Nik groaned, even as he trudged behind his best friend. He wasn’t about to let Raf out of his sight on an unfamiliar street before they’d even found their inn, but the last thing he wanted to do was interrupt a princess on her way to wherever she was going, just to ask her to paint a board or swatch of fabric with her ice-crystal design. Yes, part of him was impressed that the things could apparently last for years, even in the heat under the domes. But not enough that he’d ever planned to acquire one for himself.
Raf, of course, was already reaching into his pack and pulling out a framed swatch of black velvet. “Your Highness!” he called, raising the thing high and waving it around.
On second thought, he’d be doing Raf a favor if he hung back. A few stolen moments alone…ish with the girl he’d been dreaming about since he hit his growth spurt a decade and a half ago. Nik was being a good friend by pretending not to know him.
The princess turned at Raf’s call, her lips tilting up in a smile. Nik watched her closely, fully expecting to see annoyance sparkat least briefly in her eyes. She couldn’t possibly be as good-natured as the tales made her out to be.
But if not, she’d certainly learned how to cover up any irritation. Nik didn’t detect even a shard of it, and he had plenty of practice. He and Raf had made a career of annoying their parents, Raf’s elder siblings, and most definitely Brother Gylfi.
Someone jostled Nik, making him step closer to Raf in self-defense. No one was jostling the princess—a respectful bubble seemed to keep people a few feet away—so closer to them meant less chance of being bowled over.
Raf had already gained her side and was holding out his black velvet, babbling something or another. Nik couldn’t make out his words over the noise of the crowd, though he’d listened to enough of Raf’s practicing for this exact situation on their journey that he had to assume it was some variation of “Being in your mere presence is an honor that will fuel me for a lifetime” or “The very sun stands still in deference when it sees your face.”
Not exactly the highest of compliments in a land of perpetual clouds and winter, Nik had told him on that one. She probably hadn’t even seen the sun since her last tour to the domes. They were the only parts of Fjordlandi given relief from the clouds. In the domes, they needed the sun to grow the crops, even if it was so weak as to be useless without the domes to trap the heat.
Perhaps his friend had come up with something cleverer. The princess laughed, and the sound drew Nik another step closer.
It wasn’t what he’d expected it to sound like—dainty bells and practiced music, like the musicians played in kyrka. No, it could have been Sister Dagny’s laugh or one of Raf’s sisters’. It was full-throated, genuine, warm.
Nik’s brows drew together, and his feet pulled him another step closer to try to make out what Raf was saying. According to Pab, the Blessed never laughed, and especially not the royalfamily.“They have ice for blood,”he always said,“and it leaves them so cold they can’t experience warm feelings.”
“Yes, I know the road well,” the princess was saying, a smile still curving her lips. And her cheeks didn’t look about to crack from it, though his father would have grumbled that it was inevitable. Probably would have pointed to the dimples in her cheeks and said they were the fissures starting. “But I’ve never had to frighten off any polar bears, I do confess.”
Nik was near enough now that he could see Raf flash his charming smile. “No doubt that’s because Your Highness didn’t smell of dried fish like we did.”
Another laugh. And Raf’s “we” brought her gaze around, clearly searching for his companion. It landed on Nik easily enough, and she greeted him with a nod.
Frost and snow, all the artwork on Raf’s walls hadn’t even begun to capture her beauty. Her eyes were really and truly a gray so fair and shining they looked like silver. He’d always assumed it to be an exaggeration on the part of the artists. That they’d be a pale blue, like nearly everyone else in Fjordlandi, or perhaps hazel.
Not that it mattered. The Blessed were all beautiful—but exterior beauty meant nothing. So he nodded without missing a beat and hoped that his stance, casual and focused more on the passersby than her, made it clearhehadn’t come here just to get her to dust some frost over fabric for him.
Raf launched into a tale of the first time he’d seen an image of the princess and how he’d known immediately “We were destined to be friends. The sparkle in your eye, Your Highness—I said, ‘There’s a girl who knows the value of a laugh.’ Didn’t I, Nik?”
“You did,” Nik said, though his gaze drifted past them. Was that a spire in the distance? He strained to try to get a view past the fanciful wrought-iron of the street sign.
The princess twisted to see what he was looking at, which brought him back to a neutral position.
“What’s caught your attention, my friend?”
Raf mouthedmy friend, eyes wide.
Nik barely kept from rolling his. And cleared his throat. “Just the Grand Kyrka, Highness. I think. I’m hoping to visit it while I’m here. We have nothing so impressive in Harroby.”
Her face lit. “Harroby! That’s the dome my mother’s family is from.”
Raf’s shoulders edged back, his chin came up. “We know it, Highness. And couldn’t be prouder that one of our own sits beside the throne. That our next king will claim half Harroby blood.”
“Rafnar and I are both from the village five miles south of your mother’s.” Nik didn’t know why he volunteered the information, other than to make certain she realized they weren’t trying to claim any relation. Harroby was the second largest of the agricultural domes, with many villages inside its protective barrier.
She grinned, however, as if they were long-lost cousins. “How marvelous. We don’t get nearly enough visitors from Harroby. And yes, those spires you see in the distance are indeed the Grand Kyrka. Are you a dominie?”
“No.” His fingers went tight on the strap of his bag. “I applied, but there were no vacancies during my years of study.” There were never allowed to be more than sixty men in the order at any one time. One for every chapel or kyrka in Fjordlandi. One, no more. No one was allowed to be trained to replace an existing dominie until that clergyman reached his sixtieth year or received a grave diagnosis.
A short-sighted rule, one that frequently resulted in an unfilled pulpit when a dominie died without warning.
But then, that seemed to be part of the plan. And why the number of men in the order had shrunk down to a mere sixty. Whenever a kyrka or chapel was left without its leader, it was shut down. Forever.
How long before Fjordlandi had no more leaders of the faith? How long before the Words were forgotten?
