Alarik shook her off. ‘Go to your bedchamber,’ he said, urgently. ‘Stay there until we return.’
He leaped on to Borvil’s back without another word, seating himself with ease. Alarik and Borvil had grown up together, after all. He had ridden the mighty ice bear down these hallways more times than he could count, and then later through bloody war after bloody war.
Riding from the ballroom was no great hardship, but the swell of frightened revellers was slowing them down. At a command from his master, the bear let out a thundering roar,clearing a pathway before them. Alarik rode right down it, out the door and into the hall, and onwards still, towards the atrium, where a pair of startled guards flung open the front door and let the king and his bear loose into the night.
They raced across the front lawn and through the black gates, the night air whipping Alarik’s face as he rose to his haunches and urged Borvil on, faster and harder, towards those distant flames. He loosened his collar as he rode, ripping the buttons and rolling the sleeves of his frock coat until he felt as unrestrained as the bear beneath him.
Minutes slipped by but he didn’t feel them. War raged in his veins, heating his blood and narrowing his thoughts until he could see nothing but those greedy flames licking the sky. He cleared the mountain pass in record time, noting the new fissures crawling up the rock.
Not now.
There would be time to worry about that later.
When he finally reached the grazing fields, most of the elk were dead. There was smoke everywhere, all those fine-bred, noble beasts burnt to bone and ash.
Alarik tipped his head back and released a roar of anger. Borvil rose to join him. Alarik fisted his hands in his fur, directing the ice bear towards the edge of the field, where he spied the jutting crimson tip of a downed glider.
Borvil charged towards it, weaving through the fires with the skill of a beast who had seen many wars. When they were almost upon it, the bear slowed to let his master slide from his back. Alarik drew his sword as he approached the glider. He kicked the winged apparatus away, but the soldier was already dead, having collided too hard with the packed dirt.He wore the infamous crimson armour of Vask, the breastplate stamped with the queen’s golden fist.
Alarik bit off a curse, then stalked to another upended glider, which had crash-landed in the next field. He found the same sorry scene there. He went to the next glider, and then the next, hissing and swearing as he kicked the metal wings from their crimson corpses.
The flames died out, the helpless groans of dying beasts replaced by the approaching thunder of hooves. As the first of his soldiers made it to the grazing fields, Alarik came to the final glider. He flung the metal contraption aside with a roar of frustration. A pair of wide hazel eyes stared up at him from the dirt. He glared down at the face. It was young and pale and streaked in blood. Alive. But the soldier was dying, a feeble hand pressed against the gaping wound in his neck.
Alarik pressed the point of his sword there. ‘How many?’ he growled. ‘How many of you are there?’
The soldier grimaced, the blood in his teeth the same shade as his armour. ‘Queen Regna sends her regards,’ he spat. ‘To you and to Halgard.’
Alarik grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, yanking him up until they were forehead to forehead. ‘If you want a swift death, tell me the number,’ he hissed. ‘Or I swear on my crown I’ll use the last minutes of your sorry life to show you the true measure of Gevran brutality.’
Fear flashed across the man’s face, and with the last ebb of his strength, he said, ‘Ten. We are ten.’
Alarik snapped his chin up, counting the downed gliders. Five.
There were only five in the grazing fields.
The soldier laughed, his breath coming out in bubbles of blood. Alarik drove his sword into his heart, extinguishing the sound. He whirled then, dread prickling in his cheeks as he searched the fields, looking for those other five gliders …
Captain Vine was leading her soldiers through the fray, kicking out the flames and collecting the broken gliders, while Vesper hiked up her leather dress to retrieve the spent fire lances.
‘VINE!’ yelled Alarik. ‘How many gliders do you—’
There was a sudden, earth-trembling boom. It was far, much too far from where he stood. And followed, almost at once, by a bloodcurdling chorus. Not screams this time, but roars. Ragged, terrified howls cut through the night.
Alarik whipped his head around, looking towards the palace and the forest beyond, and saw that the sky there had turned amber and gold.
And he knew, with such unbridled horror it nearly brought him to his knees, that his beloved beasts were burning.
CHAPTER 20
Greta
As the ballroom descended into chaos, Greta picked up her skirts and fled. The grazing fields were burning, and the palace beasts could smell it. They were yowling in terror, as anxious and frightened as the noblefolk inside. Her heart ached to comfort them, her slippered feet barely touching the floor as she ran.
Only moments ago, she had been waltzing with the king of Gevra, secretly pretending she was a princess. When the music began, she had practically melted into his embrace, her skin tingling at the brush of his warm breath along the shell of her ear. It was a perfect, fleeting deception. Now, the first stirrings of war had come to Grinstad. Queen Regna had launched a surprise attack, sending armed gliders over the mountains to rain down fire on the king’s weaver elk.
And now they were suffering, trapped and burning in fields not far from the palace. The cruelty of it pricked tears in Greta’s eyes as she hurried towards the forest, wading through the thickening snow and swirling mud, drawn to the keening distress of her animals. She went first to the ice bears at the back of the woods. She could sense their anxiety like a hum in the air,her own chest tightening in response. She sang as she neared them, reaching for a lullaby her father had taught her when she was a girl.
Greta’s chattering teeth added an unexpected staccato to the melody, but after a few moments, she felt the bears quieten. Her chest loosened. She went from pen to pen, slipping inside to soothe the animals. She combed her fingers through their fur, softly singing them to sleep. She tried not to let her thoughts wander back to the king. It was hard to believe the warrior riding bareback into all those spitting flames was the same man who had held her tenderly on the dance floor, whispering and laughing as though they were the only two people in the world.
