Page 17 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen
There was nevera moment in Blár’s life where he wasn’t cold; it was imbued in his flesh and in his mana—the unbearable, arctic chill. He breathed in winter, exhaled it, and lived with it in his bones. He’d been born in the northern mountains, where snow and ice glittered for miles and miles, where his breath would fog and mist in front of him, and ice would cling to his lashes. Needless to say, he was accustomed to always being cold.
But despite his affinity to ice, he was burning hot with rage in that moment. His hands flexed over the wooden armrests of the chair and he wanted nothing more than to slam his fists onto the table in front of him. He wanted to freeze the entire landscape until everyone would feel his wrath.
They had taken Kolfinna.
His own weakness had caused her to be taken by that elven warrior. Even now, his injuries throbbed. His broken bones groaned. The fading bruises on his face and littering his body tingled painfully, and the sense of failure was heavy on his mind.
He ground his teeth together so tightly he was surprised they didn’t crack.
“Blár?” Gunnar coughed, breaking him from his trance.
He snapped his attention to his friend, and then to the rest of the people in the room. Eluf, his brother-in-law, sat spine-stiff in the seat beside him. Ivar sharpened his dagger distractedly with a thin block of pumice, his heterochromatic blue-green gaze locked on the fire bursting and flickering in the center of the tented room. Haakon Lykke sat awfully still in his chair; the energy around the lightning elemental was static, like he too was barely able to contain his emotions. And Hilda sat opposite them, with half a dozen of her men, her wrinkled hands folded atop one another and her lined mouth puckered into a scowl.
Blár didn’t want to be in this room with these people. He wanted to be traversing the fields to where Kolfinna was locked away. He didn’t have time for this garbage.
But Sijur was dead and they needed a plan. He hated to admit it, but he had been defeated by the elf commander and he doubted he would fare better without an army distracting them both.
He still remembered the feel of the shadow-magic that had constrained him, the light rays that had pierced his flesh, the vines and roots that had fixed on his ankles, the stone-magic that had cracked his ribs, and the feeling of his mana draining every time the elf commander touched him. He had never faced a foe with so many different kinds of magic, and he hadn’t expected it, either. Worse yet, every injury he’d dealt the man, from severe, wintry lashes and spears of ice, all the way down to freezing parts of him, the man had healed from it almost instantaneously.
It wasn’t fair for a monster to have so much power.
It was strange thinking that, because most people thought that about Blár.
“We need to know what we’re dealing with,” Hilda murmured in a grave voice, her jaw clenching together tightly. He hated the old hag; she had done unthinkable, terrible things to Kolfinna, and she was allowed to sit there and act like shecould take charge of the military like this. Blár might have been working under Sijur, but he had no reason to follow Hilda.
“You say that the warriors had elf powersandfae magic?” Hilda asked, aiming her question to Eluf, the only one who was answering her curtly.
“Yes.”
Blár’s hands curled into balls and he exhaled deeply. Ice crystals appeared at the edges of the tent and the fire reduced in size. He was aware of the chill permeating through the room due to his inability to rein his emotions. He simply didn’t care.
Gunnar breathed out deeply, his breath misting out in front of him. “They were also able to heal themselves. They rode on winged beasts and some of them had wings themselves. Not to mention they had shadow and light magic.”
Hilda nodded slowly.
Blár hated how the hag was acting like this was all news to her; this was her region—the south—so of course she knew when and how it was taken over by the fae army.
“Do you have any new information?” Ivar asked. He paused in sharpening his blade and turned his equally sharp gaze to Hilda. “We’ve had quite a few of our people taken prisoner. Including Herja. I think we should refocus our efforts on saving our soldiers rather than regurgitating the same information we’ve read in reports.”
Haakon, who was staring intently at everyone in the room—particularly their mouths—perked up at the mention of the redhead. He pursed his lips and glanced around at the others. Blár almost felt bad for the man; he was deaf, so it was probably hard for him to follow what was happening. He was able to read lips, but not to this extent. Not without knowing who was talking. Not when he missed small comments here or there.
“I understand your sentiment,” the older woman said. “But we haven’t received orders yet.”
Blár remained silent; he hadn’t spoken since coming here. It had been a week since the battle; a week since he had escaped, and he felt utterly useless not doing anything. He wanted to be out there, fighting, not cooped up in this little tent waiting for orders from the commander-in-chief, Commander Steffen Bernsten, Sijur’s father.
“They captured Herja,” Ivar pressed, his lips thinning into a firm line. “She’s one of the candidates to become a black rank next. She’s an important asset to the military. We should?—”
“I understand.” Hilda raised her hand to cut him off. The jeweled rings on her fingers glimmered in the dimming light. “However, she isn’t a black rank—and if she truly was close to that level, she’ll figure out a way to escape.”
A wedge formed between Gunnar’s eyebrows. “They defeated Blár. What chance does Herja have?”
Blár gritted his teeth together. He didn’t need the reminder.
“We can’t sacrifice our army for one—” Hilda began.
Haakon slapped his hand on the tabletop and the whole room shifted to him as a spark of lightning buzzed around him. He made a sign, then another.
Blár knew four languages—the common tongue, his native tongue in the mountains, Skarl, and the southeastern language of Kriger—and he had picked up bits and pieces of signing, but he didn’t need to know all of that to understand Haakon’s gestures.
