Heart of Ice (The Snow Queen #1)(7)

Rakel stared at him and wondered what her smile had to do with anything as he tugged on the reins, redirecting the reindeer so they more closely followed the sled in front of them—the one Captain Halvor occupied.

It was an hour or two from dusk, but birds chirped and sang as they settled into their nests. It had taken them the better part of the afternoon to arrive, but they were nearly to Vefsna. (Rakel had spent the majority of the ride gawking. Even though the trees all looked the same, the mountain trail was an unfamiliar sight to her starved eyes.)

Captain Halvor pulled his sleigh to a stop and leaped out to approach a man who had scouted ahead. They held a heated exchange, then Captain Halvor trudged to Rakel and Oskar’s sleigh.

“We’re too late,” he said, directing his comment to Oskar. “Snorri picked up the trail of their sled. They came straight down the mountain, beating us by a long shot. Judging by the tracks, they were intercepted by an invader and dragged off.”

“How do you know?” Oskar asked.

The captain hesitated, and then gestured for his scout to come forward. The scout offered up the blue scarf Kai had worn that morning. The scarf was crusted with snow and frozen blood.

Oskar took the scarf, his eyes crinkling with sorrow. “Captured,” he repeated. The single word was frost-bitten with defeat. “Will you mount a rescue?”

Captain Halvor flattened his lips.

“You’d like to,” Oskar guessed.

“Yes.”

“But you don’t have enough soldiers. If Fyran isn’t attacked again, it will be a miracle,” Oskar said.

Captain Halvor bowed his head.

“Where is Vefsna?” Rakel asked, sliding from the sleigh. She had a cramp in her legs and almost staggered when she was free of the heavy—and unnecessary—furs Oskar had given her.

“Southwest, Princess,” Oskar said, his brow furrowed and his voice distracted as he pointed out the correct direction.

“I don’t like abandoning citizens,” Captain Halvor said.

“Neither do I, but can we risk it?” Oskar asked.

“No.”

Rakel turned in Vefsna’s direction and listened to the whisper of the breeze and the rustle of snow. Her head and heart ached from the chaos.

It’s just another thankless job that might see me harmed in restitution. “But they’re children,” she whispered. She brought her chin up, gathered her black cape close, and started walking across the snow.

“Princess?” Oskar asked.

“I’m going to get them,” Rakel said.

Silence met her ears.

She recognized that this would normally be the time where a person would object, insist it was too dangerous, but she could tell—as their hands crept over the hilts of their swords, and they nervously shifted—her retinue was thinking back to the night in Fyran.

She wasn’t surprised. She had always been careful to never use her magic in front of others. If it weren’t for her ice-castle, they would have no reason to believe she used her powers, much less suspect that she practiced with them daily.

“Very well, Princess,” Captain Halvor said. He retreated to his sled to snatch up a crossbow and quiver of arrows. The soldiers behind him started to similarly arm themselves.

“Do you have a plan, Princess?” Oskar asked, pulling a sword out of their sleigh.

Rakel pushed a tendril of her snow-white hair behind her ear. “I didn’t think one would be necessary.”

“Any magic users, Snorri?” Captain Halvor asked.

The scout shook his head and spoke, but his words were quiet and mumbled; Rakel couldn’t make out any of them.

“You’re mumbling again, Snorri,” Oskar chided.

“No magic. Soldiers only,” Snorri said, speaking as if it belabored him.

“The way you cleared Fyran will work fine,” Captain Halvor said, tugging on thick, fleece-lined, leather gloves. “Assemble,” he said to his men.

Rakel took a few steps towards Vefsna until a soldier blurted out, “Wait! You’ll need these, Princess.” He held up a pair of snowshoes.

Rakel stared at the soldier for a moment, recognizing his face. He had tried to shoot her during Oskar’s appeal for Fyran. “Why?”

He flushed red. “The snow won’t hold up to your weight. Although there’s a crust, it’s not deep enough.”

Rakel looked down at the snow beneath her silver-buckled shoes. She had been wandering around in snow ever since her exile, and she had grown accustomed to letting her power seep through her feet, freezing everything she walked over so she could go where she pleased without plunging into snow. Judging by the way the jittery soldiers already treated her, the reason for her disregard of the snowshoes would go over poorly.

“What good fortune,” Oskar said, following Rakel’s trail. “It seems the snow crust thickened overnight. We won’t have to use the snowshoes after all.”

The soldiers looked to their captain, who hooked his snowshoes under his sleigh and joined Oskar and Rakel.

The soldiers reluctantly followed Captain Halvor’s example, and soon Rakel was leading the group, careful to move her silvery magic below the drifts so they would not see it at work, hardening the snow to hold up to their weight.

When Rakel had been a little girl, imprisoned near her family’s royal palace, she was taken to the gardens once every year for her birthday. There she got to see flowers and plants and a little pond. Any disturbance cast ripples across the pond. Rakel felt that was what her magic was doing—sending out ripples of power to manipulate the snow and cold.