Grim, I trundled after her.
The throne room was a tizzy of panicked gesticulation when we arrived. My heart went to Lethe, as he was bone white and manic. “Nell, you’re okay,” he blurted upon sight of me. Michelle shot him a poisonous glare. “Michelle, darling.” Lethe went to Michelle and embraced her quickly. “They’re destroying the entire city. They’ve gone blazing insane.”
“I should have known that this was coming,” Vulott muttered. It was he and not Lethe who sat on the throne, massaging his temple tiredly. “I don’t know why I didn’t think that they would be capable of such an atrocity.”
“What should we do?” Lethe asked. “What are the people in the street doing?”
“I watched from the window for a while.” I spoke up. “Most of them fled. There are just too many buildings on fire, and the ice people… They don’t seem to care that much about the land. Not as much as they care about themselves…”
“Typical,” Vulott sneered.
Lethe abandoned Michelle’s arms to continue his pacing.
“Then forget the people,” Michelle called after him. “What about us? What will we do?”
Spoken like a true ice dragoness.
“The fire encroaches,” Vulott announced, having moved to the window. “The snow fall is too light to extinguish the buildings, and I see fire soldiers moving in the streets. We have been abandoned by the people, but the fire dragons remain. Even in the snow.”
Damn right, I thought, my mind turning to Theon with a swell of pride.
“What about our guards?” Michelle demanded, her voice pitchy with despair. “There has to be someone here who can protect the castle for us!”
“Sometimes you are so beautiful and cold, I forget that you are human, my dear,” Vulott grumbled. “And then you say something like that and I’m reminded.”
“What? The guards themselves aren’t loyal?” Michelle shrilled. “Then what the hell is the point of having them?”
“It’s your knowledge of Everwinter which is truly lacking,” Lethe explained to her, more gently than Vulott would have. “The castle is surrounded by a thin band of gaseous water, now frozen. It means nothing to us in its frozen state, except to be an object of beauty. However… the fire will melt it quickly. And the natural pockets of gas in the creek will explode into a ring of fire. The castle will be slowly engulfed from every angle, except in the event that an ice storm rages down onto us. But if it does not—even with a team of fifty ice dragons, should every guard stand beneath their pledge of allegiance—the fire will overpower the manpower in the castle. We would sustain massive damage to certain wings. The castle is simply too large.”
“We can’t just leave it!” Michelle wailed. “This is our castle!”
“Darling, they will destroy it,” Vulott explained to her acidly. “They would rather destroy their own palace than allow us to dwell in its walls.”
“Then what are we going to do?” she cried.
“Hurry,” Lethe answered. “Send word to the guards. Abandon the property. We must think first of our own safety, mustn’t we?”
“And leave behind an untouched castle for the fire dragons to retake?” Vulott cried.
Yes! I cried silently. This was their home before you came here and stole it!
“Hell, no.” Michelle spoke up. “If we have to leave, let’s take what we can carry and regroup elsewhere.”
“We’ll take the weaponry,” Vulott announced.
Simultaneously, Michelle announced, “We’ll take the jewels.”
Lethe winced. “The fire will not wait for us to load our sacks,” he reminded the two of them. My heart went out to him. He had some qualities of an ice dragon, but he was less ice dragon than Michelle Ballinger herself. “If you must, then hurry.” His eyes were dark with judgment, but he didn’t have the spine to stand up to either of them. “Grab whatever you need and let’s go. I’ll be waiting along the northern parapet.”
“Nell!” Michelle snapped, her eyes setting on me. “Load your arms with whatever you can carry, and instruct the other women to do the same. Go now! To the servants’ quarters!”
As I stepped from the throne room, I was taken aback by the harried motion of the sentries and maids bustling down the corridor, some loading their arms with precious goods. My teeth tugged at my lower lip as I scanned the hall… Whatever you can carry. Would I have the time to make it all the way to the western tower? Would I be the only one who would think to grab the item—an item of priceless worth, even if it wasn’t encrusted in jewels?