“A God Knife.” Finn scrubs his hand down his face, his frustration evident. “Made by the great sorcerer Un Drallag, a figment of Eastern lore. Forged from god bone and the essence of a deity, yes? Which god,Raina? Which god do you think this bone belonged to? Neri? Asha? Urdin? Thamaos? One of the ancients? Loria herself?”
“I…”My fingers still. Father never mentioned that part. I always figured he didn’t know, though I’ve always wondered.“He never said,”I reply,“but it does not matter for the task at hand.”I pause and add,“Wild deer and all.”
A grin tests one corner of Finn’s mouth but fails to unfurl. He pushes off his knees and stands, skirting the table between us, a weary expression shadowing his face. Crouching at my feet, he rests those strong, black-stained and blistered hands on my thighs like they belong there.
When he looks into my eyes, I taste the bitterness that has lived inside my heart ever since he refused to leave the vale with me three years ago. I could’ve loved him the way my parents loved each other. We could’ve had so much more than this. Then again, if we’d left, I wouldn’t have had this chance to save my sister and maybe every single person living in the Northlands from enduring a future they did not choose.
Gently, Finn tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You know that I believe in you, in all things. And I’ll sharpen this knife until it can flay flesh and penetrate bone if that’s what you want. But you are no match for men like the Witch Collector, Raina. And certainly not the Frost King. I hate them too—more than you believe or will ever understand. But if I think, even for a moment, that you’re about to do something foolish once the Witch Collector arrives today, know that I won’t stand there and watch it happen. I can’t. I will always save you, even if it means saving you from yourself.”
I clench my fingers again. There are so many things I want to say, none of them kind. Instead, I hold Finn’s stare until he takes the knife, slips on his leather apron, and steps to the forge.
“Fulmanesh, iyuma.” He speaks the words over the low flames, and they rise at his quiet command, supplying more light.
After a moment, I follow, silently swiping one of the dagger belts I noticed earlier while he’s not looking. Shoving the leather into my skirt pocket, I watch over his shoulder. I’m more nervous than I want to be now that he holds the God Knife. He could so easily take it from me.
Finn studies the weapon. “Why is it so cold?”
I shrug.“It has been like that since I can remember.”
He tests the knife’s heft in his hand, bites the blade between his teeth, and drags the dull edge across a piece of thick hide, which slices far easier than I would’ve guessed.
He cuts a sidelong glance. “Feels like bone. Tastes like bone. But it doesn’t look or cut like bone.”
Of course it doesn’t resemble the kind of bone we’re used to handling. Gods were practically indestructible. It took the last of them killing each other three centuries ago to end their reign, after all. Surely killing a man Neri only gifted with immortal life and rule won’t be as impossible a task as Finn makes it seem. I imagine one good thrust to the Frost King’s heart will do the trick.
As for the Witch Collector, he’s human—perhaps cursed to his duty unto death. At most, he’s a Witch Walker dedicated to his king. Hel thinks he’s an older man, and I have to agree. He keeps his head buried beneath his cloak, but he’s the same Collector who has come to the vale since I was a child. I know his voice, and I know his tall frame. He won’t expect me to attack—no one ever challenges him. The element of surprise and a holy knife held to his throat should render him easier to overpower.
If I’m faster than him.
“I’ll try the grindstone first,” Finn says, the edge in his voice receding. “Then we can go from there. All right?”
I link my arm with his and nod, resting my head on his shoulder, and sign a quick, “Thank you.”
The coiled tension tightening my muscles ebbs. Finn and I aren’t together anymore, not in the way we once were, but he’s still my comfort, even when he’s impossible. I don’t know how to live life without him, but I fear I’ll have to. When the moment arrives today, I’ll still give him a choice. But if I’m honest with myself, he made that decision three years ago.
He presses a tender kiss to my forehead. “Don’t thank me, Raina,” he whispers. “Just don’t make me regret this.”
“Ihave a bad feeling. Don’t you understand that?” Colden Moeshka leans against the small hearth of my hunting shelter, picking at a loose thread dangling from the gold-ribboned cuff of his blue velvet coat. I can smell the cold on him—that constant, crisp scent of winter that has clung to him for three centuries now.
He squats, tosses another log into the fire, and stokes the flames until the wood catches and sparks dance. I can’t help but stare. His skin holds a golden undertone in the summer but grows pale with winter’s pallor. Tonight, it glows under the firelight, and his dark eyes shine like black obsidian mined from the Mondulak Range. Much of his wavy flaxen hair hangs loose from its tie, lending his perpetually twenty-year-old features an air of innocence he does not truly possess.
Shifting on my wooden stool, I rest my elbows on my knees and rub my tired eyes. “Bad feeling or not, I have to go. I’ve never missed a Collecting Day. The villagers’ lives must go on as normal, at least until we know the truth. And the only way we can know the truth is if I go to the vale and get the girl.”
I’m already late. Every Collecting Day, I wake before dawn to finishthe last leg of a sennight-long journey through Frostwater Wood. I usually reach Hampstead Loch—the closest village to my hunting shelter and Winter Road—a couple of hours after sunrise and end my day at Silver Hollow just after noon, if the weather and my horse permit.
Early this morning, however, I woke to Colden slipping through my cabin door in the darkness, alone and travel-weary from trying to catch up with me, all to deliver what I consider less than trustworthy news.
“We’ve heard rumors from the East along the spy chain before,” I remind him. “Nothing has ever come of them.”
“Yes, well, this rumor is different.” Colden holds a chilled hand over the rising heat from the fire, a useless effort to chase away the cold that forever lives in his veins. “There’s only one reason the Prince of the East would break King Regner’s peace agreement with me, and that’s if he’s learned that I’m much more valuable as a weapon against Fia than as his ally.”
Fia. I think of the Summerland queen often and wonder if she worries for Colden the way he worries for her.
“Everything I’ve ever done has been with Fia and all of Tiressia in mind,” he says. “If the prince knows my secret, they will come for me. You know they will. They will have to. And they will destroy anyone who stands in their way.”
“Our borders are protected,” I tell him for what feels like the hundredth time. “Even without our Witch Walkers, the Iceland Plains and the Mondulak Range are impassable this time of year. The Eastlanders never have and never will survive sailing through the White Tides, nor can they make it past the Summerlander fleet to enter via the Western Drifts. The coasts are well fortified. You’re safe, Colden.”
And Fia is safe. No king—and certainly no nameless prince—has bested her yet. She doesn’t need to deal with the Prince of the East getting his hands on her former lover, but if anyone can take care of themselves, it’s the Fire Queen.
