Page 145 of The Cradle of Ice

“The enemy must’ve crashed down there. No wonder they haven’t moved.” Wryth clutched Keres’s arm. “What about the bronze artifact?”

“It must be down there, but Skerren kept getting varying, sometimes contradictory, signals, as if there were other sources emitting a similar vibration.”

“What are Skerren’s plans from here?”

“He remains cautious, especially after most of the slipfoils vanished. Still, he intends to invade that world with his two remaining swyftships. To ambush that village, secure the wreckage, and establish a literal beachhead.”

Wryth nodded at all of this.

Keres wasn’t finished. “For now, Skerren will hold back his barge until everything is secure, then he’ll descend for the final hunt.”

Wryth closed his eyes.

At long last.

One question still shone above all the rest.

“When?” he asked.

“Skerren is finalizing elements, and he wants to—”

Wryth’s voice sharpened into a dagger. “When?”

Keres cleared his throat. “By nightfall.”

58

MIKAEN STOOD BEFORE the storm of his father’s wrath. Shortly after midday, he had been summoned to the council chamber by the king’s chamberlain, a tall, skeletal man with a hooked nose, whose sepulchral nature had always unnerved Mikaen as a boy. And it still did, especially as the chamberlain had barged unbidden into his private bath. Mikaen, naked and unmasked, had felt unduly exposed.

Few saw the ruins of his face hidden under the silver plate. The scrabble of scars twisted a corner of his lips into a perpetual leer and knotted his cheek. Half his nose was gone, turned into a piggish hole. A jagged, cratered line stitched his face from brow to jaw.

He kept such horrors away from his beloved Myella, only letting her see him when he was masked, including when he bedded her. The only time he ever removed it was when he took her from behind, her face pushed into a pillow. Even then, he had been too conscious of his mutilation and could hardly perform.

Certainly, he never let his son or daughter see his true face.

Thus, his mood was already foul as he climbed the steps behind the throne room and entered the stone-walled council chamber. Overhead, huge beams held up the roof, while underfoot, centuries-old rugs covered the floor. A fire in the room’s hearth had burned to coals, smoldering as red as his father’s face.

King Toranth ry Massif, the Crown’d Lord of Hálendii, sat at the end of the long ironwood table. He had shed his cloak, exposing an embroidered velvet doublet with a ruffled silken collar. Fury had sharpened his features, softened only by a halo of blond-white curls that had been oiled flat across his brow. A scowl etched his lips. He remained silent, just glaring across the table.

Mikaen waited for his father to speak first. There was no need to goad him further. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of Mikaen’s neck, but he dared not wipe it away.

Finally, his father shoved up, pushing his heavy chair back with a resounding scrape. The fire in the king’s eyes almost drove Mikaen back a step, but the captain of his Silvergard stood behind him, blocking any retreat. He and Thoryn both wore light armor, polished to a sheen for this audience with the king.

Toranth motioned to Liege General Reddak vy Lach, who was seated to his right. “Share with the crown’d prince what a gale of skrycrows carried to us. The dispatches from our southern coast.”

Mikaen stiffened his spine. He and Reddak had returned to Azantiia this morning, just as the dawn bells were ringing over the city, as if celebrating the victorious arrival of the Winged Vengeance. But word of all that had transgressed in the smoky Breath of the Urth had reached the castle of Highmount ahead of them. The warship’s decks had been scrubbed of royal blood, a body and head secured in a wood coffin.

Still, his rash act could not be so easily hidden.

Unlike the fete following his bombing of Ekau Watch, there was no cheering, or pounding of swords on shields, or flow of ale, or endless recitations in praise of his bold action. The atmosphere had been grim. All knew that the Southern Klashe must eventually react.

Last night, aware of this threat, Reddak had ordered the Vengeance home. Before leaving the Breath, the liege general had sent forth all the remaining ships to scour the smoky pall for the Falcon’s Wing, the other Klashean warship, which had escaped their ambush and vanished.

Reddak stood. He glanced around at the handful of the king’s council in attendance. They were his father’s inner circle, his most trusted advisers, which included the provost marshal of the crown, the grand treasurer of the territories, the mayor of Azantiia, and the high seat of Kepenhill’s Council of Eight. The only other attendee stood behind the king’s left shoulder: the dour-faced Chamberlain Mallock.

Reddak cleared his throat, but before he could speak, a latecomer rushed in, passing around Mikaen and Thoryn. With swift strides, Shrive Wryth swept to a bow before the king, then rose to take his position behind Toranth’s other shoulder.

“Apologies, sire,” Wryth whispered, breathless and flushed. “It’s a long climb from the depths of the Shrivenkeep.”