Riveted (43 page)

Why didn’t they kill him? Why didn’t they revolt as Källa believed they would? What were they waiting for?

Whatever Källa had seen in them, Annika couldn’t see it now. Only men who’d been beaten and hurt. Only a monster who’d taken pleasure in hurting them.

She started the troll again, fighting back tears of rage and sickness.
Lorenzo wouldn’t squeeze a single drop from her. She would never give him that satisfaction.

And yet she must be already. Her breath came short and fast. Her control over the troll was failing, the foreleg sliding, the rhythm off, everything swaying, off balance.

No.
That wasn’t her. This was a quake.

Sudden terror iced her chest. She dropped the troll into a squat. Violent jolts rocked through them, the lanterns swinging wildly, pure darkness ahead. Sick with fear, Annika gripped the levers, praying that the tunnel didn’t collapse.

Her stomach felt on the verge of vomiting when the shaking stopped a minute later. Her limbs were heavy, impossible to lift, to start moving again—fearing that with a single step, the ice would shatter around them.

Behind her, Lorenzo said, “Well. We made it through that.”

That was enough to get her going again. Smashing down on the stompers, she drove the troll hard through the tunnel, desperate to be out—and away from the monster behind her and the horror she’d seen.

She almost cried with relief when the faint light appeared through the dark. The sun had risen while they’d been beneath the ice. She didn’t care that it all but blinded her as she emerged onto the glacier path.

A two-seater balloon was flying toward them, two figures in the cart. With her heart in her throat, she recognized the second man. David.

“And look at that, now.”

Lorenzo sounded surprised, but she wasn’t. David would have felt the quake. He’d known she was in the tunnel. Of course he would come.

Or perhaps he was surprised that David had convinced a guard to take him.

“You might as well stop, then. A few minutes of sun would do
us well. And we can send our bleeding man back in the balloon. It will be faster, and I’m sure Kentewess will not mind riding with us.”

Annika knew that Lorenzo just wanted to see what happened, wanted to observe them together. She didn’t care. As soon as the balloon landed, she ran to David. His arms closed around her, and the tears she’d been stopping had to come now. She buried her face in his shoulder.

David didn’t let her hide. Gentle fingers tilted her chin up. Dark concern shadowed his face, deep worry. “Are you all right?”

Throat blocked by a sob, she nodded.

“God, Annika.” He clutched her to him. “I was terrified. I could only imagine the glacier falling in on you.”

She’d been terrified, too. But she wasn’t now. Only relieved, so relieved. She was all right. With David, it wasn’t just riveting need. The world around them was falling apart, but there was something good here in his arms, something perfect.

And she knew exactly where home was.

She caught his face in her hands. “I love you.”

His lips parted. He stared at her, his gaze full of disbelief and hope, as if he thought he’d only imagined the words. So she said them again.

“I love you, David.”

Tears glistened in his eye. Then his mouth covered hers, a kiss brimming with hope and joy, and that pushed the rest of the world away.

He lifted his head. His voice was rough with emotion. “I love you, too.”

Her heart leapt. “Already? I thought it would take you years.”

He laughed, nodding, and suddenly she was smiling, laughing, kissing him again. Even Lorenzo’s clearing throat couldn’t dim this happiness. She took David’s hand, led him back to the troll.

And it was much easier to drive when she wasn’t alone.

With Lorenzo in the troll with them, she had little opportunity
to speak to David before lunch, and then his attention was demanded by Paolo, who had carried in a journal and a survey map. She could not keep her eyes from him as he bent his head over Paolo’s notes.

He loved her.

She regarded him with a silly grin until she happened to glance toward Lorenzo. The other man was frowning slightly, which sent a chill through her bones.

“What are you working on, Father?”

Paolo didn’t lift his head. David did, his gaze meeting Lorenzo’s, and she’d never before seen his expression so cold. “I asked your father about the project on the peninsula.”

“It is quite something,” Paolo said. The eagerness lighting his face resembled the same eagerness she’d seen the previous night when he spoke of the moon project. “I’d forgotten how elegant it was, which is likely why it appealed to Stone Kentewess as well. He always said in his designs that the elegance is in the simplicity, and this is, in fact, very simple—though the work might take years.”

He laughed as if making a joke. Lorenzo’s brow creased.

“Years?”

“Oh, yes. We have been looking through my notes all morning. The idea is simple, but there will be much to build.”

“But you still have to finish the suit.”

“The suit is done.” Irritation filled his voice. “It has been done.”

“Then the project is all but done, Father. We have only the final charges to lay.”

His father suddenly laughed, nodding. “Yes, yes. It will be perfect. It will be ready for me when I’ve finished with this.”

“You want to put it on hold?” An edge of strain appeared in
Lorenzo’s voice. “We are fortunate today that the earthquake did not ruin it all, Father. If we delay, it’s a certainty that something will.”

“Then let it!” Paolo snapped.

Surprised by the sudden vehemence, Annika looked to David. He wore a smile she’d never seen before, hard-edged and satisfied. He met her gaze and it changed, warmed.

“Father.” Lorenzo spoke with the measured tones of someone out of patience with a child. “Anyone can imagine this. If Stone Kentewess did, then anyone can build it. You don’t need to. It’s a small idea.”

David’s expression didn’t even flicker, as if he didn’t feel the insult to his father. He remained silent.

Paolo shook his head. “Even small ideas are critical. You cannot calculate the area of a circle without first learning to add two and two. You have only to look at Newton’s journal to see that it is true. All those men who were in a race to answer everything missed the simplest answer of all. I did the same with the mountain at Inoka. I meant to do everything at once: to heal the land, to clean the air, to stop a war. This will be a small step, yet it can still mean so much, count for more. Every little bit helps.”

“But the
moon
, Father. A legacy like that would overshadow the mountain. It could repair the di Fiore name, make it a worthy name for Olaf.”

“Olaf will make his own name. What will you make of it?”

“I will be the man behind you. The man who always supports his father.”

“Then support me in this!”

Lorenzo’s jaw tightened. Silenced. Annika stared in awe, then looked to David. Somehow, he’d done this—and he’d used the most effective weapon against Lorenzo: his father.

Would he retaliate? Blame David?

Annika couldn’t guess—but she didn’t think it would be right
now. Lorenzo stared at his father as if no other man existed in the world.

Finally, he nodded. “I promised to help you fulfill your dreams, Father. You can count on me for this.”

Lorenzo didn’t join her on the next trip to the tunnel. A few
words passed between the men, though so low she almost couldn’t hear them under the engine. As they were in Spanish, she couldn’t have understood them, anyway—she was simply glad to hear them.

She was pleased by everything. David loved her. She loved him, too. They might be soon abandoning this project and leaving the glacier. Lorenzo would be more of a danger, she knew. He would likely want to silence everyone in Vik and at this project so that they couldn’t smear the di Fiore name. But she and David
would
escape. She had no idea what the future might bring after that. Perhaps she would stay in Smoke Cove while he went on expeditions. It would kill her to be so far apart, but she would wait for his return.

Or perhaps she could convince him that all of his expeditions needed a troll.

She was so full of hope. She couldn’t stop dreaming of how it would be with him—not just in bed, though she anticipated that, but beyond the bed, too. Her dreams eased the fear, made the trip to the end of the tunnel pass more quickly.

The men filed out. Annika stoked the engine. The ice cart needed to be disconnected from the troll, so she tucked a spanner in her belt and dropped through the chest hatch, her mind still on David. The bolts loosened with a few sharp twists. The huffing engine above her drowned out every other sound.

Except for a crack and a sharp cry of pain.

Frowning, Annika looked behind her. Near the cart, a man lay on the ground, his arm raised to protect himself. A cube of ice had
shattered at his feet. The foreman stood over him, lifting his club again.

“Stop that!” Annika shouted over the engine, stepped forward. “You stop that now!”

The foreman looked to Annika. His eyes narrowed. He started toward her.

Shaking with rage, Annika gripped her spanner as he came closer, all but looming over her. Did he think to intimidate her with his great size? No doubt he meant to make her back down, make her run. He wouldn’t dare hit her.

He did.

His arm drew back and struck. Astonishment made her slow. She ducked to the side.

Pain split through the side of her head.

Darkness clouded her vision and suddenly receded. Her stomach was churning, her throat sour. When had she fallen to her knees? Her shaking hand fell away from her temple. Blood dripped to the ice floor and froze in crimson dots.

Giant boots stopped in front of her. Annika looked up, cringed. The foreman was still there, arm raised, poised to strike again.

He punished for any infraction. But if she stayed down here, maybe she wouldn’t be hit again. Or she could get into the troll, hit him back.

Or hit him now. Her fingers tightened on the spanner.

She swung hard. The heavy head smashed into his knee, the impact jolting through her arm. A shout of shock and pain tore through the sound of the huffing troll, the pounding in her ears. His arm came down.

But he was tall—his arm had a long way to go. She was a rabbit, small and quick, dodging the strike. The club chipped ice from the floor. With both hands, she slammed the spanner’s steel shaft down on his wrist.

A kick knocked her back, stunned. The spanner skidded away. Panicked, she scrambled for it. A hand grabbed her leg.

Screaming, Annika curled up and covered her head, waiting for the blow. There was only a
thunk!
of flesh.

Then only the huffing.

Slowly, she raised her arms. The laborer who’d dropped the cube of ice stood over the foreman, a pickaxe in his hands, the point buried in the foreman’s head. With a jerk of his arms, he pulled it out. Blood ran in a river.

She stared up at him in astonishment. He stared back, his chest heaving. Annika wasn’t sure who was more surprised.

But at least she knew one word.
“Gracias.”

Eyes still wide, he nodded.

Annika scooted away from running blood. Reaction set in like a punch to her chest, her stomach. She rolled over, heaved up her lunch, and knelt there, coughing and gagging. Everyone stared at her—fifty men, all as speechless as she. Annika pushed to her feet and gestured to the troll—but not everyone would fit. She bent for her spanner, moved to connect the carts again.

Finished, she gestured again. “Get in. I’ll take you all back to camp.”

A murmur ran through the men. Then the one who’d stopped the foreman stepped forward, shouted, raising his arms and the bloodied pickaxe. The men piled into the troll, the carts.

Work was done for the day.

Annika had to slow a few times in the tunnel, dizzy with
sick nervousness and the cut on her head, but steadied by the time she drove into the sun. The train of carts slid easily behind her troll, crowded with men. She drove straight into the clearing, settled the troll down.

Annika almost wished that she hadn’t been so quick to leave the driver’s seat when Lorenzo climbed up from the living quarters, frowning at the men in the carts. Some were still looking down. Others met his eyes.

His gaze froze on her forehead. “What happened? A cave-in?”

“No. We killed the foreman.”

He blinked, stepping back to look at the men again, then back at Annika, as if trying to decide who had done it. “How?”

Pleasure tinged the question, as if he enjoyed the surprise. She didn’t intend to give him any more. “We didn’t bring the body. It’s probably frozen to the tunnel floor now.”

“I’ll get it. Go on in, have your head looked at.”

Dismissing her, he turned and spoke to the men. There was
nothing more she could do here. She staggered a bit on the steps, but had steadied again by the time she passed through the tunnel and into the hearth room. Paolo and David were still at the table, maps spread across the surface. David glanced up.