An icy finger of dread trails down the back of my neck as I slice a glance at him. Of course, I need to be with my sister. What’s he playing at?
Killian mulls over her fellow warrior’s words and sets to unlocking the padlock sealing the wagon to my right. My pulse picks up. I feel like I’m being thrown to the wolves.
Behind us, the camp explodes into activity, warriors running toward the path where the injured lay in waiting. Killian yanks the wagon door open, jerks me away from Rhonin’s hold, and shoves me inside.
I land splayed across the slatted floorboards in a spill of fractured moonlight. As the chain and lock rattle from the other side of the door, I scramble to my knees and struggle to my feet, darting to the tiny, barred window to see what in gods’ death is going on. Rhonin walks away. Killian must be tending to the horses.
Rhonin tosses a glance over his shoulder, and though I wish to the gods that I could read minds, I don’t need to. He rubs his wrists together and heads toward the tent where I’d seen the prince and Vexx.
I work my hands free of the ropes he left loose and take in the foggy scene—the way the warriors form a wall on the path, facing east, like something is coming from that direction. The direction of the ravine, if I’m correct.
“Grand. Just what I wanted. Company.”
On a gasp, I spin around. In the corner, tucked half in shadow, sits a man, long legs bent. Slants of silvery moonlight pour into our little jail, feathering across the dark leather of his trousers.
There are chains—hobbles on his ankles and manacles on his wrists. His hands look lovely. Lovely and deadly. They rest between his legs.
“At least you seem handy,” he adds. “A woman who knows her way around a bit of rope. Always a good thing.” He pulls his torso forward, an effort under the weight of iron, until the bunched gold-ribboned cuffs of his blue velvet coat shimmer in the light. He looks up at me with the darkest, haunting eyes I’ve ever beheld. “Unless they threw you in here to kill me.”
I take in that pale, golden hair, that sculpted porcelain face, and the iron collar at his throat. Though I’ve never seen him, and though he’s so very far from the image my mind has conjured since I was a child, I know who he is without a second of doubt.
The Frost King.
36
Raina
“Who are you?” Colden Moeshka stares up at me with a look that frosts my skin.
I stand frozen. Mere days ago, this moment would’ve been everything. Just him. Just me. Him bound. Me with a hidden dagger.
But nothing is as it was supposed to be. The world feels turned upside down. I meant to kidnap the Witch Collector, not kiss him. And I meant to kill the Frost King, not save him. And yet, here we are.
I touch the hollow of my throat and my lips and shake my head.
Understanding dawns, and his pouty mouth slips into a frown. “Well, well. Raina Bloodgood. I really hoped we’d meet under different circumstances. Somehow, I knew we wouldn’t, but no one ever listens to me.”
I’m not sure why hearing my name fall from his lips feels so strange, but it does. He knows me from Nephele, just like I know him from Alexus, but this is a man I’ve wanted dead for years. If anyone should be speaking to me with familiarity, it isn’t him.
“You look like Nephele. A little.” There’s an odd pause between us before he glances at the window. “What’s going on out there? Where’s Alexus?”
The sound of that name makes my chest tighten. I don’t want to tell Colden that the prince’s general took the Witch Collector’s life, but it feels wrong not to.
“General Vexx killed him,” I sign.
A cresting wave threatens, pricking at the backs of my eyes, making my tight chest ache, but I force it down.
From the way Colden watches me, I can tell that nothing I said registers. Alexus might’ve learned my hand language, and Nephele might’ve taught it to children at Winterhold, but the Frost King didn’t care to learn.
“I don’t know your signs,” he says, “not well enough for all that, but your face speaks clearly. Something happened to him? Something bad?”
I nod. There’s little else I can do. Though the king seems unfazed by the news.
“And what of outside? All the uproar?”
I shrug and turn back to the window. The mist has grown thicker now, prowling across the wood in a menacing eddy. That presence is everywhere, the smell of cold and pine and…something animal.
Before I can get a good look at anything more, the wagon lurches forward, sending me careening into the corner opposite Colden. I grab the rail that wraps around the walls, likely for tying animals.
The jostling eases once the horses take to Winter Road, heading south. I pull myself to the window, only to see the darkened forest flying by at a dizzying rate as we gather speed.
But that mist. It’s following. Rushing up alongside. I can taste it. It carries a metallic bite, like sticking your tongue to silver.
Colden battles his chains to get to his knees. He glances at me with one cocked, burnished brow. “A little help would be excellent right about now, or you could just stand there and be of absolutely no use.”
My scalp tightens, and the dagger between my breasts feels so tempting.
“Any day now,” he adds, swaying with the wobble of the wagon.
Though I’m thoroughly annoyed by the Frost King, even after a few minutes in his presence, I grab his arm and—with all my strength—help his arrogant arse stand.
He drags himself toward the window. A bump in the road causes him to slam into the wall, and that brings me a moment of delight, but he rights himself to look outside.
I stare at him, just like he stared at me, watching the moonlight cascade over his face. Alexus wasn’t wrong. He called Colden exquisitely beautiful, and he is. He’s as feminine as he is masculine, something stunning in between. He’s captivating and breathtaking. Ethereal.
Even if also a complete and utter prig.
“This isn’t possible.” He peers hard into the night, and I can’t help but notice chill bumps rising along his neck and the side of his face. “I don’t know what the fuck Alexus did,” he adds, “but things are going to go very bad very quickly if I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing. You’d better ready yourself.”
I have no idea what he means, and I don’t get time to think about it. I free the dagger from my bodice, unsheathe the blade, and in the next breath, we’re rolling, tossed from side to side of the wagon like we’re weightless. Colden and his chains. Me and my dagger—until I lose it—my body thrown against the ceiling before being thrashed to the floor. Wood groans and splinters and splits, over and over, before we come to a crashing halt.