He tapped his speed magic, and he was gone.
Rakel pressed her lips into a thin line.Why does he feel that he has no other options?He said he cannot afford to displease Tenebris, but why?
Rakel slowly trekked back into Tana, tilting her head so snowflakes fell on her bare neck as she thought. I do not think it is a ploy or a trap. If it was, he wouldn’t have warned me that Tenebris will use alternative tactics to kill me. Tenebris doesn’t have his wretched sword…does he?Rakel hurried into Tana. Instead of making her way to the cottage in which Halvor had set up headquarters, she moved to the center of the village. The large block of ice that contained Farrin’s sword was there, glittering in the moonlight and covered with a thin veil of snow.
The ice was flawless, even after the long sleigh ride to Tana, but she wasn’t convinced. She placed her bare hand on the ice and tested it with her powers. There, she could feel the tang of his sword ping against her powers and reverberate in her bones. “No, it is here.”Tenebris was twisted enough to sacrifice his soldiers at the Battle of Gaula, so I doubt he’d think twice of abusing his officers. What does Farrin hold close besides his sword? His regiment?Rakel dragged her hand across the ice block. She felt unsettled and unsatisfied with their parting.
I do not wish to see him in pain—physical or emotional.Rakel’s fingers curled into fists as she recalled Farrin’s odd posture.Tenebris has injured him.She knew it with baffling clarity. The Chosen leader had wounded his own man in his fury—probably because of her.
She angrily turned from the ice block and stalked through the flickering torchlight, the hem of her blue skirts dusting snow from the ground.Tenebris is at the root of all of this. Farrin is not the evil one; he is! Unfortunately, if he is as strong as Crow claims, it will take everything I have to match him.
She could do it. Rakel loved her magic, but she was starkly realistic about it. She suspected she could match Tenebris stroke for stroke. The problem would be what would happen after.I could counter him, but what then? Using so much of my magic would have me asleep for days—if not weeks. With magic users like Farrin, the Chosen could strike while I was sleeping. I am not the only magic user Verglas has—or even the most talented, she thought, remembering Ragnar and Genovefa.But I have the best crowd-control and mass-effect magic.
“Something will have to change if we want to eliminate the Chosen—not beat them,” Rakel sighed.And we have to eliminate them—or they’ll be back again for the mirror.She shivered at the thought for a moment. “No,” she decided, straightening. “We have Halvor, Phile, and others like Ragnar. We will win. I willnotuse my magic to kill.”
Tossing the dark thoughts aside, Rakel turned in the direction of Halvor’s headquarters. A sleepy goat baaed at her as she glided past a stable, and Phile’s horse snorted and stomped a hoof. She stopped to offer the horse her palm to sniff and heard two sets of footsteps.
She spun.
Kai.She willed the tension from her shoulders.
Kai and his mother hurried through the village. Kai carried a bundle of wood, his mother a pack.
“Set it by the door,” his mother said.
“Alright.” Kai stacked the wood by a cottage door. “Shall I go get more?”
“No,” his mother said. “You may go find Gerta.”
“Thank you, Mother!” Kai tried to hug her, but she backed away from him.
“Only for a few minutes. Mind your manners,” she said as she stepped inside the cottage and shut the door.
Kai stood there for a moment like a kicked puppy, his head hanging.
“Kai! Hurry,” Gerta called from deeper in the village.
Kai’s head came up. “Coming.”
Rakel watched the young boy trot away, and her heart ached with pain.The people have come so far…but it’s not enough, yet.Still, she is his mother. She loves him. She will come to accept him.
Rakel fixed her chin and started again for headquarters.Now, for the war…
And all the way there, she kept a watchful eye on the shadows.
CHAPTER 8
ON THE SUBJECT OF POACHING
“Isimply cannot believe Tenebris Malus is human,” Phile announced. “Snorri and I snuck into the First Regiment—into histent—and I couldn’t find anything that indicated anything about his past.”
Rakel pushed food around her wooden plate. “I don’t imagine he became the leader of an army of magic users by acting carelessly.”
“Bully for him, but that will have to change. I am the Robber Maiden! I steal whatever I want, and what Iwantis information on him!”
Rakel sipped her goblet of apple cider. “Don’t you think you should be satisfied that you were able to sneak around the camp? Based on Snorri’s model of the place, it is a feat that should be commended.”
Phile scoffed. “With Snorri using his magic, it is child’s play. I have decided: when I open my guild, I shall poach Snorri from the Verglas army.”
