FULL NOVELXO Court of Ice and Ash: Chapter 2
I gritted my teeth and tugged on my own leg, knee-deep in sticky, potent mud. A loud suction broke the silence of the night. All gods, it smelled. My nose wrinkled at the harsh reek of refuse and rot. Each shift of my step released a plume of stink into the air until my stomach turned and I strongly considered vomiting, so it might help the smell.
Murky bubbles of sludge popped and gurgled as the swamp slowly released my foot. But I’d pulled hard enough, when the boot slurped free, I fell backward and now my hands, head, and backside were coated.
A snicker from the reeds deepened the frown on my face.
“I don’t want to hear it, Siverie,” I snapped. A shiver ran the length of my spine and pin pricks of cold coated my thighs where my wet, muddy hose clung to my skin.
Siv emerged from the tall grass, grin wide and white. She’d hidden her pine needle colored hair beneath a black brimmed hat and had lifted the sharp collar of her woolen coat, so it hid the sides of her face.
I’d thought to be clever and lithe by wearing sturdy leather boots, a black tunic and cowl to hide my icy hair. Now I wished I’d have listened to Siv’s warning of the cold and wetness on the prison trails. I shivered in the sludge, soaked to my bones.
At least my skin was masked now. Nothing worse than having a Timoran complexion that practically reflected moonlight like a lantern when stealth was key to everything. I held tightly to Siv’s shoulder, stepped where she stepped, until we were back on the spongy bank.
“You have terrible night eyes,” Siv whispered. “That is the fifth time you’ve stumbled into the water. At this rate we may as well wait until dawn and bring back his ashes from the pyre.”
I frowned even if she couldn’t see it in the dark. “Everything is the same shade—night. I can hardly make out the path unlike you who’s memorized it.”
“When your people are constantly arrested, the road to the prison becomes second nature.”
She’d said it lightly, but it wasn’t a jest. Siv was an Agitator. Folk who hated the current king and his predecessors. Folk who believed the fae prince of old was the true heir and would restore this land into what it once had been as the Kingdom of Etta. A time before raids and Timoran rule.
Agitators despised royal Timorans, and being a lesser princess, I’d been horrified to discover Siv, my friend and former maid, was an Agitator sent to slit my throat. But Siv had proven her friendship. Because of it, we were both outsiders to her clan. Now, we were being proved. And I wouldn’t fail. Not because I wanted the Agitator clan to let us live, but because others were depending on our success tonight.
I wouldn’t be the one to let them down.
But in truth, life would be wholly more convenient if we could tell the Agitators the truth: the fae prince they worshipped was alive.
Valen Ferus. The Night Prince.
A man who’d desired me. Made me desire him.
A man who’d trusted me and taught me to trust.
A man who’d chosen revenge when I’d chosen him.
I shook my head to chase away thoughts of Valen. Thoughts of the Night Prince usually ended in tears or a rush of anger, fierce enough to make me throw knives.
Neither would be helpful.
I ducked behind a fallen log when we made it to the base of a stone wall surrounding the prison. Made of wood and wattle, with rotted beams and iron bars on each window. Prisoners would endure the elements, frost, and heat, without proper protection. Most would die.
Torches lit the courtyard, and in the center a wooden dais was raised, along with a device to splay the arms of victims. Rusted blades were laid out on a bloody, stained table.
Bile burned the back of my throat. Already the wood was stained in blood. A wagon below the dais held three bodies set for the prison pyres. On the opposite side of the dais a line of broken people awaiting their fate snaked around the damp yard.
Siv held up a finger, then gestured over the shadowed knoll. I bit the inside of my cheek, forcing myself to remain silent once I found him.
A little thinner. A ratty beard on his chin. Rags for clothes.
“Mattis.’ My chest cinched for my friend, the carpenter, and roared in a new hatred for my own sister.
Two weeks ago, Siv and I had slipped back into Mellanstrad seeking to bring Mattis to the Agitator clan, only to learn he’d been claimed as an enemy of the king.
Runa. My sister had helped her betrothed, Calder, murder the king and steal the throne. Once I was not found amongst their cowardly supporters, Runa had Mattis arrested, no doubt with torture. But even more, she and Calder burned the Lysander manor to the ground, uncaring whether any serfs or maids or cooks were inside.
Runa might be worse than Calder, the false king. False because Valen should hold the crown.
In my heart I knew he’d unite this broken kingdom. I could not believe otherwise.
“You’ve got that look again,” Siv whispered as she readied an arrow in her bow. “We focus on Mattis and the elders and getting out of here alive tonight, then we can worry about Prince Valen.”
“I wasn’t thinking of the Blood Wraith.”
She rolled her eyes. ‘You shouldn’t call him that. He’ll take the throne eventually. It’s in his blood.’
“Tell that to Ari.”
Weeks ago, we’d been cornered by the head of the Agitator clans. Ari, a powerful fae illusionist, had claimed the throne, claimed he’d returned life to the land. The people accepted him as the new king. They believed the Ferus bloodline was truly dead.
“Ari will concede,” Siv said after a pause. “Deep down he wants what is best for Etta.”
I wasn’t so sure. Ari seemed to enjoy his new title. Made clear by sending us into this bleeding, damp forest without argument.
“Why not let the Night Prince have a bit of revenge along the way?” Siv asked.
I replied with a long sigh. Valen wanted to destroy the throne of Timoran in the name of his parents, brother, and sister. He wanted retribution and revenge. He wanted more blood. I understood. In truth, I wanted Runa and Calder to pay for the lives they’d taken, but at what cost?
When he’d sated the call for blood, what sort of man would be left? The strong, kind, and gentle man I’d known—or a new version of Calder, except Valen had fury.
I have not forgotten for whom my heart beats. He’d said the words moments before he’d shoved me away. Still, he remained. The fury in his blood, the very smell of his skin, was like a shadow I could not touch.
My heart, my temper, could not take much more.
Siv tossed a satchel at me. “Let’s go.’
Together, we positioned ourselves at the top of the knoll. From the satchel, I removed a small crossbow, and locked in a bolt. I wasn’t skilled enough to use other bows and arrows like Siv, but I’d been practicing. Since Valen made the decision to leave us, I made the decision to fight my way back to him.
On the dais, a holy man from the royal shrine of the gods read sagas of the great hall that awaited in the Otherworld as Mattis was brought toward the bloody center. I took a bit of pride. My friend didn’t flinch. He strode to his fate with the bravery of warriors.
Siv murmured a prayer under her breath. One folk said to protect those they cared for. She’d never admit it, but I had my own suspicions the carpenter had burrowed into her guarded heart.
“We move swiftly,” Siv said.
I nodded my agreement and lifted my bow. The executioner shredded Mattis’s tattered shirt from his back. Through my teeth, I blew out a breath, and let my bolt fly.
Right after, Siv freed her first arrow.
Shouts rang in the prison yard like growing flames. The executioner rushed for one of the blades on his table.
Bleeding hells! He was going to kill Mattis where he stood.
Or so he thought. Mattis was no small man. His work with heavy beams and iron tools had given him enough stamina—even weakened as he was—to reel back and strike the executioner in the nose.
Guards rushed the dais. Siv fired an arrow, ripping out a throat of one raven. I released a bolt and hit a shoulder.
Half the patrols rushed to secure the prisoners trying to escape their ropes. The rest aimed their attention at the knoll. Siv took a few steps back, firing arrows. I retreated, my stomach in hard knots. We were not meant to be alone.
Where were the others?
Like a fist to my stomach, I realized we’d been left to fend off the ravens on our own.
This was a suicide task.
Ari had given us a directive. Our task was to interrupt the execution of an Agitator elder. We negotiated, of course, to free Mattis. Damn, stand-in king.
I’d misjudged the playful, cunning fae. If I had to guess, death was exactly what Ari hoped for us. They never planned to accept us and now Mattis would die too.
“Siv!” I screamed when a patrolman reached the top of the knoll. His face was painted in blue and black. Head shaved with intricate runes tattooed on the sides extending from his temples. With a sneer, he removed a slender sword from his belt.
I fumbled with my bolts. Siv dropped her bow when the guard swatted it away. My fingers trembled. With two missing fingertips, I’d learned how to adjust my grip on things, but in the moment my palm was slick with sweat.
All at once the gates of the prison yard clanged open. The guard hovering over Siv pointed his attention as a swell of Agitators rushing the yard.
About bleeding time, Ari!
Siv’s fist curled around my wrist. “Elise! Hurry. Mattis and the elders are still caught in there.”
Agitators fought against the miserly guards at the prison gates. Some of the prisoners had taken hold of knives, rods, and branches. Some stood still, possibly too stunned to fight. Others fled. But those, like Mattis, fought the guards with terrible rage. The weeks, months, turns, of suffering at their hands burst out in jabs, and strikes, and cutting blows.
Siv sprinted to Mattis. I turned to the man with a silver beard and a gray birthmark below his eyes.
“Elder Klok!” I screamed. “This way.”
The man wasn’t terribly old. A few leathery wrinkles battered his skin, but his body seemed strong enough, his eyes clear. The man took me in for a few breaths, took note of my bow and bolts, then followed my gaze to the open gate where the Agitators broke through.
“You are with the clan?”
“In a sense.”
The elder grinned, revealing one broken tooth at the front. “Good enough for me.”
He dropped the wooden rod in his hand and rushed for the gate. A few Agitators shouted his name in a strangled kind of glee.
I didn’t wait for him to be free before I ran back to Siv and Mattis. She reached the carpenter as he swung a wooden board at a guard’s head. Siv shoved his shoulders when shouting his name wasn’t enough.
Mattis fumbled to the side. His eyes wild when he glanced back. A few breaths passed before he beamed beneath the scruff of his beard.
“Siverie.” His voice was hoarse and dry. “You’ve come for my jokes.”
“You stupid fool!” she shouted at him, a touch of desperation in her voice. “Get out of here! Hurry.”
Mattis chuckled and accepted her hand. His eyes caught mine and his smile changed into something softer. “Kvinna.”
“There are no Kvinnas here tonight, my friend,” I said as I picked up my pace and ran toward the gates.
I didn’t look back. Didn’t want to watch the slaughter of the prison guards. Doubtless some prisoners deserved to be locked away and we’d freed them.
“You . . . came for me,” Mattis said, gasping over his knees. “I always knew . . . you cared Siverie.”
“Shut up,” she said, voice trembling. “Or I will gladly return you.”
Mattis started to smile, but it faded as quickly. I followed his wide gaze to the edge of the trees. From the shadows a row of darkly dressed men materialized. At the front was a handsome man with wheat-golden hair to his shoulders. His tanned skin smooth and coated in dark stubble. The darkness in his eyes was unique and ringed with gold. When he grinned, the white of his teeth caught the moonlight, the same way the gold piercings did in his pointed ears.
“You lived,” he said. His voice was like silk, cool and soft. But beneath it all was a jagged edge waiting to strike. “Consider me . . . impressed.”
“Ari!” I narrowed my eyes and took a step closer. “You left us to be slaughtered!”
“I’m offended. Did I not warn you this would be a test of fate? Naturally I assumed you would know there would be danger involved.”
I clenched my fists. “You wanted us to die.”
He studied his painted black fingernails. “I was indifferent.” Unbelievable. Ari grinned that smug grin he used to win over everyone in his clan. “Don’t be sour, Elise Lysander. You survived and now you shall have a warm bed to rest your pretty, royal head.” Ari flicked his eyes to Mattis. “This is your boon companion?”
I pinched my lips. I didn’t trust them, not in the slightest, but Night Folk were notorious for being truthful, and clever, and wicked. He said we’d be welcome, but for how long? I didn’t know. We would need to negotiate a better deal soon. “Mattis will come with us. He is welcome the same as we are, yes?”
“He is Ettan. Of course, he is welcome.”
Mattis kept glancing at Ari, then Siv. Sometimes me.
“Night Folk? Agitators?” he said after a pause.
“We prefer to think ourselves as revolutionaries,” Ari said. “Castle Ravenspire and Timorans are the true agitators of the land.”
Mattis ignored Ari and turned to Siv. “You’re an Agitator?”
“Mattis—”
“You were an Agitator with the Kvinna. No doubt sent there for a reason.”
“To kill her,” Ari said dryly.
I shot him a glare. The stand-in king had no tact, and I was positive he did it on purpose when he winked at me.
“I tease a great deal,” Mattis said through his teeth, “but I do not lie. It is a disgusting habit I have little patience for.”
Mattis walked away from Siv and came to stand beside me. I touched his arm gently. “Mattis, she—”
“Don’t,” he said. “Not yet, Elise. Not yet.”
He wanted to be angry. And who was I to say he couldn’t be? For weeks he’d been a prisoner. Tortured. Now, a person he cared for was revealed as a liar.
I knew the feeling.
“Come,” Ari said, grinning. “No doubt we have much to discuss. I have a feeling you might want to hear the most unusual news I’ve just been given.”
“I doubt it.”
“No?” Ari lifted his brows. “Even if it involves one of your former interesting connections?”
“What are you talking about?”
Ari squared against me. I caught my breath when he gripped my arm. He was stronger than he looked, but never lost his grin. He reminded me of Legion Grey at times. Even if Legion didn’t know he was truly Valen Ferus, the Night Folk love of mischief had been rife in his mannerisms.
I swallowed the knot of nerves when Ari took a step closer. “You have unseemly friends, Elise, do you not?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Were you not taken in by the Blood Wraith and his guild? Did you not form some wretched partnership with the man?”
My body stiffened. “I . . . how did—”
“I have my own disconcerting friends.” Ari’s grin widened. “Come. We need you to help us find him. I have a proposition for the Blood Wraith.”