Chuckling, Fjorten gestured to a nearby servant. “She may have a chance yet. Ernaut strikes me as a man who doesn’t forget humiliation.”
She couldn’t hold her curiosity. “What did Annath mean at the Assembly Hall when the Warlord cut him off?”
Fjorten set his empty cup on the tray. With a glance toward Kaiden, he turned and smiled. “Past grievances.”
“That, I understood. But of what?” She wasn’t interested in Blainor’s past. No. She was only asking to understand the land he ruled and what he hid from her. “What’s so special about snow in some mountain? What’s actually in Everfrost?”
“Bad things, that’s what. Best forallif they remain buried there.”
There was gravity in Fjorten’s voice. Trisha turned to face the high table, where the Warlord sat with his court and Gend’s retinue. “Bad enough to kill?”
After a pause, Fjorten blew air out his nose. “One way of putting it.”
Trisha acknowledged his cryptic response with a tilt of her head. The vestiges of light glinted on her lyre that waited by the fireplace. Ever since the meeting with the chiefs, she’d felt unbalanced. Restless. Not even music helped.
“I guess it’s time to prove myself as a Warlord’s Bard, again,” she muttered. “And no, Kaiden, I’m not planning on ballads, you’ll be happy to hear. But maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll play a march for you to draw your swords and run into the night.”
The men chuckled, and Trisha smiled faintly. That smile fell as she approached her seat. A march was the last thing she wished to play. Despite her attempts, she couldn’t forget how the steel had sparked earlier this afternoon, the way fear had squeezed her heart when Annath had sliced the air aiming to kill.
Trisha lifted the instrument onto her lap, fingertips tracing the razor-thin strings.
Fjorten’s caged responses had only served to stoke her curiosity. Had Blainor lost someone to Everfrost? She blew an annoyed breath. If she were to stay in his court longer, she’d need to know what kind of beasts hid beyond the northern mountains, amidst the ice of Everfrost.
Twilight settled, and the candles burned low as the long northern day exhaled its final light.
Across the darkened floor, Fjorten and Kaiden took their seats by the Warlord’s table. Byne too sat there, nodding at Annath’s second-in-command, who was scowling at the Blutmeer chief over her shoulder.
She wrapped her hands around the lyre on her lap as she wondered what they spoke about. Her fingers twitched, letting an errant note slip free. It rustled her magic, a balmy rush rising from her chest. A deep sigh left her.Not tonight.
Of course, her magic ignored her. Exerting itself against her mind, it cooed like a petulant child.Let me loose.
Before she could stomp it out this time, the strings of her lyre vibrated, glinting with a blue-tinted glow. And just like that, the magic slipped free. How easily it happened when she didn’t try so hard. The power enveloped her, tempting her to sink into its warm embrace.
But she resisted its call and struck a chord. A jarring sound, like an eroded string, set her teeth on edge. Sharp, almost vicious, it brought back that memory from the Assembly Hall,the hair-curling tang of blood’s copper, the hollow look on Blainor’s face.
Trisha plucked at the strings again. Gentler now, the promptings of potential coursing through her veins, a sweet scent of honeysuckle growing stronger. As she closed her eyes and exhaled, tension lifted from her shoulders.
The song poured out, clear as a river. A small smile lifted her lips. She knew this piece. Her composition of the river and the linden trees, a memory she’d crafted while crossing the world to the south and back.
Blainor leaned back in his chair, head just off-kilter. He seemed no worse for wear after the confrontation with Annath, dressed in a woolen brocade embroidered in gold, a fur-trimmed cloak thrown over his shoulders. Dark curls dangled on his forehead like traps to ensnare, shadows accentuating the defined lines of his face.
The fragrant magic diffused through the thin eddies of smoke, an irresistible seduction beckoning her to follow.
It whispered,Calm, calm.
Trisha obeyed, the strings of her lyre speaking for her. Pure and ethereal, the music echoed off the room’s walls. She faced the Warlord, yet her mind remained with the notes trickling from her lyre.
The song altered almost on its own, shadows deepening—its honeysuckle gaining a new complexity. Trisha’s heart stuttered when she recognized it. Linden flowers, flooding her nose. Her smile widened, lost in the memory.Tilia. Her fingers followed the tug of her magic, redirecting the melody.
A pulse of energy wavered across the air.
Surprised voices, people backing away and pointing.
Trisha’s breath caught. Before her, growing from darkened boards, a tree sprouted, its boughs stretching toward the ceiling.Its trunk thickened, lush canopy strewn over the spacious hall.
A young man in bright colors gestured at his friends, reaching up. His face was full of wonder as he turned, presenting them with a branch he’d snapped apart.
Trisha couldn’t stop. She plucked at the strings, the tree growing. It grew and grew until it crested taller than the room, passing the dark support beams, through the vaulted stone ceiling. The fragrance of linden flowers thickened, their sweet aroma dizzying.
