Page 25 of Frost Like Night
“You’re sick,” Ceridwen hissed. She tugged on the rope, drawing Giselle’s attention to it. “If you did this to help, why am I your prisoner?”
They turned a corner and the docks stretched before them, long wooden fingers reaching into the blue-gray water of the Langstone River. Boats bobbed along the docks, small vessels beside large, mighty ones with sails coiled shut against the night wind and flags rippling over masts. One boat, sails unfurled, stood at the end of a short dock. Soldiers dashed across the deck and Ceridwen’s eyescut to the flag atop. An ax on a dark background.
“If I set you free now, you’ll rush back in a futile attempt to save Ventralli, and I don’t care about Ventralli,” Giselle said. “You will be escorted to your camp to prepare for battle. I expect the Winter queen’s own people are fast at work helping her escape as well—but even if she does not survive this night, I expect you to be an ally of Yakim. I’d accompany you myself, but I have a feeling Angra will try to worm his way into my kingdom, so I must leave.”
“You’ll have to kill me if you want to get me out of Ventralli,” Ceridwen growled. “I’m not leaving anyone here to be slaughtered.”
Giselle looked down at her. “You’re far too useful alive.Conscious, though—”
Ceridwen ducked on a hot burst of instinct. As she dropped, the soldier who had crept up behind her swung forward, the hilt of his sword swinging where her head had been.
Lekan shouted, but his soldier didn’t merely strike him this time—he dug his fingers into Lekan’s wound, eliciting shrieks that spiraled through Ceridwen’s ears.
“Stop!” she cried.
The soldier who held Lekan sat two horses ahead, unreachable. But if the attacking soldier swung, missed her, she could use the distraction to wrestle the sword out of his hands and arm herself.
Ceridwen angled, fists to her chest, legs splayed as sheheld her place. The soldier swung again, hilt of his sword arching toward her, the blade flailing behind, and she counted out beats until the last possible moment—
Thwack.
The soldier grunted, his body spasming as an arrow sank into his shoulder. The blade dropped from his grip, clattering to the street, and it hadn’t fully settled against the cobblestones before Ceridwen swiped it up, holding it in her two bound hands, and whirled toward Giselle.
“Let him go,” Ceridwen demanded, her eyes flicking for a beat to Lekan. He was barely conscious now, but the soldier had stopped torturing him.
Most would feel panic that their prisoner had armed herself and someone had just shot one of their men, but Giselle looked only curious as she analyzed the street behind Ceridwen.
“I’d listen to her, Giselle,” came a voice. “I thought I’d lost her twice today. That kind of stress does things to a man.”
Ceridwen sobbed and bit her lips together before more could follow.
Jesse.
She couldn’t bring herself to turn to see him, afraid she might be hallucinating, afraid if she looked away from Giselle she would lose her one small advantage. So Ceridwen stood there until Jesse stepped into her peripheral vision, a loaded bow stretched across him, one of his fingersanchoring by the corner of his mouth.
Hehad shot the soldier? And actually hit him?
Thatthatwas her thought made her want to laugh. But now she noticed the way he shook, the vibrations that trembled down the shaft of his arrow. Flame and heat, had he even been aiming for the soldier? Jesse was entirely useless when it came to weaponry.
Luckily, Giselle didn’t know that.
“You escaped,” Giselle noted.
Jesse pulled the bowstring tighter, this one aimed at the soldier holding Lekan. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
Giselle laughed. “Disappointed? Certainly not. This makes things far easier.”
She waved at Lekan’s soldier, who deftly thrust Lekan off the horse.
Ceridwen sprang forward and looped Lekan’s arm around her shoulder to help him up. He wobbled against her, his body cold with sweat, and she pressed him as close as she could, hoping some of her heat would flow into him. He had fallen in the center of Giselle’s men, and Ceridwen struggled to keep him standing with one arm while holding the blade in her other. Jesse waited just outside the ring of soldiers.
“You will still use my boat. It will get you to the camp far more quickly,” Giselle said.
Ceridwen snarled. “You can take your boat and shove it up your—”
“Camp?” Jesse lowered his bow slightly. “You were taking her to the refugee camp?”
Giselle nodded. “Now that you’re here, she won’t be tempted to run off to pursue less productive goals.” Another curved eyebrow. “Unless someone else remains in the palace whom you feel the need to retrieve? Because the world is dissolving, King Jesse, and I have no qualms showing you the same force.” Giselle bowed her head toward Lekan and Ceridwen.
