Chapter 125

“Why are you being so generous?” Ilyin had asked Rippo the day she had shown her how to use Setoze’s divine power. Rippo had lowered her head at the question, as though embarrassed to answer.

“I’m the Mistress of Delrose,” Ilyin had said sternly, setting down Setoze. “But I cannot speak wholly for Delrose by myself. And I cannot trust information when I do not know why it comes to me, and I cannot pass to the Duke of Winter information I cannot trust.”

The girl kept her eyes to the floor, seeming to wrestle with something in her mind, but finally spoke after a moment more of silence.

“Marriage,” she said softly.

Ilyin didn’t understand. Whose marriage? Her first thought was of herself and Aden but couldn’t think why that would play into the Lady of Mille’s reasoning. She cocked her head curiously at the girl and waited for the rest of her explanation.

When it came, she understood why the Lady of Mille had come to her. And she didn’t blame herself for not guessing the meaning of her answer.

“Father is thinking about marrying me . . . to the heir of Yester tribe,” she said.

Monster and human? In marriage? It was unimaginable. And if children were indeed possible from such a marriage, it was a threat almost too great to conceive.

***

The divine power of the Duke of Winter to tame the weather was easy enough to see in the normal cold of winter. In this swirling blizzard, it was all the more so. Aden kept his hand raised the entire time, never stopping the blue light shining from it, yet he felt no strain. As he had expected, using the power was much easier since he’d married Ilyin. Before her, he would have been gasping like a drowning man to hold it this long. As it was now, he felt only the slightest tightness in his chest.

“Ha!” the Delrose knights cried as they rode. They seemed in another world from the storm around them, shielded by an invisible wall. Even the strongest gusts were humbled by it, and only a slight breeze with a few flurries touched them, hastening their advance as they sped toward Elo.

Seeing familiar terrain, Aden raised his hand higher. Though he didn’t intend it, the blue light now acted as a beacon for the knights behind him, reminding them they served the Duke of Winter and spurring them on even faster.

“There will be a battle the moment we arrive,” he cried out to the knights behind him. “Protect Elo as best as you can but remember which house you serve.”

Protect your own lives first, he thought. Saving Elo comes second to that.

“And . . . we expect no reinforcement.”

He looked back at the knights. One of them, riding just behind Idith, raised his hand.

“Your Majesty, is Elo’s hidden stronghold not nearby?”

“There’s a difference between existing and helping,” Aden said and smiled despite himself.

“What . . .” the knight began to ask, but his question dropped into chatter amongst the other knights. None of them were unclear about his meaning, but the simple declaration seemed to bring in the chill that Aden’s power had kept at bay.

No matter the differences between the houses, the knights were all sworn to raise their swords for the same purpose – to protect others. If Elo’s knights were forsaking that, if they were truly staying in the stronghold and leaving their own people unguarded, they had truly lost their way. The chatter subsided with this realization, and a heavy silence settled on the knights.

“Forward!” Aden cried, lowering his hand. Idith spurred his horse and sprung ahead, leaving Aden among the knights. Ilyin had said when the Delrose knights arrive, the Yesters would already be attacking. That meant they hit the Yesters from behind, or at the least come upon their flank. Yesters might move swiftly in weather like this, but their sight through the swirling blizzard was no better.

And that would give the first attack to Delrose.

“Ha!” the knights cried. Moving as one, they drew their swords and surged after Idith. Into the clearing formed by the Duke’s divine power, there came a wave of Yesters. The number of them scrambling down the hill seemed to paint it like a sunset.

They would hit the Wall of Light first. That would be the best time for Delrose to make their attack. Aden and his knights all readied themselves.

Kyak!

The wave rolled down the shallow hill and hit Elo’s territory.

“Ah!” Idith gasped despite himself. The knights drew their horses up, breaking their formation as they pulled up to a stop.

Aden sat speechless, unable to understand what he was seeing. Elo’s Wall of Light wasn’t blocking the Yesters. They slipped right through, and into Elo. Aden gasped.

The Elo’s knights were unprepared. Believing so much in the Wall of Light, they hadn’t even raised their swords. Aden saw them buried in the snow under the weight of the Yesters.