Page 56 of Frost Like Night
Kaleo sighed, and then he rolled his eyes. “Apparently Ceridwen had a conversation with the Yakimian queen. Giselle has been hiding soldiers among the people she sold to Summer. Seems she was planning to seize control of our kingdom—until Angra beat her to it. She’s disgusted by the idea of a magic that infects her people’s minds, so Yakim is no ally of Angra’s.” Kaleo waved at the camp. “There are three hundred Yakimian soldiers at our disposal, on her offer. Ours to use to defeat Angra.”
Meira’s eyebrows launched up. “You’re joking.”
“Unfortunately, no.” Kaleo grunted. “But we have them, in addition to the hundred or so Summerian soldiers who stayed behind. Ceridwen only took a dozen with her. Since we’ll split the camp into smaller groups, it should make patrolling easier.”
“All right. Dendera, Nessa, Conall?” Meira turned to them. “You’ll oversee the Winterians?”
All three nodded and instantly peeled away to help the Winterians around them.
“We’ll reconvene with you once we get out of Juli,” Meira told Kaleo.
Kaleo looked like he wanted to protest, maybe push her for more details, but his eyes slid up to the sun, noting thetime. He pressed his lips together.
“Bring them back, Queen Meira” was all he said, and he vanished back into his camp. Jesse followed, offering his assistance, which left Mather, his Thaw, and Meira standing over the unused supplies.
Meira stared down at the pile, her eyes shifting back and forth. Mather stepped forward, close enough to take her hand and give it a protective, reassuring squeeze.
“We’ll be in and out so fast, Angra won’t even know anyone was there at all,” Mather promised everyone, but mostly the girl whose icy blue eyes latched onto his. “This could be good, actually. Angra will be there. He’ll have the keys.”
Meira twitched in his grip as if she’d forgotten the bigger plan—get the keys, get to the chasm, destroy all magic and Angra with it.
“Yes. But—let’s just make sure everyone’s alive. That’s all that matters.”
Were those tears brimming on her lashes?
Meira pulled her hand free. Mather blinked in confusion as she turned to Nessa, who helped a Winterian family nearby pack their supplies. Meira glanced over her shoulder once and her eyes connected with Mather’s again. The look that took over her expression—he knew that look like a fist to the gut.
Regret.
There was something she wasn’t telling them. Somethingthat made her body sag as she turned around to talk to Nessa.
Phil stepped up next to him and shifted his pack, the one that made Mather’s gut cramp even tighter. Within it lay Cordell’s conduit—Mather couldn’t yet decide what to do with it. Keep it? Get rid of it? Forget about it? Not that it would do much to help them. In truth, he wanted to destroy the damned thing and Theron’s smugness along with it.
“Every time you see it, I want you to think of her with me. I want you to know that when I win this war, I will do sowithoutthis weak magic. And when this ends, and Meira is mine, there won’t have been a damn thing you could have done to stop me.”
Mather’s gut lurched. Would Theron be in Juli too? He almost hoped so.
“You all right?” Phil asked.
Mather sniffed away his stony expression. “Yes.” He looked over Phil again, noting the sunken circles under his eyes. “Are you?”
Phil shrugged. “Just not particularly looking forward to seeing Angra.”
A stone nearly bored a hole in Mather’s stomach. “He won’t catch us again,” he promised. “I swear. We won’t be just the two of us this time either—we’ve got everyone now.”
The Thaw, who had been talking quietly among themselves, turned to them. Trace looked like he might ask whathad happened, while Hollis and Feige stayed silent and patient, Kiefer crossed his arms and wore his usual glower, and Eli looked almost excited to leave.
“So.” Kiefer was the one to talk first, his voice sharp. “We’re a group again? You’re not going to leave us?”
Mather frowned. “We’ve always been a group. We’ve always beenhergroup.”
That made Kiefer blink, as if it had never before occurred to him that their purpose was to serve Meira as much as it was to serve Winter.
“But we’re still us,” Phil added. “We’re still us, first and foremost. The Thaw.”
“And we won’t be defeated,” Feige said.
Mather smiled at what had become their group’s rallying cry. He looked at Phil, who toed the ground, but when he felt Mather watching him, he cracked a smile that looked a little too forced.
