Page 6 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)

HANNA

The carriage door burst open, and one of the bandits jumped out. There was a screaming, writhing bundle gripped in his arms.

Then I caught a glimpse of a child’s face, desperate and afraid, as he rushed past.

Why were they lying in ambush for us—with a child?

I ran after him, reaching for my knife to throw it into his broad back as he raced away from me. But my fingers closed on thin air just as I remembered I’d already thrown it.

I gripped my sword, lengthening my stride as he reached the edge of the forest. She let out another wail and then stopped, and I threw myself forward. What the hell had he done to her?

He whirled around, gripping her in one arm like a shield. With his free hand, he hefted an axe, and he pulled it back and threw it at me in one smooth arc.

I knew what he was going to do before he even threw it, and I juked to one side, adding a burst of speed to come to his side. He tried to twist, putting the girl in my path, but I dropped to the ground and slid across the snow, striking out at his legs.

I wanted him alive to question.

I slashed his leg open—through fabric, through flesh, to glistening bone. He let out a bellow and fell to his knees, dropping the girl.

I punched my fist into the snow to anchor myself as I launched myself up and back at him.

He pulled a knife from his belt, but he didn’t reach for me. Instead, with his teeth bared and pain etched across his face, he grabbed her .

I couldn’t hesitate. As he raised the blade toward her throat with quick, deadly intent, I drove my sword into his chest.

He stopped, his knife at her throat—then his fingers opened, and the blade fell from his hand.

She let out a desperate, choking cry and scrambled away from him.

“You’re all right,” I told her, taking a step back to draw out my sword while trying to get a look at her.

She looked up at me with wide, frenzied eyes. “You’ll protect me from them?”

She couldn’t have been more than ten. She reminded me of Honor’s oldest daughter in a sudden flash.

“Of course,” I told her gently. “But from who ? Where do you come from?”

I couldn’t drop my guard. This whole situation felt like a mess.

“They took me from my home,” she said, her eyes flooding with tears. “They said they would use me as bait…to get you out in the woods alone.”

An icy feeling rippled down my spine.

“Let’s get back to the clearing,” I told her, holding out my arm to gesture for her to come with me. “Then we’ll get you home.”

To my surprise, she rushed to close the gap between us, throwing her arms around my waist. “Thank you!”

“Of course,” I told her, half-hugging her back and half-dragging her toward the clearing. “We’ll rejoin my friends, and they’ll help too. You’re safe.”

“Promise?” Her voice was muffled against my dress.

“I promise.” I kept my head up, my sword drawn, searching for whatever unpleasant business was in the woods with me. Those men had wanted to draw me away into the forest for a reason.

The forest was eerily silent. A prickle ran up my spine.

Quick as a premonition swept over me, I obeyed my impulses, grabbing her collar and pushing her away from me.

As she stumbled back, shame and guilt swept over me—she looked like just a scared child—but there was a flash of silver in her hand.

She’d just tried to bury that knife in my side. Only my jaded instincts had saved me. Now she raised a hurt gaze toward me, as if I’d insulted her or pulled the stuffing out of her doll.

“Knife,” I called, even though Kaelan and Thorne were back in the clearing and, from the sounds of distant clanging of metal-on-metal, focused on their own fight. I held my sword toward her, ready for whatever came next. “Who are you, really?”

Could she be enchanted?

Or a shapeshifter?

I had seen enchantments steal people’s minds before. It had happened to Kaelan. The thought that I might have to fight an enchanted child, driven by magic, made me sick.

She struck out at me again, her eyes still wide and afraid. It was unsettling. Was she terrified—compelled by magic, powerless to stop her attack?

“Did someone hurt you?”

Her lips curled up just faintly—a flicker of an expression that was there and gone. Her eyes met mine, a frantic look coming over her face.

Was she just acting?

“Did Edric send you?” If Edric was behind this, at least there was a reason; it was more frightening to think there were other factions pressing at our heels, or a curse dogging us.

Her breath came in short, ragged gasps, as she lunged again and again.

“Kaelan!” I screamed. The wind was taking my voice in the wrong direction; it seemed to die in the quiet of the forest.

I hoped Kaelan would hear my cry through our bond. But our connection was still flimsy.

“Please,” I whispered under my breath, not for her ears, but for the gods to hear. They’d never answered me before, but maybe this was my lucky day. “Don’t make me hurt this child.”

She struck out at me again. When I twisted to one side and leapt back, she stumbled in the snow. I pushed her, trying to take her down to the ground, but she whirled with surprising dexterity and slashed again.

She turned to me with rage written across her face, as if she were furious I’d dared to attack back in any way. “Edric is willing to serve the gods! Kaelan is a heretic. Because of you!”

So, we were indeed dealing with Edric. At least that much was a relief. He must have twisted this child’s mind. Could he twist entire cities against us?

I had to stop playing with her. Luck is a component in every fight, and luck determines far too often whether we live or die: a heel catches a root, a bit of uneven ground betrays us, and our story ends.

I couldn’t parry forever. I had to find a way to end this.

Her movements were slowing, but there was a glint of something wild and unyielding in her eyes.

She stumbled, and her eyes were terrified as I stepped into the gap. As our blades slid along each other’s, I almost took hers from her. Then she scrambled back desperately, still thrusting the blade out toward me.

The forest echoed with the sound of our struggle, her panting loud and desperate now. Her tears had dried to her face. I wondered if they had ever been real. Was she trapped inside herself, terrified to face me even as her body fought on?

I caught her blade with the hilt of mine and twisted. She let out a cry of pain as her dagger was wrenched free. The knife flew across the clearing and landed in the brush, glistening against the greenery.

She faced me, wild and gasping. Her small hands knotted into fists, as if she were going to try to attack me, even though she’d been disarmed.

“I would never hurt you, but I’m going to put you to sleep,” I told her gently, reaching out with my magic. It was not a spell that played to my strengths, which was part of why I’d been afraid to try it on a child while I was distracted by her attempts to murder me, but it seemed like my best hope to keep us both safe.

She lunged. A second knife I’d never seen flashed in her hand, gouging toward my face.

I pushed her away and parried instinctively as she stumbled past me.

My blade struck her arm.

A ribbon of red blossomed against her pale skin, and my heart lurched at the sight. “No!”

With a surge of deceptive strength, she lunged, her own knife slicing through the air. She drove herself toward me, toward the opening I’d left in my moment of shocked horror, still overextended from my parry.

Her knife drove deep into my side.

The sound of hurried footsteps approached, breaking through the fog of my focus. Thorne and Kaelan burst into the clearing, their expressions intense and swords ready.

A blur of motion caught the corner of my eye. The child’s form shimmered and contorted, shrinking and reshaping until where she once stood, a small rabbit now crouched. With a powerful kick of its hind legs, it darted into the underbrush, disappearing into the dense foliage of the woods.

“Stop her!” I cried out, already sprinting after the fleeing shape. Blood poured down my side, and every step sent pain lancing up my side.

“Hanna, stop,” Kaelan called, and cursed as he overtook me. “Stop!”

But I had to fix what was wrong here.

Adrenaline fueled my chase, branches whipping past as we plunged deeper into the forest. But the rabbit was elusive, zigzagging between trees and vanishing beneath thickets. Thorne and Kaelan moved so quickly through the forest that they seemed like gods themselves.

And yet.

We pressed on, hope dimming with each fruitless turn, until there was no denying she was gone, swallowed by the woods. We came to a stop by silent agreement, rippling through the bond.

I struggled to catch my breath, my wound throbbing as much as my heart. We had lost her. She was either our new, faceless enemy or just a child broken by a curse—or both—and either way, I had a responsibility to find her.

“Easy.” Thorne’s deep voice seemed to resonate through my bones. I leaned into him, my breaths uneven. Thorne’s body wrapped around me as if he could protect me from everything, even my own wild emotions.

Kaelan’s gaze locked on mine. “Hanna, you’re safe now.”

Words failed me. I wasn’t afraid for my safety . There were far worse stakes. I shook my head.

Then I realized he was comforting himself, not me.

Kaelan sighed. “There’s no time for regret. You’re bleeding, and you’re going to leave tracks.”

“Let us heal you. You’re hurt.” Thorne’s voice was tender.

“She’s always getting hurt, because she’s always being stupid,” Kaelan said in exasperation. “Sit.”

I rolled my eyes, but Thorne lifted me easily off my feet as he sank to the forest floor, holding me on his lap.

Kaelan muttered, “That coat should do you ever so much good with a stab wound through it.” As he pushed the fabric aside.

“I’ll get you something for the pain,” Thorne said, rummaging in his backpack.

Kalean scoffed. “She deserves the pain.” To me, he said accusingly, “You could’ve killed her. Why didn’t you?”

“She was a child!”

“She looked like a child, but given she could also turn herself into a rabbit, it seems rather unlikely she was, mm?” Kaelan was pissed. His jaw was bunched, his lips tight.

“I didn’t know that she could shift until we were chasing a rabbit, asshole,” I reminded him.

She wasn’t a child. I tried to convince myself. After all, no one shifted that young.

But still, something about her face—and the way she’d reminded me of my own little niece as I’d slashed open her arm—haunted me.

He yanked out a bagged poultice and tore the bag open with his teeth before applying the magic-soaked bandage to my bare skin. He was not overly gentle, pressing it against the wound.

I pushed him away, or tried to, at least. “You’re a brute.”

“Because I have to be, since everyone around me is a stupid sap, and I’m not letting any of you get yourselves killed,” he muttered.

But despite all his fury, as the poultice did its work, Kaelan picked me up tenderly and settled me in his lap. Thorne crouched on the other side, stroking my hair back from my forehead. The two of them tended to me so sweetly, no matter what they said.

“This must have been Edric’s trap,” I told Kaelan. “She was babbling about Edric and about the gods.”

His jaw set grimly. “My father’s cruel. The same man who strung up my hounds will hunt you down just to punish me. That’ll matter far more to him than just killing me.”

Kaelan’s words were terse, angry. But he seemed emotional beneath them in another way. I touched his face tenderly, feeling his vulnerability and fear through the bond, even though he’d never speak those words out loud.

The forest was deadly quiet.

The birds had never returned to circling over the forest.

We were in danger, and we would be until Edric was dead and my husband was on the throne. Until we had dissuaded or killed those loyal to Edric.

“She said you only betrayed your father because of me,” I told him quietly.

“She’s wrong. My father betrayed me long ago, when I was a child who depended on him, who was desperate to be worthy of his love.” Kaelan’s arm wrapped around me as if he were drawing comfort from me as much as giving it. His breath stirred against my hair when he added, “It’s only fair that I return the favor.”