Alexus strokes a hand over his horse’s head and down his long neck. “Can you try? Maybe a simple calming spell?”
My fingers are so unbearably stiff that they feel brittle. I struggle, gasping at the pain in my knuckles. Thankfully, the words for bringing ease aren’t complex, a small cantrip of only three words I’ve used before.
Mala, mulco, calla.
On the third attempt, my fingers soften and bend around the shape of the ancient, elegant language, forming a tiny ball of white light. I repeat the words thrice more and push the uncomplicated construct toward the horses.
It disperses into glimmering threads above them, trickling like rain and vanishing into their manes with the falling snow. In seconds, they settle.
Lowering my hands, I notice that Alexus’s eyes are fixed on me, unblinking, as if I’ve bewitched him. His lashes flutter, and he clears his throat.
“What?”I slip my hands back to the warmth under my arms.
“Nothing,” he replies with a small shake of his head. “Your magick is just really beautiful.”
I tighten my fingers, unsure how to respond, not wanting to say anything because my hands are so cold. Thankfully, Alexus takes the reins and leads us toward the lakeshore’s edge. Side by side, we stand where tumbled stones meet frost and ice, staring over the glacial terrain. We share a glance, a moment of understanding for what we’re about to do.
Then we step onto the ice.
When I was a boy, my father brought me to a small mountain village outside what is now called Hampstead Loch. We met a fur trader there, a man who also dealt in sealskin. He guided us to a camp many miles away, and later we made the journey to the furthest reaches of the Northland Break, where a wooded forest gave way to the Iceland Plains.
The first thing that stands out in my mind about that trip is walking along the coastline, watching the dark sea with its white crests roiling toward the shore. The second is when my foot broke through a weak place in the ice, and utter terror swallowed me whole.
I was lucky. My diligent father had hold of my hand and yanked me to safety, but not before the water reached my waist. He carried me for miles, and I remember thinking that I might lose my legs from the cold.
I didn’t, and though I live in the Northlands now and have visited the villages along the plains hundreds of times since, I always avoid the outermost reaches. I imagine Fate is smiling in the shadows now, because it has given me yet another chance to brave the ice.
I wipe my hand across my forehead, trying very hard to believe my own words—that the magick will not harm us. But faith is an arduous effort at the moment. I’m still weak, and I clutch Mannus’s reins with frigid hands. He follows behind me, wary but steady.
Perhaps it wasIwho needed the calming spell, because every clop of the horses’ hooves sends a cringe of anxiety through me, especially as we near the center of the lake.
We just need to reach the other side.
“Step lightly,” I remind Raina. “Watch for cracks and thin surface.” Though I know she already is. She walks ahead, leading her mare, a dark, hooded figure floating through the blue-tinted night. I can reach her more easily this way if the ice gives.
Unless it takes our horses and me down, too.
That thought is more sobering than the cold wind, and I silently scold myself for thinking it at all. Nephele and the others must sense me. They won’t let the ice give.
And yet the ice cracks, a line zigzagging between Raina and me, accompanied by a splintering noise that makes my stomach drop.
We freeze, and the cracking stops. For a long moment, there is only deafening silence across the lake, until our panting breaths and a roaring heartbeat fill my ears. Raina turns a slow glance over her shoulder, blue eyes wide.
I nod in her direction. “Keep going.”
Each step forward is excruciatingly slow and careful, apprehension tightening every muscle and every move. I’m mentally measuring our distance to the other side—only another hundred strides or so—when Raina comes to another abrupt standstill. I stop, my heart thundering.
“What’s wrong?” We don’t have far to go, but in my worry, I’ve gotten too close to her. She inches around and points at the ice. “Is it cracking?” I ask. “Be still.”
My mind is a whirl of panic. I’m reaching for the rope looped at my side before I realize that Raina is shaking her head, still pointing.
I look down. Take a judicious half-step closer.
A warrior’s face stares at us from beneath the ice. I glance around, only to see more faces and horses, too.
Eastlanders lurk beneath the surface, their last moments of fearforever frozen on their icebound faces. I pray to the Ancient Ones that this part of the construct swallowed the entirety of the prince’s army—him included.
“Get off this patch of ice,” I tell Raina. “It’s too thin.”
