Ice
After my shift ends, I rush back to the North Tower, a spring in my step that even my heavy book bag can’t weigh down. I’m elated by Trystan’s discovery, only half aware of my surroundings. Thoughts of dragon rescue whir excitedly in my mind.
Saved. Everyone who’ll need to get out as good as saved. Wynter. Ariel. Tierney. Yvan. We’ll rescue Yvan’s dragon, and no one will have to be afraid anymore.
It’s dark and winter-quiet on the broad field leading up to the tower, and a sickle moon hangs overhead.
The wind picks up and whistles through the nearby forest. The eerie sound highlights a deeper silence, the surrounding wilds a tangle of bare branches.
Watching me.
I slow, then stop, suddenly rooted to my place on this broad expanse of sloping field. The walk from the University city to the North Tower is long and solitary, far away from everything. The wind shudders through the trees.
I swear I can feel eyes on me.
The hairs on the back of my neck go up, and I glance uneasily around.
The North Tower is still a distance away, a dim light shining from its upstairs window. The lower half of the tower has an odd glint, as if it’s glazed with a thin layer of spun sugar.
Ice.
Alarmed, I stop and turn clear around, the lights of the University city mere pinpricks in the distance. From here, the mammoth stone buildings are as small as a child’s toys. My heart picks up speed.
Movement by a solitary tree catches my eye, halfway between me and the wilds. I squint and make out the dark silhouette of a woman.
She steps toward me, moonlight flooding over her. Panicked recognition sweeps over me.
Fallon Bane.
Ancient One, no. No, please no. Not here. She can’t be here.
I’m frantically aware of the North Tower at my back as danger floods my mind.
Marina. Marina. Marina.
My heart thuds high in my chest as Fallon approaches. My palms go moist as the wind whistles around us both and digs its icy claws into me.
Where’s her guard? She never goes anywhere without her guard.
I nervously peer into the distance and can just make the four men out, waiting at the base of the field, quietly watching us.
I can barely think around the blood thudding in my temples.
She’s come for revenge, I sickeningly realize. Revenge for Lukas gifting me with the violin.
Desperate, I go on the offensive, wanting to drive Fallon and her guards clear back from this field, away from the tower.
“What are you doing here?” I demand as I drop my book bag to the ground and stomp toward her on shaky legs. I shoot her a mocking scowl as I come to a stop just before her. “Did someone leave your cage open?”
Fallon coughs out an incredulous laugh and smiles broadly. “Oh, I’m not the one who needs a cage,” she purrs. She flicks the tip of her wand idly toward the North Tower. “I think the Icarals are the ones who need a cage, don’t you?” She tilts her head and cocks her brow expectantly at me. Then she inhales sharply, as if surprised. “Oh, wait. I forgot.” Her cloying sarcasm quickly morphs to venom. “They’re your friends, aren’t they?”
Marina. Marina. Marina.
An image of Marina screaming as Fallon and her guard drag her away flashes through my mind. Wynter, Ariel and I dragged away, too, and jailed for thievery.
And Diana—what if Diana’s there? She’ll kill both Fallon and her guard before she’ll let them take any of us.
I take a threatening step toward Fallon and jab my finger at the ice-coated base of the North Tower. “What have you done to my lodging?”
“Just playing,” she says, thrusting her lower lip out in mock apology. Eyes on me, she raises her wand, murmurs a spell and sends a thin stream of ice coursing through the air. It lands at the North Tower’s base in a glimmering rope.
“Stop it,” I demand, outraged. I lunge forward and push her wand arm roughly away. The rope of ice lassoes outward and falls to the field in a crystalline shatter.
Fallon is quick as a snake. Her hand comes around my arm, hard as a vise, her wand at my throat. I gasp and shrink back from the madness in her eyes.
“Or you’ll do what, exactly, Mage Elloren Gardner?” She gives me a hard shove, sending me falling backward to the icy ground. Then she steps back, circles her wand toward my chest and hisses out a spell through gritted teeth.
Ice shoots from her wand and collides with the invisible shield just above my clothing, my tunic rubbed with Professor Hawkkyn’s metal powder.
Metal to block ice.
Fallon’s eyes fly open then narrow tightly with understanding. Her eyes dart toward the North Tower, then back to me with a knowing gleam. “Is the beast up there, too?”
“What beast?” I ask casually, my heart thumping. Marina Marina Marina Marina.
Fallon’s mouth twists into a lascivious grin. “You know exactly who I mean. The Snake Elf.” Her eyes widen. “You’ve got him up there, don’t you? Along with all the other creatures you’re collecting.”
My mind reels with confusion.
Of course, I realize. The metal shield. She actually thinks I could be hiding Professor Hawkkyn.
I spit out a stupefied laugh and glare at her, my anger spiking. “No, no Elves. Just my Icaral roommates.” I flash a hard, taunting grin. “And my new violin.”
I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips.
Ice blasts from her wand, and I cry out as my boots freeze to the ground, the cold searing my toes.
“Forgot to shield your boots, did you?” she crows, her eyes bright with hate. She circles around me, a hard gleam in her eyes as I frantically try to tug my boots free. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Elloren Gardner,” she says with a sneer, as I manage to crack one boot off the icy ground. “Icarals. Lupines. The big Amaz. Elves. Maybe even a Snake Elf who’s slipped by my watch.” Her eyes flick toward the tower like a cat who’s caught her mouse. “All coming and going. At odd hours, too.” She stops, shakes her head and tsk-tsks at me. “Why, I wonder. And then I think...” She glances up at the tower thoughtfully. “What could you possibly have up there that’s so interesting?” She smiles wide with manic glee. “Let’s find out!”
She makes for the North Tower, and I cry out, desperately trying to grab her.
Just as my fingers grasp the silk of her tunic, her uniform bursts into illumination. Strange runes glow a fierce white all over her tunic and cloak, sending their light out onto the field like small searchlights.
Confusion barrels through me. Where did those come from?
Fallon looks down at the clothing, then to me with rising horror.
One of her guards yells out an oath, and each man sets off at a fast clip up the field. A silver streak whistles through the air to my right and slams straight into Fallon.
It’s a huge knife, now impaling the side of her chest.
The moment slows and stretches out as Fallon’s head jerks up and she sucks in a loud, whistling gasp of air. She falls backward to the ground with a sickening thud.
I take it all in, my eyes and mouth opening wide in stunned disbelief.
Terror, like a hot iron, sears into my chest, and the nightmare snaps back to vivid life with bracing speed.
Fallon grasps at her chest, her breath labored and wheezing. She lifts her wand, grits her teeth and sends up a bright, crystalline dome of ice over us, thin lines of blue light coursing over the translucent shield like small, crackling lightning, the air chilling to frigid. I’m awed by her skill as well as her fierce tenacity, even when seriously wounded.
I flinch back as another knife collides against the shield in a shower of ice crystals, its terrifying point piercing the ice.
Two men burst from the wilds. They’re large men, all in shadows, black-garbed with dark fabric wrapped around their heads and faces. They raise curved swords marked with glowing gold runes as they run toward us. Two large shapes explode from the woods on either side of them and take flight with compact wings that send air currents down with powerful, rhythmic whooshes.
Dragons!
But like no dragons I’ve ever seen before—they’re the size of large dogs, boxy and muscular, one black, one red.
The runic light from Fallon’s clothing reflects off the collective riot of weapons, teeth, claws and wild eyes all hurtling straight for us.
A black terror swamps over me, and I frantically pull at the laces of my frozen boot with shaking hands.
Everything descends into chaos.
Fallon’s guards frantically yell to each other as streaks of their wand fire spear through the air with staccato bursts of golden light. Fallon hurls out javelins of ice toward the assassins and the dragons, the spears scything straight through her ice shield as if it were mere air.
Breathless, I cower near the ground.
Fallon’s guard runs toward the men and the dragons, wands raised as they continue to throw lines of fire out that are easily deflected by the assassins’ curved swords. The black dragon swoops down and collides with one of our soldiers. I gasp in horror as the beast latches onto his throat and the soldier sends up a gurgling scream. Another soldier thrusts his sword into the beast’s neck, the creature sending up a jagged shriek before slumping to the ground.
The red dragon crashes into our shield with an earsplitting shatter, the dome cracking apart. Ice rains down on us in a shower of frigid, clinking shards as the beast thumps down beside us, red-scaled belly up, eyes rolled back.
I pull hard at my foot, dizzy with fear. My boot lace is hopelessly knotted, the boot solidly frozen to the ground. The dragon’s warmth courses over me in a wave and melts the ice near my toes, but it’s not enough to free me.
Clutching her chest and propped up on her side, Fallon breathlessly grinds out a spell and points her wand at the dragon with a shaking hand, just as the creature begins to snarl and right itself. A line of ice knifes out from the tip of Fallon’s wand and into the dragon.
The dragon freezes then wobbles, Fallon’s spear of ice stabbed right between its eyes. The beast falls to the ground with a dull thump.
It’s impossible not to be wildly impressed—she just killed a dragon with a huge knife sticking out of her side.
I duck as a glowing red orb whirs by overhead, along with stray wand fire, the orb exploding behind me into a circle of red flame that briefly turns everything in the world crimson.
Fallon lets out a harsh growl as she throws out a series of ice spears that collide with the assassins in a harmless spray of snow.
“They’re shielded,” she says more to herself than to me, her eyes latched on to the assassins as her guard relentlessly attacks them now with swords. One assassin fights with two guards at once.
Fallon cries out and rolls onto her back as she sends forth a ceiling of ice over the fighting men. She flicks her wand repeatedly, and ice spears rain down from the ice ceiling and impale the assassins’ skulls.
The assassins slump to the ground.
The runes on her clothing still glowing a bright white, Fallon sets her fierce eyes on me, then promptly passes out.
It’s at that moment when my boot finally cracks free of the ice, my ankle twisted and throbbing.
Wincing from the pain, I crawl on my knees toward Fallon. The hilt of the knife juts out mercilessly from her side.
I have no great love for Fallon Bane, but I certainly never wished for her to be this grievously harmed.
Lurching toward her, I grab hold of her arm with a shaking hand. “Fallon, can you hear me?”
Sweet Ancient One, she can’t be dead.
“Get back,” one of her guards orders harshly.
I get up on unsteady legs and stumble backward as he drops to his knees in front of Fallon, soon joined by the other two surviving members of her guard.
I stagger to the ground and reach down to absently massage my pulsing ankle, stunned and shaken.
More soldiers are running up the field, shouting. They’re mostly Gardnerian, but some are clad in the light gray of the Verpacian Guard, one of them Elfhollen. Three Vu Trin, including Kam Vin and Ni Vin, bring up the rear. Ni Vin’s eyes meet mine, her black scarf wrapped tight around the burned half of her head, sword drawn.
I turn and look over my shoulder.
There are dead men and dragons strewn across the field. I turn back toward where Fallon lies, incredibly still. A numbed horror washes over me.
Everyone’s talking at once. Men yell out orders as a large contingent of Gardnerian soldiers arrives on horseback. They’re accompanied by a Gardnerian physician and his apprentice, the physician yelling out for supplies.
All the noise is a disconnected mayhem in the face of my overwhelmed shock.
“Give me room!” the physician orders as he rushes to Fallon and drops to his knees.
She’s momentarily blocked from my sight, healers and soldiers surrounding her, one soldier holding a torch, the outer ring of soldiers facing out, their weapons drawn, faces severe.
A young soldier comes down on one knee beside me. “Mage Gardner, are you all right?”
I flinch back from him, shaking with terror, his words barely able to pierce the storm of my emotions.
Someone wraps a blanket around my shoulders.
When the crowd around Fallon disperses, the physician is holding the large knife. Fallon’s tunic is off, her chest covered with tight bandages, her rune-marked uniform and cloak in a tight, glowing ball that’s quickly handed off and taken away.
She’s not dead.
Her eyes are half lidded, but open and staring right at me with a hatred so intense, it jars me to the core.
“The North Tower,” she rasps out. Her eyes loll backward, and she falls unconscious.
Breathless and heart thudding, I watch as two of Fallon’s guards lift her stretcher and carry her away. A small army of Gardnerian soldiers draws protectively in around her, cutting her off from view.
* * *
“Who are they?” I ask a surviving member of Fallon’s guard, motioning toward the dead assassins.
The young man’s brow knits tight. We both take in the sight of the assassins as their bodies are thrown over the back of a horse. The men’s dead eyes are rimmed with kohl. Intricate runes mark their faces, and their lips are painted black.
Chilled to the bone, I hug the blanket tight around myself.
“They’re Ishkart mercenaries,” the guard tells me with grim certainty. “Assassins from the Eastern Realm.” He flicks his finger toward the dead dragons that are being loaded by more soldiers onto a cart. “And their pit dragons.” He looks to the icy North Tower then back to me. “You should return to your lodging, Mage Gardner.”
“But...what if there are more of them?” I worry, looking sidelong toward the dark wilds, the trees like hulking presences.
“They’re not after you,” he says. He nods in the direction they took Fallon in. “They’re only after her. Our next Black Witch.”
“Her clothes,” I say, the glowing symbols bright in my mind. “What were those strange symbols?”
“They rune-marked her clothing with search runes,” he tells me. “Tracked her here.” He gestures toward the tower with his chin. “Unless you have another Black Witch up in that tower, no one will be bothering you there, Mage Gardner.”
A soldier near the North Tower’s door aims his wand and sends out a line of fire around the door’s frame, melting Fallon’s ice. He wrenches it open and slips inside.
My stomach gives a hard lurch. Soldiers dot the entire field, quickly dispersing as they widen their search into the surrounding wilds. Panicked, I look up and catch a fleeting glimpse of an Icaral’s silhouette in the upstairs window.
I get up and rush, stumbling, to the tower, just as the soldier reemerges. He stands aside, his face impassive, as I stride past him, taking the spiraling stairs two at a time, not caring about the flash of pain every stomp of my left foot brings.
Panting hard, I find Wynter waiting for me on the other side of the hallway, the door to our room open beside her.
Marina. Marina. Marina.
I run to the door and my feet skid to a halt just outside it.
Ariel peers back at me from where she lies on her bed, something rustling under the blankets at her feet.
The rustling thing shrugs the blankets off her head, and Marina peeks out at me with her ocean eyes.
“Ariel hid her?” I rasp out to Wynter, amazed and stunned, doubling over to catch my breath.
Wynter gives me a small nod.
“But...” I say, high-pitched with confusion, “Ariel hates her.”
“She does,” Wynter affirms with another nod then gestures outdoors, toward the soldiers. Her pale face darkens. “But she hates them more.”
I look back to Ariel, and she glares at me with a hatred as hot as Fallon’s.
“They came for Fallon Bane,” I tell Wynter, my throat dry and tight. I’m overwhelmingly grateful that my grandmother’s power has completely passed me by. “Ishkart assassins. They’re trying to kill the next Black Witch.”
“But they failed,” Wynter says, more a grave statement than a question.
I let out a long breath and nod. I’m tense and still lit up with alarm, my ankle throbbing painfully.
“Why was Fallon Bane here?” Wynter’s eyes are full of solemn concern, her voice a constricted whisper. “Does she know of our Selkie?”
I shake my head. “No. But she knows something isn’t right.” I tense my brow at Wynter. “We’ve got to free that dragon. No more waiting. We’re going to need a way to fly a Selkie and more than a few Fae out of here. Before Fallon is healed.”
* * *
The next day rumors abound that Fallon was brought back to Gardneria under heavy guard, some say to a military base surrounded by dragons.
Vogel uses the incident as an excuse to lock down the borders. Urisk seamstresses are interrogated, and all those who might have worked on Fallon’s rune-marked uniform are shipped off to the Pyrran Isles. Random iron tests begin at all the border crossings.
The need for escape is getting more dire by the minute.