Sacrifice (The Snow Queen #2)(66)

“There, there,” a coarse voice chuckled. “Loreto is an idiot, but at least he distracted you long enough for my powers to bind you.” The air at her side shimmered, then shattered. A hulking man stepped out of the broken illusion and brushed off his clothes. His nose was smashed flat, his eyes were small and beady, and his coarse hair was pulled into a knot on the top of his head.

Unable to move her neck to see, Rakel caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. She couldn’t even open her mouth to scream for help.

“Good job.” Kavon joined them, stepping out of thin air. “I have wanted to look at you for a long time, Your Highness,” he purred in a voice that was velvety and pleasant. “You are such a curious thing. Even when I first paid off your guard to kill you and heard Farrin—Tenebris’s lapdog—had tried to intercept you, I was interested. What kind of a person can take a man so mindlessly loyal as Farrin and convince them to change sides?”

Kavon ran a finger down her cheek. Rakel would have shivered if she could. Instead, her insides curdled, and she felt dirty where he had touched her.

“Sir,” the man holding Rakel into place started. He was interrupted by Farrin—who flipped Kavon over his shoulder and then turned on the binder.

“Rocco,” Kavon shouted.

The air magic user slid between Farrin and the binder. He blocked an attack and then aimed a gust of wind at Rakel—which Farrin intercepted and reflected. However, when he lunged forward to block Rakel, he stepped into the range of the alchemist, who threw a vial at him.

Farrin raised his cape so it shattered and splattered on the black cloth, then ripped it from his neck and threw it away from him just as the cloak burst into flames.

“Tollak, Eydìs, stop sleeping and take out that alchemist!” Halvor barked as he plunged his sword through one of the smaller golems.

“We’re trying, sir,” Tollak said.

Ropes coiled around the alchemist’s arms and legs, yanking her backwards.

The air magic user drove Farrin off to the side, and Kavon approached Rakel again—though this time he kept his distance.

Rakel poured her anger into her eyes and tried to glower at him even though she was still incapacitated. I swear when all of this is over, I will train with Farrin every day to help me overcome deflecting and manipulating magics!

Kavon tapped his chin. “So strange. Tenebris hates you with a fury I have never seen. He must see something in you…but what? Himself, perhaps?”

Rakel’s heart squeezed in her chest. Why would he say that? I’m not—he can’t think I’m like Tenebris!

“Farrin—catch!” Phile—still fighting wolves—threw Foedus to him, snipping off a lock of his black-tea-colored hair and embedding the dagger in a board near his head.

Farrin shot the Robber Maiden a glower but ripped the dagger from the wood and threw it at the air user’s shoulder.

The dagger pierced the globe of air and kept going, hitting its mark. Before the man could react, Farrin attacked, coming in low and cracking the magic user’s knees with the scabbard of his two-handed sword.

The man shouted and collapsed, and the two fell out of Rakel’s eyesight.

The flute music faltered, and the wolves stumbled like puppets cut loose from their strings. Snorri had found the flute-player.

The muscles on Kavon’s face tightened. “Retreat,” he shouted. The golem-maker ran to his side—only one small golem left as Frodi had baked the big one and hacked it to pieces with the help of Verglas soldiers.

The binder turned on his heels and ran. His hold on Rakel shattered when Farrin threw his scabbard and hit the man in the back of the head.

Freed, Rakel almost fell flat on her face. She caught herself just in time and then struck out with her magic, making snow and ice erupt in front of the Chosen magic users, cornering them and cutting them off.

The wolves scattered, running back to the woods.

“Constanza!” Kavon shouted.

The alchemist—freed from Eydìs’s ropes—ripped several vials and a pouch from her belt. She threw them down on the ground. The vials shattered and spewed out a foul smelling smoke that made Rakel’s eyes water and her throat sting.

Someone grabbed her, and Rakel puffed up and reached for her magic, then realized she recognized that warm touch and let Farrin guide her out of the smoke.

She gasped for breath when she stepped into the fresh air and wiped her eyes. She tapped her magic and blasted wind through the ruins, clearing the smoke off.

Kavon and his few remaining magic users were nowhere to be seen. Apparently they had abandoned their injured and unconscious comrades.

“Regroup and prepare to head out,” General Halvor cleaned his sword on a square of cloth. Steinar stood next to him, holding a sword flecked with blood. “We need to meet up with the main force as soon as possible.”

Phile checked over Foedus. “Do you think Tenebris plans to attack them?”

General Halvor studied the village. “It’s a possibility.”

Oskar clasped him on the shoulder. “What is it?”

General Halvor sighed. “Two of those Chosen magic users were in the group my men and I chased to the Kozlovka border during the attack of Dovre.”

The words Halvor didn’t say hung in the air. They came back. We beat them off, and they came back. How can we win a war when they keep coming back?