“You are ready, Finnie,” she whispered before she stepped back, I nodded and Bess squeezed my hand before all four girls stepped away.
Frey put his hand in my back and we followed Mother and Father out the front doors. Once outside, at the foot of the steps I saw two sleighs, each one fronted by teams of four horses and around the fountain there were a number of royal guards and what seemed like all of Frey’s men on mounts and this included Kell and Skylar.
The minute I saw Skylar, my step faltered and my head shot back to look at Frey. “Honey, Sky… I don’t –”
Frey cut me off with a muttered, “He asked to come.”
I shook my head and grabbed his arm, dragging my feet and whispering, “He could ask to wrestle a rattlesnake for the fun of it but we wouldn’t let him do it.”
Frey looked down at me, brows raised, “A rattlesnake?”
“You don’t have those?” I asked back as he stopped us at the last step.
“We do but why on earth would he ask to wrestle a rattlesnake?”
“Exactly!” I cried, my voice rising.
“Finnie –”
“I don’t wish him to go.”
“Wee one –”
“Frey, tell him he can’t go. It’s macabre, this interest in death. It’s unhealthy. It’s even wrong. In my world we had public executions but they stopped ages ago. I mean, I think some lands may still do it but most of them don’t because it isn’t humane. And I feel Sky should learn he shouldn’t be that way.”
Frey got close as his brows knit and he bent his neck so he could hold my eyes, “My wee Finnie, he does not wish to go to see the condemned hanged. He wishes to be a part of your guard.”
I blinked up at him as my heart jolted.
“What?”
“All my men are here as your personal guard and Skylar requested to be amongst them. For this, their presence will be ceremonial only therefore I agreed.”
At this, my heart jumped.
“He wanted –?”
“Yes.”
I blinked then whispered, “Really?”
“I would ask why you find that so intensely surprising, my love, considering the fact he thinks the sun shines through you and you hang the moon but the longer we delay, the longer it takes for this to be done, for you and for them.”
Ho boy. He was so right.
Still, it was totally awesome Frey thought Skylar thought the sun shone through me and I hung the moon.
“Right,” I said on a nod, taking myself back to the (not so great) task at hand, Frey returned my nod back then looked over my head and nodded to someone else.
Then Tyr was brought to him, Frey lifted me up in the saddle then mounted behind me.
“Drakkar,” Atticus called from the back of a sleigh, “a sleigh has been prepared for you and Finnie.”
“She rides with me,” Frey called back.
“But, she’s the Winter –” Father started but Frey interrupted him.
“She is indeed. She is also my wife whose life is in danger. She rides close to my protection and on transport that will provide a much quicker getaway should it be required,” Frey returned and I sighed deeply at the reminder of another of the many things that had been weighing my thoughts since I left Mother to go with my girls and be prepared for this grisly event.
Father considered this then nodded.
And I reconsidered Frey’s long ago suggestion that we not leave his big, soft bed in his big, fancy-ass chateau in the sun-drenched fantasyland of Hawkvale.
But, alas, it was way too late for that.
Then Father commanded his driver, “Onward,” their sleigh moved forward, Frey steered Tyr behind it and the guard and Frey’s men surrounded us.
This, I found shortly after we rounded the fountain, was not going to be a stately, sedate royal procession. All the horses were prompted to a fast canter and it would become apparent why. This was because where we were going was not close to the city but far away.
At our pace, Snowdon was quickly left behind, we climbed and rounded the low swell of a mountain and came out on another valley, this one dotted liberally with dark tents that had open fires but the tent city was a ghost town for beyond that there was a sea of people edged by horses and sleighs all spread in front of a wooden platform. This was all lit against the falling night by an abundance of torches, especially around the platform. As we drew nearer then started to ride through an avenue of onlookers that was being forged by Father’s guard as well as members of the guard who met them who had already been there patrolling the crowds on horseback, I saw the platform was a scaffold and behind it an elevated dais on which there were three thrones that were only mildly ornate compared to King Baldur’s and if the events that were going to occur weren’t going to occur I would have thought they were way cool. Obviously, dreading what was to come, I didn’t give it a thought.
Then my thoughts were turned from the thrones (but mostly the scaffold with its three, dangling rope nooses) as a cheer started to ring the air which escalated to a shout which heightened to a deafening chant of, “The Dragon and The Ice!”
I started to look around as we rode through the mass of people and I saw a great number of salutes aimed Frey’s way, arms thrown in the air, huge beaming smiles and bigger shouting mouths as eyes stayed glued to Frey and I and the chant kept rising as we rode.
It was like we were rock stars arriving at a concert and it would be, I suspected, disconcerting normally. Considering that evening’s events, it was ghoulish.
To take my mind off of it, I twisted, looked up to Frey and asked, “The Ice?”
His eyes, which were pointed over my head, alert and scanning, came down to me. “I do not know, wee one. I’ve never heard it before but it would seem you’ve earned a nickname.”
“Great,” I muttered, looking ahead again.
I mean, “The Ice” was pretty cool, I suppose. I just didn’t feel it was fitting.
I didn’t have a chance to consider my new handle because it didn’t take long to make it to the platform and then no one hesitated to move swiftly to it including Atticus and Aurora who exited their sleigh almost the instant it stopped, Father not even waiting for someone to approach to open the little sleigh door. Frey swung down nearly before Tyr came to a halt then immediately reached up to pull me down. What made me feel a whole lot better was when the entirety of his men, including Kell and Skylar, also dismounted and ascended the platform with us to line up at the back of our thrones with Frey standing at my right side, Thad at my left, Skylar in front of Thad and Kell at my back.
Truth be told, it didn’t make me feel better… it made me feel great; their show of support was awesome.
That was until the crowd took this in, The Drakkar and his men flanking his bride, and they went totally freaking berserk.
Shit.
Sitting in my throne, I reached out to grab Frey’s hand, tugged on it and he bent so his ear was at my mouth which also caused a crushing wave of sound.
“Maybe the guys being here –” I started and Frey turned his head to catch my eyes.
“They stand with you,” he stated implacably.
“But, all those people are –” I began again and Frey cut me off again.
“All those people are a mob of unknowns with unknown intents. You are exposed. My men stand with you.”
Oh. Right. That made sense.
So it wasn’t a show of support so much as protection.
That worked too.
“Okay,” I whispered, Frey’s lips twitched then he straightened, faced the crowd, squeezed my hand reassuringly once then let it go to cross his arms on his chest.
I took the hint, time to be a princess, so I put both hands in my lap, clutching them tight.
It was then a ripple filtered through the crowd, changing the euphoric excitement to something else that didn’t feel very good and my eyes shifted to back of the sea of people. There I saw a black, covered sleigh led by four black horses that had entered the avenue we’d left behind and this was guarded by a large phalanx of my father’s armed soldiers.