Ashkii said nothing.
Amaruk unclenched his fist. “Let’s get it over with,” he said curtly.
Lannahi’s gaze shifted to the shortest of the women, a girl whose face spoke so clearly of uncertainty and fear that it was embarrassing to look at it. “What about Sevii?” she asked, returning her gaze to Amaruk.
The man didn’t even glance in the teenager’s direction. His attention was again on Ashkii’s face. “She wasn’t a member of my pack at the time of the attack.”
“And now?”
“She’s a traitor. I don’t want someone like that in my pack.”
Sevii’s eyes widened. She stared at the man as if she didn’t understand what he said, but Ashkii twitched as if he had hit her. It occurred to Lannahi that the woman really intended to take the young girl in as one of their own. To be cast out, Sevii had nowhere else to go and it was all Ashkii’s fault.
“Remove their coats and shoes,” Lannahi said to Amaruk, feeling suddenly very tired.
The man didn’t reply but gestured at shapeshifters guarding the women. To remove their outerwear, the guards had to untie their hands, but none of the women took the opportunity to fight back. Sevii was shuddering, but judging from the tears slowly running down her cheeks, the cold was not the reason.
Lannahi forced herself to remember.
“We will escort the witch onto the lake and then withdraw. On my sign, Sevii, you will use your landshaper’s power and crush the ice under the feet of the Queen of Goldfrost. This will be your test.”
“Y-you want to kill the Queen of Goldfrost?”
“Why do you assume you will kill her? You insult the queen. Lannahi defeated a landshaper in a duel. A cold bath is nothing to her.”
When the women were undressed until they only wore thin shirts and pants, Amaruk’s guards lead them to the vats of cold water. Lannahi turned to the enchanter standing behind her shoulder.
“Dallal, ten seconds under the water and ten above. Repeat until I tell you otherwise.”
The man nodded and moved toward the women with four short chains slung over his shoulder.
“Your answer, Sevii?”
“I-I will do it.”
With the help of the guards, the women entered the tub, and even the proudest of them couldn’t control a grimace when their skin came into contact with the icy water. They knelt down.
The members of Amaruk’s pack, who were guarding the women, threw a sinister glance at Dallal, but they obeyed the orders of their alpha and stepped aside. The enchanter began muttering spells. The chain in his hands came to life and flew toward Ashkii.
Amaruk twitched and took a step toward her before remembering himself. When the chain wrapped around the woman’s shoulders, he clenched his fists.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Dallal enchanted the chains one by one, and once they were wrapped around the shoulders of all the women, he gave them another order, “Pull down.”
The women fell face down into the water. Lannahi wasn’t sure if any of the women managed to take a breath.
Crack.
When ten seconds passed, Dallal ordered the chains to pull the women up to a sitting position. They coughed and spat. Barely having time to take in air, the chains pulled them again underwater.
Ice on her skin.
Snow started falling from the gray clouds hanging low in the sky. Gradually, the women were getting used to the pace Dallal imposed, and flashes of defiance could be seen on their faces again. Lannahi didn’t modify her order. The idea was not to drown them. It was to keep them cold.
Ice inside her body.
The women whom Amaruk called Inik and Sagii looked at Lannahi, but as the cold cut into their bodies, they looked more and more like Sevii who focused only on catching her breath and closing her eyes at the right moment.
