“Princess! There you are—Mr. Graydim said he was looking for you,” Gerta said, skipping towards Rakel.
Rakel caught the little girl her by her shoulders. “Gerta, I want you to follow your tracks back to Phile, and tell her you met Mr. Graydim. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Princess!” She bowed and hopped on her way.
“Run, Gerta,” Rakel said, not daring to turn her back to Farrin. Though she hoped this would be like their other private meetings—civil, not hostile—she wasn’t willing to risk her welfare and relax.
Farrin held his hands up as he drew closer to her. “Your Highness,” he said.
“Colonel Graydim, what brings you this close to Ostfold?” Rakel asked, forming five ice swords and setting them spinning in a circle around Farrin.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“I find that unlikely,” Rakel snorted. “You came back to spy—or for your sword.”
“Before you took Glowma, you asked me why the Chosen wished to take over Verglas. I told you it was to claim a land for our own, and you?—”
“Won’t believe it any more now than I did then,” she warned him.
“I have since found the real reason for my superior’s Verglas aspirations.”
Rakel regained some of her poise. “Oh?”
“Indeed. I had to assign one of my men—pardon, women—to spy on Chosen officers in order to ferret out the information.”
“Why would you do that? You seemed to hold great confidence in your superiors’ goals,” Rakel warily asked.
“Because what you said had some sense to it. Tactically speaking, Verglas is not a good country to take as our first land. Yet, since the beginning of our conquest, our leader has said again and again that it must beVerglaswe take.” Farrin took a step closer and ignored the ice-swords that glittered like diamonds as they spun around him.
“What did you find?” Rakel asked, only half-believing he would share the information with her.
“The Chosen marched upon Verglas because there is a particular magical artifact that can be reached only by traveling through here. It is a mirror, and it is located in the northern mountain range, past the borders of your country.”
“Amirror?”
He nodded. “Several key leaders of the Chosen possess shards of the mirror,” he said, reminding Rakel how Phile had presented her with a mirror shard, claiming one of the Chosen leaders always looked at it. “I do not know why they want it, but I imagine it has something to do with power.”
Power? If they are only in Verglas for the mirror, whatistheir end goal? How much land will it take before they are satisfied?
“Why are you telling me this?” Rakel asked. “If anything, this strengthens my conviction against your cause.”
“I thought it would. If you didn’t find land a good reason to invade, it was even less likely you would approve of a mirror.” A smirk played on his lips.
“Then why?”
Farrin tilted his head, and she felt as if he were staring straight into her soul with his gray eyes. “I’m telling you because I respect you. Don’t you respect me?”
“Yes, but with the same respect I hold for the edge of a sword,” Rakel said.
Farrin smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I also wanted to warn you. If you insist on war, there is something you need to know.”
Rakel pushed a tendril of her snow-white hair out of her face. “Oh?”
“The leader of the Allegiance of the Chosen Army is a man named Tenebris Malus. The loss of Ostfold hasn’t been reported yet, but when he finds out, he will travel north. If he meets you, he will kill you.”
Rakel’s heart faltered, until she used icy dignity to calm herself. “For most of my life, I have dealt with death threats.”
Farrin shook his head. “Not like this. Tenebris won’t be satisfied with merely ending your life; he will rip your mind from you piece by piece. The curse you were inflicted with? That is his power.”
