Page 37 of Kiss of Ice

“What do you mean? You asked me to get dressed and I did.”

Kam closed his eyes briefly. This was intolerable. She was deliberately defying him.

“So it’s to be a war of attrition, is it?” he said finally. “You’re going to challenge me at every step?”

“Only when you’re being unbearably rude. We both know this is a marriage of convenience, Kam. But I won’t be treated like a chattel.” She raised her chin and regarded him coolly. “You said you have the power to make my life uncomfortable. I wanted to demonstrate that I can make yours equally difficult.”

For a moment she thought he’d explode. White smoke swirled around his legs, raging in a furious torrent.

Suddenly two gleaming strands whipped out and snaked round her waist. Before she knew what was happening, he’d jerked her off her feet and dragged her to within an inch of his bristling body.

Her heart jackhammered in her chest and she wondered if he could hear it. He looked at her appraisingly, and for a moment she could have sworn she saw a flash of emerald green in the hazel depths of his gaze.

“You’ve made your point, ice queen,” he said softly. “And I do enjoy a challenge. But be careful you don’t push me too far.”

He set her back on her feet and released her. “Now if you’re done playing games, perhaps I can show you the palace.” He glanced at the dress. “That really is hideous.”

“I know. But as long as it annoys you, it’s my favourite one.”

The tour took longer than she expected. The palace had dozens of official rooms and dozens more private ones. Banqueting halls, libraries, ballrooms, galleries, offices… and that was just within the main building.

Ren doubted she’d ever get used to the size of it. And she’d thought Valkar Castle was big.

“This is the last thing I wanted to show you.”

Kam had led her through a maze of corridors to a little ante-chamber deep within the palace. The room had a musty smell, as if it was rarely visited. But it was pristinely clean, not a cobweb in sight. And the polished marble floor gleamed.

Ren gazed down at it. The marble was inlaid with a gold circle containing a pentagram. Each point of the star was marked with a glowing runic symbol, and across the centre was a string of calligraphy in the same ancient language that was inscribed all over the external palace walls. There was a faint hum just on the edge of her hearing, as if the very air was vibrating.

She moved forward, transfixed, and Kam put out a hand.

“Don’t. Don’t walk on it. It feels… weird.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the Angelus Seal. The place where the angels threw the demons out of this realm and into another. The portal was locked behind them and Nush’aldaam was finally rid of their evil. The whole palace is built around it.”

Ren’s eyes were wide. She’d heard of the Angelus Seal. All the high-born knew of it. But very few people had seen it.

“It’s said one angel had to go through the portal to hold the demons back while the others performed the spell to seal it,” she said. “Do you think that’s true? That there’s an angel trapped with all those demons on the other side?”

“If it is, the angel will have perished by now. The seal was closed five thousand years ago.”

“Where did the rest of them go?”

Kam shrugged.

“No-one knows. Legend has it they retreated back across the Ocean of Whispers."

“That can’t be true. The Marid have explored it thoroughly. Apart from a few small islands, there’s nothing there. The ocean just goes on and on until it curves right round and meets Palissandra on the other side.”

“My father believed that somewhere at sea there’s a secret entrance to another world, and if we just knew the way we could find the angels once more.”

Ren looked down at the seal again. It was strange being here in this fabled room, where the empire’s greatest and darkest war had finally been won. Were there demons scratching at the other side of the seal even now, all these millennia later? Desperate to escape and wage their destruction once again?

She shivered and took a step back. Kam saw her expression and turned for the door.

“Let’s go outside. I have a surprise for you.”

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