It was King Isidor’s father who had started the war on the kyrkas. The current king who had made law after law to slowly banish the old faith from his land. Not all at once—that would have triggered an outcry. But by degrees. Slowly. Year after year, so that it happened so gradually, no one thought to object.
The princess shifted to look at the spires too, which somehow put her between Nik and Raf. “You know, I never pause to realize how lovely a building it is. My mother attends services weekly, of course, but my father…”
Hadn’t stepped foot in one since the woman beside him was christened, so far as Nik had been able to learn. Thirty-five years ago. Eight years before Nik had been born. He glanced at her profile. “And you? Highness?”
Her gaze stayed on the spires, a soft sigh slipping from her lips. “In most things, my mother has been given her way with me. But not in that. Fodur insists religion is a set of myths and rules that defy reason and appeal to emotions best guarded and contained.”
Nik’s chest went tight. Beyond the princess, Raf was sending him an alarmed look he had no trouble interpreting.Be quiet, you fool. Don’t debate the faith with the princess or you’ll find yourself in one of her brother’s prison cells.
If only his tongue would obey. “And yet he was coronated in that kyrka, by the power of a dominie. You and each of your siblings were christened.”
“Tradition.” Her shoulders moved up in a shrug…but her eyes lingered on the spires. “I admit to curiosity. I ask her, sometimes…but there is little she can say.”
The wind chased a flurry of snowflakes up the street, but rather than make him shiver, it made his own shoulders relax.
She was curious. She, one of the princesses, daughter of a faithful thane. Perhaps that meant things weren’t as bad as Nik feared. Perhaps she would pursue the faith, help spread it. Of the three royal siblings, she was without question the most beloved of the people. If she were to make a declaration of faith…
She turned back to Raf, hand extended. “Well, I should provide you with that icograph. What would you like?”
“Whatever you’re inspired to create.” Raf handed over his framed fabric, then leaned in to watch.
Nik did too, though he tried to be more subtle about it. But he’d have to be dead—or from Reykstoll, he supposed—to be free of curiosity. There were no Blessed in their village, only one under the Harroby dome. The governor, of course. He’d never seen anyone paint a picture with frost before.
Princess Valkyrja thought for a moment and then smiled again, letting her fingers dance overtop the glass-protected fabric. He watched as moisture formed, froze, extended into crystalline feathers and flourishes that grew outward.
A wolf? Horse? No—a polar bear, majestic and fierce. No doubt inspired by the rather exaggerated tale Raf had told her about their (not quite) encounter with one of the beasts that morning.
He marveled at the detail in the face, opened his mouth to compliment her skill.
The ground shook, heaved, tilted as a boom split the air. Wind, hotter than any under the domes, blasted down the street, battering them with rock and ice and dirt and dust. Nik’s knees buckled, instinct taking over as he fell—he reached to steady theprincess and, when that failed, to shield her as they all tumbled down.
Then in the next second, the wind stopped. No—it clattered against something, the debris pinging as if against glass, but smoke billowed toward them still. He could see it, charging toward them like a winged beast, but then crashing into something four feet in front of them and spilling up, up, and over.
Ice. A dome of ice made a half-sphere around them, protecting the entire intersection. It took longer than it should have to realize that it was the princess who’d done it. Who held it there even as rock and who-knew-what-else clanged against it.
Nik met Raf’s panicked gaze over the princess’s bent head. “The volcano?” his friend asked, voice quavering. “I thought the king kept it in check.”
The princess regained her feet, fingers curling into her palms. “That wasn’t the volcano.”
3
The world shook. Roared. Clattered. Daemon froze in one second, threw himself to the ground in the next, flattened his palms against the cool basalt of the tunnel. The heat of the volcano called, answered, but with it came confusion.
The roar was not his mountain. Not the magma whose courses he knew like the path of his own blood. So why were the lava tubes trembling, cracking?
A scream echoed down the tunnel, the high pitch bringing him back to his feet as nothing else could. He ran, dodging the falling basalt rather than wasting any time or energy trying to stabilize it.
Elianne. Hers was the voice screaming its fear—or pain? He ran full out back toward the cavern the five of them called home, his feet not even registering the razor-sharp channels where magma had once flowed.
Ten more seconds, and then he skidded into the enormous chamber in the heart of the volcano, senses clamoring to make sense of everything.
The ceiling had collapsed—which meant the cavern should have been dark, his carefully hewn sconces obliterated. Yet itglowed brighter than usual, because the floor had collapsed too, on the north side, into the lava flow.
No. No, not the north, not all their stores—
Focus. The loss of their food would be disastrous, buttheywere more important. “Elianne?” Where was she? In her own room? He couldn’t see the entrance beyond the collapsed basalt.
“Down here!”
