“Valkyrja.”
Her spine snapped straight at the voice she knew better than any other, despite hearing it less than some. She spun and saw her father striding her way, his white-and-silver clothing marred by soot, his face lined with unusual care. A dozen members of the Vektor Guard kept pace behind him, some with the imperial silver markings of the Blessed, the others without. All equally dirty, scraped, and bleeding.
She’d already doused her hands five times in the snow she called up to stem her own bleeding, only to reopen the wounds on the next piece of rubbish she climbed over to help the next victim.
She genuflected, which apparently cued the others nearby to do the same—though where they remained kneeling, she rose to her full height again. “Fodur.”
His eyes swept left then right, his frown carving glacial tracks in his forehead. “Where are your brother and sister? I sensed you almost immediately after the attack, but not them.”
“Attack?” Her hand lifted, settled at her throat.
His gaze settled not on her but on those behind her. “Rise, all of you. Don’t stop your work on my account.” Icy blue eyes moved to her again, somehow dismissive even as they focused on her this time. “The fires are out in the residential wing, so clearly they are at work, but I—”
“I put them out.” She could tell from the way he froze that her voice had conveyed far more than her words. “They…they were crushed, Fodur. All of them. The roof caved in, a slab of obsidian falling onto the table. Einar, Freya, Krystiana, Mamma…all of them.”
He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t so much as twitch. But she felt condemnation and accusation in his gaze.
Behind her, someone shifted. Moved closer. Nik. They’d been working in tandem for hours, his presence growing familiar even though they’d exchanged only the words necessary to coordinate their movements.
Fodur’s nostrils flared. “You were not with them?”
“I was late leaving the clinic and then stopped by a few travelers who had just arrived in the city and requested an icograph.” She motioned toward Nik. Raf wasn’t within sight at the moment. “I was still talking with them when the explosion—”
“Attack,” he said again. “This was the work of the Red Hands. Their leader claimed as much moments before it happened.” His gaze narrowed on Nik. “Who are you, farmling?”
Nik bowed again, though he winced a bit. Was he in pain? Or perhaps, like Mamma, he didn’t appreciate the termfarmling. “Nikanor Tristansson, Your Majesty. From Harroby Dome.”
Nothing could have prepared her for the sneer that seized her father’s lips—lips usually in a straight line, unperturbed by either the positive or the negative. Nor for the arm he lifted, slashed out. Ice encapsulated Nik’s feet and arms.
“Fodur!” She didn’t mean to interfere, not really—but her own arm flew out, and in the next moment, the ice shattered.
She dropped her arm. Blinked. She must have startled her father into withdrawing his ice. Otherwise there was no way she could have overpowered him, even if he was exhausted. She was too.
So why was it his hand rather than his magic that reached out, curled around her wrist, and yanked her away? “You will not sully yourself defending that traitor.”
“Traitor?” She and Nik echoed the word at the same time, and she knew her face betrayed the same confusion as his.
“His father is Tristan Hansson—leader of the Red Hands. Terror-maker. Bomb-planter. Murderer.”
She looked from her father’s face, cold with fury, to Nik’s. Some of the confusion faded, yes, but no guilt replaced it.
No denial either though. No stubbornness. He moved his mouth for a moment before he found his words. “My…my father did this?”
“With pride. He boasted about it seconds before the explosion, before he claimed his son would see the thanes received their due and took his own life.” Fodur all but spat the words, motioning his Vektors forward. “Seize him.”
Kyrja tried to pull her arm free, to move between Nik and the guards, but her father pulled her from him. “But Fodur, this man did nothing. He arrived in the city moments before the explosion, was speaking to me when it happened, and has been aiding me in relief efforts ever since.”
“And you think that was coincidence? That he didn’t seek you out? That he wasn’t helping to try to provide himself with an alibi?”
Nik’s face went white as the snows. “Your Majesty, I—I assure you, I am ignorant of my father’s plans. I thought he was here for trade negotiations, I—”
“You will be tried.” As Fodur spoke, his men wrested Nik’s arms behind him and wrapped his wrists in metal twine that one of the Blessed officers then froze into place. “The truth will be discovered.”
Kyrja’s shoulders sagged a bit. A trial would be humiliating, but of course her father was right. It was the means of discovering the truth. If Nik was innocent, as her gut said he was, then his claims would be verified.
If not, then that would be discovered too.
Nik’s gaze snapped to hers. He straightened, a plea in his eyes. “I would never seek to hurt anyone, Your Highness. That includes your family. Please know that.”
