She could have gotten them out of the water easily enough in one of those places, but Nik wouldn’t have been able to do what he did now—plant his hand into the sand and pull heat up from deep inside the earth.
Perhaps someday, it would stop being so strange and miraculous to see the Aflame wield their magic. To feel heat surge in the ground beneath her, warm the waters that were such a part of her. To watch veins glow like fire, skin flush and gleam. While she watched Nik pull life back into his chilled body, she called the water off herself and sent it back into the Frozen Sea. She’d have done the same for him if he’d needed it, but already the water was steaming off him, leathers and man both soon dry.
He stood tall again, and she made no objection when he wrapped his arms around her—still warm, but no longer glowing. “Kyrja.”
“Mm?” She pressed her face against the warm leather of his shoulder.
“I’m falling in love with you too. If this all goes wrong, if the Giver calls us home, I need you to know that. I never could have imagined such a thing could happen, that the beautiful Ice Princess on Raf’s wall could turn out to be the other half of mysoul. But you became my friend, in that prison cell. And since then? So much more.”
Words that could thaw all the ice inside her. “I never dared to dream of such things. I thought I was destined for a political marriage, that I wouldn’t even have the honor of a Tested match.” She tilted her face up so she could see his strong jaw, his eyes, steel-gray in the night instead of the green she knew they were. “You know the strange thing? If it weren’t for you, for what you inspired me to be, if my siblings were still alive and Einar still the Heir, this match with Stefanos…I wouldn’t have objected. I’d have determined to make the best of it, like Freya. Like Mamma.”
His warm fingers left a trail of fire over her cheek. “I’m honored to be part of your story, my love—but let’s get one thing straight. Youarewho the Giver made you. You are this powerful, this strong. You are his anointed queen, and that has nothing to do with me. He always would have led you to the throne, because it’s where you belong. If it hadn’t been this way, it would have been another. You’re Fjordlandi’s rightful queen.”
A shiver coursed through her that had nothing to do with cold.
“I’m sorry my father’s actions are what led to it. That your place was won through violence and death.” Nik rested his forehead on hers. “But it is still your place. You’d have arrived here, no matter what. Do you believe that?”
Did she? She swallowed, remembering the three decades she’d spent feeling unworthy, not good enough, never what her family expected her to be. Every sneer from her sister, every chide from her brother, every dispassionate dismissal from her father.
But then she felt the call of each tiny particle of water, just waiting to be snow or frost or ice under her hand. She remembered the hope in the eyes of the people the other day.The joy on the faces of so many at her Coronation Ball, as for the first time in centuries, they broke free of the prescribed order and offered their genuine loyalty—not forced, but given.
She remembered the Song of frost and snow in the crystal columns.
Nodding, she put a bit of space between them. “I do. Which is why we have to go, have to fight.” She swallowed and gazed around. “My father’s free, Nik. I can feel him. He’s on the run, not trying to reinsert himself in Reykstoll—but he’s free.”
Nik’s every muscle went taut. “The old High Council?”
She shook her head. “I don’t sense them anywhere. They must still be inside the dampening of the prison.” She frowned, tracing the ice that had become so familiar over the last two weeks, where she’d felt their tugs most forcefully. “The ice locks in the prison—they’re gone. But if only my father is out, it couldn’t be that they all failed.”
“Daemon must have made the lava locks you’d been working on.”
Something had clearly gone wrong, if Fodur escaped—but it was the only explanation for the rest of the High Council being silent. “He must have.”
“We have no time to lose then, though.” Nik turned inland, his hand finding its place around hers. “We need to move.”
She nodded, wishing she’d chosen shoes more substantial than the dress boots she’d been wearing when Stefanos snatched them. They’d been fine for the short hike up the mountain, but the heels on them weren’t ideal for a sixty-mile trek through the snow, back to the capital.
There was nothing to do but get started and hope they found the supplies they needed along the way.
The beach here was but a thin strip of sand between the water and the craggy rocks that quickly grew to cliff faces, but there was a path up them, gilded silver in the moonlight. They werehalfway up before Kyrja thought to wonder why there was a path—and when she did, she quickly followed the question with a prayer. The Giver, if he meant them to get home and put into effect all the plans they had, would just have to clear a way for them. Help them to sneak past whatever outcasts called this beach and cliff and wasteland home.
They’d no sooner crested the cliff and looked around to try to get their bearings in the darkness than a torch flamed to life, then a whole line of them. Flickering light caught on noses and cheekbones, on fur and suede and sealskin clothing, on at least a dozen drawn brows and set lips. Two dozen. Three?
One man stepped away from the rest, towering taller than the others by a head. Even in the twitching light, he was fiercely beautiful, the kind that made her wonder if he was a Blessed—though if so, she couldn’t sense his touch in the snow beneath his boots, nor in the sea at her back. Chiseled features, a strong jaw that led to a pointed chin made even sharper by the golden beard upon it, a head shaved but for the top, from which a thick rope of golden hair twisted its way over his shoulder.
He didn’t smile. But he didn’t rush at them, either, or draw the blade she saw strapped to his hip. He just inclined his head. “Welcome, Majesty.” His gaze moved to Nik then, held. Now he smiled. “And especially to you, Nikanor. I believe you know my son. You call him Daemon.”
Kyrja felt Nik’s jolt through his hand, but before either of them could respond to that, footsteps pounded over snow, and a more familiar hulk elbowed his way through the line of torch-bearers. “Nik!”
She didn’t mind at all when Nik dropped her hand and surged forward, into the laughing, back-slapping embrace of his best friend. Rafnar had found them.
24
Elianne’s whole body screamed in pain, her muscles spasming, despite the hours she’d spent in the lava bath. Her vision was lightly clouded, no matter how many times she blinked, like a pane of frosted glass that resisted all wiping. Her skin, at least, was no longer blackened after her time in the lava, but it still hurt, shockwaves ripping all along her body without warning.
Her head ached too, but she couldn’t be sure if that was from the shock that surely would have killed someone who wasn’t already Aflame or the glare that Dae had been leveling on her ever since she screamed her way back to awareness…whenever that had been. Hours ago? Days?
He’d yet to speak, but she knew it would be coming soon. So she shifted, wincing as yet another burst of pain detonated and radiated over her entire body. This time, at least, she kept from screaming. She managed to get into a position closer to sitting, edging herself up the half-molten pillow she’d long ago formed to fit her body in her basalt bed. “Go ahead.” She looked not at his blazing eyes, nor at the muscle ticking away in his jaw, but at the scrollwork in the leather on his shoulder. “Tell me how stupid I was.”
