He threw a dagger, but it bounced harmlessly off the wall of ice that sprouted in front of Rakel, protecting her. He cursed and reached for the crying little girl, yanking her off her mother.
Rakel hissed, gathered the edge of her flapping cloak, and flung it behind her. Spikes of ice as thick as a child and as sharp as a sword erupted from the ground, nearly impaling the invader. “Release her!”
The mercenary cursed and stumbled backwards. Rakel pushed him away with a gust of wind, pelting him with icy shards. He let go of the little girl to recover his balance, and Rakel tapped her ice magic, coating the ground beneath his feet. When he slipped and fell, she formed a large block of ice and slammed it into him, sending him flying from Fyran.
Rakel nodded in satisfaction and turned to face the rest of the village. The pleasant chill of her magic pumped through her body as she studied the invading force. Only a few had noticed her. Those that did faced her, their faces pinched with fear and indecision. The rest continued to fight and ravage like animals.It seems Oskar was right. There are no magic users present—or none, at least, who are using their powers.She flicked her fingers, separating them from the villagers with spikes and walls of hardened snow.
She coated their weapons with layers of ice, making them heavier and cloaking the blades and sharp ridges. When this made them howl in rage, she iced over the greaves of their armor and edged their beards and helms with crystalline hoarfrost. She created walls of packed snow that lined a path out of the village, and then funneled a horde of the invaders within. As she started closing the massive walls in, the invaders fled, deciding the fight was not worth being crushed.
She froze the feet of the men attacking the Verglas soldiers, searing them to the ground, and staked them with icy spikes.
She drew blood, but she was careful to kill no one as she drove them from Fyran. As she glanced at the clear sky, the winds picked up and clouds formed, dropping balls of ice and sharp snowflakes that pelted the invaders’ eyes and faces, but left the villagers untouched. Her shoulders were stiff. She worried a fellow magic user would suddenly burst out of the ranks, but it seemed that Oskar had accurate information: only mercenaries had been sent to destroy the small village.
The snow that already blanketed the village began to move, snaking along the ground like a living thing. It twined around the remaining invaders, pulling them down, covering their eyes, and plugging their noses.
The screams of the villagers stopped, and soon, it was the yells of the invaders that pealed in Fyran.
The Verglas soldiers shouted a war cry and ran forward, falling on invaders. The civilians rejoined the fray, thrusting their weapons at the enemy.
When Rakel lifted her arm straight up, extending a finger, and a huge glacier started to form behind her, the invaders fled.
Rakel smiled—a real smile, not one of bitterness—and lowered her arm. Her icy magic twined around her like a cat as she dismissed the snowstorm she had called up and fractured the walls and spikes of ice and snow she had wielded like weapons.
When she turned her eyes to the villagers and Verglas soldiers, the joy that thumped in her heart shriveled and died.
The villagers cowered against their homes, their eyes glazed with terror as they stared at her. The soldiers stood in front of them, their weapons still out, even though the invaders were gone. Their stances were stiff and their faces grim.
“Princess,” Oskar said, from somewhere in the group of soldiers.
One of them took a step forward, and Rakel flinched. She heard the scrape of a sword blade and threw her arms in front of her, summoning a gust of wind laced with sharp shards of ice. With the wind to cover her back, she retreated to her castle, her ears straining for any sound of pursuit. When she reached the safety of the wooden wall, she threw herself inside, shut the gate, and reinforced it with ice.
“Try to kill me now,” she gasped for air. She gave the gate one last appraising glance and staggered inside.
No matter what I do, she thought as she slipped past the cold but safe walls of her castle,they will always fear me.
CHAPTER 2
GERTA & KAI
Two days later, Rakel was perusing a book when she heard a thud, followed by an “Ow!”
She was so surprised she set her book down and listened to the usual silence of ice and snow.That sounded like it was outside…
She left the library and slipped out of her castle, staying behind the low walls of ice she had made when she’d fashioned her ice garden years ago. She followed the sound of raised voices, her stomach squeezing oddly. When she found the home-invaders, she was struck dumb.
Just inside the walls of her fortification were two children. One was a little boy. He sat on the snow-coated ground and rubbed his back as he squinted in the bright sunlight. His companion—a little girl, the one she had saved—hung from the top of the wooden wall, her bottom wriggling and her feet kicking as she tried to get a foothold. Neither of them could have been older than ten.
“Just drop down.” The little boy adjusted his blue scarf. “It doesn’t hurt too bad. There’s lots of snow.”
“Catch me!” the little girl laughed.
“What?” the boy said, his brow puckering. He looked up in time to watch the little girl land on him, knocking him back into the snow with an “Oomph.”
“You’re right; that wasn’t so bad,” the little girl said in satisfaction.
The boy groaned.
“Let’s go find her,” the girl said, crawling off her friend.
