Page 34 of Frost Like Night
The soldier closest to Mather sneered. “Angra wants her to have it—consider it a gift, a mark of his leniency. He wants her to haveyou, too, so you can tell her something for him.”
Exhaustion and hunger and a myriad of worries made Mather’s brain slog through details like a horse in a muddy field. One soldier swung a fist, and Mather ducked, but another soldier met his movement with a punch to the gut. The air shot out of his lungs and he wheezed, doubling over.
The soldier bent over Mather as he slumped to his knees.
“If you live through this, tell her that this is what will happen to everyone who sides against Angra. And even if you don’t survive—well, I suppose that will warn her all the same.”
With that, he landed an elbow on the back of Mather’s spine and dropped him to his stomach, where he landed with a broken grunt.
Phil sobbed, limp in the arms of the soldiers.
The others descended. Seven against him—Mather tried to fight back, but even as he did, he felt the hopelessness in every fist to his body.
Angra knew where Meira was. And Mather would lose this fight.
He wouldn’t be there to help her.
Mather leaped up and dove at the closest man. A bright flash cut through his vision, a jolt of white that shocked every nerve into deadened silence.
He collapsed as a soldier swung another rock, but nothing else came—only pain.
11
Ceridwen
AFTER GISELLE DISEMBARKEDin Putnam, the Yakimians dumped Ceridwen, Jesse, and Lekan where the Southern Eldridge Forest met the Langstone River, leaving them with horses, a day of supplies, and reminders of their queen’s wishes—to stop Angra before he could destroy Yakim. No hint as tohowthey might do such a thing. Which was almost preferable—Ceridwen wasn’t bound to follow any more of Giselle’s orders—but she had no idea how to go about stopping Angra. Wait for Meira to show up and hope she had a plan? Track Angra’s location and stage an assassination attempt?
Ceridwen kept Giselle’s seal in her pocket and pretended the weight of the impending war was enough to distract her from Jesse’s presence.
She knew her time of ignoring him wouldn’t last. But,flame and heat, she would fight to do so until the bitter end.
The refugee camp was only a day’s ride from the Langstone, and Ceridwen was grateful that they didn’t have to spend a night camping in the forest. Just as the sun and night sky warred on the horizon, they broke out of the trees into the Rania Plains.
Lekan’s husband had helped pick this location. They had had a camp deeper in the Eldridge before, but with so many Summerian refugees, the wet, chill climate was less than ideal. Their camp now straddled the edge of the forest, close enough to the trees to allow for resources to be scavenged yet close enough to the plains to give the Summerians needed breaks of heat and dryness. Ceridwen breathed that arid wind, her chest aching at the memories such scents dredged up. Memories of Summer, of her cracked earth baking in the sun.
She squeezed Giselle’s seal. The Yakimian queen wasn’t the only one with a kingdom to protect from Angra. And now that Simon was dead, and Ceridwen Summer’s only living heir . . .
Ceridwen closed her eyes, catching the gasp that rose in her throat. Her brother haddied, Angra was slowly yet persistently enslaving the world, but some deep, sick place inside her reveled in knowing that one of her longest-kept goals had finally been achieved. For years she had bled to be the sole ruler of Summer.
She was a Summerian, through and through—able to find joy in any situation.
Ceridwen forced her eyes open. Through the dim blueness of night and the pale brown grass a few shapes moved toward them.
“Lekan!”
Kaleo leaped through the tall grass. A few soldiers followed—and Ceridwen sighed in relief to see they were Summerian, not Yakimians posing as refugees,damn Giselle—but they turned back to the camp when they heard Kaleo’s confirmation of who approached.
Lekan kicked his horse but didn’t let it get far before he heaved on the reins. His injured leg had stopped bleeding, but it still had to cause him pain when he dropped to the ground. He didn’t hesitate in his mad rush to meet Kaleo in the grass, and the two collided, Kaleo’s force sending Lekan toppling backward, their bodies vanishing in the waist-high grass amid a chorus of laughter—which quickly faded to a silence that made Ceridwen cut her eyes to Jesse.
He looked so different without a mask, and among the other things Ceridwen hadn’t yet talked to him about was whether or not he wanted a new one. She couldn’t deny the part of her that loved being able to see his emotions as he watched Lekan and Kaleo, a smile lifting his lips, consuming his whole face in light.
Then Jesse stiffened in his saddle, the muscles in his neck convulsing as he swallowed and looked at her. Hebowed his head as if she had given him an order and kicked his horse on, fading into camp. She expected to be able to breathe easier with him gone. But nothing changed, not a single spark of relief.
Ceridwen pulled alongside Lekan and Kaleo. When her horse’s hooves clomped just next to them, Kaleo whipped upright, straddling Lekan’s waist.
“Princess! You brought him back injured. Again.”
Ceridwen shrugged. “Only because I know how much he loves you taking care of him.”
