Page 31 of Omen of ice
Her lips part, eyes darting to my hands. She tries to hide it, but the sadness in her eyes is impossible to miss.
“I found her on the floor in my room. They’d slit her throat.” The frost moving across my knuckles thickens and continues to spread over the back of my hand and toward my wrist. “Aside from Liani, Mika was my— They took her away. With her out of the picture, it would be easier for the fanatics to get to me.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Her voice is so soft, so tentative. It’s like she’s afraid I’ll run if she speaks too loudly. And maybe I will. This was just the thing I wanted to avoid. Opening up, connecting in a way that would bond us.
“In your place, I would have slaughtered them all.” Her tone calls to something deep inside my chest. It’s icy and razor-sharp, each word more dangerous than the last. With her gaze still on my hands, she takes a step back. “I can see that you cared a great deal for her.”
“I did.” The admission burns my throat, but I can’t keep it in.
“If I had someone, a…a person who cared for me as much as I imagine Mika cared for you, I would rip the world apart if they were taken from me.”
I roll my eyes. “You? You don’t seem like the type.”
She smiles. It’s a sad grin that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. There’s something severe in her expression. An emotion far stronger than any I’ve ever felt. I’m jealous of its intensity. “I understand now, I think. Why you seem so resistant to me.”
She’s right…yet she’s also wrong.
I flex my hands. The thin coating of ice covering them cracks and scatters in every direction. I stare at the small pieces that fall into the snow. It’s dark, now, and the moon makes a rare appearance through the clouds. It shines on the glassy fragments of ice, causing them to twinkle like stars fallen from the sky. “The ones who took Mika’s life were repaid in kind. Liani found them. She gave them to me.”
“And you killed them. For her…” It’s not a question, and she doesn’t seem upset. She inhales and blows out slowly. For a long moment, she stares at me. “Keltania,” she says finally.
“What?”
Her shoulders sag a little, and she draws her cloak tighter, shifting from foot to foot. “You asked for my name. That’s what it was.”
“Keltania,” I repeat with a laugh. “Did you know that Tania, in the old language, means stubborn?”
“Stubborn is just another word for determined.” She smiles. “Which is exactly what I am, Valen. I know me being here isn’t what you want. And now, I have a better understanding of why that is. But I’m not Mika. I’m sure she was an amazing Aphelian, but no one is taking me out.”
“I suppose we’ll see.”
No, she’s not Mika, who was like the mother I never had. Like Liani.
Keltania is something new entirely. I don’t understand it, and though I don’t want it, I see now that it’s something I’ll have to deal with.
And part of me—a very senseless, misguided part of me—is happy about that. My reasons to be rid of her have become so much more complicated than they were when she first arrived.
11
Keltania
Valen cared a great deal for Mika. The anguish in his eyes might have dissipated, but I feel it in my chest. An inexplicable ache that gnaws at my subconscious.
We start walking again—thank the Goddess. My new clothing is warm and does more to protect me from the elements than my old leathers, but I refuse to give up my boots. Unfortunately, the snow is seeping through holes in the heel.
“What will your uncle do for the village?” I ask him.
“Probably nothing.”
“Why did he send you, then?” Somehow, I’m not surprised. Everything I’ve seen of Orbik is a glaring contradiction. I doubt he’d spill his drink if someone were set ablaze in front of him.
“It was probably more for my benefit than theirs. To get me off the estate. To give me purpose, to keep me from causing trouble for him.”
“Their food will run out.” I stop walking again. With the magic gone, most forest creatures have moved on or died out. Even the animals that didn’t need to survive on enchantment left. It’s said that the woods themselves, angry at the Fae over the war, chased the life from the trees. “They’llstarve.”
“Many villages have starved.” He shrugs casually. Like hundreds of lives are nothing.
“But they don’t have to.”
