Page 78 of The Prince and the Ice King

“My prince!” one of them called. “General Lombard sent us to find you, fearing the worst when you disappeared. Get behind me,” he added with a sneer at Shayla. “We’ll take this knave.”

“You most certainly will not!” Reardon claimed his proper place at Shayla’s side, staring the men down, stern and with authority he rarely used with any of his people. “Stand down.Now. I am not a prisoner, and you will not harm anyone in this castle.”

“But…,” the second soldier began, only to trail off just as a sound like the crack of thunder preceded the smell and taste of copper.

“Fiends!”

This time, Shayla did take her eyes from the soldiers. They all looked skyward, because that cry had come from above, and the sight would have been something out of a nightmare fairy tale if Reardon didn’t already know what the court wizard looked like.

Liam had leapt out of the alchemist tower window, flying fast enough that it looked more like plummeting, lighting shooting out all around his already crackling form, until he landed in the courtyard with an explosion of snow and frozen dirt.

The soldiers gaped, both turning their swords toward the creature.

“Wait!” Reardon tried, holding out his hands. “No one here has to be enemies—”

“They’ve bewitched him,” the first soldier said in horror, eyes wide at Liam, and then at Reardon. “The stories are true.” He lurched forward, snatching Reardon’s wrist and yanking him around behind him. “We’ll save you!”

“No, I—”

“Get away from her!” Liam roared, clearly not listening either.

“Wait,” Shayla said, starting to lower her daggers, but her good faith only caused the first soldier to lurch at her next, and not to grab her arm.

He swung with his sword, with Shayla barely managing to leap backward out of its path, though the swish nearly sliced the front of her shirt.

Liam swept forward—

“No!” Reardon raced to intercept.

—and fell upon the soldier with a wide swoop of his arms, as if to pull the man into an embrace.

A pop, not even a scream, was the only noise, as the man became but crackles left to dissipate within Liam’s grasp.

Reardon had tried to not imagine what it might look like if one of the other court members touched someone.

He had truly tried.

“Liam!” Shayla cried, snapping Reardon back to the perils at hand, because Liam was turning toward the other soldier now, who’d frozen stock still.

“Stop!” Reardon dashed in front of him and spread his arms once more. “They know not what they do! Please! Please… don’t kill him too.”

The fury on Liam’s elemental features was plain, but faced with Reardon rather than an enemy, he faltered, caught between his love and what he’d been trying to protect her from. The fury faded, the crackles lessening, but Reardon saw no sympathy on the wizard’s face.

“I will kill whoever I must,” he said, as assuredly as Jack would say, Reardon was certain.

It was the first time Reardon had looked on one of the court members, save his first impression of the king, when he thought the figure before him a monster, heartless and deadly.

“He’s only one man,” Reardon said.Onebecause the other was dead—copper on the wind. “I will handle him. Drop your sword,” he said over his shoulder, and barely a pause followed before there was a thud on the ground.

“We’ll leave you to it,” Shayla said, just as unsympathetic, Reardon thought, with her face a calm mask. “But we’ll be watching.”

She and Liam turned almost as one to head back into the castle through the front doors.

Reardon felt like he might be sick, but he had to appear strong for the sake of the survivor.

Steeling his expression, he turned to the man—though man was relative since the soldier looked younger than Reardon upon closer inspection. The other had been the superior, clearly, leaving behind a trembling figure with eyes that seemed perpetually widened.

“My prince… we thought at worst we’d find you dead at the feet of the Ice King, and instead he’s…. Whatwasthat?”

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