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Chapter Fourteen

THALIA

V aarin wants me. I saw it in his eyes and felt it in the way he held me. My little fake stumble had allowed me to get close and personal. Fuck, he smelled good. Lickably good. Falling asleep last night had been no easy feat with all that taut muscle pressed against me and his delicious aroma surrounding me, but I had.

I’d slept deep and unfettered, and for a moment when I’d woken, I’d been happy, and then the reality of my situation had set in.

Bryony was dead, and I was walking to my own execution, and so what if I distracted myself with heavenly biceps, and yes, Vaarin was over a hundred solar revolutions old, but he looked damn fine, and if I was honest, I’d always had a thing for older men so?—

A gust of icy wind sliced at my face. I cursed and adjusted the scarf Vaarin had given me to cover more of my face.

“The storm is coming in fast,” Vaarin said. “Maybe an hour before it hits.”

“How much farther to shelter?”

“About the same.” He grabbed my hand. “This way.” He took us off the path and into a crevice that I’d missed, barely wide enough for him to squeeze through. It brought us out onto a wide, clear path nestled between two rocks, but the road ahead was a dead end.

“No…” Vaarin rushed forward, pressing at the boulders that blocked our way. “Curse the tides.”

“What do we do now? Is there another route?”

He turned to me, jaw flexing. “Yes, but it is vastly more dangerous than this one.”

“So far today, this lethal isle has been kind to us. Maybe our luck will hold.”

The smile he gave me was one you’d give a clueless fool, and my spine stiffened. “What? You believe I can’t protect myself?”

“Oh, I have no doubt you have skill with a sword, but the creatures you will be forced to battle aren’t flesh and blood.” He led us back through the crevice, and I followed, eager to know more.

“Then what are they?”

“Ice wraiths. They appear with the storm, so if we hurry, we may succeed in avoiding them altogether.”

We came back out on the narrow path. “And what if we can’t avoid them?”

He inhaled through his nose, his expression grave. “Then I will fight.” His sapphire eyes blazed down on me. “You will be safe. I swear it.”

I was tempted to give him the same assurance but held my tongue and did the princess-like thing of merely nodding and smiling.

Hopefully I wouldn’t need to unleash my skills in his presence. To do so would be to cast suspicion on myself, for princesses weren’t given the raw tutoring that I’d received.

All I could do was hope we beat the blizzard to shelter.

* * *

The storm hit as we made our way out of the mountain pass and onto flatlands, the blizzard so thick I could barely see a few feet in front of me. The wind screamed and shrieked, battering at my eardrums and tearing at my clothes as it tried to find a way past the barrier and to my skin.

Vaarin held my hand, steering me through the blind spots. I kept my head down to shield my eyes from the clawing grip of ice.

My breath shivered in my lungs, each inhalation like swallowing needles.

I was going to freeze.

But Vaarin drew me along with him, and I focused on putting one foot ahead of the other.

The howling ebbed a little, and Vaarin brought us to a halt. I looked up, and my squinted eyes popped wide at the scene before me.

Spectral humanoid forms fought with swords and axes that collided with no sound. They wore cloaks that swirled and whipped about their bodies and armor that glinted, opaque one moment and translucent the next. I caught a flash of a face, a skeletal thing with blue neon orbs burning in the dark sockets where eyes should be.

Vaarin drew me close, leaning in so that his mouth pressed to the fabric of the scarf wrapped over my head.

“Wraiths,” he said. “They cannot see us. We can pass if we take the safe route. But you must stay close. Follow in my steps. One misstep will bring a warrior on your head. Two missteps, and the whole army will be on our heads. Once we start, there is no going back. We must move forward.”

What safe route was he talking about? There was no path through this carnage.

“Thalia. Trust me.”

What choice did I have? I nodded. He squeezed my hand and led me forward. A strange prickling skated over my skin, and my vision blurred before the ground bloomed with criss-crossing lines that formed huge squares like a chess board. Each was a meter squared.

Oh…Oh wait…the specters, these wraiths, they had roles. Now that I studied them, they wore uniforms. Plain leather and simple swords for pawns, heavier armor for the knights, and thick robes for bishops. There was no king or queen present, though, on either side.

This was a game. What the fuck?

“Focus,” Vaarin called over the wail of the wind. “Follow my steps exactly.”

He dove into the fray, left, then right, then forward across the squares. The wraiths ignored him. Blind to him just as Vaarin had explained they would be. I mimicked his movements, stepping on the same squares that he had. He waited till I was a step behind him, then took three more moves.

I followed.

We made progress across the battlefield this way, past a bishop and a knight, sword to javelin, then between two pairs of pawns parrying with expert urgency.

The blizzard thickened, the howling rising like a mournful cry, and I was momentarily blinded. When the snow cleared a little, Vaarin had already moved his steps.

Fuck. I stared at the squares then back at him, shaking my head hard to let him know I was stuck, but he couldn’t even retrace his steps to show me.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.

The wind grabbed his words and ripped them away so all I caught was “left….”

“Mine or yours!” I called back.

He frowned and then jabbed a finger at me.

Mine then. I hoped I’d interpreted that correctly. I leapt onto the square diagonally left of me, my attention swinging to Vaarin.

He grinned, and the knots in my chest eased. He was close now. Just a few meters.

“Left again!”

I heard him clearly this time and jumped, but a blast of air hit me as my boots left the ground, knocking me back onto my previous square.

Vaarin’s bellow rang out, clear as a bell in the sudden silence. The warriors had frozen.

“Thalia,” Vaarin said. “Left, then to me. Do it now.”

But if I did that, if I moved now that I’d fucked up, wouldn’t that release the whole battlefield? “Vaarin, won’t that free them all?”

“We’ll worry about that if it happens, just?—”

The specter on the square beside me slowly turned its head and fixed glowing blue eyes on me.

Vaarin took a step toward me in my periphery.

“Don’t move!” I held up a hand. “You’ll release them all if you do.”

The wraith turned its body my way, and I drew my sword.

“Thalia, what are you?—”

“Hush and let me focus.”

The wraith attacked.