Sacrifice (The Snow Queen #2)(30)

Rakel gave herself a little boost of ice to peer over the battlefield so she could see where it was going. “No,” she whispered. “Kai, Gerta!”

Kai was kneeling in the snow, making soldier snowmen with Gerta’s help. He probably intended to send them out to attack. But they were at the edge of the battlefield, and no one was there to save them.

Rakel ran, staggering through the battle, searching wildly for Liv and Snorri. She didn’t see them. Snorri was either hiding the purifier, or they were still dealing with the last wave. “Phile!” she yelled, almost tripping over the thick skirts of her Bunad. “Kai, Gerta, move!” She ducked to avoid the meaty fist of a giant Chosen soldier.

“Gerta, Kai, get out of there!” Phile yelled. She came from the back of the formation and also sprinted towards the children.

Her horror mounting, Rakel realized neither she nor Phile would reach the children in time. The sludgy magic slithered towards them like a deadly snake.

They were going to be cursed. They’re children—they won’t survive it! Rage consumed Rakel, making her body numb. She couldn’t lose Gerta and Kai! I’ll kill him. I will freeze the blood in his veins! She reached for her powers, gathering them with such strength—

“Children, move!” Phile’s roar knocked Rakel from her cloud of anger.

“No.” Rakel shook her head as she ran, frightened for the children, and terrified by her own thoughts.

Gerta and Kai turned to gawk at the Robber Maiden. “Phile?” Gerta said, oblivious to the danger.

“Move!” Phile yelled, her voice cracking as the ghastly magic pounced.

“No!” Rakel lunged between the children and the oncoming curse, wildly throwing her magic up in front of her—though she knew it would be hopeless. Crow said nothing would stop Tenebris’s magic.

Her ice rang—like a sword sliding out of a sheath—and bloomed like a flower with Rakel at the center. She braced herself for darkness and the horrors that lived there, but when the curse brushed her icy shield, there was a knockback as loud as a clash of thunder. Light sparked between the two forces, and the ground shook.

Emboldened, Rakel leaned against her ice structure and pushed. Her ice exploded, folding up again so it was no longer shaped like a flower, but a shield. When the two powers collided, Rakel felt pain—like someone scraping sandpaper across her arm—but Tenebris’s powers were thrown backwards and faded.

Her knees shook, and she stared up at Tenebris, trying to fathom what had just happened.

The Chosen’s leader seemed to understand, for he turned from the battlefield and walked away. One of his officers shouted “Retreat!” The Chosen magic users fled—fighting flames, ropes, and Genovefa—to follow Tenebris. The troops, however, had mostly been defeated or frozen in blocks, and remained stranded with Verglas forces pouring in around them.

Rakel’s heart painfully hammered in her chest.

“What just happened?” Phile asked, sounding shaken. She was kneeling on the ground with an arm around each of the children, who were huddled into her shoulders.

“I…” Rakel furrowed her brow and tried to gather her scattered thoughts. “I think my magic repelled his. But…how is that possible?”

“Liv couldn’t purify the curse as it attacked—we tried it on his second pass. Maybe it has something to do with power?” Phile said.

Rakel shook her head. “It can’t be. Sunnira hit me with one of his curses.”

“Being able to defend against his powers and being unaffected are two different things,” the Robber Maiden said.

Rakel clamped her hair—which was half free of its braid—to her neck and shivered.

“It’s a good thing, Little Wolf.”

“Then why does it feel so…ominous?” Rakel asked. She wrapped her arms around herself and opened her mouth, wanting to tell Phile about the blinding rage that had consumed her when Tenebris almost touched Gerta and Kai, but nothing would come out. Since the first day I fought back against the Chosen, I decided I would not kill. How could I so easily abandon such an important principle? What is wrong with me?

“Do you think he faked it?”

“No,” Rakel glanced at the hill on which he had stood. “He was very angry when he left.”

“How do you know?”

“I could feel it,” Rakel grimly said. “Like a bad stench in the air.”

“Princess!” Oskar pushed soldiers aside so he could reach her. He wore a scowl on his face; Colonel Danr sprinted at his side.

“Princess, that was marvelous!” Colonel Danr said.

“That was asinine,” Oskar corrected. “You ran head-first into a curse. Why didn’t you tackle the children and move out of the way?”

“But now we know that her magic can block Tenebris’s,” Colonel Danr said. “This will change our strategy and may be the key to winning!”

“That doesn’t mean her actions weren’t extremely foolish.” Oskar growled, and his eyebrows bunched together.

“Oskar, it’s done.” Rakel reached out and hesitated, holding her hand above his arm.

He glowered at Colonel Danr. “You’re worse than Halvor.” Instead of taking Rakel’s hand, Oskar bowed over it and backed away. “Don’t do that again,” he said to her. His green eyes were hard like granite.