesses.

During our brief moments of conversation, a shroud of grey clouds has rolled in, hiding the city from view, only the opalescent spires breaking through the blanket of grey and hinting at what lies beneath us. By chance, or design?

I nod my agreement with Kyor’s plan.

I may not yet be able to trust him with every secret in my life – especially those not my own – but I trust him with the group’s safety, and it’s hard not to admire how effortlessly he slips into his born role of commander.

Yet despite his orders, the Issen do not shift, their eyes still on me.

Realising they aren’t going to act on orders that come from anyone else, I summarise, ‘You go first. We will follow.’

‘As you wish, Your Highness.’

There it is again. That title. A phrase I have spat so many times at Kyor and never expected to hear directed at me.