Page 29 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)

HANNA

We rented a pair of rooms and stashed the trunk there so we could abandon the stolen cart and horse. The horse hated me, of course, but I tried anyway. I gave the beast two carrots—which I had also stolen—and an apology while Dare leaned against the stone wall behind him. Then I let the horse go, knowing it would trot back home again.

“Judging me?” I asked as Dare straightened off the wall.

“Always.” Then, abruptly, he looped his arm around my shoulders, dragging me against the hard muscle of his side. His lips dipped toward mine, but he stopped and whispered, “Perhaps when I judge you, I find that I admire you. Have you ever thought of that?”

I met his even green gaze. “No. I have not.”

His lips parted, and I wanted to know what he was going to say next, but two guards turned the corner, and we decided to busy ourselves elsewhere.

A bit later, I dusted off my hands as we stood in the small room in front of the trunk, which was altogether too unwieldy. “Well, hopefully things haven’t gotten too interesting now for my friend. And I use the word ‘friend’ loosely.”

“I’ll keep one hand on my sword,” Dare promised me. “But I assumed I probably should anyway when it came to your ‘friends’.”

“People like me,” I said in a faux-injured tone. “I am very likable.”

He scoffed. “Men obsess over you, and women envy you. It’s all the opposite of liking, really.”

I shook my head. “That is not the case. Kaelan obsesses over me because I’m hard to predict and hard to control, and Kaelan likes a challenge.”

But he had won me, and I wasn’t sure what would happen now to the tension that had crackled so magically between Kaelan and me. Without the push and pull between us…would I bore him?

Gods, would he bore me ?

Dare was looking at me strangely.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m not sure you see yourself, Hanna.”

It always sounded strange when he used my name. It felt more natural for him to use a mocking princess or call me love in pretend. There was something sincere, and therefore uncomfortable for me when he just used my name.

“You’re the one who isn’t seeing me. In the Ice Kingdom, I was the unworthy potential queen; here, I’m the failed princess. The one who can’t fly.”

His jaw worked back and forth. “But you can fly.”

“As very few know,” I reminded him. “Anyway, wings alone won’t make someone worthy.”

“Then what does?”

I met his gaze and found him frowning. “I don’t know.”

His frown only deepened. “What would convince you that you are worthy?”

There was a soft tap on our door. Ginelle stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame rather heavily. A feverish pink flush spread across her usually pale face. “If there’s nothing you need from me…and I assume there isn’t…I’m going to go sleep off this ‘cure’.”

She looked miserable.

“Do you need anything?” I asked. “Food, water?”

She shook her head. “Another week of this,” she muttered. “I don’t know if I’ll survive it any more than I’d survive the disease.”

“I’ll seal your room to keep any unwelcome visitors out,” Dare promised her.

Her lips parted in alarm, as if she thought she would be trapped. “No need. There’s no one looking for me. No one knows I’ve left the Ice Kingdom.”

I rubbed my face with my hand as she staggered across the hall to her own room, and I moved to the doorway so I could watch the door click shut behind her. I waited until I heard it lock, knowing she was safe as she could be without Dare’s magic.

“You do love locking people up,” I said to him mildly. “Let’s go drag a necromancer in for a visit before my brothers-in-law find me.”

“How messy is this necromancing? Are we going to lose our deposit on the room?”

“Let’s keep that a fun surprise.”

As we took to the streets, Dare gave me a sidelong look. I thought he was going to ask how long we had until one of my brothers-in-law arrived in the city, having realized I was skulking about on their shores. I’d thought I would have longer before I got myself into the kind of trouble they might notice.

Instead, he asked, “When have you had reason for necromancy before, may I ask?”

“I was trying to foil a plot against my sister a long time ago, and accidentally killed the man I was chasing down.”

“Why did you find a necromancer instead of going to your sister? I assume she would’ve had easy access to those with that power.”

I pursed my lips.

“Trying to prove yourself worthy?” he asked, so lightly and mockingly that it almost eased the fact it was a real question.

“Trying to prove myself useful . But no one needs me here. This kingdom has Honor, and her terrifyingly impressive, impressively terrifying husbands, and enough heirs that the common people can’t remember all their names. I am entirely pointless.” I said it all lightly, breezily, as if it weren’t the truth that haunted me.

“How convenient the Ice Kingdom needs you desperately, then.” Dare’s voice was low.

I twisted to look at him, but he was moving quickly along, looking in the windows of the shops as if he had said nothing of any importance.

He always seemed to throw out lines that he didn’t want to follow up.

I turned on my heel to face him and gripped his arm to pull him to a stop. He looked down at me as if the pause was unexpected.

I paused, as surprised as he was. I swallowed the words heating on the tip of my tongue. I’d been on the verge of telling him that we shouldn’t mock each other’s pains. But while Dare and I were on gentler terms than before, I wasn’t ready to hand all my vulnerabilities over to him in a neat stack, either.

And I thought there was a thin possibility that he was not mocking me at all and didn’t deserve those heated words.

“That’s a nice thing to pretend,” I said, with a light smile, as if he wouldn’t notice the flush that had come to my cheeks.

I’d spent so long on the Isle living with the tender, raw part of me that felt unworthy that I’d forgotten it was even there except for the moments Kaelan pressed that bruise with his thumb. Now that I was home after being away, there was no denying it was still there, and that it was a larger bit of damage that I’d wanted to admit.

Dare was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read, but then, he had a dozen of those masks.

“Come on,” I told him, tucking my arm through his, since I gripped it anyway. “On our way, we can walk up the high street, and we can consider ways to spend Kaelan’s money.”

“He would be delighted.”

“I should get you a gift for bearing with me as I make us into criminals.”

“I just wish we’d done more to deserve it.”

“Maybe we can find some more interesting crimes to do along the way. Before we end up dragged in front of my sister’s throne.” It seemed like an inevitable conclusion.

“I would like an interesting story to tell Kaelan and Thorne. They are going to be so jealous I had all this time with you while they were trying to curry favor with dull nobles.”

“Do you think they’re safe?”

“No.”

“Then let’s get home to them as soon as we can.” Which meant we had to stay out of my sister’s hands.

Honor might well agree with Kaelan that her darling little sister should stay safe on the Isle while he waged war. She would never accept that as her own fate, of course.

I didn’t want to test my will and magic against hers.

With every hour that went by, we risked losing the chance to speak to the dead assassin. There was no restoring life to the dead, not even by magic. The necromancer’s magic could coax his mind to relay some of the information and even personality that it had once stored, but once the brain cells deteriorated too much, the magic was useless.

So, we walked quickly, though I pointed to a few pretty things here and there in the windows, and Dare did the same. He liked fine things, despite his minimalist approach to belongings in the Ice Kingdom. He glanced longer than he’d like for me to notice some of those things: finely engraved daggers, thick cloaks with elaborate broaches at the collar, fine suits of clothing in the tailor’s window.

The strangest desire to buy him things and to give him the security he could keep them—to give him what Kalean never could in the castle—until he was king—settled over me. I’d had everything I could want since my sister became queen, and I hadn’t wanted very much at all.

I wanted to give him everything.

Maybe I could give him so much that it wouldn’t hurt that he had to leave behind his life as a peasant anymore.

No, that would never happen. There were no daggers pretty or enchanted enough, no suit so beautifully tailored to the lean lines of his body, that they would somehow take away the pain of his past.

Grief is not something that can be fixed. But he must have thought for a long time he could weave those broken pieces of his past into a new future.

I didn’t doubt that Dare loved me, in some way. Thorne had promised me, and he saw so thoroughly through Dare, and Kaelan…and me. But I wondered if some other part of Dare hated me, too, for costing him the hope that must have sustained him as a boy.

Maybe it would be merciful to undo our marriage as quickly and carelessly as we had made our vows in the first place.

We were already passing the enormous stone wall of the mausoleum gardens; white roses clung to the wall with swaying green thorns, looking as if their petals would be blown off by the wind.

Then I pushed him to one side, into the doorway. The servants’ doorway.

It was an arched entrance with enough space for the two of us to stand in front of the locked door.

I reached into his pocket and drew out my lock breaking kit. When my fingers brushed against the hard press of his erection, I glanced up at him, surprised.

“Come on, love. You know your criminal tendencies turn me on.” He arched his eyebrows. He hadn’t noticed when I reverse-pick-pocketed him earlier, slipping the kit into his pocket. “You could ask me if you wanted to carry something for you.”

“But then I would be out of practice,” I reminded him, “and you love to give me opportunities to practice.”

The complex was enormous. The city didn’t have enough space for bodies. Beyond the rooms for mourners and for waiting bodies, there were seemingly endless levels of labyrinth-like halls with preserved bodies settled neatly into claustrophobic stone cut-outs, like a demented series of bunkbeds. I’d been lost in that labyrinth, and I’d hidden in one of those bunks, the stone almost grazing my nose, so close above that my chest tried to convince me it was pressing down on me where I could not breathe.

We found Ligo in the embalmer’s studio—a vast, cold space above the crypts. He was humming to himself as he held open the mouth of the most recent corpse. He was squeezing the juice from a lemon onto the body’s tongue, reminding the body of the sourness of life while trying to wake the mind. He was so focused on his corpse that he was not mindful of his surroundings, which was always dangerous on the isle, where one was hardly ever as alone as one thought.

“It’s been a while, Ligo,” I told him.

He jumped, whirled to face me, threw the half-squeezed lemon at me as if it were a defense mechanism.

Dare leapt in front of me, on instinct; his sword was in his hand, and he slashed through the flying lemon, sending it in halves.

I grinned. “It is very sweet that you are so determined to protect me from citrus fruits.”

“I didn’t know what it was.” Dare sounded distinctly sulky. He cleaned the lemon juice off his blade, wiping the flat of it against his trousers, before he sheathed it again.

Ligo seems to be finally remembering how to breathe. “I didn’t expect to see you again anytime soon, Princess.”

“You do seem likely to outlive me,” I admitted.

“Especially given your penchant for sneaking up on people.” He wiped his hands on the shirt that strained over his stomach and glanced down woefully at the body.

The corpse’s lips parted in a pained groan, though it was just a lukewarm imitation of life returning.

“Are you very busy asking the corpse about its treasure?” I asked, although I knew for Ligo, that was the least embarrassing of the questions he asked the corpses. “Or can I borrow your skills?”

“You can have whatever you want from me. As you know.” He didn’t sound particularly cheerful about it. “Where’s your corpse?”

“I have it hidden elsewhere.”

He looked crestfallen. “I’ll lose this one. The magic will fade before I can return.”

“There’s always another corpse, Ligo. This is the Isle. There are so very many murders.”

Dare looked slightly green, which I hadn’t expected. As Ligo followed us out into the sunshine of the street, he muttered, “What does Ligo do with the corpses?”

“It’s not as depraved as you’re imagining,” I told him. “But it’s far more pathetic.”

Dare raised his brow. “I don’t know if you think it’s cute when you’re vague, but it makes me want to tie you up and torture you.”

“With orgasms?”

“No.”

“He asks them about their lives. He’s lonely. He would never violate a corpse…that would be truly terrible…but he asks them for certain stories of their lives, if you know what I mean…in lurid detail.”

“Sex?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “From what I overheard in the past, he was more interested in knowing what it’s like to lay your head on someone’s shoulder when you cry. To have someone make your tea the way you like it without having to ask.”

Dare’s expression was one that I couldn’t read, once again.

When we were back in the room, Dare and I opened the trunk and began wrestling out the body.

Ligo winced. “That’s a terrible way to treat a corpse.”

“Why would this thing even talk to us?” Dare asked as he tried to find a way to grip the corpse, not trying to hide his disgust. He’d expressed that worry before we dragged the corpse halfway across the ocean, but apparently all our efforts hadn’t left him feeling any more optimistic. “He was your enemy in life. Why would he tell you his secrets in death?”

“Everyone wants to tell their story,” Ligo promised. “The dead are chatty. It’s their last chance to make themselves understood. When you strip everything else away, we are all desperate for someone to hear our story.”

Dare looked skeptical, but shrugged. “You two are the experts on manipulating the dead, I suppose. And Hanna has a distinct knack with the living too.”

I grinned at him, taking that as praise.

We let the body sprawl onto the floor. Ligo gave me an offended look on its behalf, but he set about setting up the reanimation spell.

We didn’t have to wait long until the corpse was waking. He let out a groan and then, when he registered my presence, I could’ve sworn he groaned again, far longer and more dramatically.

Dare’s body went tense, his arms folding tightly over his chest. I wished I knew what he was thinking.

I stepped forward, taking over from Ligo. “Who sent you to kill me?”

“I came on Edric’s behalf.”

“Yes, I know. But I doubt he ordered you directly.” Edric didn’t seem like the type to be meeting with assassins. I knew the type who liked to manage their murderers directly; one of them had almost killed my sister. “Who sent you to me?”

“I was commissioned by the head of the Spy Guild.”

The words struck me so hard, it was like a fist to my gut.

“Of my Spy Guild?” I asked sharply, my vision narrowing at the edges as if I were being pushed into a fight.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“No. We were supposed to kill you quietly so you never returned to the Isle, but you’re not the important target you think you are.” The voice sounded mocking, but that might be the color I put into it.

“Prince Kaelan must be.” I couldn’t exactly claim the Ice Throne as Kaelan’s wife if he were killed, so he was the biggest threat to Edric, as much as Edric might want me gutted to punish Kaelan.

“Not Kaelan. Queen Honor.”

My blood ran cold. The Spy Guild targeting my sister had been the fear that drove me. Suddenly, I felt so stupid for having been distracted from that protective mission for a moment. Not just stupid. Disloyal.

“Has the entire Spy Guild turned against my sister?” I needed to know just how much danger she was in.

Dare put a hand on my shoulder that I barely felt at first. I wasn’t sure if he was comforting me or trying to restrain me.

“Most of the Guild is unimportant to the House of Restoration.”

“But you are important to the…House of Restoration,” Dare said smoothly, and as much as I wanted to ask a million more questions, I stilled.

The thought that Honor was in danger made me want to race to her side, no matter what I’d said about staying out of her way and out of her control.

“When Edric rules, so will my Lady. And if I were alive, she would love me and plant me on the throne beside her.”

Dare and I exchanged a glance. “What exactly will your lady rule?”

“She will become a goddess. She will rule the temple.”

“Were you going to become a god yourself, then?” Dare asked.

“I was. Once I killed this rotten girl, I was going to begin serving the god Panic, until I became his living temple.”

Rotten girl . Of course, I was so terrible for refusing to die easily.

“What’s the name of your lady?”

The corpse was meaningfully silent. I glanced at Dare, who sighed; the corpse was still trying to protect its living mistress. Dare tried again. “Is your lady from the Isle or from the Continent?”

“From the Continent.”

“Is that where the House of Restoration originated as well?”

“Yes. It hasn’t taken root much on the Isle.”

“So where has it taken root?” Dare asked dryly.

“I’m not going to give you names.” The corpse was obviously proud of his loyalty.

“Just generally,” I suggested.

“It’s really just some among the nobles and some among the Spy Guild—and it’s the one way some nobles can find around their vows to Queen Honor.”

“How so?” I asked sharply.

Dare threw me a warning look, and I pressed my lips together tightly.

“Once the nobles’ magic is restored to the gods, their vows are broken. They are free.”

“Why kill Queen Honor?”

“Because it’s time for the Royals’ rule to end. They’ve stolen their magic from the gods. It’s time for a new world…for restoration.”

Dare continued asking questions, playing to the ceaseless vanity of a corpse. Every dead body is fully at the center of the story, the only one who mattered.

And yet, they only had a few minutes to tell their story, and then the world would spin on without them.

“Tell me more about your lady,” Dare encouraged.

There was a soft knock at the door. Dare cracked it open with his hand on his sword, then sighed and stepped back. He looked disappointed, and then Ginelle slipped inside. I hoped she didn’t notice the way he reacted to her, as if she were the most dull person he’d ever seen in his life. Dare preferred being threatened to being bored.

“Are you all right?” Dare asked her.

“I fear the cure is worse than the illness,” she said, her hand braced on the side of the door. Her face was dangerously white. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I think I’m—do you trust that doctor?”

The corpse went silent.

“Is it fading already?” I asked sharply, unable to keep the fear out of my voice.

Ginelle’s gaze flickered to mine, as if I had betrayed that I was not nearly as in control of this mission as I’d supposed.

“Faster than it should,” Ligo said. “But not as fast as if the man had taken a dose of helgium, which has become the thing for those who are paranoid of this exact fate. It quickly decomposes the brain matter.”

He sounded terribly glum about that.

“You think you’ve been poisoned?” Dare took her arm and steered her to a chair. She leaned on him more heavily than seemed entirely necessary, as if she weren’t too ill to notice how handsome he looked at the moment.

“Who would p-poison me?”

Dare’s long-fingered hands splayed across her jaw, holding her head back as he gazed into her eyes. She looked back at him, touching her fingers to his sleeve, her lips parting slightly.

When she looked at Dare with such raw longing, I could imagine people might want to poison her, even if she seemed as dull as a drip of tree sap.

“There’s something wrong with her eyes,” Dare said. To me, over his shoulder, he added, “Finish interrogating your corpse. I’m going to check for poison.”

I asked more questions of the corpse, which was more and more self-centered and less interested in answering my questions in a remotely satisfactory manner. I couldn’t get any more information.

I waved my hand. “Let him go.”

Ligo nodded. The corpse began to speak faster, a babble that grew softer and softer as the air left his lungs with nothing to replace it.

“She is poisoned.” Dare straightened, his expression sober. “Someone must not want us to return her to father, alive and well, so Kaelan can have his favor.”

“I do have value besides my father’s limited affection and what it can buy you, you know,” she muttered.

“Of course,” Dare told her gently. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

I was not particularly proud of the jealousy I felt seeing him take care of her.

“I’ll use my magic to try to heal her,” I said, in a rush to get her fixed up…and outside his circle of concern.

Dare had focused his magic on the skin above the artery on her wrist, which glowed beneath his touch. He raised his thumb and licked it, considering, as if he were tasting her poison.

“Don’t do that,” I said, scandalized at the thought of him taking in any amount of poison.

“Bitterbane,” he said.

She raised accusing eyes toward me. “You brought me to the doctor that poisoned me.”

“It’ll be better to heal her with the antidote than with magic,” Dare said.

I scoffed, still focused on her accusation. “Bitterbane is a very common poison on the Isle. I doubt a doctor would use it when he has far more interesting poisons at his disposal.”

“The Isle worries me,” Dare muttered, as if he was picturing poisons being sold in one of those shops at High Street. It wasn’t quite that common.

“Thank you for your help, Ligo,” I told him. “Could you send a cart for this corpse, please?”

“You want me to hide another body for you?” Ligo sounded outraged.

Dare’s brows arched in even more judgmental ways than usual.

“Yes, and send me the bill for all your services. Out you go.” I opened the door and all but pushed him out. “Ginelle, if you rest in your room, we’ll get you the antidote soon as we can.”

“You’re not going to let me die.” Her appeal was to Dare, as if she didn’t have much faith in my interest in her survival.

“Of course not,” he said gently. He offered his arm for her to lean on.

I rolled my eyes and began to gather our cloaks and weapons as he took her across the hall to her room. It had grown late, the apothecary would be closed, and we would have to break in for the antidote.

When there was a knock on the door, I assumed he had locked himself out.

“You could use the practice breaking in—” I began as I swung the door open.

There were half a dozen guards standing in the hall, dressed with drawn swords and grim expressions.