Heart of Ice (The Snow Queen #1)(52)

Rakel held out her hand, and a staff of ice a head taller than her grew from the ground up. The staff had no magical purpose, but it was supposed to get the soldiers’ attention, and it did. When she raised the staff in the air, they looked up, shouting and gasping as dozens of swords and pikes formed out of ice formed above their heads. They were not as precise or as beautiful as they should have been—Captain Halvor asked her to fashion them after the weapons of the elite palace guards, but as Rakel had last seen one at age ten, she had little more than a foggy notion to base them on.

Whether they saw the resemblance or not, the Chosen soldiers stampeded over one another as they ran at the ice walls. They pounded on the ice, howling with panic.

Several ran at her, but Rakel froze their boots to the rotating snowflake, and made ice crawl up their weapons—which they threw away in their fear.

The wind picked up, playing with Rakel’s snow white hair as she forged the last few ice swords. She had created over three hundred weapons, and it was taking a hefty bit of her power to keep the weapons aloft.

“You will pay for occupying land that is not yours,” Rakel said. The wind stole the words from her mouth, but she must have been loud enough, for the soldiers started jabbing at the walls with their blades.

Rakel squared her shoulders and fixed her eyes on the wall in front of the municipal building. Moving with great care, she started releasing the swords so they dropped from the air, whistling when they hit the ground. Though the ice weapons hit some of the soldiers, thanks to Rakel’s precision they killed no one. She turned in a circle, dropping the ice swords and pikes on the next wall, and the next wall, until she had rained havoc on all of the soldiers—drawing blood and shrieks of fear. Next, Rakel used the fallen weapons as temperature anchors, and dropped the temperature of the courtyard until it was so cold, the soldiers had trouble breathing.

Rakel was still able to function normally, so she built two more cottage-sized ice snowflakes on the ground, and set them spinning.

When the soldiers started dropping like flies, Rakel knocked out the two short ends of the courtyard. Verglas soldiers had opened the gates during Rakel’s fight. She eased off the temperature—letting it rise—and instead concentrated her magic on building a twisted column made of ice swords stacked together. It twined around her like a spiral staircase and glittered as the sun burst free of the storm clouds.

Rakel yelled. The spiral of swords cocooning her burst outward, stabbing into the ice walls and slicing many of the soldiers. The Chosen troops ran, moving through the two open ends of the courtyard like herds of goats. They poured from the city, fleeing in fear and terror, without supplies, without most of their weapons, and without Farrin.

Rakel experimentally pushed her shoulders back, smiling when she felt nothing pulling her from consciousness.

“Beautiful, Little Wolf!” Phile shouted. The red kerchief that covered her dark hair flapped like a flag as she waltzed across the courtyard. “It was pulled off flawlessly! It’s almost not quite fair that you have perfect military luck and an army of handsome men at your beck and call. If I weren’t your bosom friend, I might be jealous.”

Rakel felt her hair slip from its tight braid. “Maybe, but—” she cursed and fell to her knees when her strength abruptly gave out and the sight of the retreating soldiers started to turn hazy.

So losing consciousness is my price—but it seems that it is not extracted from me until I am finished wielding my magic.

Phile caught her, keeping her head from hitting the ground. “Rakel, will your magic stay up with you unconscious, or do we have to worry about the mages?” Phile asked.

Rakel—clear-minded even though she lost the ability to open her eyes—said, “It will stay.” Her limbs were so heavy, she couldn’t move them. It was as if she had been buried in packed snow.

Why couldn’t Captain Halvor have been wrong this time? she thought. Then she lost all consciousness.





CHAPTER 14





THE AFTERMATH


Rakel sat up before she could even open her eyes and blindly threw out daggers of ice in fear and panic.

“Rakel—Little Wolf! Stop—you’re safe!”

Someone shook her by the shoulders as her eyes finally focused.

Phile sat on the edge of the bed, her grip on Rakel still firm. She was in a room—not the plain encampment room—but a bedroom that had simple wooden furniture, a cheerfully lit fireplace, and a number of shredded pillows that had ice sticking from them like arrow shafts.

Gerta and Kai peered out from behind the ruined pillows, their delight brightening their faces even though Rakel had nearly hurt them. “You woke up!” Gerta chirped, throwing herself on the floor by the bed.

“I don’t know if ‘woke’ rightly describes it,” Phile snorted. She released Rakel and patted her on the head. “How do you feel?”

Rakel placed a hand over her erratically beating heart. “Confused.”

“Do you hurt anywhere? Do you have any pain?” Phile asked.

Rakel shook her head.

“Good.”

“How long was I sleeping?” Rakel asked.

“A day!” Gerta said.

“Almost a day,” Kai said, gravely shaking his head. “You were just a few hours short.”

Rakel grimaced. “Longer than the last time, then.”