The crystal’s melody whispered through her mind, into her heart.
Fodur had never experienced that. Never heard the Song. Could he deny the Giver if he had?
The ambassador gave one more bow that felt like mockery, spun, and splashed his way out the doors.
Fodur turned his angry gaze toward her. “You. Come with me.”
Her father’s tone chafed as much as the ambassador’s honorific, scraping at her in a way it never had before. Her feet refused to obey. “Is something the matter, Fodur?” Her voice didn’t come out right, either. Where was the deference she’d always felt, always shown? She sounded almost insolent. And if she sounded so to her own ears, then Himmel help her, because it would sound even worse to his.
Indeed, he paused mid-turn. Pivoted slowly to face her again. His usual mask of indifference morphed into the fury she’d seen far too often these last few days. “I beg your pardon? I issued you an order.”
“Did you? I’m unaccustomed to answering to ‘you.’ My father taught me from the time I was a toddler that I was only to respond to my proper name or title.” Frost and snow, did she have a death wish? What was wrong with her? “Even from him.”
Fodur’s nostrils flared, his hand clenched into a fist, but then his calm returned. “Well done, daughter.” He flicked a glance at the guard, let it skid over her, and motioned with a hand. “I am always pleased when you pass my little tests. Though I do require your presence, so if you would join me, Valkyrja?”
Mask or not, he was angry—and he couldn’t possibly know what had transpired in the Grand Kyrka, which meant it was about something else. Or perhaps just an extension of the state he’d been in since the attack.
She could understand that. If she thought too long about Nik’s father, anger welled up in her too. What right did anyone have to kill innocents? Even if his cause was just, he lost that edge by attacking a peaceful family like a coward in the night.
But sorrow always swamped the anger. Grief eclipsed indignation. And then, somehow, sympathy snuck in. How hopeless must that man have felt, to resort to such violence? How powerless did one have to feel to lash out in the way that would hurt most, and then remove oneself from the equation?
But to shove it all on his son’s shoulders? Her sympathy ran dry when she considered the position he’d left Nik in. She’d only known Nik for a handful of hours, but even so little time had been enough to show her he was not a revolutionary. He didn’t want to pick up where his father left off, even if he survived.
She strode after her father, of course, and drew even with him once he turned into the guest wing that now served as the residential quarters for the royal family—all two of them. Her mouth opened to ask him again what was wrong, but then she snapped it shut when something tugged at her ice-sense.
Another test? A few days ago, it would have made her anxious and brought her brother’s three-fold advice to the front of her mind.
Focus. Will. Act.
Strange. She didn’t have to think through it at all. She simply clamped down on the control she’d taken over the Ice Prison, forbidding entrance to whoever was trying to influence it.
Her head turned toward the left. Fodur didn’t even blink out of turn. “Do you need something, Fodur? In the prison?”
They’d reached one of the rooms he’d taken over, and he led the way inside, then slammed the door behind her. “I need you not to fail at one thing in your life, Valkyrja.”
She felt stiff as an icicle. Though he indicated a chair before his massive desk, she ignored it. “And what exactly have I failedat in the prison? I have done what you asked. I took over Einar’s protocols, I made my own inspection and have everything how I want it.” Or how she wanted it today, anyway. She intended to make a more thorough inspection after the funerals and make some real changes.
His ice kept pressing against hers, down in that underground lair. But he must not be trying too hard, because she had no trouble keeping him out.
“Is that so?” Fodur leaned onto the desk—the better to glare at her. “Then why have the cells thawed? I specifically told you to make me aware of your shortcomings as you encounter them, so that I can shore them up. I only need you to display the appearance of competency, Valkyrja, long enough for me to find another match and raise another child capable of doing what is needed.”
He…what? Kyrja bristled, so many arguments springing to her tongue that she didn’t know which to give voice to first. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have taken up any of them, wouldn’t have said a word.
But now? She leaned onto the side of the desk opposite him, stared him down. “I believe the question is why were the cells frozen solid? A thane cannot survive more than a few days at those temperatures with no blankets, no hot food or drink. The convicts down there were sentenced to life in prison, not death by freezing.”
Her father sneered. “And they live the rest of their lives in prison—we never guarantee how long that will be. Why waste precious resources on violent criminals?”
“What violent criminals?” She gave a shove with her ice, pushing him from the prison altogether. “I looked at the records. Petty theft and protests, that’s all anyone down there was charged with. And strangely, I can find no records of any of their trials. So for all I know, they’re not evenguilty.”
She hadn’t taken long to look after leaving Nik’s cell, thinking it wouldn’t require more than a cursory glance through the records.
All she’d found, however, were the accusations, always by a Fjorder. And then the sentencing, from the High Council—the twelve most powerful Blessed. Oh, those werelabeledas trials, but they weren’t. There were no records of men of law assigned to them. Of evidence presented. They were never given the chance to prove their innocence, just handed down a verdict—negative, each and every time.
Fodur’s ice-blue eyes sparked. Burned like the hottest flame. “Relinquish control of the prison, Valkyrja, so I can return it to its proper state.”
Wait. Could he really not just wrest it from her? Impossible.
She narrowed her eyes. “You conferred control to me, publicly and legally. You said, for all on the Two Councils to hear, that I was the new warden, the new law over it. Its proper state is what I say it is. And I say we are not tyrants or worse, to lock away our subjects with no more than a single accusation against them, without proper trial, and deliberately kill them within a week.”
