It was a kindness, she knew. Alarik Felsing had seen her upset and sought to distract her. Perhaps out of some misplaced loyalty to her brother, or to stop his prized wrangler from blubbering in front of his guests. Whatever his reasons, Greta had found peace in his arms and joy in the unrestrained howl of his laughter.
She was smiling as she slipped out of the last pen, leaving Baldur and Nel snuggled up together. Her crown of braids had come undone, and her sodden skirts gathered dirt as she made her way up to the wolves. They were still wide awake. She spotted Tollo and Gale sitting at the front of their pen, growling at the sky.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured, but the wolves’ eyes were wide and glowing. Tollo’s hackles rose, and Greta felt the spike of his fear like a shot of ice in her blood.
She turned just as a slew of gliders emerged from a low-hanging cloud and soared right over the treetops, towards the king’s beasts.
Towards her.
She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound was lost to a thundering crack.
The world erupted in firelight. The trees hissed as they burned and the beasts roared as one at the gathering smoke. The gliders disappeared somewhere in the trees, but Greta’s eyes were on the flames racing menacingly towards the pens. Her head throbbed with one single, pounding thought:save the beasts!
As guards flooded the courtyard behind her, she picked up her skirts and ran, into the raging heart of that terrible inferno.
CHAPTER 21
Alarik
Alarik rode so fast the wind dislodged his crown. He ripped it off, clenching it in his fist. His breath sawed out of him, joining with Borvil’s heaves. In the distance, smoke curled around the spires of Grinstad Palace, like greedy serpents. The sky above was amber, painted by the same flames that were devouring his beasts.
What the hell was taking his guards so long? The fires should be out by now.
Unless …
Unless they were worse than he could see from here. He fisted his hands in Borvil’s fur, urging the bear faster. He cursed himself for leaving the palace in the first place, for letting adrenaline get the better of him. He should have sent Captain Vine while he stayed behind, preparing for the rest of Regna’s assault. A smarter king would not have acted so rashly.
His father would have known better.
Alairk should have known better.
He cleared the mountain pass, the ice bear never tiring despite the strain of both journeys. The rock groaned, as though the earth itself was flexing,preparing for the coming war. Cracks spiderwebbed up the mountain and the peak trembled, shaking off its snow.
The creature was wide awake somewhere deep in the rock face. Unsettled. Angry. Alarik shoved the thought from his mind. He couldn’t afford to think about the unknowable beast right now. Not while his own ones were suffering.Burning.
He urged Borvil on, the snow kicking up around them until the world turned gauzy and white. On and on they rode, until at last the palace gates groaned open. Soldiers rushed across the front lawn to meet their king, and he roared at them to turn around, to run towards the frightened howls at the back of the palace and all that choking smoke. Alarik arced around the side, galloping right into the plumes.
He tugged up his collar to cover his mouth as they made for the courtyard, which was heaving with soldiers. There were beasts there, too, wolves and bears and mountain lions, tigers and snow leopards and foxes, all pacing and growling as they were corralled into the arena.
Alarik leaped off Borvil and raced across the courtyard, keeping one eye on the forest. Most of the flames had been put out but the trees in the back quarter were burnt to cinders, and at least half of the pens were destroyed. Guards yelled back and forth as they drove sleds through the woods, carting huge buckets of snow to douse the last of the fires. The servants hung back, filling troughs for the beasts to drink from.
Smoke stung Alarik’s eyes and clung to his clothes as he made his way into the arena, trying to count the beasts there.At least a hundred, he guessed, and there were plenty more milling around outside, struck by panic and confusion.
Alarik grabbed the nearest guard, yanking her towards him. ‘How many beasts did we lose?’
She blinked in alarm. ‘Your M-m-majesty,’ she stammered. ‘Eight. Only eight, so far.’
Eight. A paltry number compared to the massacre of elks. But a sour loss, nonetheless.
His brow furrowed. ‘But half of the pens are destroyed.’
‘The wrangler got most of them out.’
‘Oh.’ Alarik’s shoulders relaxed, his breath leaving him in a short sigh. He turned, scanning the figures moving around him. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know, Your Majesty. I only saw her run down to the pens. Then all the beasts came rushing out. They were roaring, trying to get away from the flames … I never saw her come back.’
Alarik froze. A terrible chill went through him as he pictured his wrangler running headlong into the fire. He thought of his dead beasts and wondered if she was among them, if she had gone too far in her haste to rescue them. He closed his eyes and cursed. He could imagine her all too clearly, running recklessly into the belly of Regna’s inferno.
