Page 11 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)
THORNE
As Kaelan and I trudged through the snow, the hollow of Hanna’s absence gaped between us.
Kaelan was always a little sharper, a little colder, without her. His misery apart from her had been evident during the years he thought she’d betrayed him, and his pain had shown in even more dead bodies whenever anyone crossed him during those years. Kaelan’s always shared his pain.
So I was sure today’s visit to a potential, but likely unwilling, ‘ally’ was going to be interesting.
We reached the outskirts of an imposing estate set in the middle of the wind-carved ice planes. A wall of blue-white ice rose above us, curving outward, covered with jagged stalactites that had formed unnaturally to bristle from the top. It was foreboding and impassable.
For someone else.
When we had dropped down on the other side of the wall, we stood in an enormous ice garden. Flowers coaxed from ice were illuminated so they glowed in a rainbow of subdued colors. Down the wall, two soldiers carried torches toward the gate as it opened slowly.
We lurked just beyond the reach of the flickering light fountains that cast soft glows of light under the dimly lit sky. The display of wealth here was ostentatious, and one reason Faris would be hard to dissuade to leave Edric’s side.
“Look who it is,” Kaelan said with disdain.
A dozen soldiers were entering the gates, led by one of Edric’s favorite lackeys.
Edric, unfortunately, was as clever at times as he was cruel. He had figured out how useful Faris could be to us.
“If Lano’s here, Lord Faris won’t be eager to join our cause.”
“Then we’ll just have to be more persuasive.”
Our breaths fogged the frigid air as we approached the imposing stone walls, sheathed in a glossy coat of ice.
The easiest way in wasn’t through any door. We wanted to greet Faris in his bedroom.
I glanced at Kaelan as his gaze swept up the wall. How many times had we climbed the walls outside the ice palace where we grew up? We had done it exhausted, our small hands scraped and bleeding, as punishment for some childish sin or weakness.
Kaelan had bullied me at the beginning, sure that I would come to hate him like every other peer Edric had brought in to torture him.
But I had just hated Edric.
All the while, Edric had been forging us into the tools of his destruction. I couldn’t wait to show him what he had wrought.
We began our ascent. The magic that shrouded us also lent a subtle stickiness to our gloves and boots, but it did little to ease the danger of the slick wall. Ice crunched under my grasp, the sound eerily loud in the silence that hung in the air, as if the snow below and low clouds hanging above had made the world too still.
Kaelan flashed me an annoyed, warning look. No fucking gratitude for how I’d been by his side since the beginning, either. But that was all right. I didn’t need it.
“It doesn’t seem like you to just let her go,” I tried to keep my tone casual, hoping conversation would distract from the drop yawning below us.
He hadn’t fucking asked me how I felt about it.
Kaelan didn’t respond immediately, his attention fixed on navigating an especially slick patch of ice. When he finally spoke, his voice was tight, almost strained. “I doubt Dare will welcome her, but he needs her.”
“Still,” I pressed on, “You like to be the one watching over her.”
“Times change,” he grunted, hoisting himself up onto a narrow ledge. He reached back down, offering me a hand. I grabbed hold and swung up.
We were high enough that a fall could be lethal, but low enough we might not be able to raise rings in time to stop our plummet.
Times change . It was an unlikely sentiment from Kaelan. Just as unlikely as surrendering any control over Hanna’s wellbeing.
Kaelan’s boot kicked out as his perch crumbled. A cascade of ice shards tumbled into the space below us as his body lurched precariously. My hand shot out instinctively, catching his wrist. His eyes met mine, wide with a flash of rare uncertainty.
With a grunt, Kaelan regained his footing against the wall. I didn’t expect the asshole to thank me, and he met my expectations. We simply continued our ascent, the wind howling around us like a chorus of wraiths.
“She’s safer with Dare,” Kaelan broke the silence, so quietly his voice was almost torn away by the wind. “I think Hanna will be safer with him.”
“So…was it really Hanna’s idea to go to Dare? Or did you manipulate her?”
“I’ve never been at war with a dangerous psychopath with the kingdom clutched in his hold before.” His voice was distant, hollowed out by the winds. I noticed he hadn’t answered my second question, but that was answer enough.
He always wanted to be the one at Hanna’s side. It must mean something that he had surrendered that need to be in control for once.
“Or maybe,” I suggested as I found a better hold, “you’re learning you can trust others to take care of Hanna. Including Dare, and me, and…Hanna herself?”
She was incredibly competent and cool-headed. Her abilities would be wasted if Kaelan insisted on preventing her from being…her. I hated that thought.
Kaelan didn’t respond immediately, focusing instead on scaling the next few feet of wall. “Maybe.”
We finally reached the precarious ledge of the high window. Kaelan’s hand curled into a fist, and with a swift, calculated motion, the glass splintered into a thousand silent shards, falling inward.
Landing cat-like on the plush carpet, Kaelan drew off his gloves and dusted off his hands. There was an angry red scrape across his wrist from when he had slipped, stabbed by an icicle as he tried to catch himself. He glanced at it with annoyance then up at me, a flicker of vulnerability crossing his features before he masked it with his usual stoicism.
“Perhaps I’m able to admit that the four of us all need each other,” he said gruffly. “Perhaps I can’t take care of Hanna alone. She needs someone to keep her in line, and someone who’s sweet with her. And maybe she needs…whatever the hell it is Dare brings to the table.”
It was cute that Kalean thought the need he supplied of Hanna’s was keeping her in line . Hanna could just as easily claim she kept him in line.
Under his breath, he added, “I can’t quite figure out what Dare offers her yet, but then, neither has he.”
The door swung open, and Faris started in, a stupid grin plastered across his ruddy face.
Kaelan was already moving, his hand raised, fingers splayed as tendrils of dark magic snaked toward the man’s throat.
There was a woman in the shadows behind him. As I raised my magic to silence her, she screamed for help. She crumpled as my magic made her faint, and I leapt across the room to catch her, then dump her onto the sofa.
“Ah!” Faris choked out, eyes bulging with panic and the beginnings of magic-induced silence.
With a flick of my wrist and a whispered incantation, a surge of magic erupted from my palm, slamming Faris against the wall and binding him there. He writhed helplessly, but he couldn’t escape.
“We’ll chat later,” Kaelan told him pleasantly.
Faris made gaping noises. We could’ve taken him and flown away, but that would’ve alerted Edric to our plan. If we stayed, we could make sure that Edric’s soldiers sent their missives back to the garrison and raised no alarms while Faris helped us.
“Do you think those dozen soldiers are the first to arrive, or joining a garrison already housed here?” Kaelan asked, unsheathing his blade.
“We’ll know soon,” I said lightly.
The first guard burst into the room, sword drawn, eyes wild. More followed, a blur of steel and intent, flooding the space between us with their presence.
We moved in tandem. My magic flared again, throwing one guard back through the doorway while Kaelan deftly sidestepped another, his own blade a silent, deadly arc.
I ducked beneath a swinging mace. “So, will you allow Dare to be with Hanna? If he ever admits he wants her?”
He didn’t respond. Either because he didn’t want to yet or because he was focused on disarming a particularly large guard who had managed to sneak up behind Kaelan as he fought two others.
With a swift, fluid motion, Kaelan twisted the guard’s arm, sending his weapon clattering across the polished marble floor. Then he followed up with a brutal punch across the guard’s face, the hilt of his sword gripped in his hand giving him even more power.
I took advantage of the opening, conjuring a gust of wind that knocked two more guards off balance. They stumbled, giving Kaelan the split second he needed to regain the upper hand.
“I can’t let him love her or not,” Kaelan said as he whirled beneath a blade and drove his own into the gap in a man’s armor. “Even I can’t control that.”
A guard lunged at me, his sword reflecting the cold light streaming through the high windows. Stepping aside just in time, I caught his arm, feeling the joint pop before pushing him into another assailant. “No. But you can control whether he acts?—”
“I can’t deny Hanna anything. Though, gods help me if she realizes that fact.” Kaelan parried another blow, his movements fluid and assured.
“But do you think he does love her?” I slammed my palm against a guard’s chest, encasing him in a sheen of frost that spread rapidly, immobilizing him. “That he’s too stubborn to admit it?”
“Yes. Whether he knows it or not.”
A guard came at me with a mace, and I sidestepped, allowing Kaelan to cut his legs out from underneath him.
“Then why not tell them? Let them know they have your blessing if they love each other?” I pressed, parrying a sword blade that snapped under the force of my heavy sword.
The guard gaped at his broken weapon, giving Kaelan an opening to knock him unconscious with the hilt of his dagger.
Kaelan paused, his chest heaving from the exertion as the last soldier crumpled. “No, I’m not going to make it easy. Dare can fight for her, just like we did. If he wants her…he can earn her.”
Faris’s eyes darted between the two of us, his mouth agape, as the color drained from his face.
Kaelan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I have a deal for you.”
I stood a step behind Kaelan, blood dripping from the end of my sword and beginning to form a dark red pool across the expensive carpet.
There would be a lot more blood shed before we were finished.