Heart of Ice (The Snow Queen #1)(66)

The woman was on her knees—she had been hiding behind a railing of the palace until Farrin spoke. When she realized Rakel had sighted her, she fumbled with a pocket in her dress.

Remembering the paper, Rakel’s panic returned. She has more of those things!

Rakel whipped her hand through the air, and daggers of ice shot at the woman. The woman yelped and drew her right arm into her chest, staring at her wounded appendage with dismay. As Rakel watched, the woman healed the injury.

Wonderful, she’s a magic user.

“What did she do to you, Little Wolf?” Phile asked, observing Farrin as he tried to regain his breath and attempted to dislodge himself from the glacier Rakel had driven him into.

“She put a piece of paper on my forehead, and suddenly I could neither see nor hear. Worse, even though I was surrounded by darkness, there was something there, with me.”

“I was right. It was a curse,” Phile said, scratching her chin with Foedus. “If she used a paper, it means it’s not her magic; it’s from a different person. It’s a good thing you were nearby, Liv.”

“You saved me?” Rakel threw another sword of ice at the woman, frowning when she ducked behind the railing and dodged it.

“With her magic, yeah. It’s easier to steal lint from between a king’s toes than it is to break a curse if you don’t know what you’re doing, but curses are inherently evil things. I thought her purification magic would drown it out.”

Liv blushed as Farrin finally broke free of his icy prison. “I’m just happy I can be useful.”

Rakel slammed the woman with a barrage of snow, making her retreat from the railing and into an open-air corridor that wound snug around the palace. “She has more of those curses. If she pastes those on some of our soldiers, it will be chaos.” Rakel’s voice was cold, like frost, as she forced herself to stand upright and to keep fighting instead of sinking to her knees and crying in panic and fear like she wanted to. She raised a hand—intending to snap an ice cage around the woman, but Farrin stepped in, cleaving one side of the cage with his sword. He cut through it like butter.

“Sunnira,” he said, holding out his hand to the woman. “You need to leave this area.”

Rakel took advantage of his distraction and started shooting ice swords at him. “Liv, the water towers?”

“We can use ’em. They’re still standing.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Liv ran, scrambling over icebergs and frozen greenery, making her way towards the untouched produce gardens.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Rakel?” Phile asked as Farrin reflected the swords.

They ducked, and the swords soared over their heads, crashing into a weeping willow that was impaled by a giant spike of ice.

“No.” Rakel created a shield of ice—complete with the snowflake and reindeer crest—and slammed it into the woman so she was pinned to the wall. “But she needs to be stopped.”

“You used to run from your fears,” Phile said.

Farrin shattered the ice shield.

“I imagine I still would, if I wasn’t so terrified that she would put those curses on people I know,” Rakel said, hammering at Farrin and his companion with a small glacier.

They were in an awkward spot. It was a tight corridor, so Farrin did not have the full use of his sword and reflective magic. However, it was still easy enough for him to break the attacks.

“Do you see him speaking to her?” Phile said, indicating the pair. Farrin in front of his companion, his lips moving as she cowered behind him. “He’s telling her to run. They’re going to separate.”

“We can’t let her put those curses on anyone else.”

“So I gathered. You ’n Liv take Farrin down as planned. I’ll handle Mistress-Curse-Inflictor,” Phile said, casually tossing Foedus in the air and catching it by the hilt.

“Are you certain?”

“Oooh, yeah. Anyone who makes you that upset is on my to-be-tortured list.”

“Your Highness, enough!” Farrin shouted, fighting his way out of the corridor. He moved his sword in a blur, reflecting the ice chunks, snowballs, and ice weapons Rakel flung at him. His companion followed him closely.

Phile circled around towards Farrin’s blind spot.

“Enough? Are you daft?” Rakel laughed. “She cursed me! And she’ll do it again.”

Farrin looked down at his companion. “Sunnira?”

“She has to be taken out,” Farrin’s companion said, placing her hand on his arm. She gazed around the trashed gardens. “She’s a true monster.” Her voice trembled. “No one should be able to wield as much magic as she has. Her power is unnatural, even among us.”

Rakel refused to show that the words affected her. “I believe it could be argued that anyone who hands out curses is a monster.” She kept her voice icy as she mimicked Phile and raised a single eyebrow.

Phile chose this moment to throw Foedus. “Drat,” she said when Farrin partially deflected it. As was becoming custom, the dagger skipped over the blade, this time nicking his knuckles.

“That is an unusual dagger you have,” Farrin said, eyeing it where it had fallen.

Phile rolled and snatched the ugly dagger up. “I received it from a wise old woman who told me it was forged to debilitate dark-haired magic users.”