FULL NOVELXO Court of Ice and Ash: Chapter 3
little brother.”
“No, Sol. No. Leave him, you bastards!” I shouted, struggling against my bound wrists. The raiders surrounded my brother. They dragged him away while our father’s body was still sprawled at our feet.
Sol’s blue eyes grew dark, like the black parts of the sea. “Fight Valen! You fight like you’ve never fought before! Fight like the gods! I’ll save a space for you in the great hall!”
The door slammed between us. The pit where they’d kept my family, where they’d kept our knights and members of the gentry for months and months, settled in a dreary silence. Those of us left alive stared, unblinking, at the door. Sol was meant to be the next king. The rightful, strong king.
But now . . .
My father had gone through that door. He’d returned bloodied and dead. They’d blocked my fury with spells and strange magic, but even still, the ground shook with my pain.
I was alone.
I was the last Ferus. No doubt, I wouldn’t be breathing for much longer.
A pain in my middle woke me from the flash of a memory. I blinked my focus back to the caravan. To the fight right in front of me.
A bulky raven tried to kick at my ribs again. My axe cut through the guarders over his shoulder. He let out a shout of agony and scrambled back.
My chest tightened. The scrape of steel on steel danced down my spine. Smoke from pyre fury thickened in the air. Blood, the sweet tang, the desire to be closer to it, tugged at the beast inside.
The caravan had been ready for our attack.
False King Calder was using his few brains at long last. The moment we’d lunged off the ledge, weapons were raised, and the caravan circled around their supplies. The feeblest Ettans shrank to their knees, expecting to die. No doubt they still ran stunned when the Guild of Shade broke their tethers and attacked their captors instead.
Thoughts of my brother replayed in my head. I fumbled out of reach when another raven joined in against me.
Memories came at odd times, but remembering such a horrid moment, now, with blades drawn, was wholly inconvenient.
The guard swiped a short blade at my neck. I parried and drove one axe between his lower ribs. The raven fell back, gasping, blood dripping between his fingers. A groan rumbled in my throat. Desire to shred the flesh until more blood spilled was there. Not as potent as the curse had been, but it was as if memories of the creature I’d become still lived in my head, a disease festering that could burst if I was not cautious.
My breaths came heavy behind the red mask, and my grip tightened on the handles of my axes.
When the second guard met my eye, fear was there. Did he need to die? I could practically hear my mother’s voice begging for peace, asking me to be the greater man. The way she’d tried when the Timoran raiders invaded and destroyed our land. Her pleas fell on deaf ears. They cared little that her skin had been fair. Her hair like winter frost—like Elise’s. They’d taken her; they’d dragged her like a dog to the Timoran king.
She’d wanted mercy from both sides. From her people, and her husband’s.
The raiders, her own folk, didn’t listen. Now her cries were from the grave.
Did this Ravenspire guard deserve to die? Yes. He did.
Lithely, I dropped one axe against the soft nape of his neck. He’d hardly budged, as if he knew I’d strike and there was little he could do to stop it.
Fight, Valen. Fight like you’ve never fought before. Beneath my mask, I sneered at the chaos we’d caused the royal caravan. Perhaps we’d descended into nothing but thieves and killers, but when Timorans suffered, when their loyalty for Calder faltered, then it would be Etta’s time to rise again.
I would fight as Sol demanded of me. I would not stop until those who’d viciously robbed my people of their freedom lost everything.
Halvar laughed behind his black mask, his hood falling back as his air fury spread Tor’s flames in hot waves around fleeing Timorans and Ravenspire guards. We’d trapped the caravan and could do as we pleased now.
Until new cries entered the fight.
From the distance, a few dark figures burst from the surrounding field. They appeared from the tall grass and rushed the lone textile cart that had found a way to break through the flames. Not ravens, they were . . . Agitators.
Cursed hells. My insides twisted. There was no time to deal with these fools now.
“Blood Wraith!” an Agitator cried. I could not make out his face, but the glee in his voice made it clear he thought us to be on the same side.
We weren’t.
They were a nuisance. A deadly one, but a nuisance all the same. And they were tearing apart the cart. The driver was slaughtered before we could even stop them.
“Get back you bleeding fools!” Halvar shouted. It took a great deal to draw out his anger, but Halvar had little patience for Agitators.
An Agitator rushed toward me, breathless, unafraid of my black iron axes leveled at him. “We saw you attack, and we knew. We knew you serve Etta! You serve the true king.”
The true king?
“The main coach is there,” said the Agitator. I tried to resist, tried, but my eyes followed his pointed finger. The coach was nothing but a supply wagon.
“Textiles,” I grumbled.
“No. The False King has been transporting his nobility and supporters in inconspicuous caravans for weeks. But a new wave of raven patrols are coming, Blood Wraith. We do this now, or not at all.”
My skin prickled at the notion we were somehow unified with these rogues, but I didn’t correct him. Instead, I studied the unimpressive wagon. There was nothing to hint that a Timoran noble was inside. But if there were, well then, the night would get more interesting. I did not mind tearing down the Timoran noble lines vine by vine until they grew so weak and brittle, they would crumble beneath the feet of Ettans.
I whistled at Halvar and Tor, jerked my head at the covered coach, and stalked to the side. A quick swing of my axe broke away the bolt on the door. Tor ripped it off the weak hinges. I planned to strike fast and mercilessly.
But small screams drew my attack to a halt.
Children?
A girl, no older than twelve, huddled at least five young ones behind her skinny body. She wore a fine woolen gown, hemmed in silver thread. A band of rowan berries crowned her pale hair. The children behind her wore shoes, stiff trousers, and sturdy woolen tunics. Their cheeks were plump and rosy, proof they did not miss meals.
I hadn’t realized the Agitator had come to stand at my shoulder until he laughed viciously.
“Ah, the precious ones of the royal court.” I turned my glare to the man. He lifted a brow and drew a knife. “Nobility, Wraith. Isn’t that right little witch.”
The Agitator reached for the oldest girl, taking her by the hair. The younger children screamed as he dragged her away. She winced but remained silent. Brave, for a Timoran. I closed my eyes for a heartbeat. Like Elise.
They were nobles. They’d grow to be vicious, no mistake.
Then again, Elise had not been vicious. She was a rarity, a ray of light in a sea of darkness. These littles, I had few doubts they’d be raised to be ruthless. But could I kill children?
King Eli had not hesitated.
Fight, Valen.
My pulse raced in my skull.
“We . . . have done nothing to you,” said the girl, a tremble in her voice. She spoke Ettan roughly, but the Agitator understood enough. “We go to the court for schooling.”
“Ah, you won’t make it, love.”
Fight, Valen.
This would be the fight like I had never done before. Slaughtering young ones, giving the Timorans a taste of what my folk endured.
I tightened my grip on my axe. The iron grew heavy. The blade head twitched at my side. I’d make it painless. Swift. I’d spare them from a coming war where they’d watch their families be tortured and killed in front of their eyes.
How many times had I wished to die as a young man after I’d been locked in the quarries?
Bloodlust called. It would keep the creature inside sated. The girl’s eyes jumped to mine. Fear was there, but a strength, too.
Dammit!
In one smooth motion, I pressed the cutting edge of the axe against the Agitator’s throat.
He turned a look of astonishment my way.
“We don’t kill young ones,” I said.
Halvar and Tor moved in, whether they agreed with me or not, they’d defend me.
“They are Timoran pups,” the Agitator said. “They’d kill you without a second thought should the tables turn.”
I was once these children, hiding from monsters in the dark. All gods, I hated them. I hated me for even considering cutting them down.
“Let them go.” I pressed the axe blade to his throat until a drop of blood broke free.
The Agitator gawked at me, wholly surprised, but obeyed. His grip unraveled from the girl’s hair.
She scrambled back toward the littlest children. “Go, out the back, hurry now.”
The Agitator’s face contorted into a grimace. He shook his head and ran off into the trees. Let him be angry.
Perhaps we were a little wicked, but there were lines in the sand, and I’d drawn them. Damage had been done; we’d destroyed much of King Calder’s trade. Another cut at his weak empire. We didn’t need to spill young blood to do our work.
“There! That one. There!”
The girl’s shriek startled me. All gods! I cursed myself. The curse had made me complacent in my battle instincts. Enough I did not notice the flames dying, nor the new rush of approaching ravens.
The child I’d just saved pointed her slender finger at me. “He’s the leader!”
A guard sliced my arm, splitting the guarder on my shoulder. Blood rushed and soaked my tunic. The sting ravished my skin. All those turns as the Blood Wraith who could not die, I’d hardly felt the burn of steel on flesh. Now, it seared like fire lined the edges.
The guard struck again. I stumbled, swung my axe defensively, and missed. Cursed hells, I’d lost the upper hand in a foolish moment of sentimentality.
I should’ve let the Agitator slit the girl’s throat.
The guard reeled back again, but a gust of hot, fierce wind blasted his face with dirt and debris.
“Go!” Halvar shouted and shoved me back. He stood in my place, a growing circle of ravens at his sides.
The creature inside stirred as I scrambled to my feet. I planned to stand by Halvar, then rip everyone’s flesh from their bones piece by piece.
“Air fae!”
Before I could take another breath, the ravens surrounded my friend and wrestled him to the ground. Halvar cried out. Something heavy burdened the air. A strange magic flickered in my own fury, creating a sensation like I would hit a wall should I try to bend the earth.
But Halvar didn’t have time for me not to attack.
“Go!” I heard him shout in the crowd of ravens. “Bindings. Go.”
Bindings. My throat grew dry. Horrid memories of fetters that wreaked havoc on fury, burned the flesh, and kept the strongest magic muted pummeled my brain.
In a panic, I lifted my hands. Halvar would not be bound again. Not when we’d only just escaped. I’d split the earth and swallow the ravens whole.
But arms wrapped around my waist and tossed me back.
“You bastard!” I shouted from the ground.
“Get up,” Tor said in a harsh rasp. He nudged my shoulder. “Hurry. We must go.”
“Have you lost your bleeding mind? We’re not leaving Halvar!”
Tor dropped any titles between us. For a moment I was not his prince, he was not my subject. He gripped the back of my neck, forehead to mine, and hissed through his teeth. “You reveal yourself, then Halvar will be known. Right now, he is nothing but a rare Night Folk. The king will want to use him, and he’ll live. If his connection to the Night Prince is made known, then he dies without question, and war, before we have any standing, begins. Go. We’ll plan. We’ll return for him, make no mistake.”
Halvar was being dragged toward black prison coaches, unable to use his fury. More guards rushed back to Tor and me. My body trembled in hatred, and I cried my rage to the sky.
I turned toward the trees and ran.
Without Halvar.
Gods, I hated Castle Ravenspire. I hated the false king. I hated this land. Every Timoran would pay for this night. Young and old alike.