Rakel didn’t hesitate. She reached out with her magic and solidified the snow—stabilizing Phile’s position—then built a small ice platform beneath Snorri.
“Drop him,” Rakel said.
Snorri let go, exhaling deeply when the ice beneath him held.
Rakel built ice stairs for him to climb, and Phile rolled away from the edge.
“It’s been fun, but I guess that is our cue to leave, eh? Oskar did say not to use your magic or they would sense you.” Phile ran for the saddlebags and began throwing their few supplies into them, then buckled them haphazardly to her horse.
“There was no other choice.” Rakel extended her hand to Snorri to help him clear the last step.
Instead of grasping her hand, he set the spyglass in it. Rakel gaped at it. “You didn’tdropit?”
Snorri shook his head and dusted snow and grit from his clothes. “It is a national treasure.”
That must be why he didn’t grab the cliff securely. He wouldn’t let it go.Rakel both admired his actions and wanted to shake him. “Your life is more important than an object, Snorri.”
“Phile and you, Princess, caught me,” Snorri said. He bowed to Rakel then hurried to the ponies, throwing their harnesses on them as Phile dragged the lightweight sleigh out from its shelter among scraggily bushes.
Rakel peered over the side of the cliff and shattered the ice platform and stairs, making broken ice fall like raindrops.
Phile helped Snorri tack the second pony. “Let’s go, Snow Queen. We’ve got to blaze a trail before that beau of yours figures out where we are.”
“Even Farrin Graydim will require time to climb this hill. The cliffs will prevent him from using his magic to come straight up,” Snorri said.
“Normally I would take a moment to mark this momentous occasion—you spoketwofull sentences, Snorri, well done! However, as we are in what Handsome Halvor would call a necessary retreat, I will save the celebration for later. Let’s go, go, go! Wipe the camp clean, Little Wolf!”
“But my magic?—”
“They already know you’re here after saving us. Go!”
Phile threw herself on her horse—which pranced and shied when Rakel dragged drifts down from the crest of the hill and buried all evidence of their camp under a knee-high blanket of snow.
She slipped into the carriage, and Snorri cracked the reins, making the ponies set off at a brisk trot.
“Not bad at all. We might not have solid evidence of Tenebris’s impending arrival, but at least we’ll escape with our hides intact. With luck, we won’t even have to tell Handsome Halvor and Oggle-worthy Oskar why we packed up camp so quickly and came back home.”
The horse and ponies huffed as they glided across the snow crust.
“You will, however, have to tell them you brought a priceless national treasure on a scouting trip,” Rakel said.
Phile ducked a branch. “Thank you for ruining the mood, Little Wolf. What’s so special about that spyglass anyway?”
“History,” Snorri said.
“History? I suppose I can respect that.”
Rakel eyed her. “That is surprisingly decent of you.”
Phile grinned. “Of course. One day, we’ll be a part of history too, Little Wolf.”
Rakel shook her head. “I find it unlikely any will care that Verglas—an isolated snow country—kept its independence against the Chosen.”
“You never know, Little Wolf,” Phile said with a sly grin. “Worlds can be changed by the smallest things.”
The trees cleared, and they were forced to stop talking as Phile and Snorri urged their equines to go faster.
Farrin Graydim lookedup from the report he was reading in his tent.…Rakel?There, he felt it again. The minty, cool caress of her unmistakable magic. He arose from his desk and left his tent, following the beckoning of her magic, until he was at the edge of camp and staring at the harsh, unforgiving gray and white of the snow-covered cliff-like hills that guarded his regiment’s flank.
