by Elly Blake
“We meant no offense,” the older guard said. “But as a favor, I’ll tell you that you shouldn’t get too attached to this one.” He indicated me with a nod. “Frostbloods won’t be permitted to form attachments to non-Frostbloods. Not if you want to live in Tempesia, that is.”
“You are mistaken.” Arcus bared his teeth in a rictus of a grin, all threatening white teeth and anticipation. “Very dangerously mistaken. Now, move.”
The squat guard shook his head again, his expression turning from earnest to belligerent. “I told you, go talk to Jarobs. You might get in to see Lord Grimcote next week, or at the most two or three—”
Before he could finish, his mouth was full of ice. In seconds, his body was covered in layers inches thick. On his other side, his companion’s eyes were frozen wide and staring. Arcus’s hands were lifted, each directed at one of the guards, his fingertips glittering with frost.
Relieved I didn’t have to put my rusty swordsmanship to the test, I gave Arcus a smile. “Nicely done.”
He pulled his hood back on. “Two hands. Two guards. Simple.”
Stepping past their frozen bodies, he opened the door.
FOUR
THE OVERSEER SAT AT A MAHOGANY desk covered with tidily arranged ink pots, quills, and rolled parchments. A small, snow-dusted window provided filtered light, and a coal-filled brazier in the corner smoked with heat.
He looked up as we entered, blinking twice before his eyebrows scrunched together in consternation. Really, it was more of a single brow, the thick dark hairs growing together in the middle.
I stared hard at him. I was sure I’d never met any Lord Grimcote before, and yet he seemed familiar. The roundness of his face, the small eyes set like currants in dough…
“Who let you in here?” he barked, the feather in his royal-blue velvet hat wobbling. “I don’t take visitors without appointments.”
I halted midstep. As frozen as the guards.
“Brother Lack?” I breathed in complete stupefaction.
His eyes rounded, and his jowls shook as he opened and closed his mouth. His expression of stark fury confirmed his identity as nothing else would have.
“You!” His lip curled. “The Fireblood scum.”
His familiar insult helped me recover from the shock. Squaring my shoulders, I moved toward the chair facing his desk. Memories flashed through my mind—his fist descending toward me as I lay helpless on the floor of Forwind Abbey, his accusations that I’d started a dangerous fire. How he’d informed the king’s soldiers of my presence there, resulting in my capture and the deaths of some of the monks. I hated him for that, and by the murderous look on his face, the feeling was still mutual.
I sat calmly, folding my hands in my lap. “It’s been so long. Keeping busy?”
“Guards!” he shouted.
“They won’t be coming,” Arcus informed him, moving to stand behind my chair—a tall, hooded presence radiating cold. “And I believe you’ll want to apologize for that remark to Princess Ruby. Now.”
“Princess?” Brother Lack’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Fine clothes do not a princess make. You’re still a filthy Fireblood peasant underneath.”
I made a show of wiping my cheek. “You still spit when you talk. I’d forgotten that charming quality.”
As I spoke, Arcus removed his hood.
Brother Lack’s eyes swept upward, and his throat bobbed on a long swallow. “Arcus!”
The former monk clearly remembered him as the young man who had lived in Forwind Abbey. Arcus’s true identity had remained secret from everyone but a trusted few. However, the story of the scarred king retaking his throne must have spread throughout the kingdom by now. Brother Lack seemed to put it together from one heartbeat to the next. It showed in the parade of horror, annoyance, and finally a grittily forced expression of subservience that played across his features.
He pushed his chair back and stood, bowing as low as he could with the impediment of a thick, finely worked leather belt cinching his rounded waist, then swallowed again as he straightened. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I didn’t realize… I did not expect your presence in my… hem… quiet city. How can I be of service?”
The room had chilled with Arcus’s impatience. “I await your apology to the princess.”
Brother Lack forced out the words between gritted teeth. “My apologies… Princess.”
“Your apology is as gracious as expected,” I replied evenly. “And I accept it with as much enthusiasm as it was delivered.”
He gave me a killing look. I smiled and picked up a scroll from his desk, aware his face was flushing dangerously. “Grain is indeed expensive in these parts.” I flicked a look up at him. “Perhaps you lack”—I smiled as I realized I’d used his name—“the skills to negotiate a reasonable price. I’d be happy to instruct you in the art of negotiation. I’m told I have a talent for it.”
His face continued to redden. “No. Thank you.” The polite afterthought seemed to be dragged from the soles of his feet, fighting every inch of the way.
I could sense Arcus’s impatience behind me, although he made no move to interfere as I took another scroll and broke the seal, then skimmed its contents. A letter from Lord Grimcote to his butcher, complaining about inferior cuts of meat. I inspected his seal. It was a semicircle with lines radiating out from it.
“What is this?” I asked, waving the seal at him. “A setting sun?”
His eyes widened. “Put that down! That is my private correspondence!”
I shook my head. “It’s too cheery for you. How about a storm cloud? I think that would suit better. Or perhaps a puddle.”
Arcus took a cursory glance at the seal and said, “I don’t recall a Lord Grimcote among my nobility.”
“I…” He cleared his throat. “It is a recent title, bestowed upon my father by King Rasmus for his loyal service.”
“Meaning your father donated significant coin to my brother’s war against Safra. Where is your land?”
“In the Aris Plains,” he admitted stiffly.
“Of course,” I muttered.
King Rasmus had taken land in the independent-minded southern provinces—the area that had had the highest concentration of Firebloods in Tempesia—and parceled it out to certain nobles as reward for their contributions to his war. It was no secret that Arcus planned to take some of that land back, returning it to the farmers who had worked it for generations. It was one of the complaints fueling the Blue Legion.
“So your vow of poverty means nothing to you,” I said, amused at his flaring nostrils. How easy it was to goad him. “A fact made even clearer when you look out your window at the hundred or more starving people freezing to death on those docks. They seemed to view the arrival of our ship as a last hope.”
“I can’t control how many people choose to leave our shores, or how few ships are here to transport them. The Winter of Purification is upon us. I do not question the will of the gods; I merely serve.”
“I think it’s your own will you follow. You always were obsessed with Frostblood purity.”
“Only the strongest will remain.” His eyes shifted to Arcus. “No true Frostblood would object to that.”
“Is that what you’re posturing as?” I demanded. “A true Frostblood? Last I checked, you had no gift to speak of.”
He drew himself up. “I’ve always thought the mark of a true Frostblood was in his character.”
“Excuse me?” I laughed at the idea of him having anything resembling character. “Oh, and I suppose that’s why those people out there are freezing? Because they have no character?” My voice rose. “I think it’s because they don’t have your connections, your wealth, and your guile. You plunder their lands to fill your coffers, spending your coin on food and fine clothing while common folk starve! The proof is in these invoices and ledgers.” I grabbed a wad of scrolls and tossed them at him. They hit his chest and scattered. “Do you deny it?”
“I don’t owe them any
thing, damn you!” Spittle flew, hitting my heated skin with a sizzle. “I certainly owe you no explanations. You are nothing but an upstart rebel who was pretty enough to attract the attentions of a scarred and ugly king!”
The words reverberated in my head. It was one thing to insult me, but to say that about Arcus…
“I’m so glad you gave me an excuse to do this,” I said hoarsely, raising my fiery palms. “Even your bones will be ashes.”
“Ruby, wait,” Arcus said behind me.
I barely heard him. As fury and fire built in equal measure, a sense of joy exploded in my heart.
The Minax woke, readying to feed off the kill.
Let it. This vile excuse for an overseer deserved to die.
“Hold, Ruby. Look!” Arcus took my wrist in hand and turned it so I could see. My veins ran the color of tar. “We can’t risk it taking over!”
I don’t care. Fire twisted in copper threads and golden arcs, rushing back and forth between my palms in a hypnotic pattern.
The Minax whispered encouragement.
Burn him. Burn his bones. Flay him with fire.
Palms raised, Brother Lack whispered, “Please.”
The cold of Arcus’s fingers on my wrist did more to penetrate the angry haze than that single pleading word. I lowered my hands but kept them molten hot.
Arcus moved forward, leaning on the desk’s edge, frost lacing its way over the polished wood as he addressed the terrified overseer.
“You will resign your post. You will go quietly with my soldiers to await your interrogation. I will pull up the roots of this treason. And don’t think for a second I’ve forgotten what you did to the princess at Forwind Abbey—how it was you who alerted the soldiers to her presence.”
Lack’s eyes shifted to me. When I didn’t make a move to attack, he straightened and addressed Arcus in a shaking voice. “This goes deeper than you think. Your authority isn’t what it was before you left. If you don’t pledge your fealty to the Blue Legion, you will find yourself in your own dungeon.”
“You dare,” I said, my fire flaring.
He lifted his palms in surrender. “It was meant as a warning. I am but a facet in the gem of the Blue Legion. Crush me, and you will only release the blinding fury of its other sides. You cannot fight the divine.”
“The divine?” Arcus scoffed. “Your agenda has nothing to do with Fors and everything to do with your own ambition.”
He shook his head frantically. “We are merely servants. He will reward us for our faithfulness.”
“Get out before I change my mind and execute you today, which is what you surely deserve. Know that it is only my concern for the princess that has saved you.”
Brother Lack finally looked convinced. He trembled as he rounded the desk and scurried toward the door. As he saw his frozen guards outside, he stumbled and fell to his knees. The plumed velvet hat went skidding into the dirty slush. As he stumbled to his feet, he turned a glare of loathing back onto us. “I will relish the day you taste the Blue Legion’s vengeance.”
Arcus sucked in a breath and went after him, grabbing him up by the back of his doublet and shaking him, for all his weight, as if he were a disobedient puppy, then tossing him into a snowbank. At a word from their king, Frostblood soldiers surrounded the overseer and dragged him off.
As soon as I stepped out of the building, Arcus turned and grabbed my hands to check my wrists. His breathing calmed when he saw my blood was red once again.
“You’re all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I feel fine now.”
It was true. The Minax had quieted. But I had lost my complacent state of mind. Perhaps Arcus had been right, that it wasn’t so much I’d kept the creature under control on the voyage as it hadn’t chosen to assert itself. A chill that had nothing to do with the bitter wind swept down my spine. I would have to be very careful of my emotions.
Thankfully, seeing Arcus vent his rage had eased my own somehow. I almost wanted to laugh when I remembered Brother Lack bumbling into the snow, hat a-flying.
“You could have executed him,” I pointed out, staring up at Arcus.
“A dead man can’t answer questions.”
Good point. “You’ll have to keep him in custody or he’ll go crying to the rest of the Blue Legion that you’re here.”
“They’ll find out soon enough that their miserable excuse for a game is over. He’s lucky I was worried about you, or I’d have waited until you were done with him and sent his burned corpse to the capital as a warning.”
“Would you, really?” That seemed harsh coming from him, but I’d never truly seen him pushed beyond his limits.
He halted and gave me a measuring look. “Would you disapprove?”
I didn’t even have to pause to consider my answer. “In his case? No.”
“I thought not.” He searched my eyes as he stepped close—almost as if he were looking for something—but then leaned forward. I tilted my chin up, but we became aware at the same time of the dozens of eyes trained on us. He surveyed the throng of shivering citizens. “We have work to do here before we can leave. These people need food, and they need shelter and heat.”
An idea formed as I saw the Fireblood masters clustered nearby. “I think I know a way we can warm them up.”
FIVE
OVER THE FOLLOWING DAYS, WE SET up warming stations and shelters in a public inn and a few large houses, where the Fireblood masters regulated their body temperature to throw off heat.
I took charge of the infirmary. Anyone versed in the healing arts lent a hand, including Doreena, who surprised me with her knowledge. An apothecary’s stores were put to use—willingly once I assured the owner we would reimburse her for the value of her herbs and tinctures.
The main problem among the populace turned out to be malnourishment, since the Blue Legion had been charging non-Frostbloods exorbitant prices for food. Fortunately, that was no longer a problem once we discovered that Brother Lack had commandeered a luxurious manor from a local merchant, and its outbuildings were crammed with grain, dried meat, cheese, root vegetables, and sundry winter stores. He’d been gorging while the refugees practically starved.
Arcus’s soldiers and Kai’s sailors rounded up the Blue Legion’s forces and, with a little modification, turned their barracks into a temporary prison. It turned out not to be too difficult since most of them were found lolling about in taverns or the infamous Painted Lady.
Eilynn, an experienced captain in the Tempesian navy, was Arcus’s choice as the new overseer. She would have no difficulty maintaining order in the city, even after we left.
Some homeowners objected when we requisitioned their rooms for refugees, but a surprising number of them were cooperative. As it turned out, not everyone agreed with the Blue Legion’s ideals. Many locals, even those in the merchant and upper classes, confessed relief that Lord Grimcote was gone, and now that their king had returned, things would get back to normal.
At first, my patients in the infirmary seemed wary of me and the Fireblood masters. Many of the displaced citizens came from northern provinces where they’d never even seen a Fireblood and had only heard about us from cautionary tales: “Don’t trust a Fireblood, or you’ll surely be burned!”
But the heat, food, and shelter warmed them inside and out, and I began to see that we were gaining their trust. It was the first encouraging sign that there might be a chance to heal the rift between kingdoms.
After only three days, the city had undergone a minor transformation, with shelters, pallets, and blankets for all.
On the fourth day, the young woman I’d given my cloak, Anda, gave birth to a beautiful daughter she named Gyda after her own mother. Gyda had black hair and dark eyes and the prettiest little rosebud lips I’d ever seen.
I watched in fascination as the infant nursed at her mother’s breast, the way she latched on and fed contentedly. Anda stroked her tiny head and smiled. When the hungry infant finally had enough, she fell into
a peaceful sleep.
“Would you like to hold her?” Anda asked, offering me the cozy bundle.
I nodded but took a minute to regulate my body temperature first, and to make sure that the Minax was tightly under control before I put out my arms. My heart squeezed as Anda placed the swaddling-wrapped newborn in my arms. She seemed so tiny and breakable. A fierce urge to protect her came over me.
No child should be left in the cold because of some heartless devotion to purity, I thought as I rocked the slight but precious weight in my arms. When kingdoms war, when gods seek revenge, it’s innocent people who suffer most.
Eurus was ready to tear apart our world, with no care at all for the mortals he would destroy. My resolve hardened to fight him with everything I had, even if it meant my life.
“She’s not a Frostblood,” Anda said with an air of regret as she looked down at her tiny daughter in my arms.
“Neither am I,” I said brightly, cooing at the baby. I stroked my fingertip over her tiny fist. Her skin was like velvet. Her hand opened and caught my finger in a surprisingly strong grip.
I laughed with delight. “Her hand is like a little vise!”
“That’s nothing compared to the strength in her jaw.”
I chuckled at the mother’s wry expression. “She’s perfect. She’s going to be loved, and that’s all that counts.”
“You’re right.”
Aside from a few snoring patients, the infirmary was finally quiet for the night. The manor’s ballroom had turned out to be perfect for us, its fireplace providing heat and a warm glow that made the room feel snug despite its size.
Everyone’s injuries had been tended, every patient given herbs to help with pain. Of the healers and volunteers, only Doreena and I remained, bundling up dirty linens and tidying the supplies.
When she was finished, she scrubbed her hands with lye soap in the bucket of melted snow I’d turned into warm washing water. “I’m glad this day is done. I don’t think I sat down once.”