Echoes of Ice and Iron-Chapter 43: Of Kings and Old Men

Aya and her party did not move far.

Shin’s fever rose with the second nightfall, and Aya ordered the pace broken before exhaustion finished what the injury had started. They made camp in a fold of land where old stone teeth jutted from the earth—ruins half-swallowed by moss and bramble, defensible without being obvious.

Frost Fire vanished at her word. Not all of them. Just enough.

Men who knew how to disappear into roads and taverns, into the spaces where soldiers drank and forgot themselves. Men who understood that wars were not announced first by horns—but by stories.

Aya waited. She sat apart from the fire, cloak drawn close, the hum beneath her skin finally dulling into something bearable. Shin breathed shallowly nearby. Bela did not leave his side.

Seth stood watch, eyes outward, but he did not miss the way Aya’s attention never drifted. Not once.

By dawn, Frost Fire returned.

Not together. One by one.

The first knelt. "Western villages, two leagues out. No mourning banners. No bells rung for a dead king."

Aya’s eyes sharpened.

The second spoke quietly. "Merchants still using Therin’s seal. Orders stamped weeks after his supposed illness."

That settled something in her chest.

Then the third arrived—face tight, jaw clenched.

He crouched close instead, voice low. "Found a soldier, my Lady. Drunk. Loud. He was so far out that he just let everything slip when offered more wine."

Aya lifted her gaze. "What did he say?"

The man swallowed. "He said King Therin didn’t die in his bed."

Silence fell.

"He said the crown prince killed him, mad as he is," the Frost Fire man continued. "Because the old King wouldn’t sign the orders."

Seth’s head turned sharply.

Aya did not move.

"Orders against the South," the man added. "And the North. Full campaign. Burn routes. Split forces. King Therin had refused, saying that they had failed in taking the North and now is not the time to antagonize them."

The Frost Fire man’s mouth twisted. "The soldier called him a coward and an old bat. Said the king got weak after losing to the Northern armies and that he never recovered. Said he’d gone soft after that... war."

He hesitated, then added, almost apologetically, "Used worse words than that, my Lady."

Aya closed her eyes in confirmation.

"Crown Prince?" Seth said quietly.

"That would be Dane, the younger son," Aya replied, disdain in her voice.

All eyes were on Aya as she sighed openly.

"The younger one is the Crown Prince?"

Aya nodded, "The one we met in Ceadel was and still is a bastard in every sense of the word."

Masa, who had been idling by Shin’s side, fought back a smile at her words. "Well, if you put it like that..."

"I’m not surprised," she said. "That they armed themselves over a corpse."

Mirrors what I did, huh.

She rose slowly to her feet, head pounding.

The fire crackled. Around them, the men waited for orders.

"King Therin is dead," Aya said evenly. "That and the fact that the Western court openly attacked us killed any chances of negotiations."

"This war was not planned after his death," she continued. "It was waiting for it."

The words settled heavily. Aya let them sit for only a heartbeat before turning back to the Frost Fire men.

"Vignir’s passages," she said. "What of them?"

The man exhaled. "Camped on. All of them."

That drew a reaction at last—low curses, a shift of weight, hands tightening around hilts.

"Every known route south is watched," he went on. "Some lightly. Others... not. They’re baiting us, my Lady."

Aya’s gaze sharpened, calculating.

"How heavy?"

"Most are garrisoned," he said. "Fifty to a hundred strong. Pikes. Watchfires. Enough to stop a small group like ours. Enough to catch riders who think themselves clever." He hesitated. "One pass remains thin. An old stone road through broken hills. No fortifications. Just men, a fair number of them, but the terrain alone is enough to stop anyone from passing through. And if we’re spotted—"

"We won’t be able to withdraw," Seth finished quietly.

"No," the Frost Fire man agreed. "They’ll try to take or worse, kill Lady Aya again."

Aya nodded once. "Then that’s our road."

Seth turned toward her. "You’re planning to force it."

"If we’re found out," Aya said calmly, "we don’t scatter. We strike fast. Hard enough to break through before they can even reinforce."

Her eyes lifted, distant now.

"We don’t have time," she said. "We have to break through or Shin won’t make it. We all won’t make it."

No one argued.

Aya turned then, already issuing orders.

"I want missives prepared," she said. "One to my husband. One to my brother, Commander Elex. And one to the Warden of the North. My brother Juno must also know that the Northern territories are being targeted again."

Seth stiffened slightly at that—but said nothing.

"The King must know Ceadel was a trap," Aya continued. "That King Therin is dead. Negotiations are impossible now with that bastard in that hall."

Her jaw tightened. "Commander Elex must know the same," she added. "And that I misjudged the West and that I will not let that mistake compound."

The Frost Fire men moved at once, pulling writing paper and sealing wax from saddlebags.

Aya watched the flames for a moment longer.

Then, softly—only to herself:

"I can’t believe it’s happening again."

***

The camp was silent except for the low sounds of preparation.

Aya stood just beyond the firelight, cloak set aside, re-adjusting the plates of her armor with practiced movements.

Aya stood just beyond the firelight, cloak set aside, re-adjusting the plates of her armor with practiced movements. The metal was a blend of worlds—southern blackened steel etched with faint sigils, northern silver at the edges, dark blue leather beneath.

Each strap was pulled tight with habitual precision. Each buckle checked twice.

Her fingers paused briefly at her shoulder, just beneath the silver edge of the gorget.

The wound there had healed a long time ago. The memory had not.

"You’ll misalign the back plate if you pull it that way."

She did not turn. Seth’s voice reached her easily now—quiet, observant, always careful with space. He had learned where to stand around her. Where not to.

"I can—" he began, already stepping forward.

"No. Let me handle it."

Masa’s voice cut across the space, firm and immediate. There was no anger in it. No challenge. Just plain edging out.

Seth stopped.

Masa crossed the gap between them with the easy confidence of someone who had been standing behind Aya’s back longer than most had known her name. His hammer rested against his shoulder, a familiar weight. The scars on his hands caught the firelight as he reached for the strap at her back.

"That’s not how it’s done," he said, already working the leather loose, then tight again. "Shin always did the fastening. If he can’t, then it’s me."

Aya glanced over her shoulder.

For a moment, the hard lines of command eased. Something warmer surfaced—old, familiar. She nodded once and let her hands fall to her sides.

Seth held her gaze briefly, searching her face for a heartbeat too long, then inclined his head and stepped away.

"I shall leave you to it then."

Masa let out a snort at the statement and began working carefully, fingers sure, adjusting the plates with the same blunt tenderness he applied to everything he cared about. He checked weight, balance, reach—his brow furrowed as if the armor itself might betray her if he missed something.

He had done this before—many times. The familiarity settled something tight in Aya’s chest.

The three of them, Aya, Shin, and Masa, met each other after the war ended in the North. After King Ive had died, after Aya had already learned how to survive loss and rule in silence. Masa and Shin had become her gentle escape from the reality that was her station back in Vetasta.

Masa had been gruff then too. Loud. Unfiltered. The kind of man who said the wrong thing at the wrong time and then stood between you and the consequences anyway. Shin was the more reserved one, always careful, always bailing the two of them out of trouble. They had never treated Aya like a myth or a symbol—only like a person who needed backup, whether she admitted it or not.

Both treated her fairly, that was for certain. Friends, when she needed it. Shields, when she required it. Brothers, when she longs for it. Theirs was a relationship that balanced everything out in Aya’s space.

"You still don’t trust Frost Fire," Aya said quietly, breaking the silence, glancing at Masa’s face.

Masa snorted again. "I trust Frost Fire."

A firm tug on the strap.

"I just don’t trust their pretty leader."

Aya let out a breath that might have been a laugh. "Ah, why not?" she said.

"Too pretty," Masa said flatly. "And coming on too strong."

"Coming on too... strong?" Aya said thoughtfully.

Masa’s mouth curved into a grin. "Yes. If you don’t know what that means..."

Aya tapped his forehead with the back of her hand and he just shrugged.

He finished the last strap and stepped back, eyes scanning her armor one final time, like a man checking the edge of a blade before handing it back.

Then his expression shifted as his gaze reached her face.

She tried to hide it, she really did. But like her blood brothers, Masa knew the lines her face drew with every emotion.

"...You feel guilty, don’t you?"

Aya didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

Masa exhaled through his nose, slow and steady. "Don’t," he said. "We signed up for this. All of us. You didn’t put that arrow in him."

Aya’s jaw tightened. "I just don’t want to lose any more people. And I think I caused this unneccessary—"

Masa rested his hand briefly against her pauldron—solid, grounding, unafraid. "You won’t," he said. "Don’t worry."

She offered Masa a small smile, finally allowing herself some sort of reprieve.

"Let’s get out of this hellhole, huh, Aya?" Masa reached out to ruffle her hair before stepping away and back to assume his role in her group.

She nodded once.

And then the moment was gone—folded away with the cloak, with the armor, with everything that had to wait until after.