The man before him sniffed and took another step away. “Gawk from a designated outlook next time.” Without another word, he strode away, his feet not seeming to have any trouble finding purchase on the ice blocks that made up the bridge.
“Friendly folks,” Nik said to the place where the stranger had been, a smile tugging up a corner of his mouth. “Just like Pab always said.” Of course, what his father muttered with a scowl, Nik preferred to find amusing. Made for far fewer headaches in life.
Raf made a show of sniffing at himself. “Maybe we still smell of the domes. Scared him off.”
Laughing at that, Nik took a careful step forward. “You’d think after hiking through the winds of the Ice Plains for days on end, the last of the sulfur from the hot springs would have blown off.”
Fjordlandi was largely sharp, craggy mountains that made up the Ring of Flame, fjords, and plains that had been barren until they built the domes and began farming them. Trees were few and far between, aside from within the Great Forest—a wild, untamed landscape travelers made a point of avoiding, even though doing so added a day to their trip.
Better a day to walk around it than to risk getting lost or killed within it.
“Then I have no explanation for his rudeness.” Raf took a step too, too quickly, and slipped. His arms wheeled out, but he caught himself on the bridge’s railing, then straightened slowly back up with a huff. “I don’t understand how they live like this. It’s a frosted menace, all this ice.”
Nik grinned and turned his face back to the city. He had no desire to live here. Give him life beneath the domes—the balmy air, the rich warm soil, the sight of green thriving thingseverywhere he looked—any day of the week. He might not be a farmer himself, but he couldn’t imagine a life not surrounded by it.
But he’d been feeling more and more as he prayed that the Giver willed him to come here. And then when his father had invited him to join him for the last few days of his stay in the capital, Nik had known it was time. Perhaps it was just because the Giver wished him to learn something, see something, meet someone.
Or perhaps all their prayers would finally bear fruit. Perhaps King Isidor would finally, finally hear the complaints of the thanes, and Nik would be here to witness it. Witness justice and fairness and the first step toward equality finally coming to his people. He’d long had his doubts that his father’s aggressive tactics were wise—after all, the king had been ignoring the Red Hands for decades, no matter what they threatened or what small rebellions they staged. But change needed to happen. And words alone had never achieved it. Maybe, finally, Pab had found the elusive combination. Maybe he’d finally succeed and would be the true champion of the thanes he’d always yearned to be.
“I can see you falling into wishful thinking again.” Raf sent him an amused smirk and reached to flip dark blond hair out of his eyes—the habitual move made a bit difficult by the thick knit hat he wore, which turned his smirk into a frown.
Nik chuckled and returned his attention to the bridge. They were nearing the end now, and people swarmed every which direction. More people than he was used to seeing in one place. Fair hair mostly, but a few with the same dark hair and eyes that Nik claimed. Though their skin was several shades lighter, given that they never saw the sun. The majority were bundled up from head to toe, proving the cold affected them just as it did Nik and Raf—thanes, just like them.
Now and then, though, a Fjorder strode by. The aristocrats were easy to pick out, if only because they never wore coats, never anything thicker than a cotton sleeve—they’d long ago adapted to the cold as thanes under the domes never had. And the Blessed, the ones with magic to let them control that cold? They paraded around in clothing at once extravagant and barely-there, so thin was its fabric. Proclaiming at a glance that they were something different. Something better.
Or so they claimed.
His chest went tight. He knew Pab hated the Fjorders and especially the Blessed, but the more his father grumbled about them, the more Nik wondered if they could possibly be as cold, as heartless as most of the farmers believed. The more keenly he knew that the Giver loved them, even if they denied his existence. Even if they claimed faith was for the weak-minded.
He stepped off the bridge, into the snow-packed street, and prayed that he could see them all through the Giver’s eyes.
“If you get out your Words and start preaching like Brother Gylfi, I’m going to pretend I don’t know you.” Raf gave him a playful nudge in the shoulder, his eyes a bit wider than usual as he took in the bustling thoroughfare.
Nik shuddered and studied the street signs. “The fact that you could even suggest such a thing makes me doubt that we’re really friends.” He preferred to channel his passion for the Giver of All into writing and reading and praying, thank you very much. Definitely not preaching. But from what his pab said, even bringing the Words with him into Reykstoll could get him arrested—the only ones allowed to read and interpret were the dominies. And according to his father, the kyrkas were largely empty even on Holy Days, because no one herewantedto know what had been Written.
Nik had taken the risk, since a week without the Words was unthinkable. But he didn’t intend to go flaunting it about, allbut inviting the Fjorders to take it from him and accuse him of sedition.
They were hours later arriving in the city than Pab would have assumed, thanks to having to give a polar bear a wide berth that morning. His father was probably in meetings already, rather than waiting at the inn to greet them. But going first to the inn still made the most sense—perhaps Pab had left a note for them. His instructions upon entering the city were to turn right on Nordur Avenue as soon as they crossed the bridge, then look for Fyrst Street. They’d have to follow that nearly a mile before they’d find the small inn where his father had taken rooms. Nik motioned in the correct direction. “This way.”
But they’d barely gone a step off the Ice Bridge before Raf’s hand snaked out and latched onto Nik’s arm, fingers biting even through both Raf’s glove and Nik’s coat. “What?” He followed his friend’s gaze toward the intersection.
Raf was shaking Nik’s arm in the way he did when he was too excited for words. He nodded toward the street.
Or, more likely, someone on it, though that didn’t narrow anything down. The street was clogged with pedestrians. Most, of course, the commoners like them dressed in their heavy layers, but there were a few Fjorders too. He couldn’t imagine one of them had grabbed Raf’s attention though.
Then he saw her. First, the tiara made of ice crystals that caught the scant light filtering through the perpetual snow clouds. Then the wild, dark curls. The face Nik had seen far too many times, stylized and sketched and painted and hanging on Raf’s walls. And of course, the gauze-thin sleeves and embroidered gown, this one in a pale lavender.
Nik snorted and pulled his arm free. “Frost and snow, Raf. Get ahold of yourself.”
“Princess Valkyrja.” Raf said the name as if she were one of the sancta and not just a pretty Blessed. “It’s her. It’s actually her.”
A rumble of laughter elbowed its way past Nik’s frustration. Raf had agreed to come with him largely in the hope of catching a glimpse of the People’s Princess—and they’d known there was a good chance they would, as often as she was out in the city—but Nik had assumed they’d have totryto see her. And that it would take more than two steps into Reykstoll to achieve it.
Apparently the Giver was smiling on Raf today.
For his part, Nik shook his head. “Well, what do you think? Is she as pretty as all the posters in your room?”
“She’s lovelier than the sun itself.” Raf dodged around a tall someone who stepped into their view. “Come on. I hear she’ll provide an icograph to anyone who asks.”
