“Planning on endangering our family once more?” My tone is as glacial as the hail trouncing the land. “Take us down to the shore!”
I squint hard. Why the fuck hasn’t Isla reemerged? Did an orca snatch her? Did Mestyla?
“So, what’s the plan now, Kostya?” Ksenia’s conversational tone cleaves through my runaway train of thought.
“Depends on what…” I moisten my scratchy throat. “On what Mestyla has to say.”
“Because you think she’ll admit to wanting you dead?”
“If she’s anything like you and Alyona, then yes, I do believe she will.”
“She’s slier.”
“Then it’s a good thing her maker will be able to see into her mind.”
Suddenly, Isla soars from the ocean, and my heart…my poor, trodden heart picks itself off my ribs and launches skyward on wings of its own. I shut my eyes for a second. Knead my temples.
And then I affix my gaze to my sister. “Tell me, Ksen, for how long have you been ingesting iron?”
Her irises seem to swell even though it’s really her pupils that retract. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I blaze right through her pretense of innocence. “Cut the bullshit. For how fucking long?” I growl. “For as long as you’ve been planning your little coup?”
She regards me without flinching…without blinking. But then her features rearrange into a grotesque leer. I’m guessing her pride has finally bested her intent to play victim.
“It’s not a little coup; it’s a grand revolution.” Ksenia’s smile slips to her eyes, inflames them. “We don’t want a new king; we want a whole new governing system.”
I start to shake my head, marginally astounded that she’s confessed, when the sleigh pitches forward as though we’d tipped over a cliff. A glance over my sister’s airborne locks reveals we’ve merely deviated from the cleared path. We gain such speed that I have to clutch the nearest armrest and the underside of the seat to avoid flying off.
Ksenia grips her own armrests.
When did my soldiers unbind her wrists?
Wherearemy fucking soldiers and sprites?
I whirl in my seat to find two standing on the platform behind me. Our velocity has blown off their furred caps, revealing ears that aren’t pointed. I’d asked Salom to start employing half-bloods, but he’d been reticent to bestow the protection of Glace to soldiers with lesser magic. Especially, that of the capital. When did he change his mind?
“Slow d—” A chunk of hail clips my jaw, stealing my breath.
I whip my hand off the seat frame and nurture fistfuls of air to keep the ice pellets at bay, then try to enlarge my force field in order to brake our speed before we plunge right through the open vestibule and down the stairs.
“Isn’t it poetic when nature and fate align…?” Ksenia muses, creating a liquid eddy over her head that not only blocks the soaring hail but also absorbs it.
The ice sphere is soon larger than the base of the snowman I helped her build when she was six.
“You should call to Isla for help through your mind link.” Ksenia’s taunt impales my humming eardrums like an icepick. “Oh, wait…you don’t have one, now, do you? A real shame, huh?”
Understanding that our treacherous skid isn’t the fault of inept drivers, I jerk to my feet. Ksenia flicks her fingers, bludgeoning me with her ball of ice. My vision goes black, then glaringly white.
When I blink next, I’m flat on my back between the two sleigh benches, and Ksenia is crouched over me, her flaxen locks swirling around her head like a crown of frost, her knuckles digging against my chest as she haplessly attempts to pry the chain from my skin.
“Why isn’t your necklace coming off?” she howls.
This time, even though my wrists are shackled behind my back—most probably in iron since magic doesn’t tickle my skin—and I’m surrounded by vindictive beings, I’m the one who smiles. “Because the Cauldron mustn’t deem you worthy, sister.”
With a frustrated chuff, Ksenia straightens. We must’ve eased to a stop, given that her hair has collapsed around her scowling face like flaccid reeds.
“Knock him out!” she hisses.
