5.5 - Under the Ice Blades Read Free Page A

Zirkander had recovered him from the kidnappers, she hadn’t received the impression that Angulus blamed her, hated her, or otherwise wanted to punish her. Yet here she was.
    Zirkander’s gaze shifted past her shoulder, toward an elevated walkway and bleachers that overlooked the muddy training field. “You may get a chance to talk to the king yourself.”
    Kaika followed his gaze and spotted King Angulus and four bodyguards standing on the walkway. He leaned against the railing, looking out over the obstacle course and the harbor beyond it. Perhaps due to the drizzle, he wore none of the trappings of office, being dressed only in practical boots, trousers, and an oilskin jacket and cap to repel water. Even without kingly accoutrements, there was no mistaking his tall and broad build or his face, which included a square jaw, deep brown eyes that noticed everything, and short, curly hair that was more gray than brown these days. He was in his mid-forties, and any woman would find him handsome, though perhaps not in the take-a-second-look-to-adequately-fuel-later-fantasies way that Zirkander was. Had he been a mechanic or soldier she’d met in a bar, she might have had a chance at luring him off for an evening of carnal pleasures, but whoever kings had carnal pleasures with, it wasn’t mud-spattered field officers.
    After giving them a nod, Angulus headed for stairs that led down to the field.
    “I’m sure he’s here to talk to you , sir,” Kaika said.
    “Probably here to see if any of the cadets look promising. Most of them should still be in the academy, but with the elevated Cofah threat, we need to get more qualified pilots in the air.” Zirkander waved at her before heading toward the bottom of the stairs. “You better get them back to work. And try to make them look good for the king, will you?”
    “Good? It’s my first day here, sir. Eventually, I might be able to convert them from so-embarrassing-they-trip-over-their-own-boots to awkward-but-with-potential. That day isn’t here yet, and good is an extremely distant goal.”
    “Do your best.”
    While Zirkander spoke with the king, Kaika rounded up the troops and started more teams through the obstacle course. She kept an eye on Angulus, planning to run up and ask for an audience before he left. It was presumptuous, but it wouldn’t be the first time she had been presumptuous with him. Early in her military career, she had earned her spot in the elite forces program, a program that had never been open to women, after blowing up an urn in the castle to demonstrate to the king that she would make a fine addition to the demolitions unit. She had never known if Angulus, fresh to the throne after his father’s death back then, had found her antics bold and admirable or appalling and inappropriate. Either way, he’d seen fit to give her special permission to apply for the program, and when she had passed all of the tests, both physical and in demolitions school, nobody had stopped her from joining the unit.
    Out on the training field, she was distracted from her plans of addressing the king when a male cadet challenged her, wanting to know if she could make it through the course in the allotted time. Though she thought the brat lippy for questioning her abilities, she had seen enough of the youths to know she could beat them. With the male infantry officers, it might have been different, especially for those on track for the elite forces, but these people had been chosen based on their ability to calculate math equations in the air, not because they excelled in athletics. Kaika ran side by side with her challenger for the first half of the course, her long legs taking her over the log hurdles with ease, and thanks to regular training, she had enough upper body strength to sweep her through the ropes and over the wall more quickly than he. She was waiting for him at the end when he finished, and she wriggled her fingers in invitation, to make it clear that