Elation lent her help without being asked, flying at the enemy with talons outstretched. My heart caught in my throat as I saw them try to fend her off, but she was too fast for any of their swords to connect.
Kharan and I tried to make our way to the Drevlian ship, but there were so many men now that the way was blocked. “Go,” I told her. “You can at least begin to help the captives. I will follow when I can.”
“Be careful,” she said before becoming a shadow that melded into the darkness, invisible.
I’d have to help them here—now—or they’d be overwhelmed.
Some of the Drevlian men saw me standing to the side, like a foolish doe caught in a hunter’s sights, and rushed toward me. Immediately, my skin turned to ice. Do something else, I thought to myself savagely, my hand still curved around the dagger.
“Katya!” the prince yelled, fighting to get to me. Suddenly, his sword ignited with fire. He swung the flaming sword toward the men, and screams of agony and the smell of burning flesh filled the air.
I glanced down at my dagger. The cold power seemed to hover inside me, waiting. I thought of how naturally the prince had taken to his own power, and determination filled me. I grabbed hold of my power and pulled it toward my weapon, imparting my icy energy to the dagger. Three men were mere inches away now, and I swung at them. A blast of ice shot forth from the weapon, hitting them in the face. It froze them instantly, and they fell, dead before they even hit the ground.
Above me, Elation screeched a distinctive cry, calling my attention to her. She was circling a trio of horses and riders, with more horses being led behind. In the lead were the king and queen.
Elation drew them to our battle, and I watched for a moment as the king and queen changed direction from the ships to the hill we fought on.
The thunder of hooves announced their arrival, and both the king and queen had swords drawn. They joined the fray without hesitation, their swords flashing in tandem.
“Who are we fighting?” King Leif asked as he viciously cut down one of the Drevlians. “Wasn’t I just saying it had been too long since we’d battled, my love?”
“The gods must have heard your pleas,” Queen Ciara said with a grin.
Sasha kicked an attacker away and swung his sword. “They are my enemies, and they have taken my people captive.”
I watched in a sort of horrified awe as one of the Drevlians suddenly turned on his fellow men, cutting down as many as he could, while the rest gave him a wide berth, their faces twisted with fear. For a moment, that same fear gripped me—it was like he was suddenly possessed. But then I remembered Queen Ciara’s power.
I’d seen a glimpse of it before with the palace guard, but witnessing it during a battle was truly frightening.
“Where are the captives?” Queen Ciara asked as she cut down another attacker.
I thought of her mind control over the Drevlian man, and suddenly, I knew how we could easily free them from their bonds. “Will you come with me?” I shouted to her over the chaos. “Bring him,” I said with a nod toward the bloodied man she had possession of.
I sprinted down the hill, and she followed on horseback before leaping off when we reached the Drevlian ship.
“The people are bound by chains,” I said.
The queen was silent for a moment, as though deep in thought. “He knows where the keys are kept—in the captain’s quarters.” Her head shot up. “But the captain is—”
She was cut off by the ground beneath our feet ripping open. The man the queen controlled plummeted into the gash in the earth, and the queen and I fell to either side, scrambling to avoid falling. In the next instant, the hole closed, swallowing the man like a colossal mouth of earth.
A man with green eyes as bright as spring grass stood over us, smiling a malevolent grin. He was richly dressed, in a brocade tunic, finely woven pants, and polished leather boots. “Is it the two of you who’ve caused so much trouble for my men? Let me guess, I’ve captured one of your loves, and now you’ve embarked on a daring quest to save him.”
The queen looked at him like he was less than the dirt beneath her boots.
“We don’t know the captives you have on your ship personally,” I said, my voice as icy as my skin, “but neither do we need to.”
“Then you’ll die for nothing,” he said, and before we could even react, the ground tremored beneath our feet again.
The queen shoved me aside, so hard that when I landed I could hardly draw breath. A yawning chasm opened in the earth again, prepared to swallow us whole.
“You could take control of his mind,” I said breathlessly.
“I could,” she agreed, “but I’d rather see what you can do.”
The ground trembled again, and we rolled out of the way. I stood and pulled free my dagger. Reaching for that icy-cold power, I seized it, coating my dagger in its energy. The chasm closed again, and I slashed the dagger toward the Drevlian captain. Ice shot toward him in a blast of cold air, but he raised his hand, and a tower of earth rose from the ground and blocked the ice.
In the next instant, he sent the earth flying toward me. I lifted my arms to shield my face, and it was deflected harmlessly off my icy skin.
Elation’s screech echoed in the harbor as she dove toward the captain, talons outstretched. He dodged her at the last moment, narrowly avoiding his eyes being torn out of his face.
“Does the eagle obey you?” the queen asked. “Can you communicate with it?”
“I can put thoughts into her mind,” I said, “and even though I can’t hear a response, she has always seemed to understand.”
“I have a plan for her, so I will see what I can convey,” the queen said, and her face immediately took on a look of intense concentration.
Elation seemed to pause in midair, as though listening.
Meanwhile the captain had been raising towers of earth again, and he aimed them for Elation. Fear for my eagle gripping me, I took advantage of the captain’s distraction and imbued my dagger again with ice. Another blast of freezing winter air shot toward him as Elation banked and changed direction.
With two of us to contend with, the captain was unable to defend himself. He prevented my ice from cutting him, but Elation attacked him from behind, tearing into the side of his neck with her talons. With a scream, the captain enclosed himself in a wall of earth.
The earth wall that had hidden the captain exploded in a shower of rocks and sand. He emerged, striding toward us with murder in those green eyes, his neck fully healed.
This time he lifted huge rocks from the ground high above our heads, and it was clear that he would rain them down upon us. I thought of how cold I could make things, cold enough to freeze and shatter. He let the rocks fly toward us, and at the last second, I raised my hands and thought of ice.
Cold shot from my palms, coating the rocks above us in a layer of ice so frigid the rocks exploded into tiny, shimmering pieces.
I glanced back at the queen, who was watching with her arms crossed, as though she was overseeing a training session instead of a real-life battle.
“Your defenses are good, but you lack imagination for how to kill people,” she said. Her gaze shifted to the sea mere feet away. “Perhaps something like this.”
It felt like a hand of iron gripping either side of my head, but before I could make a sound, images filled my mind: me reaching toward the sea, one hand outstretched, calling the water to me. The image changed to the water being imbued with my wintry power, freezing solid, and flying toward the Drevlian captain like swords of ice.
The pressure on my head disappeared, and when I became aware of my surroundings again, the queen watched me with her dark eyes. “Sorry about the headache—I thought it would be easier to show you what I meant.”
And as soon as she mentioned a headache, a splitting pain pierced my skull. I held my head with one hand, narrowing my eyes at the queen.
While I’d been in the grip of the queen’s mind control, the cap
tain had opened multiple chasms in the ground beneath our feet. Somehow, the queen and I had managed to avoid them, but we wouldn’t be able to avoid them for forever.
The captain lifted the earth from the chasms, hovering the dirt and stone high above our heads. He meant to crush us beneath it. I looked toward the water, and my mind filled with doubt—I’d never summoned water to me like that. With a shake of my head, I pushed it aside. I let my mind fill instead with the image the queen had planted there: of me summoning the water and transforming it to ice.
I lifted my arm, willing the water and air to obey my command. With a powerful burst, a cascade of seawater came flying from the harbor. A thrill ran through me that it had actually worked. I thought of the way the black water could look: like swords of ice. And the next instant, they were soaring toward the Drevlian captain.
He managed to stop two or three with spiraling towers of earth, but he could not stop them all. They pierced him cleanly through the chest, and as he fell, a terrible triumph rushed through me.
Before he’d even hit the ground, the queen moved toward him and pulled a set of keys from beneath this tunic. “The other tried to hide the location of the keys from me in his mind, but of course, there’s no hiding anything from me.”
She strode toward the Drevlian ship, and I followed. Above us, Elation flew with one eye trained on me.
Beyond us were the captives. Kharan knelt down before them, talking to them in soothing tones.
The queen tossed me the keys. “You can be the hero today.”
As soon as I climbed aboard, all the captives’ eyes were on me. Some were huddled and weak, others crying; still others had faraway looks like they’d given up all hope. A little girl, perhaps only five or six years old, cried for her mother. The sound tore at my heart. The men who would take a child captive—those were the real monsters.
As they registered the keys I held in my hand, they seemed to come alive again.
I found the main padlock where all the chains ran to the mast, stuck the key in, and turned it. It sprang free with a satisfying click. I passed the keys to Kharan, and she went to each individual lock where the captives were chained together. At last, they were all free. The ones who knew each other—or had at least come to know the other after being chained on a ship for days—wept and held one another. A woman from another part of the ship ran to the little girl who had been crying and scooped her into her arms. I felt sickened that the cruelty of the captain was so extreme that he would separate a mother and child.
They turned to me, then, and began a chorus of thanks in various languages, some even accompanied by bows, and I could only smile at them and nod with tears in my eyes. I was so relieved that we had saved them.
From behind us, there was the sound of boots ringing out on the gangplank, and then the prince, King Leif, Ivan, and Boris appeared. The prince had streaks of ash across his cheeks and forehead, the king was covered in splashes of blood and grinning, and Boris was the cleanest one of all. The moment the former captives recognized the prince, they swarmed toward him, bowing and thanking him for his help in saving them.
The prince took my hand and pulled me to his side. “You have Katya to thank for that, not me. She is the one who defeated the captain of this ship.”
“I didn’t do it alone,” I said as they resumed their profuse thanks.
The woman who held the now-quiet child came and touched my arm. “Thank you for saving my daughter. I will have nightmares for many years to come of what might have happened, but I can at least comfort myself with the knowledge that none of it came to pass.”
I gave her a little bow, too overcome to respond with words.
“We will grant you safe passage home,” the prince said, “if you can stomach being on a ship for two more days.”
“We would ride in rowboats tied behind your ship if it meant we could see our homes again,” said a man with a still-healing black eye and a swollen face.
“No need for that,” King Leif said. “There is room on one of the knarrs now that we emptied it of its cargo.” He turned and gestured to one of his men who waited on shore. By his drawn sword, I assumed he’d aided in the fight against the Drevlians. “Erik will escort you,” he told the former captives.
As the people followed Erik, the prince turned to me. “I know I have no reason to fear for you, but I cannot help myself. You aren’t hurt, are you?” His gaze swept over me.
“No,” I said, and he looked relieved. “Were you injured?
“No. My newfound power ensured a decisive victory.”
I smiled. Stated like a true prince.
I watched the people shuffle by, in various forms of weakness and injury. “If ever I needed a reason to solidify my desire for vengeance and join your battle against these enemies, it would be what I’ve seen here today. I want to fight beside you to end it.” I shook my head. “Little though I know of actual battle.”
“Just as the bannik said to you,” he said, his expression serious. “Fire and ice.”
I nodded. “Together we have a chance to stop them.”
He took a step toward me, and before I could take another breath, he pulled me into his arms. Shocked by the sudden contact, my skin turned as cold as marble. As the extreme heat of his body melded with the extreme cold of mine, tendrils of steam wrapped themselves around us. He pulled away just far enough to look at me, and the moment our gazes met, I could see the warmth of desire reflected in his silver eyes. His hand touched my cheek, the heat searing through the cold. My heart hammered away in my chest as his head bent toward me, my eyes fluttering closed just before his mouth descended upon mine. Hot and cold—for a moment, I was afraid the ice inside me would hurt him, but it didn’t; his own heat seemed to cancel it out. He deepened the kiss, and I pulled him closer, pushing away any thoughts that he was a prince and what was I doing?
All too soon, he pulled away.
“I—” I began, but then he kissed me again.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he said finally, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth.
A blush, leftover from the warmth he’d shared with me, crawled up my neck. “I’m thankful I didn’t freeze you to death,” I said.
“I don’t think you can.” He took my hand and leaned closer. “Our powers seem to complement each other.”
It did seem that way, but of course, I hadn’t been unleashing the cold fire. It made me wonder, with ice prickling all over me, if his own fire would be powerful enough to withstand it.
Despite what Ciara had shown me, of the well of power deep within myself and how to access it, fear still kept me in its iron grip that I would fail.
But then I thought of the captives we’d rescued, and I knew: I’d do anything to keep that from happening again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
WE SAILED FOR HOME THAT SAME night. King Leif was used to navigating by the stars—and possibly even leaving under cover of darkness—and both he and the prince thought it was best to leave immediately. They didn’t know if the Drevlians were here by the empresses’ invitation, but it was a good guess that they were. We had to leave before the city retaliated or more Drevlian allies arrived. The king and queen sent word to the empresses that because of a nearby battle so close to their ships, they would be setting sail early. They of course omitted any mention of their own (or even the prince’s) involvement.
Under a sky brilliant with stars, the ships cut through the black water. Everything was quiet as we were all recovering from the battle, and I should have been sleeping, too. But my mind was restless with everything I’d witnessed today: the prince’s newfound powers, the battle, the defeat of the captain. Most of all, though, my mind kept replaying my dance with the prince on the rooftop . . . and the kiss just before we set sail. This pull toward Sasha was seductive but frightening at the same time. We had a common goal now, but what would happen when the battle was over? Would I still be expected to live in the palace? Would I even wan
t to?
I rolled to my other side, and found that Kharan, whose leather sleeping bag was beside mine, was still awake, too. Her expression seemed to be pained.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. There’s a scratch on my side that’s bothering me, but it’s shallow.”
I sat up. “Should I put a poultice on it? Are you sure it’s not deep?”
She pushed me down. “I’m fine. We’re both tired. I already wrapped it before I lay down to sleep.”
I reluctantly relented, and we fell silent for a moment. There was shifting beside me, and then Kharan was watching me again.
“So,” she said, eyebrows raised, “I can’t help but noticed that moment between you and Gosudar.”
I shifted a bit before shooting her a side glance. “How long have you been waiting to ask me that?”
“Since the moment it happened,” she said, giving me a little poke in my side. “And so? How was it?”
I covered my face and flipped onto my back. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” I mumbled into my hands.
“Did he burn your lips?”
I let out a strangled laugh. “No.”
“Do you want him to do it again?”
“Yes.”
She smiled at me, her teeth white in the light of the moon. “That’s good, because I think he very much wants to kiss you again.”
This had my full attention. “Why do you think that?”
“Because I know things.”
I gave her shoulder a little nudge. “Yes, but what things?”
She sighed as though she was exasperated, but I knew she was loving every second of this. “I overheard him talking to Ivan when you first came to the palace. He said he didn’t expect you to be so beautiful, and he wanted to know what you’d been like when Ivan had gone to retrieve you from your village. Ivan told him that you’d been fiercely brave, and the prince said that from the moment he first saw you, he could tell there was a pillar of fire trapped within all your ice.”
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