“As much as I would love to choke the life out of that poisonous throat, we have our orders. All the strongest Firebloods are taken directly to the king. He wants to decide the fate of your kind himself.”
With every twitching muscle in my body and every wild flicker of heat in my soul, I wanted to blacken his skin and watch him wither and come apart.
But then Arcus’s words came back to me: Who else is there? What Fireblood will do this but you?
If there was even the slightest chance I could still complete my task, I needed to try. I didn’t know where Arcus was now, whether he was coming back or if he himself had been captured. Without him, I had no way of gaining entrance to the castle. Meanwhile, the soldiers would take me directly to the king. At this point, allowing myself to be captured was the best option.
I made a show of bowing my head in defeat. The captain rocked back on his heels, grinning at my trembling form. He clearly thought I was terrified and defeated.
“His Majesty was none too pleased when he found out a Fireblood had escaped his prison,” he said. “It would have meant my life if I hadn’t found you by the solstice.”
“Then it’s a pity you did,” I said, meeting his eyes.
He leaned in to whisper in my ear. “After a few days in the keep, you may find yourself wishing we’d killed you now.”
PART
TWO
SEVENTEEN
THE TRIP DOWN THE MOUNTAIN WAS almost as painful as the trip up. I was trussed and tied onto the back of a horse. Layers of wet linen were wrapped around me to keep me cool.
As we left the mountain behind, I ached with longing for the abbey, almost as much as I’d once ached for my cozy little hut near my village. I kept turning to look back, half expecting to see Arcus gallop up in pursuit. Everything was different between us now—he wouldn’t just let them take me. But after a day or two, when Mount Una grew hazy behind us, I started to give up hope.
The land was barren on the ride north, and many of the dwellings were empty. The few people who peered out of windows as we rode past were sallow-cheeked and thin. I wondered how so few would manage to plant and reap the crops they so desperately needed.
After a week, we reached the rocky foothills of Mount Fors, broken by winding paths. The sun was low in the sky when the king’s castle came into view, perched like a ragged stalagmite on the mountaintop. To the west, streaks of molten gold and bloody purple floated in the air like radiant scarves thrown into the sky. One side of the castle was lit brilliantly, the sunset reflecting and refracting off the ice in a dazzling display.
“Beautiful, isn’t it, Firefilth?” said the captain as he rode alongside.
My jaw clenched. “If you like ice.”
The lower portion of the mountain clutched at trees and scrub between gray rocks. As we climbed, the green became sparser and the ice dripped and oozed, first in pockets and patches, then thick, broad strokes. I was soon shivering, not only from the cold, but also from the sensation of being closed in on all sides by increasingly sheer, high frozen walls, as if the road had been cut out of the ice with a colossal knife.
We turned a corner and I was reduced to the size of an ant, for the road was lined on both sides by icy statues of enormous men. They were the Frost Giants I had read about in the old myths, symmetrical and perfect, formed of ice and given life by Fors. But there appeared to be no life in these statues. No movement, sound, or breath. My neck prickled as I passed, as if they watched me from somewhere inside the icy prison of their bodies.
We neared a huge iron gate embedded in the mountaintop. Soldiers lined walls and held bows at the ready. It wasn’t the arrows aimed at me that scared me, though. It was the frost wolves, white fur bristling, peering over the edge of the parapet. I’d heard stories of these keen-nosed creatures hunting Firebloods, for which they were specially bred.
One of the wolves raised its head sharply, sniffing the air and turning its twitching black nose in my direction. It fixed me with its icy eyes, wide and empty of anything but hunger, then raised its head and began to bay like a hound. The other wolves then went into a frenzy of sniffing and howling, voicing their fury that I was too far away for them to rip into and taste my hot blood.
The cacophony brought guards to the gates with swords raised.
“Name yourself!” called one wearing a steel helm.
Our party halted except for the captain, who rode forward. “Captain Drake, formerly of Blackcreek garrison. We have a Fireblood for the king.”
The guard assessed me with thinly veiled hatred. I wondered if he had fought in the border wars and how many men he’d lost to Firebloods. I returned his look with equal animosity.