Page 33 of Storm of Fury
No wonder he’d thought her familiar.
Every inch of the queen grew tight with tension. “Do I know you?”
Marduk slowly lowered his hands. “We’ve never met. But you were once my aunt by mating bond, and my cousin, Sirius, is your son.” A sharp breath escaped him. “You look very much like him. I am Prince Marduk of theZiniclan.” He turned breathlessly back to the woman in the cage. “And I am here for her.”
* * *
“There they are.”Sirius stared across the plains toward a string of mountains. Smoke circled the tip of the highest peak. “The mountain court of Kronotsky. On the Kamchatka peninsula.”
It had taken four days to reach the string of volcanoes set off the far-eastern coast of Russia. Sirius was enormous in hisdrekiform, but carrying three of them had slowed him down, and with the Arctic winds too cold for the mortals in the group, he’d been forced to cross Russia. He pulled his clothes on with the grim expression of a man girding himself for war.
“Adrekicourt,” Tormund said, “located in the heart of a volcano.”
“East of the sun and west of the moon,” Haakon murmured, glancing toward the opaque moon in the east. Sunlight lit his back, gilding him with a dozen shades of orange and pink. “Above the fire and below the stars.”
“The court ofIkkibu,” Sirius said. He seemed to have shaken off his bad mood overnight, though the set of his shoulders remained tense. “The Forbidden Court.”
“Sounds promising,” Tormund whispered. “Friends of yours?”
“Not exactly,” Sirius replied curtly. “I won’t be able to enter. They’ll sense my magic.”
And the Blackfrost was a name that was both feared and revered throughout thedrekiworld.
“Right.” Tormund stared at the distant peak. The real trick was getting to Kronotsky. The expanse of grasslands between them was too wide; there would have to bedrekiguards watching over the plains. Any newcomers would be seen long before they arrived, and it wasn’t as though Sirius could kindly fly over and drop them on the flanks of the mountain.
“The court ofIkkibuhas been locked to all visitors for the past thirty something years. None may enter. Those that do don’t return. Their queen….” Sirius’s voice hardened. “Their queen sealed the court and she will not take kindly to visitors. She will not welcome me here.”
Does anyone?The words died on his tongue as he saw the cold glint in Sirius’s remaining eye.
There was a time for jests, and a time for silence.
And this, clearly, was a time to shut his mouth.
“Which means don’t get caught,” Haakon muttered. “Don’t be seen.”
“Don’t be eaten.” Tormund rubbed at the stubble on his chin. It was a shade of its former glorious self, but give it a week and he’d have the beginnings of a decent beard again.
“Can you summon a fog?”
Everyone turned to Bryn. She was swiftly braiding her hair, clad in the battle-hardened leather armor she often wore. Sýr preened in the trees behind her, turning a dark eye upon him as if she’d caught him looking at her mistress and she disapproved.
“Aye,” Sirius said, “though it will take most of the morning, and leave my magic sapped.”
“I thought you were all-powerful,” Tormund said.
“Fog is complex,” Sirius replied. “You’re battling both the forces of wind and the moisture wicking off the lake. It’s also a rather large expanse of grass,” he pointed out. “Unless you think a mysterious patch of floating fog won’t be noticed by the guards.”
“They won’t notice.” Bryn flashed him a smile. “They’re going to be too busy chasing you.”
Sirius’s eyes narrowed. And then he smiled.
“I like the way you think, woman.”
* * *
The three ofthem slipped across the plains.
It was difficult going, trapped in the fog, but Tormund kept a close watch on the compass.
