At that point, Kaari hid her face. Annukka, on the other hand, watched the melee like a carrion crow, and whenever it moved, leaving behind wounded in its wake, she darted in with her long knife to finish those left behind before they could even realized she was bending over them. This wasn't revenge; this was survival. There could be no one left standing at the end of this but herself and Kaari.
And so it was.
Although she was white-faced and nauseous, Kaari was made of sterner stuff than Annukka had guessed. The young woman helped Annukka harness the deer and the two women used them to drag the bodies far from the camp and leave them in a heap for predators and scavengers. There was enough there to keep anything that showed up busy for one night at least; once morning came, she and Kaari would be gone.
One fire burned high that night with all the garbage Annukka threw on it. The bandits' clothing, the little they had not actually had on their backs, was not worth trying to save, so rank it was. But Annukka went carefully through everything she found and by the time the camp was cleared up, she had found enough copper and silver coins to make a small pouch bulge, two decent bows and the arrows with them and a lot of other weapons. She looked at the swords, but discarded them; neither she nor Kaari knew how to use them properly. The knives, however, would be of plenty of use, and she intended to have them concealed all over her person.
There was a lot more in the way of food gained than they had lost, too. And, surprisingly, a tent. It looked as if some attempt had been made, then abandoned, to set it up. It made her snort with contempt, although it did not surprise her, to see that these fools had not been able to assemble a simple tent.
It was probably midnight by the time the camp was clear and the two of them had sorted out what was useful and what was not.
“Mother Annukka,” Kaari finally said, swaying where she stood, “I c-cannot — ”
Annukka barely had the strength to push a bedroll toward her with a foot. “We both must sleep, and trust to the wolves out there to eat the feast we have left them and let us be.” Kaari did not even have the ability to do more than nod, drop down on the blankets and fall asleep. Annukka only waited to be sure that the fire was banked before doing the same.
8
“Aleksia,” Elena said slowly, gazing with concern out of the mirror, “I hope you are not taking on more than you can handle.”
Aleksia chuckled dryly. “So do I. This is why I am telling you just what it is that I am doing, so that if something does happen to me, the rest of you will know that this Witch was good enough to remove me and be able to take steps.”
“I had rather that didn't happen,” Elena replied, with a frown.
“Only because you would probably have to become the Snow Queen, since you are the one best suited to the job, temperamentally speaking.” Aleksia laughed at Elena's expression. “Oh, yes, and then where would that handsome Knight of yours be?”
“If that happens, I swear I will go to the Under world and bring you back, you wench,” Elena growled. Then her expression sharpened, and she peered closely at her fellow Godmother. “I just gave you an idea, didn't I?”
“Indeed you did! And a very good one!” Aleksia waved her hand at the mirror. “I promise, I will keep you informed every step of the way. Keep my book open in your library. Instead of writing down only what I have done, I will write what I intend to do as well, so that you have a good record. Now, I am going to go see what preparations I need to make to do this. It is going to take quite a bit of trickery on my part.”
After checking on Kay — still moping — and Gerda — still being led in circles by the Bear, and getting some good, sound advice on standing up for herself in the process — and making sure that there was nothing else that needed her attention — evidently The Tradition had decided she had enough on her plate — Aleksia retired into her library.
The Snow Queens had been in residence here for a very, very long time, and had been the only Godmothers to cover an enormous amount of territory, and the library reflected that.
As Aleksia contemplated the huge, circular room that was the true heart of the Palace of Ever-Winter, she was struck once again by the likelihood that the first of the Snow Queens had been a true Fae, a real Fairy Godmother and not a human at all.
This room was twice the size of the throne room, with no windows at all. Instead, the entire ceiling was a skylight that poured light into the room by day. And by night, hundreds of lamps provided light to anyone who prowled the shelves. Hundreds. Because the room was easily ten floors tall, and it had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. In order to have access to the books, there were beautifully crafted wooden walkways circling the room on every bookshelf level. There were roughly two levels per floor, and the sensation of standing down on the floor and looking up at all those books was of seeing all the knowledge of the world in one place.
While this was probably not true, it was true that there were treasures here that existed nowhere else, because this was the repository for all of the books and scrolls rescued from what could have been a terrible disaster hundreds of years ago.
It had happened that the Kings and Queens of a desert kingdom now no more had decided that the capital city would house the greatest library in all the world. Because their land had been rich in gold, their wishes were commands. Within the lifetime of the first King to make this command, it had become a scholar's pride to send a copy of his work there. By the lifetime of the tenth Queen, there were very few books in the literary world that were not preserved there.
Then, disaster. Despite clever negotiations, despite using her own beautiful body as a bargaining tool, her Kingdom was invaded. And the invaders, caring mostly only for warfare, did not care about learning. So when during a riot, someone set fire to the Great Library, nothing was done to save the books.
But fortunately for the world, the Godmothers did care. Not everything was saved, as Godmother after Godmother worked magic to pull the books from their doomed homes into her own, but most were, and those that were not, had copies elsewhere.
Eventually all those books, either the originals or copies, found their way here.
Here, where thirteen Godmothers and thirteen Fae — who also cherished learning — worked together to create the perfect home for them, protected from fire, water, worm and rot. And then they worked a further magic,
