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  Phile popped out of the madness and wiped blood off Foedus’s blade. “They’re not running for the border like we hoped.”

  “Tell our forces to stand down.” Rakel said.

  “Fall back!” General Halvor shouted.

  In the brief opening, Rakel forged a cloud of ice-made swords. They glittered in the light of Frodi’s fire and shrieked like shattering crystal when she released them. They sliced and stabbed mercenary soldiers and shattered when they hit the ground, raining blade-sharp shards of ice on anyone nearby.

  Finally dislodged, the mercenaries began to run east. They shouted—one tried to throw a spear at her, but it fell pitifully short.

  Rakel clung to the sleigh, occasionally brushing Oskar’s back as he directed their reindeer, staying in formation with Halvor’s men. Satisfied neither their forces nor the resistance fighters had ventured into Begna among the Chosen, Rakel created another cloud of ice swords and dropped them on the mercenaries.

  Just as the swords—falling to injure, not kill—swung towards the soldiers, Rakel saw the female villager stumbling through the mercenary forces. She had been hiding under an overturned cart until two soldiers—running from Frodi’s flames—flushed her out.

  The mercenaries were too concerned with their skins to bother her, but she had walked right into Rakel’s formation of ice swords.

  “Look out!” Rakel shouted. She threw her hand out, creating a shell of ice to protect the woman, but one of the swords jabbed through her icy shield and shattered.

  To Rakel’s shock, a Chosen mercenary darted forward, grabbed the woman by her arm, and yanked her away from the beautiful but dangerous shards. Rakel watched—baffled—as he dragged the woman to an uncharred house, shut the door after her, and then ran off after the rest of his compatriots—his short, black hair sticking up like wet feathers on a bird.

  General Halvor pulled back until his sleigh was alongside hers. “Princess, what’s wrong?”

  Rakel shook the incident from her mind. “Nothing, I apologize.”

  “We’re doing well. They’ll soon find the pass and take it,” Knut predicted.

  “Be steady,” General Halvor warned. “Tollak, Snorri, I want you two with the resistance fighters.”

  Snorri vaulted over the side of the sleigh he shared with Knut and landed on Tollak’s.

  “As you will, General Halvor.” Tollak nodded to Halvor and peeled off from the group.

  “Frodi, smoke them out,” General Halvor said.

  “Yes, sir!” Frodi saluted, and the fires under his control flared, roaring like angry beasts as they grew in size. Frodi nudged them forward and wolfed down his jerky, desperate to restore the energy he burned while nurturing the flames.

  The raiding mercenaries fled Begna, running for the hills. As Knut predicted, they ran down the path that cut between the sloping mountainsides. There they regained a semblance of organization and stopped fleeing, making a stand in the pass.

  “Get ready; they’re regrouping!” Phile shouted. She was back on her horse and had three daggers clenched between the fingers of her free hand as she pulled her mount’s reins with the other.

  “Charge!” General Halvor barked.

  Verglas troops leaped from their sleighs to attack the mercenaries with swords and pikes. When the two forces met, the air sang with the clamor of blade meeting blade.

  Rakel kept most of her focus on the resistance fighters. They were well armed, but they lacked armor, so she did whatever she could to shield them. Oddly, the resistance fighters reminded Rakel of Phile and the way she worked with Rakel’s magic instead of around it.

  If Rakel raised a protective wall, they chipped arrow slits in it and shot the Chosen soldiers down from behind the safety of the ice. Several of them had swapped out their spears, trading them for one of Rakel’s ice swords, and some of them lobbed snowballs when they ran out of weapons.

  More than once their reindeer and snowflake banner caught Rakel’s eyes. Phile said the common people considered me a hero, but I thought she meant they held me in high esteem—like Pordis and Tryggvi. I didn’t know she meant this.

  In spite of being cut down on two sides, the mercenary forces started to stabilize. Verglas Troops had succeeded in driving them back, but only a few horse lengths—just past the foothills of the mountains.

  Frodi’s fire shrank as he lost energy, but Eydìs pushed forward with rope snakes, dragging Chosen soldiers down, tying them together, and immobilizing them.

  “Make them budge,” Oskar shouted. “They have to go deeper. The pass is too wide here!”

  “Eydìs is almost out of rope,” Frodi said.

  “That is far from being so.” Eydìs sniffed. “But Frodi is about to pass out.”

  “No I ain’t!” Frodi protested.

  Rakel slipped from her sleigh. “I’ll get them out.”

  “Princess?” Oskar leaped out after her. “Are you certain?”

  Rakel offered him a smile. “It’s fine. I trust you, Phile, and General Halvor to guard me as I rest,” she said.

  “What about me?” Frodi piped in.

  “As she didn’t list your name, I believe that implies that she doesn’t think your presence is necessary during her convalescence,” Eydìs said.

  “She didn’t list your name either,” Frodi snarled.

  Eydìs cut a short length of rope and flung it at a Chosen mercenary. It wrapped around his head, blocking his eyes. “You are correct. But I had the good sense not to draw attention to that.”

  Rakel smiled at the pair’s bickering. “I entrust Oskar into your care,” she said.

  Eydìs waved her hand. “Of course—though I suspect Phile will be disappointed to hear you did not offer him to her.”

  “I’m coming with you, Princess,” Oskar said.

  “No.”

  Oskar frowned.

  “I’m not going into battle,” Rakel promised.

  “As you wish,” Oskar said. “Be careful.”

  Rakel offered Oskar a small smile, then walked across banks of untouched snow—freezing it beneath her feet so she wouldn’t fall through. Instead of entering the path that cut its way between mountains and cliffsides, Rakel climbed the embankment, stopping when she was high above the battle and could get a good view of it. She peered over the sheer drop into the path, then studied the side of the mountain and felt it out with her magic, exploring the nooks and crannies of the mountainside. When she found a large pocket of snow, she pulled on it. It cascaded down the mountain, marked by large puffs of snow tossed into the air like a cloud.

  It roared, but Rakel kept it leashed as it fell, keeping it away from Verglas troops and resistance fighters. She couldn’t reach all the Chosen soldiers—many of them were in combat with Verglas forces—but the back layer she wiped out with a surge of snow, knocking them off their feet. She carried some of them down the path, as if they were bobbing on water currents instead of snow from an avalanche.

  The resistance fighters cheered—a few of them almost got injured they were so distracted and delighted with Rakel’s display of power—but when General Halvor barked, they returned their attention to the battle.

  With their numbers cut in half, the Chosen mercenaries edged backwards down the path, moving to rejoin their fallen comrades.

  Rakel stabilized the mountainside as Verglas forces gushed past her. She moved to follow them when she realized that a pocket of snow on the mountain on the other side of the pass had been loosened. It tumbled down the mountainside farther up the path. Rakel extended her hand—prepared to stop it if it fell in the direction of Verglas troops—but froze when she realized it was going to fall on top of a Chosen soldier and bury him alive.

  The soldier stared up at his oncoming doom, knowing he wouldn’t be able to outrun such a massive downfall. His black hair stuck up at funny angles and was a stark color against the white of the snow.

  Rakel knew anyone else would have let him die, but she recognized him as the mercenary who had
saved the Begna villager. This invasion has wrought enough death!

  She threw her arms out, thrusting her magic from her with a wild rush. She formed a slanted shelf of ice above the soldier, and used it to funnel the snow snug against the mountain, where it would harm no one.

  The Chosen soldier had his arms in front of his face, but when he realized the snow wasn’t coming, he lowered his hands and stared at the ice formation.

  There. Rakel thought, happy with the outcome. She delighted in using her magic to save, not destroy. Though she feared less for her life, the whispered hatred and bitterness regular folk held against magic users always ate at her.

  “Princess,” General Halvor called. His sleigh was parked at the base of the cliff.

  Phile—still mounted—was at his side. “Jump, Little Wolf!”

  General Halvor snarled. “Jump?”

  Rakel leaped from the embankment, dropping like a rock and landing on a fluffy snowdrift she formed at the base to lighten her fall.

  General Halvor was on her in an instant. He didn’t grab her—he was too honorable for that—but he used his presence like a weapon and intimidated Rakel into the sleigh. “That was unnecessary,” he said.

  Phile grinned. “Maybe, but it was fun, wasn’t it?”

  Rakel let her lips turn up, which made General Halvor’s scowl deepen. “In the future, it would be wisest to refrain from taking unnecessary risks, Princess.” He turned to Phile. “And as for you, Oskar will be informed of the negative impact you have had on the princess.”

  “I’m insulted you thought I would be anything else. I’m a Robber Maiden—I can’t be teaching her silly things like winter fashions and colors that complement her skin tone. It would ruin my reputation,” Phile said.

  General Halvor ignored the response and flicked the reins, nudging the reindeer at the front of his sleigh.

  Phile followed them on horseback. “Please, Handsome Halvor, don’t be angry. It makes me so sad when I don’t hear your velvety voice admonishing me.”

  General Halvor, in silence, guided the reindeer farther into the mountain pass. He pulled up behind the intermingled Verglas soldiers and resistance fighters.

  The pass was narrower here, banning any kind of fancy formation. The Verglas forces and the Chosen mercenaries faced off toe to toe. Men shouted in pain, weapons clanged, and the air choked Rakel with the metallic scent of blood.

  “Do we need to push them in any deeper, Little Wolf?” Phile squinted to see farther down the mountain path.

  “Here is fine.” Rakel disembarked from the sleigh—earning her a look of warning from General Halvor.

  She eased her way through the troops, careful to stay out of reach of mercenary weapons, but needing to see the ground so she could make the wall to close off the pass. She stretched her fingers out and reached for her magic, relaxing at its cool touch.

  Ice burst from the ground, chiseling and sculpting as Rakel channeled her magic. She started her wall on one side of the pass, and dragged ice up until it extended at least two stories high. The ice was as thick as a horse was long, and cold enough to make her lungs ache. Relying on her significant knowledge of architecture, Rakel did not fashion her barrier after a castle wall, but instead built it like a giant dam. It was slanted, curved slightly upward, and was topped with elaborate arches.

  She continued to boost up the ice so the dam would extend from one side of the pass to the other. When she reached the halfway point, however, she heard someone shout, “Look out!”

  Startled, Rakel raised her gaze just as the Chosen mercenary with the feather-like hair dove in front of her, holding a shield snug to his chest. An arrow—fired from a different mercenary—thumped into his shield.

  If he hadn’t intercepted it, it would have hit her.

  Phile pushed a mercenary across the boundary. “Finish the wall, Little Wolf!”

  Rakel snapped her attention back to the dam and sealed it off. A few of the Chosen soldiers remained on the Verglas side of the pass—one of them the strange man who had shielded her.

  As if sensing her eyes on him, the soldier turned around and dropped his shield. “Good afternoon.” He raised his hands into the air to show he had no weapons. That was all he got out before a resistance fighter tackled him, shoving him face-first into a snow bank.

  Unlike the other soldiers, he didn’t struggle. “That’s cold,” he yelped. Eydìs used her ropes to tie him up, and the resistance fighter holding him in place with a knee hauled him upright and scowled in his face. The Chosen mercenary shivered and shed loose flakes of snow.

  Rakel, keeping a firm grasp on her magic so she wouldn’t fall unconscious, eyed the odd man. Now that she was closer, she could see he had a beaky nose and an infectious smile. “Why did you shield me from that arrow?”

  “You saved my life. A life for a life—that’s my motto. And it’s fair, no?” He wore a cheerful smile that seemed at odds with his rope bindings.

  “But you belong to the Allegiance of the Chosen Army,” Rakel said.

  The soldier squinted up at her. “Belong is a strong word—particularly for us mercenaries—if you’ll excuse me for saying so, Your Highness.”

  Phile threw her arms around Rakel and crushed her in a side hug. “That was well done, Little Wolf. I hoped we would be able to seal those raiders off, but I didn’t have much faith that we would actually accomplish it. What luck! Oh, who is your friend?” Phile peered at the strange mercenary.

  “Cronius Winderbag, at your service—though most folks just call me Crow.” The mercenary graced Rakel and Phile with a wobbly bow, unable to keep his balance with his arms tied to his sides.

  “Winderbag—that’s an odd surname. What country are you from?” Phile asked.

  “Torrens, oh-beautiful-maiden.” He bowed again.

  Phile idly twirled Foedus. “Ooh, I like you. But Torrens? How did you crawl out of that backwoods place and end up here in beautiful—and exhilaratingly cold—Verglas?”

  “Phile, you do know he is a prisoner and not a guest, yes?” Rakel asked her friend.

  “Nonsense. I saw him save you—he’s going to be a bosom companion. I just know it,” Phile said.

  “Why, thank you,” Crow laughed. “Though I’m ’fraid I haven’t much of a bosom.”

  General Halvor cleared his throat, making Phile freeze with her smile in place. “I thought I made it clear after you released Farrin Graydim in Glowma that I did not want you consorting with prisoners of war,” he said.

  “But Crow shouldn’t be a prisoner of war,” Phile protested. “He saved Rakel from an enemy arrow.”

  General Halvor shifted his eyes to Rakel for confirmation.

  “It is true,” she said. “Though I have my doubts about his motive.”

  “I would be happy to swear fealty to you,” Crow offered.

  General Halvor scowled. “You are a mercenary. Fealty means nothing to you.”

  “Well, yes. Most the time,” Crow agreed, surprisingly practical. “But I’m not really with The Chosen by choice. My mercenary group, The Flock, was—how do you say it?—forcibly conscripted when we wandered a tad too close to one of their recruitment camps in Sarthe.”

  General Halvor raised an eyebrow. “And you would abandon the rest of your band?”

  Crow’s smile dimmed. “Well, there’re none left to abandon.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Rakel asked.

  Crow stared at his feet. “They all died in the Battle of Gaula when Tenebris took out two Verglas armies.”

  Rakel took a step closer to him. “You’ve met Tenebris.”

  “No, but I’ve seen him, and that was more than enough for me,” Crow said grimly.

  Rakel hesitated, torn by the pain in his voice.

  When he looked up, his intelligent, brown eyes met hers, and he shook himself like a bird ruffling its feathers. “But that’s a different mess, yeah? So, how can I help you chaps?” he asked.

  “Snorri, hold him with the rest of the pr
isoners,” General Halvor said.

  “What?” Crow said.

  “Yes, sir.” Snorri materialized out of the shadows, drawing a yelp from Crow. He placed a hand on the mercenary’s shoulder and marched him away.

  Phile tapped her cheek with the flat of Foedus’s blade. “I dunno. I’m inclined to think he’d help us if you let him.”

  “I agree,” said a resistance fighter. He was stout in the shoulders and dressed in dark clothes fit for cold temperatures—though one of his mittens sported a blue patch emblazoned with a white snowflake and a gray reindeer. “I don’t find it surprising at all that our Snow Queen has won the heart of a foreigner.”

  General Halvor stared at the man. “He was one of the mercenaries who just attacked your village.”

  “It’s not as simple as you think.” Rakel sighed. “I saw him rescuing a Begna villager.”

  “A villager?” The resistance fighter puffed out his cheeks in irritation. “We gave them clear instructions to hide!”

  “I think she meant to, but she was flushed out.” Rakel manipulated a nearby snowdrift to keep her magic active.

  “He might have done it to try and earn your trust. It is likely he is a spy,” General Halvor said.

  Rakel considered what she knew of Tenebris and the Chosen Army. “If he had a scrap of magic, I would agree. But if he’s just a commoner…the magic users don’t think highly of the non-magical. I’m not sure they would entrust such a dastardly mission to someone who lacked magic.”

  “They charged Aleifr with killing you.” Oskar’s bright voice and charming face lacked warmth of any kind as he stepped out of the swirl of Verglas soldiers and resistance fighters.

  Aleifr, a member of her own personal guard, had tried to kill Rakel.

  “Yes, but that was a crime of opportunity,” Rakel said. “They had to use someone close to murder me, and at the time, no one else in Verglas admitted to being a magic user.”

  “The mercenary’s true motivation does not matter at the moment.” General Halvor stepped closer to Rakel. “I believe a better use of our time would be to speak with…” he trailed off and turned to face the resistance fighter.