Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(54)
But with every passing minute, the air grew colder. Warm marshes gave way to snowy fields. Snowflakes fluttered down like crystals falling from the heavens, light and delicate. They jingled like sleigh bells as they twirled in the breeze. Far down the road, a bright blue sky shone behind snowy mountain peaks.
“So are you two a couple now?” Harker asked, breaking the silence that had reigned in the truck since we’d left the base an hour ago.
When Nero didn’t answer, Harker looked at me. I didn’t answer either. What was I supposed to say? It was complicated.
“I see,” Harker said. “Well, my offer still stands, Leda.”
He was hitting on me? Now? Sure, he was a nice guy. And loads of fun. Well, up until the part where he’d betrayed me. Harker’s first priority would always be to his career—and to the god he served. He was a champion of light, a pious warrior. Collateral damage was fine with him, expected even. But none of that even mattered because Nero was the only one I wanted.
“I’m sorry, Harker,” I said. “I don’t date people who try to kill me.”
He frowned. “You would have survived the Nectar.”
He was still saying that? Surely, he did not believe I could have survived a dose of pure Nectar? He was lying to himself. Maybe that helped him live with what he’d done.
“You survived the Venom,” he said.
I blinked at him in surprise.
He shrugged. “I hear things.”
“You hear a lot of things for a man in prison.”
He looked fit, good. He didn’t have that haggard look of suffering, torture, or being in a Legion prison for months. I had to wonder if he’d even had a visit from the Interrogators. Nyx had admitted to me that she didn’t have anything substantial against him. All she had was Harker’s act of killing someone the Legion wanted to interrogate—and her suspicion that he was up to something.
Nero and I couldn’t tell the First Angel the truth about what had happened, that Harker had tried to get me to drink pure Nectar. If we did, then the Legion would find out about my brother—and that we were trying to keep Zane away from them. What we were doing, keeping a powerful telepath hidden from the Legion, would be considered treason.
I suspected Harker’s prison stay was more like a vacation than an incarceration. He’d probably spent his days lying around reading books and working out in expensive sports facilities. The biggest punishment for him was that he wanted to be out here, growing his magic, furthering his agenda. Instead, he’d spent nearly half a year tied up in all the red tape Nyx could find.
“What can I say? I get a lot of visitors,” Harker said with an easy shrug.
“I heard you’ve had some godly visitors.”
My words shocked him to silence for a few moments, but he quickly recovered. “You’re trying to trick me into giving away something.”
I shot him my most innocent smile. “I would never do such a devious thing.”
“You absolutely would do it. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re more innocent or wicked.”
“Both,” I told him.
He laughed. “Yeah. I think you might be right about that.”
Nero had his eyes on the road, but I had no doubt he was watching our exchange. Harker was fun. It would have been a blast to have him as a buddy like Nerissa or Ivy. But the look Nero shot me was a reminder that I had to be careful with Harker, just as I had to be careful with Jace. Nero was my reality check, the counter to my habit of trying to save people from themselves. I wanted to see only the best in Harker—the good, the fun—but I should not forget that he served a god. And that god was trying to find Zane so he could force my brother into his service. The question of the day was whether the god had cut Harker loose when he’d failed to manipulate me into drinking the pure Nectar.
“We’re coming up on the wall,” Nero announced as he drove us toward the wall.
The soldiers standing up there rushed to open the gates, and we entered a vast tundra. Everything was white as far as the eye could see. The sunlight reflected off the tiny crystals of the sleek, white sheet of ice that covered the lands. This frozen place shouldn’t have been able to exist so close to a desert and a mountain range of boiling volcanoes, but I’d given up questioning magic. After all, I’d recently experienced scorching heat in the dead of winter. Magic changed things. It made so many horrible, splendid things possible.
The truck shook a little as the wheels transformed into sled runners. We slid across the icy expanse, the soft scratch of ice whistling beneath us, carrying us along. There was a quiet peacefulness to this place.
But with every mile we ventured deeper into the Sea of Ice, I felt colder. An icy chill had taken root inside of me. It wasn’t refreshing like the cool rush of winter tickling my cheeks. Dread, malice, pain, desire. The magic was calling out to me, whispering sweet temptations into my ears. It was like an ice cream sundae with lots of chocolate syrup. You knew it was bad for you, but you wanted it anyway.
Snowflakes fell softly, as cold and cruel as they were beautiful. As they turned, flipping between dark and light magic, they pulsed like stars in the night sky.
“It’s coming from that mountain.” Nero’s voice was eerily quiet, hardly louder than the whistle of ice beneath our truck’s runners.
I had to squint my eyes to make out the form of the white mountain camouflaged against the winter tundra. We were approaching fast.