Kit had heard of people who had lost toes and fingers to the nipping teeth of the cold. She remembered the crippled beggars outside of Haven and she pictured herself among them. She cursed Ariakas bitterly for having sent her to this horrible place, forgetting that she had been eager to come here herself to find out more about Laurana. Love and jealousy were both frozen solid. Kit was afraid to pull off her boots, fearful of what she might see.
She managed to control her shivering long enough to scrawl a message to Feal-Thas. He did not live in Ice Wall Castle as she had expected, but had built himself a palace some distance away. Considering the condition of this so-called castle, she was not surprised.
The kapaks carried her to a room known as the Highlord’s Chamber, though no Highlord was currently in residence. Feal-Thas had lived here once, upon his return from Wayreth, while he constructed his Ice Palace. A fire burned in a large stone bowl filled with some sort of oil and gave off a modicum of warmth. Kitiara huddled close to the flames. The kapak assisted her in removing her armor, but she was still afraid to take off her boots, for she still could not feel her feet. She was growing truly frightened when the door opened and a tall, thin elf clad in furs walked inside.
Kitiara would have berated the elf for not knocking before he entered, but she was too miserable and her teeth were chattering. All she could manage was an angry look. The elf regarded her in silence some moments then turned and left. He came back accompanied by a kapak who bore in his clawed hands a bucket of steaming water.
The kapak set the bucket down in front of Kitiara, who regarded it and the elf with suspicion. Clamping her teeth together, she managed to mumble, “What the hell am I supposed to do? Take a bath?”
The elf’s thin lips creased in a smile as chill as the surroundings. “Soak your feet and your hands in the warm water.”
Kitiara cast the elf an incredulous look and, growling something unintelligible, edging closer to the oil fire.
“The water has healing properties,” the elf continued. “We have not yet been introduced. I am Highlord Feal-Thas. You, I assume, are the Highlord known as the Blue Lady?”
He knelt in front of her and before she knew what he was doing, he had seized hold of one of her boots and yanked it off. Kitiara looked and closed her eyes in despair. Her toes were dead white with a horrid tinge of blue. Feal-Thas felt them and shook his head and looked up at her.
“It seems you live up to your name, Blue Lady.”
Kit opened her eyes to glare at him.
“The damage is severe,” he continued. “Your blood has frozen, turned to ice. If you do not do as I suggest, your toes will have to be amputated. You might even lose your foot.”
Kitiara would have continued to refuse, but she couldn’t feel his touch and that scared the wits out of her. She permitted him to remove her other boot, then gingerly, flinching, she thrust first one foot into the warm water and then the other.
The warm water felt good, soothing, until the feeling in her toes started to return. Prickles of liquid fire shot through her flesh. The pain was excruciating. She gave a low moan and tried to snatch her feet out of the water. The elf put his hands on her legs.
“You must keep them there,” he ordered.
His voice was melodic, like that of all elves. His hands on her legs were slender and looked delicate, yet kick at him as she might, she could not break his strong grip. She rocked to and fro in agony, her legs twitching. Then she saw color returning to her feet. The terrible cold that had seemed to strike clear through to her bones started to recede, the pain subsided.
Kitiara relaxed, leaned back in the chair.
“You say this water has healing properties. Is it holy water? Your doing, Highlord?”
“Do not be disingenuous, Highlord,” Feal-Thas responded. He removed his hands from her legs and stood upright before her, tall and thin, clad all in white. “You are here either to demand something from me or wheedle something out of me. Either way, you needed to learn about me and you have made inquiries. I’m guessing you did not find out much”—his gray eyes glittered—“but you would have learned I am a wizard, not a priest.”
Kitiara opened her mouth and shut it again. She was taken aback. Everything he said was true. She had come here to demand that he give up the dragon orb and she had asked questions about him, and she had learned very little. She knew only that he was a dark elf and a wizard.
“As for the water, Highlord—” Feal-Thas began.
“Oh, let us cease with the Highlording,” said Kitiara, giving him her best charming, crooked smile. “I am known as the Blue Lady to my troops. To my friends, I am Kitiara.”
“The water comes from a fountain inside the castle, Highlord,” he said, emphasizing the word, an ironic glint in his eye. “Not being a priest, I do not know what god blessed the water, though I might hazard a guess. Before the ice claimed it, the castle was once a fortress in the middle of the sea. The fountain has the symbol of a phoenix on it and thus I assume it was a gift of the Fisher God, Habakkuk.”
Kitiara wiggled her toes in the bucket. She didn’t really give a damn which god it was, as long as said god healed her. She’d only been making conversation anyway, trying to get a feel for this elf.
“I don’t see how any sane person would want to live in this horrible place,” she remarked, removing her feet and drying them off. She rose gingerly and began to walk about the room, helping to restore her circulation. “And you an elf. You people spend days composing sonnets to grass. You weep when you cut down a tree. You must truly hate it here, Feal-Thas.”
“Highlord Feal-Thas,” he coolly corrected her. “On the contrary, I have lived in this land since before the Cataclysm. I am at home here. I have become acclimated to the harsh conditions. Not long ago I returned to my homeland, to Silvanesti. I found the heat stifling, oppressive. The thick vegetation began to close in around me. The stench of flowers and plants clogged my nose. I could not breathe. I came away as swiftly as I could.”
“Why were you in Silvanesti, Highlord Feal-Thas?” Kitiara spoke the title with her own ironic twist.
“I had unfinished business with King Lorac,” Feal-Thas replied.
Kitiara waited expectantly for him to tell his story, but the elf said nothing further. He stood watching her and Kitiara was forced to carry the conversation.
“You heard, I suppose, that your king has been ensnared by a dragon orb he had in his possession,” she said. “Lorac lives in thrall to the orb, caught in a terrifying web of nightmares that are twisting and deforming your homeland.”
“I believe I have heard something of this,” said Feal-Thas, “and you are mistaken, Highlord. Lorac is not my king. I serve the Emperor Ariakas.”
His eyes were hard as a frozen lake. Kit’s penetrating stare struck the ice and skidded off.
She tried again. “Dragon orbs. Dangerous artifacts,” she said ominously. “Unsafe to have around.”
“Indeed?” Feal-Thas arched a thin, white brow. “Have you made a study of dragon orbs, Highlord?”
Kit was startled by the question. “No,” she was forced to admit.
“I have,” he said.
“What have you learned?” Kitiara asked.
“That dragon orbs are dangerous artifacts,” Feal-Thas replied. “Unsafe to have around.”
Kitiara’s palm itched and not from the cold. She longed to use it to smack the elf across his pale, fine-boned face. By arriving here half-frozen, she had placed herself at his mercy. She’d lost control of the situation and she had no idea how to regain it. She had bungled this from the start. She should have been better prepared to meet this Highlord, but she had discounted him because he was an elf. She had expected him to be weasely and sly, fawning and ingratiating, tricky and cunning. Instead he was dignified, straightforward, unafraid and obviously unimpressed.