“Do you want me to be completely honest with you?” he asked.
“Always.”
“What the hell are you thinking?” Ridley asked with such force and incredulity that it surprised me.
“I…” I fumbled for words. “What?”
“Okay, truthfully, yes, I probably can pull some strings and make it happen. If you really wanted to get out of here, I could switch your assignment with Simon’s.”
I waited a beat, and he didn’t add the but, so I figured I’d have to ask. “But you’re not gonna do it?”
“No, I will,” Ridley said. “If that’s what you really want. And if you really want to blow your chance at ever becoming a Högdragen.”
I lowered my eyes, and when I tried to argue against it, my words came out weak. “It won’t hurt my chances.”
“This is the first time the King ever gave you a direct order, and it’s a very simple one. And you can’t follow it.” Ridley sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You’re already fighting an uphill battle to be a guard because you’re half Skojare, not to mention there are only a handful of women in the Högdragen.”
I gritted my teeth. “I know what I’m up against.”
“I know you know that,” Ridley said, sounding exasperated. “Do you even still want to be on the Högdragen?”
“Of course I do!”
He shook his head, like he wasn’t sure he believed me anymore. “Then explain to me what the hell is going on with you right now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, but I refused to meet his gaze.
“You know this could ruin your shot at the one thing you want most in the world, and yet you’re still fighting against it. Why do you want to get out of here so badly?”
I clenched my jaw and found it hard to speak around the lump growing in my throat. “I let him go,” I said, and my words came out barely above a whisper.
“Konstantin Black?” he asked like he already knew the answer.
I looked away, staring at the wall and struggling to keep my anger under control. Tentatively, Ridley reached out and placed a hand on my knee. It was meant to be comforting, and the warmth of his skin through the fabric of my jeans was just enough to distract me.
“You did the right thing,” Ridley told me. “You did what you needed to do to protect Linus.”
“Maybe I did.” I finally turned to look at him, letting my cool gaze meet his. “Or maybe I could’ve snapped his neck right then, and we’d all be rid of him forever.”
If he saw the ice and hatred in my eyes, he didn’t let on. His expression was filled only with concern, and he didn’t even flinch at my wishful thinking about murder.
“If you really believe that, then why didn’t you kill him?” Ridley asked reasonably.
“The truth?” I asked, and suddenly I felt afraid to say it aloud. But with Ridley staring at me, waiting, I knew I had to finally admit it. “I don’t think he wanted to kill my father.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“When I walked in on him, standing over my father with his sword bloodied, he apologized and said that he was bound to something higher than the kingdom,” I tried to explain.
“So you think he … what?” His forehead scrunched, and he shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“There was a look in his eyes. Regret.” I thought back to Konstantin, and the pain I’d seen in his smoky eyes. “No, it was remorse.”
“Remorse?” Ridley sat up a bit straighter. “You think you saw remorse in his eyes? So, what? You just forgave him?”
“No. No,” I said adamantly. “I’ll never forgive him. But I think he regretted what he did, even before he did it. And it doesn’t make sense. I need to know why he did it.”
“He could just be insane, Bryn,” Ridley said, going to the only reason that anybody had ever been able to come up with for Konstantin’s behavior. “Your dad had never had a cross word with him, and then one night Konstantin just snapped.”
“No. He’s too smart, too calculated. And now with this attack on Linus…” I chewed the inside of my cheek as I thought. “It’s all connected. He’s plotting something.”
“If he’s still working toward some ultimate goal, then he doesn’t regret it,” Ridley pointed out. “If he felt genuine remorse, he should be looking for absolution, not trying to hurt more people.”
“Not if someone else is pulling his strings,” I countered. “And if someone is, I need to find out who it is.”
“Konstantin might be an innocent pawn in all of this?” Ridley questioned doubtfully.
“No. I don’t know what is motivating him, but he drew his sword against my father with his own hand. That fault lies entirely with him.”
Konstantin may have come to regret what he’d done. He could even cry about it every night, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d done it, and he knew exactly what he was doing. When I went into the Queen’s office that night, he was preparing to finish the job as I watched.
Regardless of what guilt he might feel or what reason might drive him, Konstantin had still acted of his own accord.
“You want to leave here so you can find him and hold him responsible,” Ridley said.
“Yes.” I looked up at him, pleading with him to let me go, to let me finish what Konstantin had started. “He needs to be brought to justice, and so does anyone else he’s working with.”
“Justice? Does that mean you’ll drag them all back here? Or are you gonna kill them all?”
“Whichever one I need to do. But I’m not letting Konstantin get away again,” I told him, and I meant it with all my heart. I’d never killed anyone before, but I would do whatever I needed to do.
Ridley seemed to consider this for a moment, then he pulled his hand back from my leg—leaving it feeling cool and naked without his warm touch—and he rubbed the back of his neck. “You can’t go after him alone, and you can’t go right now.”
“Ridley—” I began, but he cut me off.
“I don’t care if you think Linus doesn’t need you and the King is an idiot. You are needed here right now.” Ridley held up his hand, silencing any more protests I might have before I could voice them. “At least for the time being. Once everyone is gone after the party, and Linus is settled in, if you still need to go on your personal vendetta, we can talk about it. We can make it happen.”
“We?” I shook my head. “You don’t have to be a part of this.”
“But I am anyway.” He lowered his head and exhaled deeply. When he looked up, his dark eyes met mine, and when he spoke, his voice was softer. “Stay.”
“Is that an order?” I asked, but by the look in his eyes, I knew it wasn’t.
“No. It’s not,” he admitted. “But stay anyway.”
TEN
celebration
By the time I’d finished with Linus for the evening, it was nearly eight o’clock. After my meeting with Ridley, I’d wanted to spend as much time as I could prepping Linus. The next few days were going to be filled with overwhelming madness for the new changeling, and I needed to set my personal feelings aside to do my job.
I ran home just long enough to grab Ember’s present, and then I made the trek to her place as quickly as I could. The cottage Ember lived in with her parents was over a mile away from the palace, nestled against the wall that surrounded Doldastam, separating us from the Hudson Bay.
The farther I went, the farther apart the houses were. Near the palace, the cottages and even some of the smaller Markis and Marksinna’s mansions were practically stacked on top of each other. But at Ember’s house, there was room enough for a small pasture with a couple angora goats, and I heard them bleating before I could even see them.
A rabbit hutch was attached to the front of a house, and a fluffy Gotland sat near the edge of the run, nibbling a pint-sized bale of hay. When it saw me, it hopped over, and I reached my fingers through the wire cage and stroked the soft white fur.
The sun wa
s beginning to set, and Ember’s party had been under way for an hour. I knew that I couldn’t put it off any longer, so I said good-bye to the rabbit, and I knocked on the front door.
“Bryn!” Annali Holmes—Ember’s mother—opened the door and greeted me with a broad smile as the warm air from inside wafted over me. “Glad you could make it.”
“Sorry I’m late. I was stuck at work.”
I peered around to see who was in attendance, and the small cottage was nearly overflowing. Imagine Dragons played out of the radio loud enough that they hadn’t heard me yet, and I spotted Ember laughing in the center of the room. She always fared much better with attention than I did.
A toddler with dark brown hair sticking up like a troll doll came darting past, trying to escape out the door before Annali scooped him up.
“This is Liam,” she said, and the little boy stared up at me with wide eyes, looking too adorable for his own good, and then in a bout of shyness he buried his face in the blue folds of his grandma’s faded dress. “He’s my son’s youngest.”
“So they made it in okay?” I asked.
Ember’s older brother, Finn, worked as a guard at the Trylle palace. The King and Queen of the Trylle had come to town for the anniversary party, and Finn came with them as their guard. Since his parents lived in Doldastam, he’d brought his wife and two kids along for a visit.
“Yeah, they arrived early this morning. Why don’t you go in and say hello?” Annali stepped back and motioned toward the living room.
All the gifts were stacked on the dining room table, which had been pushed up against a wall to make more room. I snuck behind the people, nearly sliding up against the wall to add my gift to the pile. Mine was wrapped in butcher’s paper and tied up with twine, appearing rather plain compared to some of the brightly colored packages.
I’d meant to get Ember something nice in Chicago, but since I had to make an abrupt departure, I’d had to grab something quick in Winnipeg while Linus and I waited for the train. It ended up being a sweater that I hoped she didn’t hate, and a ring with a fox on it that I thought she’d actually like.
There had to be over twenty people crammed into the small living room and dining room. Most of them were fellow trackers, but a few were people Ember just knew from town. She was much more sociable than I was.
Tilda was here, of course, along with her boyfriend, Kasper Abbott. He was a few years older than her, with black curly hair and a carefully manicured beard. Last year, he’d been appointed to the Högdragen, and though he was a very low-ranking member, I’d already begun hitting him up for advice.
In the center of the room, Ember laughed brightly, and Finn stood next to his sister. Though this was just a casual family gathering, he was dressed in a tailored vest and slacks, just like every other time I’d seen him. He held a little girl in a frilly dress on his hip, her dark wild curls pulled into two pigtails.
Next to him was his wife, Mia, who appeared to be pregnant again. Her hands were folded neatly, resting on top of her swollen belly hidden underneath her fitted emerald dress.
“Bryn!” Ember squealed in delight when she finally saw me. “You made it!”
She slid past her brother. When she reached me, she looped her arm through mine, knowing that I would hide in the corners of the room unless she made me actually join the party. “A girl only turns seventeen once, you know, and she needs her best friend at the party.”
I hadn’t noticed until she was up close, but her eye shadow had a bit of a sparkle to it. Her sweater dress even had a few strategically placed sequins, adding an extra shimmer as well. Several braids twisted through her hair, and then it was pulled back in an updo.
“You remember Finn, right?” Ember pointed to him.
“We’ve met a few times,” I reminded her. He managed to get up here a couple times a year for a visit, bringing his family with him as often as he could. I knew that he was a retired Trylle tracker who now worked as a royal guard, and was Ember’s inspiration for joining the Kanin’s tracker program.
“How are you, Bryn?” Finn asked, smiling at me.
There was something almost strikingly handsome about him, and I noticed it more when he smiled. But he emoted so rarely, and no matter what happened he seemed to stand at attention. I respected him for his training and obvious skill in working as a guard, but he was so closed off.
After I’d first met him, I’d asked Ember if he was secretly an android, and I’d only been half joking. The scary part was that Ember told me he’d actually loosened up a lot since he’d gotten married. I’d have hated to meet him before, if this was him relaxed.
“I’m doing well, thank you.” I smiled politely at him. “How are you?”
“Can’t complain.”
“When are we eating cake?” the little girl asked.
“Not right now, Hanna,” Finn told her, and that was about the only time I ever saw his expression soften. When he was interacting with his kids, he truly let his guard down.
“Here.” Mia held out her arms for the little girl. “I’ll take her and get her something. It’s getting late for the kids.” Hanna squealed in delight and practically jumped into her mother’s outstretched arms.
“Sorry about that,” Finn said, smoothing down his vest after Mia carried Hanna away to the kitchen. “She gets excited.”
“Who can blame her? Everyone gets excited about birthday cake,” Ember said. “My mom makes the best cake. She uses blueberries as the sweetener, and it’s to die for.”
Kanin, and really trolls in general, had an aversion to sugar, except for fruit. We didn’t have much of a stomach for foods that weren’t all natural, nor were we big into red meat. Most of our food was produced in Doldastam, thanks to special “greenhouses.”
We had a few gardeners that worked to keep fresh produce and wine year-round, and to cultivate flowers that could bloom in the snow. They used psychokinetic abilities to work against the harsh winters of the subarctic, and it took half a dozen of them to keep the garden up and running.
Kasper asked how to change a song, and Ember offered me an apologetic glance before dashing off to help. That left me standing awkwardly with her brother.
“So … are you going to be at the anniversary thing tomorrow?” Finn asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m helping a new changeling adapt. But I would probably be there anyway, because of the added security. We should all be there tomorrow.”
“That makes sense.” He lifted his eyes, surveying the room of people chatting with one another. “Are they all Högdragen? That’s what you call it, right?”
“No, most of them aren’t.” I turned and pointed to where Kasper stood next to Ember, going through her iPod. “Only Kasper is.”
Tilda saw us pointing at her boyfriend, so she made her way over to where Finn and I were talking, and relief washed over me as Tilda came to rescue me from awkward party conversation as she had a hundred times before. I liked Finn well enough, but I doubted that the two of us could talk comfortably for very long.
“Did you say something about Kasper?” Tilda asked when she reached us. It felt warm in the house—at least to me, after walking the mile here—but her dress left her well-toned arms bare, and she rubbed at them absently.
“I was just telling Finn that Kasper’s on the Högdragen,” I explained.
“That’s true.” Tilda smiled proudly as she looked back at her boyfriend.
“I’ve always been curious. How does the Högdragen work?” Finn asked “The Trylle don’t have that.”
I shook my head. “How do you protect the royalty?”
“Most trackers pull double duty as guards, and when they retire from tracking, many of them guard at the palace.” He looked down at me. “It’s like how you’re working at the party tomorrow.”
“I have basic training, but trackers aren’t in combat that often. And we’re not trained to work together, if there were an invading army,” I countered. “The Högdragen have all k
inds of specialized training.”
“How often do you really have an invading army?” Finn asked. “When was the last time anyone’s attacked you guys?”
“That’s because they know how good we are. We’re the only tribe that has a real army to speak of,” Tilda added, bristling a bit. She held her head up higher, making her taller than Finn. “Nobody is equipped to go up against us.”
“What about the business with someone going after the changelings?” Finn asked, undeterred.
I looked at him sharply. “What do you know about it?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Not much. We’ve heard rumblings back in Förening, and Ember mentioned a few things to me.”
I glanced over at Tilda, wondering if I should say anything. Her gray eyes were hard, and her lips were pursed together in an irritated pout. If it were her choice, she wouldn’t tell Finn anything. Not just because of his comments about the Högdragen—Tilda preferred to keep private business private. Ember was a bit of a gossip, which was why she’d become closer to me than she had with Tilda. I had a higher tolerance for that kind of thing.
“I’m not a gossip at the market,” Finn said, sensing our unease. “I’m a guard, working with an allied tribe. Discretion is something I’m well versed in.”
He had a point, so I relaxed a bit. Besides, he was Ember’s brother, and she trusted him.
“As of right now, there is no business with any changelings,” I told him matter-of-factly. “Two men went after one of our high-ranking Markis. That’s all we know, and as far as the King and Queen are concerned, it was an isolated attack.”
“And who stopped it?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“I was—” I started to answer him, but I happened to glance past him and saw Ember go over to answer a knock at the door, barely audible over the music and chatter of the party.
When she opened the door, she let in a draft of cold air, along with Juni Sköld and Ridley. Juni came in first, and Ember helped her slip off her long black jacket. Once Ember took their coats to put them away, Ridley put his hand on the small of Juni’s back, and as they walked toward the party, he leaned over and whispered something in her ear.
Frostfire Page 9
