“I think that he does,” I confessed. “Perhaps he imagines, like Michelle does, that he can run away from his problems by trying to start a new life.” And, just like her, he’ll run headlong into the same exact situations with different people. You can’t solve an internal problem by external means.
“So, you know the ice queen well,” Altair said.
“We’ve known each other for a long time,” I said, eyelashes lowering with exhaustion. “I was stolen away by the ice prince when I came through the portal at the rock island. She came after me. It’s a long story. Don’t be confused; she’s no friend of mine.”
“She’s no friend of yours,” Altar repeated, “yet she came after you into this, our dimension?”
“She came as the traveling companion of my husband,” I clarified. “She tried to steal him away the entire time.”
Altair chuckled humorlessly. “What a piece of work. You are the wife of a dragon, then?”
“I am,” I said. “I’m the wife of a fire dragon.”
“And I suppose you must be separated from him, mustn’t you?”
“We have been separated from one another repeatedly—but we always seem to find our way back to each other.” My throat closed up, but I cleared it and took a deep breath to relax myself. “Last I knew, he was alive, but… that was a week ago.”
“Aye.” Altair sighed. “I know your pain, my lady. Whenever a country goes through something like this… it is its people who pay. Loss of family. Loss of friends. In the end, it’s hard to remember why the land was ever so important, though it was our home. Though it is our home, I mean.” For a moment, we lapsed into silence. “I, too, have a lover from whom I am separated,” Altair continued. “The position with us is as precarious as the position in which you found yourself with the ice prince. Politically, socially, it is impossible. And yet… we find ourselves here.” He heaved a great sigh. “You never quite know what the heart has in store.”
“Is she another prisoner?” I asked.
“She is, in a way,” Altair said. “She’s a prisoner in the same way that we are all prisoners. She is a prisoner of fate. Her name is Merulina. If you’re still here in the morning, you may have the chance to meet her.”
“In the morning?” This raised several questions. Why was Merulina able to travel freely—and, more importantly, why would Altair think that I would be gone?
“I will be surprised if you are still here,” Altair said. “Not with the history you have with Lethe. The last I heard you’d fled into the night. Now you’re back—and in the dungeon again. He’ll be here. He’ll come. He won’t be able to stop himself… if he’s anything like the rumors say.”
“What do the rumors say?” I asked.
“That he is strangely soft, like some of them can be … and that Vulott is constantly doling out abuse in order to make him the kind of ice dragon of which their crown could be proud. I have little doubt that your lady Michelle is twice the ice dragon he is, human or not. He’ll be here, in secret though it may be. He’ll deliver you to more humane conditions.”
Altair could probably see my face much more clearly than I could see his. The torchlight played over my features—I could feel its distant warmth—while he was recessed into a dark cell. He could certainly see the grim set of my mouth and eyes.
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I think my luck with the ice people, even Lethe, has run out. Especially because when I left, I took the astrolabe and went to the shelter. I mean, I really abandoned him, and this castle, and this life. There are few rejections more resolute than the willingness to die.”
“I’d heard about the shelter being discovered and demolished… but I had not heard that the astrolabe was taken!” Altair’s voice contained a tinge of hope.
“It was taken, but it was returned. Michelle—the ice queen—she returned it to them. I’m sure that has much to do with her acceptance into their fold.”
“They do tend to stress ruthlessness over loyalty,” Altair grumbled. “Should work out well for you. They do not seem to mind betrayal. If anything, they admire it.”
I expelled a mirthless laugh. “I don’t know,” I said.
Just then, another shadow moved over the curved stones of the stairwell, signaling another visitor—taller than Michelle. I stiffened against the wall and Altair and I lapsed into silence.
Lethe emerged from around the corner, his eyes bleak beneath the heavy crystal crown atop his head. They raged like the weather outside, cold and shattered and wild as they touched upon me. At first, as he strode toward me, I thought that he was going to strike me. Even when his hands came up toward my throat, I thought he would strangle me there and then, while I was helpless and chained to the wall.