They made good time. Angelos was closer to the mountains than it looked, and by the end of the night the ground angled upward under their horses' hooves. Phoenix tugged his cloak around him as he squinted at the first light of dawn bouncing off the snow ahead. "This isn't natural," he mused. "It got too cold too fast."
Maya finished pulling on her gloves and yawned. They were going to have to stop soon, as little as Phoenix wanted to. They'd already burned through their first mounts and set them loose, and they couldn't afford to lose more horses to exhaustion and ice. "These mountain ranges are filled with abandoned silver mines."
Phoenix and Larry blinked at her. "I think she expected that to make sense," Larry said.
In a huff, Maya yanked one glove further on and explained, "Meaning these mountains are filled with silver veins. Ice mages love silver more than anything." She considered that. "Well. More than anything but ice. When the first northern mages settled up there, they were able to turn the entire ranges into oversized ley lines because of all the silver in them. Pretty soon the mines got too cold to work in. Bigger and more powerful ice mages moved to these mountains because of all of that power, and by now, it's eternal winter hundreds of miles further south than it should be."
Larry whistled, impressed, and Maya blushed. "Sorry. I just talked a lot, didn't I? That's the kind of stuff I had to learn growing up."
"You totally made me believe all of it," Larry assured her.
"Well, good! Because it's true."
"Now I believe it even more."
Their children would be fascinating, Phoenix thought. "We all look ready to fall off our horses," he said as they rounded a turn and the road turned further upward, rockier and harsher than what lay behind them. "We need to get some sleep before we go any further."
"No, no," Maya insisted, and yawned again. "I'm good. We gotta save Prince Miles. Let's go. Beat you to the castle."
Phoenix couldn't help but smile, just a bit. "You know you're... not moving any more, right?"
Maya looked down at her horse, sighed, and looked back up. "Okay, let's stop."
As they were still at the edge of greenery and life, out of von Karma's territory, it was easy to find wood for a fire and it felt safe to have that smoke plume showing their location. After Phoenix considered all that, he looked up from the potato he was roasting and frowned. "Maya... I've only ever heard of von Karma as an ice mage from these mountains."
She nibbled on a heel of bread and cheese. "Uh huh."
Phoenix rested his chin in his palm and his frown deepened. "But that doesn't make any sense."
"Don't argue with the cutie, Nick," Larry lectured, right before he tried to take a bite of his potato without letting the outside cool.
They both ignored Larry's pained noises. "If this is such a huge focal point for magical power," Phoenix asked, "then why is there no one here but von Karma? You said that a lot of northern mages moved to these mountains over the centuries, but by now it's only him."
"Oh," Maya said, clearly surprised at a question she'd never considered in her studies. "Well. The mountains are still definitely a magical resource for anyone with his powers, so they still have to be attractive." She mirrored Phoenix's thoughtful pose. "I guess the most likely answer is that von Karma's managed to chase everyone else off."
That was, unfortunately, the only explanation Phoenix had thought of. They weren't just going up against a powerful ice mage, then; they might be going up against the strongest one there was. It was said that Manfred von Karma had never lost a battle, but he'd never considered that other mages might be counted in that total. Disheartening to say the least, and yet there was no choice before him: he had to rescue the prince, as simple as that.
His resolve must have shown, for Maya got a curious expression as she tested their potatoes. "Why are you doing this? Both of you? I'm a Fey, so it's my job to protect the kingdom however I can. But you two were just guards whose captain told you to wait for more orders. Instead, you're taking on von Karma in his own home."
Though he opened his mouth to reply, Phoenix instead closed it and shook his head. "It's stupid," he replied when his warm cheeks had cooled.
Larry smirked knowingly. "If you don't tell her, I will."
After shooting a pained look at his friend, Phoenix sighed and nodded. Yes, Larry most certainly would, and he'd probably put the worst possible slant on it. Memories pressed down, dragging him back to the hardest time in his life. "My family owned the worst farm in our village. It kept getting flooded whenever the river got high, and eventually we had to forget about planting one whole field because of rot." He pointed at Larry. "They lived next door. They'd always find food to share with us so we wouldn't go hungry during the winter, but they still had to charge us something so they could buy more seed next year. Season after season, my family just kept getting into worse debt."
"You would have gone hungry without his family?" Maya repeated, like the concept was hard to fathom. She'd grown up noble, Phoenix reminded himself; she'd probably never gone more than ten minutes with a growling stomach before the kitchens made something for her. And, from the look of those bulging saddlebags on her horse, she went through a lot of food.
"That's right." He hugged himself and glared at the sound of wind whistling through the northern mountains. "I hate winter. Every time it gets cold I remember wondering whether we'll have enough to eat or whether we'll need to beg for help again."
Maya nodded slowly. "That doesn't answer why you care so much about the prince, though."
"There was a royal procession," Phoenix remembered. "It was the biggest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I didn't know horses could get that tall or shiny. And people wore colors, and..." He shook his head. No need to go into everything, even if he could still see the line's brilliant approach. "They didn't even tell us why they'd come, though we found out that the prince wanted to see the lands he'd rule. We mostly cared about the feast."
"It was amazing!" Larry cut in. "They paid Kudo a whole gold crown apiece for his pigs and bought enough to feed everyone! Twice!" He sighed with the memory and rubbed his belly. "The whole village smelled like roasting pig for days." Jerking his thumb toward Phoenix, he added, "Except that this guy barely got to taste it."
"Don't tell me the prince made you pay for the food!" Maya gasped.
"No, no!" Phoenix waved his hands in front of him. "They paid for everyone's food, and brought wine and candied fruit in barrels, and... no, no. The jerks down the road decided that they wanted more pig and it was funnier for them to take mine instead of going back to the spit for a fresh cut." His face burned with the memory. "That turned into not letting me go back for more, because I'd 'embarrass the village' if the palace people saw me."
Maya's fists clenched. "Did you punch them? In the nose?"
"They were big, and there were a lot of them." Phoenix half-smiled and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Larry was still ready to take a swing, though."
Larry nodded, and grinned when Maya smiled approvingly at him. She turned back to Phoenix and asked, "So what happened next?"
His heart still swelled at the recollection. He could remember being that small, scraggly boy in scratchy clothes, surrounded by all the boys who'd decided he was the best amusement to be had in their backwater town. "The prince noticed."
Even clearer than his pain were the memories of Prince Miles frowning as he stood, walking away from the royal table, and placing himself between Phoenix and his aggressors. Their bullying had instantly stopped, of course, but the prince offered more than his presence. "He saw what rough shape I was in, and..." Phoenix swallowed hard. "And he cared. He got a minister from their table and said that no one should go hungry like I clearly was. They started an investigation. It was the minister who was talking to me and my parents, but I kept seeing him for the next few days looking into things himself." The prince's bright clothes had stood out among the grungy town, but Phoenix hadn't focused on his clothes. He'd never expected the prince to look so kind.
"They were only supposed to be there for a day," Larry added. "They stayed for three days while they looked into every nook and cranny of our little place."
"It turned out," Phoenix said, "that some other families had set up irrigation ditches. They diverted their overflow into our fields, since it was the lowest. It wasn't just the river flooding; our land never had a chance to dry out because of them." He smiled lopsidedly. "Prince Miles brought them into the middle of the town square and asked why they thought they were owed the right to bigger profits in exchange for my family's health. He'd seen the overflow himself and he was outraged. They'd tried to hide it by directing the flow through a bunch of ivy on the side of a hill, so you wouldn't notice it under the leaves, but he'd found it. Next thing I knew, the crown had paid off my family's debt and given them new lands from their own holdings, on top of some hills with its own creek. We weren't ever hungry again." Phoenix hugged his knees to his chest. "Then they left. They had their tour to finish."
"Wow," Maya said softly. "Yeah, that'd do it."
"It was a pretty big deal," Larry agreed, scratching his ear, "and that was a great story, but why'd you tell it, Nick?"
"Because it's why I'm hunting for the prince, Larry," Phoenix reminded him. The man's attention span could make a gnat look wise.
"No, you just noticed the prince because he came to our village. You moved all the way to Angelos and went off to rescue him because you think he's pretty."
As Maya gawked, then laughed, Phoenix demanded, "What? I do not! Shut your mouth, Larry!"
"Well... handsome, I guess."
"Shut up!" Hands in his hair, he tried to curl into a tight ball of humiliation. Even if he agreed with Larry's words—and unfortunately, he did—he'd never said it to himself so formally before, nor had he thought that anyone had noticed. It took him a few breaths before he felt Maya's hand tracing light circles on his back.
"It's all right," she assured him. "Okay, totally changing the entire course of your life for a man because he was nice to you once is a little extreme, but—"
"We need to stop talking about me," Phoenix said firmly, "and eat our potatoes."
"I grew up around the palace, you know," Maya said as she picked at her meal and waited for the steam to fade. "He's going to be a great king. He idolizes..." Her voice quieted and her head drooped. "He idolized his father. I can't believe King Gregory is actually dead." With a deep, shaky breath, she finished, "He's too serious by half, even for a king, but he works hard and he's very fair and he'll be really good for the kingdom."
Her eyes were soft and sad when Phoenix met her gaze. "And," Maya gently continued, "when we rescue him and bring him home, he's going to need an heir someday. He and my sister are practically engaged already. She's not thrilled, but she's all right with it. She'll play the queen role when she needs to, but let him handle most of it while she focuses on her studies. They've talked about it, Nick. It's going to happen."
"I know," he said brusquely, stabbed a potato with his knife, and wrenched it open. "All I am is someone who used to be a royal guard, trying to bring back the prince so he can be king. That's all."
"Who thinks he's pretty," Larry helpfully added.
A glower, then Phoenix announced, "I'm going to sleep." Stalking off, he bundled himself against the light of the rising sun. Sleep never came.