My gaze panned to the castle.
My only fear was not the condition of my childhood home, but Penelope.
As the fires of the city crackled and spread from building to building, creeping ever closer to the palace itself…
As the warm, yellow light played across my features, relaxing and warming me…
I worried. I worried at how the royal family would react, and prayed that they would be thrust into a panic too deep and wide to consider revenge on a lowly slave girl. They did not know that she had become my wife. Not unless she had told them herself.
All around us, a gentle snow began to fall. At first, I couldn’t even see it, as the flakes melted as soon as they came close to the fires. But then I realized that my face kept feeling sharp little prickles. Ice.
I winced. Even though it would be smart to fall back now, to save my men from the damage of the coming storm… I could not abandon Nell.
Nell
When the bombing began, I had already been “returned” to Michelle. I was aware of the resurgence of fire dragon power before Michelle had even awoken. I saw the strange flares of orange, yellow, and red light, illuminated on the opposing wall, and stood to investigate. That was when I knew. Balls of fire like white plasma filled the sky, streaking and exploding gracefully through windows. Homes stood like black skeletons in the wake of the dancing flame, and people were in the street—fleeing and grabbing what little they could. From my vantage point, three stories high, I could also see fire dragons moving through the streets, but the ice dragons could not. Unable to track the source of the fire, they were surrounded by a hedge of flame, and relented. Many of the buildings were consumed, and those that were extinguished by the ice of a dragon still smoldered, blackened, useless. I swallowed. Soon, the castle would be alerted, if they weren’t already. Soon, Lethe would know. Michelle would know. I shuddered at the thought of vicious Vulott being made aware of this development.
But my heart quickened with both terror and anticipation. Theon was somewhere in those streets, advancing toward me.
Shouts emanated through the heavy wooden door of Michelle’s bedroom. Footsteps thundered down the hallway, not stopping here. A smattering of jewel-toned lights, a reflection of a jeweled statue exploding somewhere near the castle, flared across Michelle’s sleeping face, and she stirred. I was no longer playing my barrel organ. I had stopped several minutes ago.
“What are you doing over there?” Michelle demanded sleepily, shoving herself into an upright position as if it was the most heroic task of her nineteen years. Rumpled and drowsy, she still looked annoyingly sexy.
“Watching the bombs.” Though my heart was stampeding in my chest, there was nothing else to say. Where could I go? Out into the snow, like a mad woman?
Poetically, a soft snow began to fall outside the window.
“What bombs?” Michelle bellowed, flinging herself out of the bed and ambling to the window. She shoved me out of the way to thrust her face against the glass. “Oh, my God,” she whispered to herself. “They came back.”
Righteous vindication throbbed in my heart. “Of course they came back.” The words popped out of my mouth with no thought at all, steely and passionate and firm.
Michelle cast a glare in my direction. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
I forced my face to stay in line. “Anyone could have guessed,” I replied. “It was their land, originally. The ice dragons didn’t kill everyone; they didn’t follow them across the ocean. It was entirely possible that they just reassembled elsewhere. I mean, either perspective—that they would or wouldn’t return—would have to be an assumption. I just assumed they would.”
Her eyes narrowed, but the bed chamber door was thrown open just then, and we both whirled at the sound, uncomfortable eye contact broken.
“Queen Michelle.” The person standing in the doorway was Dorid, strangely; not Lethe. Interesting. It said a lot of a man who would not come for his wife as another imminent battle hung over the land, encroaching on their own castle. “Your presence is requested in the throne room.”
Michelle strode toward the door, and I stayed behind. If she forgot about me… I certainly would have stolen some furs, a pair of boots, and tried to find the astrolabe before striking out into the streets of Everwinter in search for Theon.
But Michelle probably knew this. She had always been smarter than she looked—her emotional intelligence would’ve been off the charts, if her ego didn’t get in the way.
“You,” she commanded, pointing at me and jerking her finger into the hallway. “Come with me, or face the consequences.”