Page 146 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
THE COMMANDER
The sun had teeth this morning.
It bit into my forehead and the back of my neck with a vengeance despite the chill, as if Solkar himself was trying to punish me for leaving his Reach and cominghere.
The place I’d sworn I’d never step foot in again.
A sickly mist clung to the rocks flanking the passage into the mountains, as if warning us away. Nothing other than corpse moss–grey, stringy, like a ghost’s hand reaching out from the beyond–had dared grow around these forsaken parts ever since I’d first been forced to come here as a youngling heir, to learn the art of negotiation.
Now, I would pass on that burdening skill.
“This wasn’t what I imagined the Sky Summit would be like,” Geryll whispered as we ascended the stone stairs which had seen so many pass over them, their middles had sunken in throughout the eons.
“We’re not there yet.” I kept my voice low, the same way I’d instructed everyone to. I knew how the world around here latched onto the barest sign of life. “So enjoy the trek while it lasts.”
“This is supposed to be enjoyable?” Nadya muttered, sounding more apprehensive than I’d ever heard her since she’d begun talking. She kept a steady hand on Francisca’s handle, distrusting eyes narrowed at the mist coming up to our waists as if she wanted to fight it.
It wasn’t hard to know why Nadya and The Huntress had taken a begrudging liking to each other.
“Better than what’s up ahead.” I stared as the clouds began to darken and swirl right before us, an icy vortex of doom and gloom that heralded only one thing.
The Northern Clans were gathering for parley, as our ancestors had done so many eons before their ships had reached this forgotten part of Malhaven after they’d tormented the seas for generations.
The Brinewall Clan still controlled the icy shore, their ships sinking whoever was foolish enough to breach the spiky wall they’d erected in the ocean, around which now lay a cemetery of vessels.
The Dustmarks had taken the green plains, ripped them apart with their greed and skirmishes, and now survived on violence, bitterness, and tales of the good ol’ days.
The Ashrifts, which preferred to still be called the Mountain Clan, though…they were crafty. They’d climbed the tallest peak they’d seen, which had looked grey, jagged, and barren. But underneath those unforgiving cliffs which had claimed so many of their first ancestors lay treasures which had granted them supreme power in the region.
Then there was my former Clan. The Starhollows. Those unwilling or unworthy to fight for the barest resources hadventured further inland in search of their fortune. And they’d found it inside the crater, which had already been claimed by a small group of outcasts fleeing from the rupture of the old kingdoms. How they’d gotten along peacefully and thrived had been lost to the ages, as were many other secrets from Solkar’s Reach.
But here we were now, going to face our so-called relatives.
Behind Nadya, Gerryl, and I was a garrison of my best men, led by Vylkor, a man who’d somehow managed to grow taller than me and had a gaze mean enough to intimidate the burliest of them.
Not even the mist dared to follow up to the top of the stairs, retreating just at the stony rim supporting the cavernous entry toward the Sky Summit, an arch carved out of dragon bones from the massive creatures which had once roamed these lands. It held only darkness within it.
Geryll looked up as the vortex of clouds picked up pace and lowered. “Are we–are we sure a storm isn’t coming?”
One was, but very few needed to know.
“Clouds,” Nadya kept repeating, her jaw locked in a tight grip. “Just clouds.”
Clouds which had been magicked to hide the words spoken underneath them.
I turned to Vylkor, whose frown had intensified. “If I don’t return in one hour, march back to Solkar’s Reach and kill anyone who dares enter.”
Geryll and Nadya’s frightened gazes snapped to me.
“Your word is our command,” he said and pressed his closed fist above his heart. Metal clanks surrounded us as all the other warriors followed suit.
“We might die?” Nadya whisper-hissed.
“Not you.” The Northern Clans couldn’t be trusted, but I needed them to know how to command Sky Summit if anythingever happened to me. With no heirs and the marriage contract not yet signed, the two of them were the closest to the Solkar’s Reach throne.
