He’d look over at the familiar, worn lines of the face so like his own, see the years of concern etched into it, and wonder if that was how he would look in thirty-five years. He’d wonder if he, like Pab, was destined to live a lonely life. And then remind himself that a life lived for others wasn’t truly lonely. And for all his faults, Pab was dedicated to making life better for their people.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Two sets, which made him lean toward the bars. When the guards came with food and water just warm enough to be liquid for a few minutes, only one came. Two meant something else.
Raf? If it was to visit, he hoped so. If his friend had also been arrested merely because of association with Nik’s family, then he hoped not.
As the steps drew closer, Nik drew back. Not Raf, he could tell from the sound. His friend was an ox of a man, his tread heavy. Neither of the steps were loud enough to be his.
Still, surprise broke through some of the invisible ice encasing him when he saw the second figure that stopped in front of his cell. He tried to scramble up so that he could genuflect, but his frozen joints wouldn’t cooperate. All he ended up doing was spilling himself onto the floor.
Princess Valkyrja made a noise that sounded like concern, though logic said it must be mocking instead. Perhaps she’d been as kind as Raf always insisted she was that day in the city, and as they worked together to rescue whoever they could. But she wouldn’t be now, after all Pab had done.
Pab.
Nik shouldn’t be surprised she’d come, he supposed—she had every reason to hate him, to blame him for the deaths of the people she loved most in the world. Why wouldn’t she want to look him in the eye and demand answers from him? Or even spit upon him? A paltry vengeance, but he wouldn’t blame her for it.
“You may go.” Her voice rang out, clear and easy. No tremble, no shiver. Of course—these temperatures probably felt like a spring day to her.
The guard hesitated long enough for Nik to push himself back to sitting on wobbling arms. “Are you certain, Highness?” the man asked. “He is a terror-maker.”
The princess cut the guard a look as icy as the prison walls. “He is thesonof a terror-maker. And I am the daughter of the king and the new warden of this prison. If you think me incapable of controlling one unarmed man, then you can consider yourself relieved of duty permanently.”
The guard paled and bowed. “Forgive me, Highness. I didn’t mean—of course.” He scurried away.
She watched him go, then turned to Nik. A wave of her hands and the bars shifted, moved aside. Once she’d made enough space, she walked through and then returned them to their original position. Only when she made herself comfortable on the floor beside him did he see she had a bag slung over her shoulder.
Hisbag.
He was too cold to process what that meant. Though even as he thought it, warmth crept in.
No—the cold retreated. He watched it go, watched what he thought were cloudy blocks of ice turned into stone, the frost retreating. Air warming. Not all the way to warm—such a thing was probably impossible in here—but no longer cold.
Though the ice seemed to retreat only as far as the bars, where it formed a wall so thick he’d have doubted anyone could ever chip their way through if its creator weren’t sitting cross-legged before him.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was a bare whisper as she opened his sack and pulled out first the thin blanket he’d used during his journey, the one that would hold his body heat in and warm him up to full dome-temperature within minutes, and then the insulated container he’d made tea in each morning. “I’ve never been down here before. I didn’t know it was so…”
He wrapped the crinkly blanket around his shoulders and reached still-trembling hands for the mug. She unscrewed the lid for him and handed it over.
Blessed steam escaped, the scent of tea waking every cell in his body. Obviously not the leftover dregs from his final morning of freedom—which meant she’d had this prepared fresh for him. “You…why?”
She stilled, her hands in his bag again, and studied him. Presumably to puzzle out which “why” he meant. “Why have I never been down here? Because it was never my domain. Einar has been managing the prisons since before I was born. But my father tells me it’s my responsibility now, as are Krystiana’s snows.” For a second, her face contorted, but too quickly for him to pin down what emotion was responsible before it smoothed out again. “Or if you mean why am I here now…” She shrugged and handed him a foil-wrapped something.
Something hot. He couldn’t decide whether to drop it or let it burn his hands. He settled for lowering it swiftly to his blanket-draped legs and savoring the warmth that seeped in. He took a sip of the honey-sweetened tea and then set it down so he could unwrap the gift.
Bread, soft and fresh and piping hot. Roasted lamb, fragrant with herbs. A potato, baked in its skin and sliced open, smothered in melted butter.
She held out a fork. “Eat. I just saw the reports today on what prisoners are fed. It will take time to get changes approved by the Two Councils, but for today, I’ll settle for correcting it here, with you.”
It could be a trap. It could all be poisoned. But frankly, he didn’t care. He’d rather die warm and full than waste away in here slowly. He grabbed the fork, plunged it into the butter-dripping potato, and hurried the first bite to his lips.
He nearly groaned. No potato had ever tasted so good.
She nudged his pack toward him and drew her knees up, resting her arms on them. “The funerals are tomorrow.”
Nik paused with his fork an inch above the lamb. “Your family?”
He knew she was older than him by eight years, but she looked younger by the same when she tucked a dark curl behind her ear and nodded. When she sat there, on a prison floor, in her ridiculously ornate and lightweight dress and hugged her knees. “All four of them. Theirs will be held in the Grand Kyrka. That’s what made me think of you, think to check on you. I’m sorry I didn’t do so before. There has been so much. So much.” Her eyes slid shut.
He could nod, but it would be a lie. He didn’t have the first idea what responsibilities had fallen onto her shoulders, what grief, what anger. He had just lost a father, yes—his only living relative. But he and Pab weren’t a daily part of each other’s lives. And his mother, his sister—he’d lost them so long ago he didn’t even remember them. He’d not even been two when they’d died together in childbirth.
