Now, as he whittled a few more details into the wooden cow, he remembered his raid at the frostwreth ice fortress. Koll had hoped to rescue his captive grandson, but Birch wasn’t there. Instead, the boy was being held a prisoner up at Queen Onn’s palace, and Koll had no idea how to get him back.
With the tip of his dagger he scratched detail lines, then set the carving aside and picked up a new piece of wood. He had made many toy animals for his two grandsons. Someday he hoped to give this one to Birch.
3
THE walls exuded cold, turning the boy’s every breath into fog. The ice blocks distorted the weak sunlight that flowed into Queen Onn’s throne room. Outside, frigid winds whistled around the ornamental spikes of the palace in unsettling mournful music.
Numb with cold, Birch huddled under his tattered blanket, but he was alert, watching every detail.
Onn sat on her throne, languid and relaxed in her frozen surroundings. Her long hair was the color of ice and bone chips, and her large eyes had an undertone of steel.
Behind her hung an ancient wreth spear wrought with magic and metal, powerful enough to slay monsters. In a boastful voice, Onn had told the boy how one of her ancestors had stabbed the great dragon Ossus, breaking the shaft. Now Onn displayed the artifact as a trophy, as her predecessors had.
Birch crouched on the floor at the side of the throne, quiet and ignored. The queen treated him like a pet, a curiosity, although she didn’t seem to know what to do with him. Her interest had waned, and he instinctively knew to stay as quiet as possible; remaining unnoticed was his greatest protection. Birch was hungry and cold, but he was alive, and he meant to stay that way. Birch needed to be resilient. His grandfather had taught him that word.
With a frenetic bustle, five drones entered through the arched doorway, bearing small plates with morsels of food. Queen Onn thrived on the attention more than the food itself.
In ancient times when the land thrummed with untapped magic, wreths had fashioned the human race. But after the world was battered and drained by the wreth wars, the frostwreths were unable to create anything better than these drones as new servants. Small in stature and genderless, the drones had grayish skin and poorly formed features.
From what Birch had seen, frostwreths considered the drones expendable.
The obsequious drones offered the queen spiced lichen, tundra ferns, and small silver fish that swam in cracks within the glacier. Bowls of frost-sprinkled blue berries made Birch’s mouth water. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been fed; likely, Queen Onn couldn’t remember either.
She accepted a bowl from a drone, plucked out a berry, and popped it in her mouth, savoring it. The drones made small noises that weren’t quite words. Birch knew the creatures were intelligent, though he wasn’t sure the frostwreths realized it.
After munching on a still-wriggling silver fish, the queen smacked her lips. Birch looked at her with shadowed eyes, his hunger apparent, and when Onn noticed him, she responded with a disapproving frown. “How pathetic you are.” She tossed him one of the berries, which he gobbled. When his performance amused her, she handed him the whole platter of twitching fish, and Birch wolfed several down.
“Perhaps that is all you are good for—to eat my leftover food,” Onn said with a snort. In front of her, the drones held up more plates, beseeching her to take them. “When Rokk brought you to me, I thought he was a fool to have captured you in the first place.” She smiled. “But he does like to give me things. Rokk is a magnificent lover, boy.”
Boy? Birch stopped eating and crouched, forcing himself to remain silent, though he wanted to scream, Birch! My name is Birch! Memories swirled in his head. And my brother was Tomko. You killed him. And you killed my parents.
“You are fortunate my Rokk saved you and brought you to live among the frostwreths,” Onn said with a smirk. “Appreciate that.”
Birch pressed his lips together and thought back to that terrifying day at Lake Bakal, the fishing boats on the water, the surrounding hills thick with silver pines, the steep mountains that framed the lake. It was a happy place, peaceful. His father was the town leader, and his mother was the daughter of Norterra’s king and queen.
On that last afternoon, he and Tomko had been with their friend Piro in front of their house. Birch and his brother played with carved animals that their grandfather had given them.
His mother came out to call the boys inside, concerned by a line of ominous weather rolling in from the north. They all watched white clouds pour over the mountains like a frigid flood. It did not look like anything Birch had ever seen.
A party of fierce, pale frostwreth warriors appeared before the frigid wave, riding white-furred steeds that looked like wolves. The oncoming cold had shattered trees and turned the deep lake into solid ice. His mother had shouted for the children to get inside the house. But a wreth warrior had seen Birch first, seized him, and protected him—for no reason other than curiosity.
Then the cold caught the rest of the village, froze the people solid and left them like fish buried in a snowbank. Tomko died next to their friend Piro, who clutched one of the wooden pigs his grandfather had carved. His mother and father had collapsed in the cold, covered with ice, buried in snow that fell all too gently upon a dead town.…
“Eat your fish,” Onn snapped at him. “If you do not appreciate the food, I will stop feeding you.”
Birch ate the last two on the plate, licked his numb fingers. He withdrew, shivering, and pulled the blanket closer. In front of the throne, the many drones shifted position, but stayed close at hand, hoping for the queen’s attention.
A female wreth warrior strode into the throne chamber with a swift deliberate pace, her boots clicking on the metallic ice floor. She approached without any bow or gesture of respect. “Queen Onn, our fortress at Lake Bakal was attacked.”
Birch’s ears pricked up. He had been held for a time at the fortress under the lackluster care of Rokk until he had been brought back to Onn at the northern palace.
The warrior was gruff, unemotional as she delivered her announcement. “The attacking army used some strange magic to thaw the lake. The ice and water swallowed our warriors like the jaws of a trap. Many wreths at the fortress were killed, including your lover.”
“Rokk!” Onn groaned, more with surprise than grief.
Choosing the wrong moment, a drone scuttled forward to offer the queen more food. Enraged by the interruption, she extended a hand, and waves of cold shot out like a volley of arrows. The drone froze solid, then shattered into fragments of flesh-colored ice. The other drones dropped their dishes and fled the chamber. Birch wished he could go with them.
Onn lunged down from her frozen throne, confronting the warrior. “Who struck our fortress? Did the sandwreths attack?” She glanced behind her at the jagged spear.
“Not sandwreths, my queen. It was a human army, led by King Kollanan.”
“King Kollanan.” Onn rolled the name around in her mouth and spat it out. “I do not understand this. Humans cannot cause such damage to wreths!”
“And yet, they did,” the warrior said.
Huddled beside the throne, Birch heard the name of his grandfather and smiled.
4
AS he and his wife approached the council chamber, King Adan already heard shouting.