The frozen queen

Borrowed sky

*Danthe*

The stable gate drops fast enough to crush a horse, and Zirce runs straight at it.

I catch the iron brace before it reaches her head. The impact drives one knee into the straw.

"Keep moving," I tell her.

She ducks beneath my arm. White skirts drag through mud and horse piss, gathering the sort of decoration southern brides rarely request. Three of my men force themselves under the gate before the winch locks. Behind us, Thaniel's guards flood the passage from the chapel.

His captain draws his sword.

"Release Lady Elysia."

Zirce stops.

It would be safer if she did not. There is a tack room ten paces ahead, a narrow door beyond it, then a service yard where my dragon waits with the rest of my poor diplomatic judgment.

I shift between her and the captain. "She isn't restrained."

"You are removing the king's betrothed under armed guard."

"A curious description of a woman leaving on her own feet."

The captain glances at Zirce. His men spread across the stable aisle, blocking the stalls and frightening every animal inside them. A chestnut kicks its door. Grooms flatten themselves against the walls.

"Lady Elysia," he says, "His Majesty orders you to return."

Her breathing changes. Short, shallow pulls, barely audible beneath the horses. She looks at the tack-room door, then toward the open service yard.

I expected tears. Regret, perhaps. A dignified collapse once we were safely inconvenient.

I did not expect her to look at a door as if she already knows how it locks.

"There is another passage," I say. "You can wait out of sight while I settle this."

Her head turns sharply. Dark red hair is coming loose beneath her veil. One pin has slipped beside her cheek, and her green eyes fix on me with a fear too cold to resemble bridal nerves.

"No."

The captain takes a step. "My lady."

"If I hide," she says, still looking at me, "he will say I was taken."

Good. Frightened and thinking. An alarming combination in any court.

I rise, pushing the stable gate high enough for its teeth to scrape the stone arch. My shoulder complains. Nothing appears broken, which means it can wait.

"Then don't hide."

The captain's sword remains drawn. "King Thaniel's authority extends throughout this city."

"So does mine."

"You are a visiting sovereign."

"Yes. There were banners and a very long speech."

His jaw tightens.

I should stop enjoying this. I do not.

A king invited under High King Orpheus's peace treaty travels with immunity for himself, his household, and anyone formally placed beneath his protection. It is an old provision meant to prevent drunken princes from being arrested after diplomatic feasts. For once, drunken princes have contributed something useful to civilization.

I look at Zirce. "Do you ask northern protection?"

Her fingers knot in the filthy silk at her hip. She takes one breath, then another.

"I do."

The captain's gaze hardens. "She is distressed."

"She is also audible."

"You cannot grant asylum in King Thaniel's own stable."

"I can grant it in his bath if the need arises."

One of my men coughs into his fist. Zirce does not smile, but something wakes briefly in her expression.

The captain raises his voice for the witnesses. "Lady Elysia, are you departing freely?"

"Yes."

"Has King Danthe threatened you?"

"No."

"Has he promised you marriage, rank, wealth, or any other inducement?"

Zirce's eyes flick to mine.

"I promised her north," I say.

"I did not ask you."

"Then you should have faced her."

His color rises. Zirce straightens beside me, every inch the court lady again despite the mud creeping up her hem.

"King Danthe promised me nothing," she says. "That is presently one of his better qualities."

Now I smile.

The captain sees it and hates me properly.

"This will be answered before the High King's delegates."

"Send them somewhere warm. I'm told hearings take months."

He lowers his blade, but he does not order the gate raised. I shove it higher. My men wedge a mounting block beneath the brace, iron grinding against stone.

The captain lets us pass because stopping a visiting king by force is war, and Thaniel has not yet had time to dress his humiliation in legal robes.

That restraint will not last.

We cross the service yard at a run.

My dragon waits beyond the outer stalls, crouched low between two stone walls. Smoke curls from her nostrils. Her scales are gray and ridged, darker along her spine, built for northern cloud rather than admiration. The palace grooms have retreated behind a water trough.

Zirce stops so abruptly I nearly strike her back.

The dragon turns one gold eye toward her.

"You said north," Zirce says.

"It's still north."

"You neglected to mention the teeth."

"She dislikes vanity. You should be safe."

Her gaze slides to me. "And you?"

"Years of careful negotiation."

The dragon huffs hot vapor over us. Zirce flinches, but holds her ground.

Behind the stable wall, men shout for horses.

I climb onto the foreleg joint and reach the saddle. The harness is where I left it, although one lower strap has been cut halfway through. Clean blade work. Not enough to show from the ground. Enough to break under strain.

Thaniel prepares quickly when offended.

I replace it with the emergency strap from the saddle roll. Zirce watches my hands rather than the dragon's mouth.

"Can you climb?" I ask.

"In this dress?"

"No then."

"Then why ask?"

"To establish the nature of the problem."

I lean down and offer my forearm. She grips it. I pull while she fights six layers of ceremonial silk and the expectations of several generations of dead women. She reach the saddle without screaming, which is more than most northern lords manage on their first attempt.

There is a second seat behind mine, narrower and usually used for injured handlers.

I hand her the safety strap.

"Across your waist. The hook goes through that ring."

She looks at my hands, then at the strap.

I wait.

After a moment, she takes it. Her fingers shake badly enough that the hook strikes the ring twice. She fastens it herself and pulls until the leather sits tight.

"Too tight?" I ask.

"No."

It is. I leave it.

"Hold the saddle bar. If she climbs sharply, lean forward. If she drops, do not fight the harness."

"You say that as if dropping is likely."

"It's certain. The ground is lower than the sky."

The outer gate opens. Six mounted guards charge into the yard.

I give the dragon the launch signal.

She surges forward.

Zirce's arm snaps around my waist. Her grip is desperate, all courtly reserve abandoned against my ribs. I feel every breath she fails to finish.

The shortest launch runs east across the market roofs. I can see the colored awnings beyond the wall, packed close around chimneys and drying lines. At this hour the market is full. One sweep of a dragon's wings would tear tiles loose, overturn braziers, and send timber stalls into the crowd.

The western road is longer. Open ground, but within bow range of the walls.

I turn west.

The dragon claws through the service gate as an arrow strikes stone beside her head. She bellows. Horses rear behind us, throwing one guard and carrying another sideways into a trough.

"Don't look back," I tell Zirce.

"I was not intending to admire them."

Good. Still speaking.

We race along the palace wall. Another bolt passes over my shoulder. The dragon spreads her wings, but the road rises ahead and the extra weight costs us speed.

I could order flame against the riders.

The western road bends through a village pressed beneath the palace hill. Thatched roofs. Winter fodder stacked against walls. Children in a yard, staring upward with open mouths.

No fire.

I urge the dragon toward the river track instead. Mud sucks at her claws. The guards gain on us.

A bolt strikes behind my left shoulder. Pain cuts hot across my upper arm, shallow but distracting. The bolt spins away. Zirce's grip tightens.

"You are hit."

"Not usefully."

The dragon reaches the river embankment and leaps.

For one breath, we fall.

Zirce makes no sound at all.

Then the wings catch.

The force flattens us against the saddle. Wind tears the veil from Zirce's hair and sends it tumbling toward the reeds. The dragon beats upward over bare orchards, each stroke carrying us beyond bowshot.

Below, the captain reins in at the river. His men scatter along the bank, too late and too earthbound.

My laugh escapes before I can stop it.

I have stolen Thaniel Kawika's bride from under his own chapel bells. By nightfall, every court south of the mountains will know he ordered a bride to be barred inside and failed to keep her there.

It is an excellent insult.

Zirce is still shaking.

The realization kills the laugh.

Her arm remains around me, but her hand has curled into my coat as if letting go would send her somewhere worse than the ground. Her breathing comes fast against my back. We are clear of pursuit. Her body has not noticed.

I lower the dragon into a steadier glide.

"You can loosen the strap now."

"No."

"All right."

I do not tell her we are safe. We are not. Thaniel has treaties, money, and a face people trust before he speaks. By tomorrow, he will call this a*******n. Vespers will give it holy language. Orpheus's officials will begin asking which law matters most when a woman refuses a king in public.

I expected scandal. I failed to consider what scandal eats.

The dragon banks north. Zirce's dark hair lashes across my shoulder, smelling faintly of roses and spilled wine. I keep my eyes on the river.

After several miles, one of my riders catches us on a smaller brown dragon. My marshal's expression suggests he has prepared a speech and intends to make it unpleasant.

I spare him the effort.

"Take the ridge route. Reach the border lodge before us."

His gaze moves to Zirce, then to the blood darkening my sleeve.

"Are you wounded?"

"No."

Zirce says, "Yes."

My marshal's mouth twitches. Traitor.

"Have them prepare the east room," I continue. "Fire lit. Food left outside. No reception."

"The lodge keeper will want guards posted."

"Outside the passage."

Zirce's grip changes. Not looser, but listening.

"And the room?" my marshal asks.

"Unlocked. Leave the key on the table anyway."

His eyes meet mine. He understands too much and approves too visibly.

"Anything else?"

"A physician who knows how to knock."

Zirce goes very still.

"For you?" he asks.

"For whoever asks."

That earns me a pause from both of them.

My marshal nods and turns his dragon north. Within moments, he is a dark shape against the afternoon sky.

Zirce waits until he is gone.

"What will this refuge cost?"

There it is. Not gratitude. Accounts.

"We crossed the river ten miles ago," I say. "Thaniel's captain has no authority here."

"That was not my question."

"No."

The wind cools the blood on my sleeve. I check the repaired harness where it runs beneath my knee. The leather has stretched but holds. The dragon's breathing is even. No favoring in the left wing, no foam at the mouth. Only then do I press two fingers to my own wound.

Zirce notices.

"I have no money with me," she says. "My jewels belong to the settlement until it is dissolved, and my father's lands are already pledged."

"I don't need your father's orchard."

"I did not offer it."

"You were measuring whether it would be enough."

Silence answers. Her arm withdraws from my waist at last, though she keeps both hands locked around the saddle bar.

I could tell her asylum is not a trade. I could promise she owes me nothing. She would hear a generous king establishing the size of his future claim.

Better to offer facts.

"At the lodge, you choose whether the physician enters. Tomorrow, you tell me what you want done. If you decide to leave northern protection, I arrange a route that is not south."

"And if I remain?"

"Then Thaniel sends delegates. We irritate them."

"Together?"

The word is careful.

"If you prefer."

She looks past my shoulder toward the mountains rising under the clouds. Snow already lies across the highest ridges. The northern sky is dark, wide, and borrowed for the moment.

Behind us, chapel bells begin carrying over the river.

Not wedding bells now.

Alarm.

Zirce turns toward the sound, her face hidden from me. When she speaks, her voice is quiet and exact.

"I prefer to answer him myself."

The dragon climbs into the cold.

"So do I," I say. "That may become a problem."

Below us, a royal beacon flares red on the southern watchtower. Another answers from the western road.

Thaniel is not merely sending word after us.

He is closing the border ahead.