Page 26 of Wings of Ice and Steel

In a detached haze, Ariadnne watched as a brutish man with a grizzled beard burst past the shield wall to come barrelling towards her. In the time it took for Ariadnne to register the threat, Nieve was there, her blade vicious as she disembowelled him before tossing a glance back over her shoulder.

‘Now!’ Melixanthe cried, hovering over her. Her sword was drawn, the fear in her voice making Ariadnne’s heart quicken—which only made her blood flow quicker.

‘I… I’m not sure I can…’ she stammered.

It was getting harder to breathe. Much as she didn’t want to let Melixanthe down, her strength was fading. She was so, so cold.

Her gaze slipped back to her fingers, red with blood and gore.

‘Please, Ariadnne, or you’ll damn us all!’

The fog made Melixanthe’s words distant. Ariadnne didn’t look at her, she didn’t have the energy, but she could feel Melixanthe’s indecision in the way she leaned towards the knights. They needed her, and Melixanthe had to choose whether to stay with Ariadnne or join them and fight. In the end, her need to buy Ariadnne more time won, and with a last muted plea her footsteps receded.

Ariadnne crumpled to the ground, bleeding into the dirt while her knights fought for their lives. She had always thought her death would be more heroic. In stories, her predecessors had always met their ends bravely. With dignity.

Closing her eyes, regret bobbed to the surface. Regret for all the things she had not seen or experienced in her short life. Another wave of agony wracked her form and her mind drifted to Nieve. Not meeting her sooner—that was another regret. She’d never have the chance to find out what that warm feeling meant when Nieve looked her way.

Knees struck the dirt beside her face, encased in white enamelled armour and freshly soiled with blood and dirt. Gentle hands cradled Ariadnne’s head, smoothing damp hair from her face as they pulled her into a lap. As Ariadnne’s head tilted, her eyelids cracked and a pair of ice-blue eyes pierced her. Relief washed through her. She wasn’t alone.

‘Ariadnne.’ Nieve’s voice cracked. She stroked the side of Ariadnne’s face with a calloused thumb, and Ariadnne thought it was the first time anyone had touched her with gentleness like that.

‘I know it’s hard,’ Nieve whispered. ‘I know it hurts. But I need you to try. To survive. I need you to shift. Now.’ Her fingers trembled against Ariadnne’s skin, her cheek glistening with tears. Ariadnne was transfixed on the sight of that wetness. On the tears shed for her.

Nieve glanced at where Melixanthe was battling, oblivious to the pair of them. Ariadnne wanted to keep watching the Iceling but the world was growing fainter. She was drifting, and it wasn’t so bad after all.

Suddenly, Nieve’s scent enveloped her. The gentlest pressure touched her lips—the ghost of a kiss—and the world shuddered back into vivid clarity.

‘Please.’ Nieve lingered, her breath caressing Ariadnne’s cheek. Ariadnne’s body warmed despite her agony, blood pounding through every limb. Nieve’s hair tickled her neck, her fingers curling protectively around Ariadnne’s shoulders. It felt good. She imagined seeing those startling, blue eyes every day and realised she wanted to live.

She needed to live.

With a surge of strength, she reached inside, ripping her dragon from where it was buried. Nieve scrambled back, warriors and humans alike scattering to get out of her way. She had enough sense to scoop the main loop of her harness up and fling it across her shoulders as her form changed. The rest of it hung loose but it gave her company handholds to scramble aboard as she reared, sending the enemy stumbling back. Strength blossomed through her limbs, her heart pumping stronger as the magic of the change bolstered and healed what wounds it could. She was far from full strength, but she could fly.

She sent a blade of ice at her foes as her last knight clambered aboard, clinging on as she surged into the air, climbing higher and higher before listing towards the wall.

She landed hard, bones protesting against another undignified landing. Within seconds, fae scrambled to free the harness, helping knights dismount so she could be assessed and re-rigged. While the harness engineers were busy, healers scrambled below, digging out as much shot as they could and breathing their precious words onto her ravaged hide, making it itch as her body tripled its efforts to heal and repair. Melixanthe yelled, stirring everyone to move faster, to get Ariadnne ready, but there was a slight catch in her voice that belied her fear of how close they had been.

Ariadnne counted her knights—Han was pale with a nasty gash to his thigh and wouldn’t be joining them back in the sky, but the others lived—when a large piece of shot was ripped free. She groaned in pain, shuddering, and Nieve leaned into her foreleg, bracing her hands against her scales. Ariadnne’s mind ventured back to that that secret kiss.

It felt like a fever dream.

The minute the last piece of shot tumbled free, Ariadnne’s head shot up, bellowing for her company to re-mount.

They had a fight to finish.

Twelve

Nieve

Nieve braced against her smooth leather harness, supple boots digging into Ariadnne’s scales. Wind tore at her eyes as Ariadnne ripped through the sky with incredible speed for someone who’d been a breath from death moments ago.

Gods, she was powerful.

Had she really kissed her?

Gods damn it. Yes, she had.

The memory of Ariadnne’s lips shivered across her skin; their dusky pink turning cyan as her lifeblood spilled across the dirt. Blood that now stained Nieve’s palms.