The Angel of Frost

XX.

Two years have passed since Asraca's destruction. Its lands, once rich for farming, have become desolate fields of black snow.

Hasuma has gone missing. Hasuantar has gone quiet; no news has arrived from his river palace. Hiames fears the worst, thinking Lissandra has finally captured him and that he is next - the final piece of the monstrous demon known as Leviathan.

In a distant kingdom, Jonah dons a cloak to perform a quest that, if failed, could place his already delicate position in jeopardy . . .

*

Jonah felt like a criminal as he slipped the cloak over his shirt.

Hiames had insisted that this was the only way to gain an audience with the king of Pontia for a few minutes - they had no status, no power, and no wealth to gain even minute favor in the eyes of the king.

He'd call for his guards within seconds of seeing him, of course, unless if he followed Hiames's plan, which involved a particularly nasty bit of extortion.

As Jonah pocketed the device to be used for the extortion - a shard of ice that Hiames would cause to project images upon the air on Jonah's signal - he felt even more like a thief. He wasn't going to steal anything, he only needed to do some convincing, but he still felt more like a criminal than a diplomat or a negotiator.

Negotiating? That sounds like something a kidnapper would do, he absently thought.

He'd wondered more than one why Hiames wouldn't just take of the kingdom in a flurry of ice and hail, seeing his power as a deity, but he had refused, saying once he'd taken over he'd have to rule over a kingdom that had no trust in him, and whose people were always on the brink of rebellion.

It made sense - in fact, this whole plan, as foolish as it seemed, made some sense to Jonah - but that didn't stop him from wishing that there was some easier way to go about searching for the cure.

If everyone would try to settle their differences for at least a day, everyone would go mad - because they'd only be able to try, we all can't do it! At this thought he laughed.

"And what are you laughing about, Jonah?" Diana asked. Her smile seemed impish, as she was wearing a cloak much like Jonah's. "Going mad in the face of impending doom?"

"Nah, just had a thought," he replied, still chuckling. "Do you think we'll be getting out of this in one piece?"

"No," Diana answered honestly. "No, I don't think we will - but I don't think it's our bodies that won't emerge in one piece."

Diana grabbed her traveler's bag and murmured a short chant. The bag shrunk to the size of a walnut. With haste she pocketed it.

It was their failsafe. Inside it were glass vials filled with Blivoom serum, a dark liquid extracted from a flower known to induce forgetfulness. Once exposed to air, the liquid would turn to clouds of sleep-inducing gas. If their mission failed, they'd have to remove the corks off the bottles and cover their mouths and noses with cloth, then flee as fast as possible.

The gas, formed from vaporous, concentrated serum, made those affected forget recent memories. That way, whoever who would discover them would forget their existence, and they could try breaking into the palace again.