by K. M. Shea
“Isn’t it strange that no one is coming to help you?” Farrin asked as Rakel backed away from him. He traced the edge of his scar—the white one that crossed his cheekbones and bridged his nose—with a gloved finger.
“What do you mean?” Rakel asked warily.
“You’re obviously in trouble. I could take you at any moment, and no one is moving to help you.” Though his words were hostile, he looked past Rakel and studied the Verglas forces with disapproval.
Rakel cast a cautious glance around the battlefield. It was a grim sight. Without her support, the Verglas soldiers were outnumbered. They were fighting valiantly, facing off against the better-equipped Chosen soldiers with fierce cries, but man after man fell, staining the battlefield.
Rakel exhaled sharply through her clenched teeth, making a whistling noise. If we don’t do something we’re going to lose. I have to help! She hauled her magic—grabbing more of it than usual—and snapped. Ice clamped around Farrin’s feet like a bear trap, freezing him in place. Rakel expelled the last of the storm, fixed her gaze on the weather magic user, and hurled a giant chunk of ice at him. It hit him in the head, and he crumpled, falling to the ground. Hearing the ominous noise of groaning ice, Rakel threw up two more support columns of ice without turning around to see the young girl who was trying to crush them.
Panting, she whirled around and pelted ice-covered snowballs at Farrin as he broke free of his ice shoes. He reflected them with ease and would have pelted several Verglas soldiers trying to take down a giant snow bear if Rakel hadn’t thrown up an ice shield in time.
“Surrender, Your Highness. You’re near your limit.”
Rakel wanted to scoff. How does he presume to know my limit? As Farrin moved into close range, Rakel channeled a slice of her frozen magic and blew a blustery, ice-flecked wind. Farrin was so close, he couldn’t angle his sword, so when he raised it, the magic bounced off and hit Rakel. She was braced for it, though, and was unbothered by the cold and bits of ice…until pain bloomed in her arm.
Rakel screamed as a wolf clamped on her upper arm, savagely ripping her skin. She kicked it in the stomach, sending it flying. In mid-air, it turned into a snow bear and, with its longer reach, raked her side with its claws.
Rakel flopped to the ground, her body consumed with pain.
“Bunny!” Farrin snapped. Even in the middle of great pain, Rakel realized she had never seen Farrin so angry before. He drew himself up to his full height and his slate-gray eyes were as welcoming as frigid lakes. “Attacking Princess Rakel was not a part of my orders. What are you doing?”
“You ain’t pushing her hard enough. While fightin’ you, she took out Bluff, and she’s been keeping Dryden from collapsing that shelter on the soldiers’ heads,” said a sharp female voice.
“Bluff’s down?”
“Sure is.”
“Fine. Help Dryden and end the fight.”
“What about little ol’ princess, here?”
“I’ll take her back to camp.”
Rakel grit her teeth and pushed herself to her feet. “Captain Halvor, call a retreat!” she shouted.
“We can’t retreat—they’ll follow us!” Phile shouted, kicking a Chosen soldier in the face.
“They won’t be able to,” Rakel promised.
Captain Halvor, who was facing off with the sweet-faced girl that possessed the strength of a battering ram, grimaced when she scored a hit to his side. “Fall back!” he shouted. “Retreat!”
Rakel clamped her hands to her bleeding side. She tried to freeze Farrin’s feet again, but he noticed her attack and sprinted in close to her. She threw up a shield of ice to protect herself, and Farrin cleaved it in half. While she scrambled backwards, she threw up ice walls—cutting off Chosen soldiers so they couldn’t follow the retreating Verglas army into the pass.
Farrin, using his speed, caught her, grabbing her by her injured upper arm. When Rakel yelped, he frowned, stabbed his sword into the ground so he could secure her by her wrist, and lifted his hand that had squeezed her injured arm. “Bunny wounded you,” he said, narrowing his eyes at his red-coated glove.
Rakel didn’t waste her breath on replying. Even though the pain made her head swim, she stopped Chosen soldiers wherever she could. She brought down the ice pavilion on top of the brute-strength girl, froze a dozen pursuing soldiers to the ground, and heaved up a low wall topped with spiked ice that made the cavalry horses balk.
“Little Wolf, come!” Phile shouted.
With her various attacks, Rakel had managed to create a bit of a gap—some of the Chosen army would get through, but only a dozen or so, and she was confident Verglas soldiers could handle that many.
It’s time to get away.
Farrin grabbed his sword with his speed magic, barely bringing it up in time to reflect the giant block of ice Rakel thrust between them. The ice block bounced into her—as she had hoped—and flung her backwards, ripping her out of his grip.
Rakel sprinted to the Verglas soldiers, raising a line of six-foot ice spikes up and down the battlefield, cutting the Chosen army off. “Keep going!” she shouted to the Verglas troops.
“This won’t stop us, Your Highness,” Farrin said, crouched on top of an ice spike. A little farther down the line, several of the ice spikes started to crack—the work of the battering-ram girl most likely.
“It won’t,” Rakel agreed, clenching her hands into fists, “but this will.” Reaching deep, she tapped her magic. It poured from her like a river flooded from the spring rains. A thick, slick wall of ice shot out of the ground, plunging towards the sky as if it intended to reach the clouds. It wasn’t sheer ice, but a perfect replica of a fortress wall, with ice support beams cut to resemble stone blocks. The top of the wall sported the jagged pattern of crenels and arrow slits.
It was at least twenty feet thick and stretched past the battlefield, blocking off the hills on either side, and extended into the snow Rakel had created the previous night, tapering into drifts taller than a grown man.
It wasn’t just a wall; it was a wonder of craftsmanship and engineering.
As Rakel solidified the wall, forcing it to such a low temperature the ice around it popped and crackled, the wind ripped her hair from its already mussed braid, ruffling her wild, snow-white locks as she pulled more and more on her magic. When the wall was sufficiently tall—rising well above what any man-made wall in Verglas aspired to—she released her magic. She staggered at the sudden drop of pressure and risked a glance at Farrin.
He was staring at her ice wall as if it were a fairy tale creature. The strength-magic girl and the snow bear had managed to break through Rakel’s ice spikes, but the snow bear sat down in shock, and it seemed like the only thing holding the younger girl up was her grip on one of the spikes.
Good, Rakel thought as she backed up until her back hit the ice wall. If they are that awed, then they don’t have a way of getting through this. The ice wall was so cold, even Rakel cringed in discomfort when she touched it.
“Rakel—wait!” Farrin shouted, jumping from the spike and sprinting for her.
Rakel leaned against the ice wall, ignoring the bone-chilling cold. The wall eased behind her and then snapped back in place in front of her, putting her out of reach as Farrin stretched out, almost grazing the icy glaze. Rakel saw him snatch his hand back—most likely tingling from the temperature—and she pushed her way through her wall.
When she popped out on the other side, her pale skin was pink from the cold, and even her breath produced a silvery mist. She gasped, trying to regain mental equilibrium.
“That was an incredible play you produced at the end there, Little Wolf!” Phile whooped—still on her liberated horse. She twirled Foedus as the Verglas soldiers tried to organize themselves. It appeared they had dispatched the remaining Chosen soldiers, but they had yet to leave the pass.
Rakel tried to speak, but nothing would slip past her lips. She staggered out of range of the bone-searing chill the walls r
adiated and dropped to her knees.
“Your Highness,” Oskar said, kneeling next to her. “Your arm!”
“I’ll get Halvor,” Phile said, nudging her horse into a trot.
My side, Rakel thought, wincing as she shifted. Her trip through the wall had frozen the blood of her wounds, so at least she wasn’t bleeding, but it was pretty painful to have the chill settled on her open wounds. “The soldiers?” she finally managed to spit out.
“There were losses—steeper than we would have liked. Will your wall hold out? One of their magic users had strength magic.”
“S-she won’t be able to get n-near it,” Rakel said, her teeth chattering. She tried to push herself to her feet, but not a muscle in her body appeared to be under her control. “T-too cold.” She forced herself to face the soldiers, her heart tight with anxiety.
She had hit some of them with her magic. More correctly, Farrin had deflected it onto them, but Rakel doubted they would be so understanding as to accept that. Moreover, they had lost because she couldn’t handle the Chosen colonel. She was prepared to face their ire and anger, but to do that she need to get up! Perversely, her body seemed to slip further from her control. She could feel her mind growing hazy. What is wrong with me? She thought, fear spiking through her. If she didn’t regain her head, it would be easy for a disgruntled Verglas soldier to end her.
Rakel spasmed as all control dropped from her, and she would have fallen face-first into the snow if Oskar hadn’t caught her.
“Princess?” Oskar said, his voice tight.
The world started to have a hazy edge to it. No! Rakel wanted to scream, and tried to scream. Stop! Get up! She felt betrayed by her own body as it started to shut down, and a second fear entered her mind. What’s wrong with me? This has never happened before!
“Princess!” Oskar shouted. His voice sounded distorted.
She saw Captain Halvor’s glittery armor, and her gaze went black. Terror pulsed in Rakel as she fell unconscious, huddled on Oskar’s lap.
CHAPTER 11
PARANOIA CONFIRMED
When Rakel awoke, every part of her screamed with fear. She snapped her eyes open and sat up in bed—the blankets icing over in her terror.
“Rakel—it’s okay!”
Rakel ignored the assurance and threw up a shield, her breath feeling short in her panic as she blinked and tried to clear her vision.
“Little Wolf—listen to me!”
Finally recognizing Phile’s voice, Rakel paused, allowing herself to regain her bearings. She was in a darkened room, which she recognized as her encampment quarters. It possessed a bed, two packs containing her dresses, and a book on castle architecture she couldn’t bear to leave behind. The room also contained a chair swaddled in blankets, which—Rakel could see through the hazy distortion of her ice shell—held a frowning Phile.
“What happened?” Rakel asked, letting her shield crack and disintegrate.
“You fell unconscious.”
“What did the soldiers do?” Rakel asked, her voice tightly coiled. She was still in her dirty and torn dress, but her arm and side were wrapped and treated.
“They brought you back. Well, I lent my horse to Oskar so he could ride back with you sagged against him. I wanted to take you, but Captain Halvor told me I would have to give him Foedus because he didn’t trust me to ride with both you and it. I was having none of that, so Oskar got to bring you.”
“And the soldiers just let him? They didn’t riot?”
Phile’s forehead wrinkled. “Why, for the love of a king, would they riot?”
“Because we lost, and I injured some of them.”
Phile rolled her eyes. “Little Wolf, you are the most paranoid person I know—and I’m a thief. No one is going to turn on you because of a lost battle. In fact, I think it is unlikely that anyone from this camp will turn on you ever. They already call you their Snow Queen. If you declared yourself the Empress of the Continent, they would ask what you wanted on your coat of arms.”
Rakel shook her head. “You cannot fathom the distaste and fear they hold me in.”
“Distaste and fear? Have you lost your mind? You have saved them from destruction, slaughter, and slavery. They revere you like a saint, and their children want to be like you!”
“The children are a different matter. It is the adults who pose a threat.”
“And you have decided this because…?”
“Experience. Twice since I was first approached about saving Fyran, I would have been harmed if I hadn’t defended myself. Whenever they see my magic, they cower, and I can see the fear in their eyes.”
“Because you are scary when you use your magic! If you had more emotional expressions than a rock, it might be different, but you wear the same expression whether you are eating your meals or putting down that weather-boy. Who does that? I’ll tell you—no one but you and that Farrin Dimwit.”
“Graydim.”
“Sure. Look, you are icy calm no matter the circumstance. In some cases, it is good. You show no fear, so the people believe you can do anything—but it is also a little daunting. They don’t know whether they can joke and chat with you because you are so guarded in your emotions,” Phile leaned in, a scowl etched on her mischievous face. “So, of course they wouldn’t show how they revere you—they’re afraid of irritating you.”
“I see,” Rakel scoffed. “So that is why I must constantly be on guard for my life?”
“No…that’s just you, Little Wolf. No one in this camp would even think of harming you.”
“You can’t know that for sure—this is all conjecture.”
Phile snorted. “No, it’s not! I know because I talk to them. You—Your-Sensitive-Majesty—probably know all their names because you’re paranoid you’ll offend someone, but I know them because I interact with them.”
“You’re normal. They would have no qualms in associating with you.”
“Yet again we must revisit the fact that I am also a thief! If they don’t worry about associating with me—who might very well rob them blind—they will have no quarrel in chatting up the savior of their family, village, and country.”
Rakel didn’t believe Phile for a moment—friend or not—but she had revealed a disheartening fact. “I’m scary when I use my magic?”
Phile sighed and deflated. “That was mean of me to say. No, you aren’t. You’re just…intimidating.”
Rakel nodded.
“It’s just because you’re so expressionless. You like your magic, Rakel. You’ve told me so yourself. If you let a spark of your joy show, you would be a beauty to behold. But if you stay as tranquil as you usually act…it’s a little eerie that you can do so much without even a quirk of your eyebrow. It makes it seem like the fight, the places you regain, all of it doesn’t mean much to you.”
Phile offered Rakel a mug of warmed water. Rakel took it and drank.
“Just think it over,” Phile said. “I can understand why you don’t want to share your thoughts and emotions with the troops and villagers. King’s eyebrows, you were locked up for twelve years; it’s amazing you’re willing to help them at all! But, please, consider trusting them. Your fear that they will turn on you…it does nothing to aid you or the war.” She eased out of her wooden chair and strode for the door.
“You’re leaving?”
Phile leaned against the doorframe. “Oskar and the captain would flog me if I didn’t tell them you were awake. They’ve been clucking over you like vicious hens until about half an hour ago when they had to make rounds.”
Half an hour? “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Two, almost three hours. We would have worried more, but an herbwoman and an army healer said your breathing was clear and your heart strong.”
The warm water soured in Rakel’s stomach. Three hours? She was uneasy with the idea of being unresponsive for such a time—she was normally a light sleeper and was confident she would wake up if someone disturbed her… It was discomfit
ing to know that her body could rebel, and she could do nothing to stop it.
“Halvor said you overextended yourself with that wall and hit your magical limit on your powers,” Phile added.
Rakel opened her mouth to scoff at the idea—if her magic was a glacier, she had yet to find the bottom—but she paused, considering the idea. I wasn’t in danger of using all my available magic…but that is the first time I have so extensively used my powers. Fighting Farrin and his associates had already chipped away at me, and the wall was bigger, thicker, and laced with more of my power than any part of my castle. What if it is not my limit…but my price? While Rakel mulled over the idea, Phile slipped out the door.
“I’ll bring you back something to eat, but I suggest you prepare yourself for your big, hairy mothers,” she called. She shut the door, leaving Rakel alone.
Rakel shut her eyes and kneaded her forehead. She allowed herself the luxury of lying down. Soon, after she ate and was able to think more clearly, she would speak to Captain Halvor and Oskar about her…price.
Captain Halvor said most magic users have limits, not prices. Is it good that I have a price, and not a limit? My lack of understanding is frustrating. Considering I am the one who wields magic, it is almost laughable that Captain Halvor and Oskar are more superiorly informed. Perhaps they were briefed in magic when they joined my retinue.
She let her arms drop. Maybe Phile is right. Perhaps my distrust is unwarranted paranoia.
She considered the notion, but the sound of the door clicking stirred her attention. She was about to force herself to sit up and greet her attendant and guard captain but was surprised when only one set of footsteps moved across her room in short, choppy strides. Whoever it was, they didn’t seem to know that she was awake, for they said nothing.
Rakel opened her eyes a fraction so she could see through her eyelashes. It took her a few moments to identify Aleifr. The cheerful, ruddy-faced soldier was breathing heavily, and sweat beaded his upper lip.
