by Lily Thomas
Once he finished cleaning himself up, he marched towards the indoor garden. His steps faltered every once in a while as he dreaded what the summons might be about.
Jasmine was planning a human wedding, and he feared Dryden was going to ask him to be a best man, whatever that meant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be honored in a human tradition that made no sense to him. He preferred to be in the shadows, lurking nearby, ready to protect his king and his people, not front smack in the middle, clearly seen by all.
Mathar quickly made his way through the maze of the ice giant castle. He may not want to be honored by a position in their wedding, but that didn’t mean he could ignore a summons from his king even if he dreaded the topic they were sure to bring up.
He pushed open a wooden door and entered the castle gardens, a place he wasn’t too familiar with. He preferred to stay near the stables, the practice arena, or far away from the comforts of the castle. He enjoyed solitude and silence, and one rarely got either of those in a castle.
He shut the door and let the humidity and warmth wrap around him. It seemed so strange and foreign. He’d been born and raised in the snow, and this new environment was so different, but slightly… enjoyable.
The intense fragrance of roses greeted his nose. It was a rare pleasure to see flowers in bloom so far up here. The ice giants lived far enough up in the mountains for winter to be their one and only season. It kept the humans far away because of their delicate bodies and their inability to tolerate extreme environments. It was a sanctuary for them.
Dryden, his king, had wanted to please his queen, so he’d had an atrium built with a large glass ceiling to help capture any sunlight and heat the room. They also had raging fires in a few strategically placed hearths to keep all the plants inside at a pleasant temperature.
His eyes took in all the greenery growing around him. Vines with an assortment of colors grew around pillars used to support the ceiling. His heart wasn’t frozen enough for him not to be able to appreciate the garden flourishing around him. It had seemed to bring not only their human queen immense pleasure but many of their people who lived in the castle some sense of new cheer.
“Mathar, there you are!” Jasmine’s voice broke through his thoughts as she wiggled her fingers at him from where she sat on a stone bench. “I thought you might not show.” She teased knowing full well he wouldn’t ignore a summons.
Mathar strode over to her. “I wouldn’t refuse you or my king an audience.” He bowed his head slightly.
As he rounded a small leafy bush, Dryden came into view, sitting across from Jasmine with a book in his hands. His king must have been reading Jasmine some poetry from their best poets. She was trying to learn their language, but she was struggling along.
It didn’t surprise him all that much. She was decent, for a human, but despite her best efforts, he had a sneaking suspicion humans just couldn’t make the same noises as giants could. Maybe she’d prove him wrong, but so far she had yet to do that.
“We have something to ask of you, my friend.” Dryden drew his attention again.
Mathar leaned a shoulder up against a sapling’s trunk as he eyed the two people in front of him. “Why do I get the feeling I won’t like the request?”
Dryden laughed lightly before his face fell into a mask of seriousness. His black eyes pinned Mathar to the spot. “We would like you to bring Jasmine’s sister here.”
Mathar blinked dumbly before he chuckled. When Dryden didn’t crack a smile, he realized his king was serious. “Here?”
“Yes.” Dryden leaned back in his seat as he stretched an arm across the back. “Jasmine would like to have her sister here for our marriage ceremony.”
He shook his head as he glanced over at Jasmine, who had hope glistening in her hazel eyes. She wanted him to say yes.
“I couldn’t possibly get married without my sister.” She explained. “She most likely thinks I’m dead, but I know she’d rather be here among ice giants with me, then down there without anyone to call family.”
“Are you so sure about that?” He couldn’t help himself. He shouldn’t question his queen, but it was out before he could check himself. He couldn’t see any human being happy among giants… Jasmine was a rare exception… very rare.
Dryden scowled at him his onyx eyes darkening at the questioning of their judgment. “Of course, she’s sure.”
“If I refuse?” Mathar couldn’t resist asking. He needed to stop thinking of Dryden as a friend. They were friends when they were children. But now, Dryden was his king, while he was just a soldier, a killer.
Silence reigned over the atrium as Jasmine and Mathar both stared at Dryden waiting for a response.
“Then I would have to find another way of getting her sister here,” Dryden confessed with a sigh as he placed the closed book next to him on the seat. “We both know I wouldn’t force you to do something you didn’t want especially when it would be this dangerous. There’s always the possibility the humans would capture you.”
Now it was Mathar’s turn to scowl. “The humans would have a hard time capturing me.” He pushed away from the sapling and folded his arms in front of his chest, disappointed Dryden didn’t have more faith in his ability to blend into the shadows.
“This I know. And it’s the exact reason I asked you to do this for us. Though dangerous, I know you will be the best person for the job.”
So Dryden had been baiting him. His eyes narrowed on his king.
“Why not take Jasmine down there to convince her sister to come here?” Mathar reasoned. “She would be the better choice. Her sister would trust her, but me,” he held up a hand to his chest, “I will just be an ice giant kidnapping her.” And the very same ice giant who’d killed her husband.
Jasmine rubbed a hand over her protruding stomach.
“She’s in no condition to ride all the way there.” Dryden eyed his wife a smile playing on his lips.
She was barely in any condition to walk. Mathar was concerned her stomach might eat her alive with how large it was. She had to be having twins, or the impossible triplets.
He shook his head, tearing his eyes off of Jasmine and her bulging stomach.
“Mathar, it would mean so much to me to have my sister here, and I know she’d want to see me alive and happy.” Tears glistened in her hazel eyes as she spoke about her sister. “As Dryden said before, we would never force you. We just figured you would be our best bet at getting Adorra up here without a catastrophe happening.”
He bit the inside of his cheek. He wished Dryden would order him to do it instead of giving him the choice. Going back down there and teasing fate wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do, but he was the best at what he did. He was like a shadow, and he enjoyed being a shadow.
They watched him with expectant eyes, and he relented. “I will bring her here.” Kicking and screaming, because he knew exactly how Jasmine’s sister would react to him kidnapping her. If she had spirit like Jasmine, he would have to be careful with her.
“My sister won’t agree to come with you willingly, but I’m sure if you make mention of me she will.” Jasmine smiled hopefully. “I’m positive she wouldn’t be able to resist finding me. We were as close as sisters could get.”
He doubted it. No human woman would look at him and come willingly, even if he had a tempting secret. His body had plenty of scars from a family life that wasn’t spoken about. His father had left permanent marks on him that still had him cringing every time he saw himself in a mirror. His face was free from any scarring, but right under his clothes, he was a mass of scar tissue.
“When should I expect to be leaving?” Mathar asked, wanting to know what the timetables were.
“As soon as you are ready,” Dryden informed him. “The wedding is coming up, and we need to have Adorra here.”
“Then I will leave tonight.” He said with a firm nod of his head. He would have to get himself ready with plenty of supplies packed for the journey down there and back
up. There would be plenty of dangers between this castle and the manor he once visited a long time ago. A manor he hadn’t thought he’d return to ever again.
Mathar watched his breath fan out in front of him in white puffy clouds as he came out of the castle. Night was beginning to fall, and after a quick hot meal, he was ready to get down to human territory. The sooner this mission was over the better.
The cold air of the mountains wrapped around him. One of these days he’d have to move to one of the lower valleys where it was warmer and where their farmers grew crops for the rest of the ice giant nation.
This biting cold up here in the mountains could get old after a time. It didn’t bother him since he was an ice giant, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t want to live somewhere a little warmer. He was ready for a better climate, but he wasn’t willing to leave his mountains. There was safety here, safety from the humans who were wiping through this land like a plague, but at least the rock giants were trying to do something about that. There was no fondness in his heart for any of those humans.
He patted the velvety soft nose of his stallion before walking around the horse, inspecting the packs and double checking he had everything he needed for the journey. Then he checked the front cinch of the saddle, making sure it was good and tight.
“Be safe,” Jasmine said as she walked over to him, bundled up under a million furs.
This was the exact reason humans didn’t come up here. They weren’t built for this type of chill. Their mountain cold went bone deep and froze people from the inside out.
“Wouldn’t another horse help you?” Dryden strode up beside his queen wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders.
Mathar took a few seconds to take them in. They were so different. Dryden towered over his queen. While he looked mythical with his silver hair and black eyes, she looked so dull and stubby especially with all those furs bundled around her.
“If I take another horse, it will only slow me down, and it will give her sister a chance to escape if she doesn’t believe my story about us having Jasmine.” He wasn’t going to risk Adorra stealing a horse, and he knew his steed wouldn’t obey a random rider.
“That’s true.” Jasmine nodded her head in agreement. “Adorra is a strong woman, and she wouldn’t be afraid to bolt. But,” Jasmine looked Mathar in the eyes, “if you need her to behave, I know mentioning my name will get her interest and don’t forget to bring some of her dresses up here.”
“I will keep that in mind.” He mounted up and then couldn’t resist, “Let’s hope she’s smart enough not to dunk herself in the cold river.”
Jasmine and Dryden scowled at him as he kicked his heels into the side of his horse and left them behind with a clatter of hooves against the cobbled courtyard. They could glare all they wanted. It only gave him more pleasure. He was glad Jasmine had brought Dryden happiness, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t tease her about falling in the river when they’d all first met.
His horse left the castle courtyard and entered the town that surrounded them. People were busy running around seeing to their lives and the daily tasks they needed to finish. Then he finally broke out into the wilderness.
And his heart soared.
What he needed was to build himself a cabin out here in the woods and live a life in solitude. He’d never been one for socializing. The peace and quiet of the woods were what he needed.
As he drove his warhorse further into the snowy forest, his thoughts turned to Adorra. The last time he’d seen her, he’d murdered her husband at her sister’s request. On Adorra’s wedding night. And now they were sending him to retrieve her. He doubted Adorra would know who he was, but he still wondered if she would sense that he was her husband’s killer.
Mathar just wasn’t sure he could hide it. It wasn’t like there were many, if any, men who were the same size as himself.
He remembered her shock that night though. He’d had the moonlight to his back, so his face wasn’t lit up, but her’s had been. The moment he’d plunged the sword into her husband’s back, her eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates as her brain had rushed to understand what was happening.
Adorra had glanced up with those wide eyes of hers to see him, but all she would’ve seen was a menacing shadow lurking over her husband as he choked on his own blood.
Mathar had made sure she saw nothing. Dryden hadn’t wanted there to be any evidence that an ice giant had killed a human. There was no need to see how determined the humans would be to march into the treacherous mountains to exact their revenge.
They’d all most likely parish up here before reaching the ice giant castle or any villages, but Dryden hadn’t wanted to test that theory because if they reached any ice giants there would be bloodshed. And though Dryden loved his queen he had to think about his people.
The thought of Adorra’s face shaped by horror still haunted him. Her face when she realized her husband would die… it’d been the most horrifying sight he’d seen. Which also pissed him off. He shouldn’t feel anything when it came to a human woman, but he knew the horror of seeing a loved one die. His father had gone insane and slaughtered his own mother, and Mathar had escaped by the skin on his back, literally.
Mathar shook his head. He couldn’t get distracted. People who got distracted got killed. He needed to keep his wits about him. This mission wasn’t going to be as easy as killing someone. He had to get Adorra out of her manor alive without alerting anyone.
Mathar arrived close to the edge of a forest on human territory and stopped. It’d taken him a while to get here, but he remembered the way. It wasn’t like he could forget that night. He was used to killing men, but he’d never killed a woman’s husband right in front of her face, and on a night that was supposed to be so special.
He swung a leg over the back of his saddle as he dismounted. Landing on the ground, he marveled at the fact that it could be deep winter high up in the ice giant mountains, while there was not a hint of snow down here where the humans lived.
Taking his horse’s reins in his hand, he wrapped the reins around a tree branch. There was no need to bring the beast any closer lest it alert someone at the manor to his presence. It was a good horse, but one snort and he could have a troop of humans hot on his heels.
With a pat to his horse’s shoulder, he left it. It was time to get to the edge of the forest and study the movements of the humans.
For a whole day, he sat there at the edge of the forest watching the comings and goings of the manor. He didn’t want to stay on the border for too long, but he also wanted to make sure he did proper reconnaissance.
His eyes flickered over the windows of the grey stone manor until they landed on the window that he’d snuck through the last time he was here. Night was coming, and still, there were no candles being lit inside the room… which meant Adorra wasn’t staying in the same room as last time. Because of him. He must have tainted that room for her. He could understand that. After his mother passed, he hadn’t been able to set foot back in his childhood home.
He just had to remember what Dryden had told him before he’d left when Jasmine wasn’t around to hear. Once he had his hands on Adorra, he couldn’t let her escape back to her people. If she told them the ice giants were taking human women, the humans might attempt to march an army into the mountains. Right now, the ice giants were hoping to remain out of sight and out of mind. So, Dryden had given him permission to tie her up and gag her if necessary.
Dryden hadn’t permitted him to kill Adorra, but if she threatened Mathar’s people, he wouldn’t shy away from ending her life and facing Dryden’s wrath. As long as their people didn’t have to deal with the cruelties of the human people, it was well worth risking Dryden’s anger.
He shook his head as he continued to watch the human manor. He wasn’t entirely sure he knew what he’d signed up for. Jasmine hadn’t been a complete pain in the ass when they’d wandered across her in their mountains, but that didn’t mean her sister would be the s
ame.
A few more nights went past before Mathar finally felt like it was the right time to make his move. He now knew which room she was staying in and how the manor breathed day in and day out when it came to guard and servant movements. If everything went to plan, he could get in and out without anyone, except Adorra, being the wiser.
With one last look at a guard who was in the middle of switching out with another, he loped across the field between the forest and the manor. The moment he reached the manor, he pressed his back firmly against the cool outside stone wall. Then he scooted down the wall until he reached his destination, a window.
Watching from outside her window, which was conveniently located on the bottom floor of the manor, he watched as a servant girl brought in a cup of tea. The woman placed it on Adorra’s bedside table before leaving the room and closing the door after her.
This was his moment.
Placing his hands on the window sill, he pushed open the window panes and then heaved himself up and over. He landed on his feet on the other side with barely a noise. He was good at being a ghost. Quickly, he surveyed the room making sure he truly was alone.
Nothing in the room moved or made a sound.
Once Mathar knew there was no one else there with him, he inched his way into the room. It most definitely had to be the lady of the manor’s room. Fine jewelry boxes sat on a vanity, and the sheets on the bed were made of some fine soft fabrics. He might be nothing more than a simple warrior, but he could recognize refinery when he saw it.
One of Mathar’s hands dipped to his waist, grabbing the small leather bag that hung there. Undoing the drawstrings, he opened it to reveal a few berries. Gingerly, he caught them between his gloved fingers to make sure he didn’t accidentally juice them prematurely.
He raised his hand over the blue floral teacup and squeezed the berries until a clear liquid began to drip out of them and into her tea. He didn’t add too much. He didn’t want to put Adorra to sleep forever, but he didn’t want her waking up as he was kidnapping her either.