Heart of Ice (The Snow Queen #1)(49)

After taking out rows of soldiers, she flung the door against a building, getting it out of the way for the fighting. The Chosen soldiers thrown by the door and glacier combo lay addled on the ground. She stepped aside so the Verglas troops could pour past her. They shouted and fell upon the vulnerable enemy soldiers, raising a racket.

Rakel found the archers positioned in second story windows of various buildings and got to work freezing their quivers solid so they could not retrieve any arrows, and icing over the bows so they were too cold to handle. She had one building left when something hit her uninjured side and sent her sprawling against the side of a building.

Farrin.

Rakel’s heart picked up its speed as she peeled herself off the wall.

“Why are you attempting this, Your Highness?” Farrin asked, frowning. “You’ll only get more of your troops killed with this attack.”

He took a step towards her, and Rakel lashed out, sending spikes of ice out of the ground.

Farrin ruthlessly cleaved straight through them, and they shattered.

Rakel backed up to a store and tried pummeling him with ice shards.

He deflected them, and they peppered the wall behind Rakel, digging in several inches.

She covered the ground with a layer of slick ice, but he still wore the ice cleats.

I can’t do this! Panic tore at her concentration and her powers, making her falter. She cringed when Farrin stopped an arm’s length away from her.

He still wore a frown, but now it was edged with regret. He tightened his grip on his sword. “You are afraid of me—” he started.

Snorri stepped out of the shadows and slapped a pair of cuffs on him. He turned to Rakel and said something incomprehensible as Farrin stared at the cuffs.

“You’re muttering, Snorri,” she said.

Farrin tried breaking the cuffs by yanking his arms apart with his magic-fueled speed. They held.

“You can’t break it, least, not easily. Tollak charmed them.” Snorri told him. He turned and bowed to Rakel. “Now, Princess?”

“Yes. Right now, thank you.”

“Our honor.” Snorri retreated a few steps and raised his fist in the air—the pre-determined signal.

Farrin, in the middle of adjusting his grip on his greatsword, had to tap his speed magic so he could raise his sword in time to block a ball of fire. The fire bounced off his sword—pushed away by his magic—but instead of shooting in the direction he aimed it, it flew back to Frodi, who caught it in his hand and held it painlessly.

Frodi scowled. “He can still use the sword with the handcuffs on!”

“An unacceptable outcome,” Tollak acknowledged. “But at least I have another set of unbreakable manacles for his feet—though I’m not volunteering to put them on him.” While all magic powers were unusual, Tollak had the particularly unconventional but useful ability to give magical properties to crafted objects. He could, for instance, make a pair of manacles unbreakable.

“Now he’s going to expect that we’ll try to attack his feet!” Frodi said, slapping his face with his fire-free hand.

“You’ve collected a number of other magic users,” Farrin said.

“Yes,” Rakel said, easing away from the wall.

“Mind him,” Snorri said as Farrin used his speed magic to catch up and reached for her.

Tollak, who was as big as a bear—although he had the nimblest set of fingers Rakel had ever seen—stepped in Farrin’s way.

Farrin dodged him. When Snorri grabbed his cloak, he kicked the scout in the chest, slamming him into Tollak. Sensing he wasn’t going to let her leave the area, Rakel tried running. Farrin caught her by the wrist before she went two feet.

“No,” he said.

Rakel jolted to a stop and sagged like a ragdoll. She could hear Verglas soldiers shouting as they ran—not down the main street, but up alleyways, back inlets, and around buildings—making the Chosen army chase after them. It was going according to plan, but she needed to get to the municipal building! “Ragnar?”

Ragnar, the last of the male magic users, ambled into the city with the last wave of Verglas soldiers. “I hoped to be used as a last resort, but it seems we’ll need Genovefa after all,” the older soldier sighed. He slapped his hands together, closed his eyes, and started murmuring under his breath.

Frodi flung the fireball again, but his aim was a little off, and he would have hit Rakel if Farrin hadn’t slid forward to intercept the hit.

“We are tryin’ to hit the colonel, Frodi. Not the Princess,” Tollak said, his voice kind and cheerful in spite of the chastisement as Rakel ran past him—taking advantage of her moment of freedom.

Frodi burned red with embarrassment. “I’d like to see you do better.”

“Don’t think I could,” Tollak shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure you knew.”

Farrin glanced from his manacles to Frodi to Rakel. “They leave much to be desired,” he said. It took him a moment and a burst of his speed magic to catch her again.

Rakel tried fighting him and kicked out. She stopped when a raindrop fell and looked up at the cloudy, magic-fueled sky. I have to leave. Now! Soon she was going to be too late, and the whole plan would come down on their heads!

An otherworldly song echoed in the street that was now abandoned, except for the magic-users. A golden gate formed next to Ragnar—the oldest soldier—and out of it stepped a beautiful, ethereal warrior.