by Bree Barton
She pointed at Quin. “He didn’t kill the boy, either. You’ve seen my memories. At least spare him the humiliation.”
The queen fixed her attention on Quin. She started to say something, then stopped.
She heaved a deep, long sigh.
“I invite you both to join me in the Feasting Hall. We’ll have something to eat. But first.” Freyja took a step toward Pilar, her face softening. “Your feet.”
“My feet?”
“Aren’t you sporting a broken toe or two, on account of my guards? Fulla can be a bit overzealous.”
With all the adrenaline pulsing through her, Pilar had forgotten all about her toes.
“And the scar on your cheek?” the queen pressed. “There’s a story there, no doubt.”
If Freyja thought the two of them were going to kick back with a bottle of vaalkä and compare battle scars, she was mistaken.
The queen reached out her hand. Pilar recoiled.
“I don’t mean to hurt you. I mean to help.”
“Doubtful. And I don’t like being touched.”
“Then I won’t touch you.”
The queen slipped the purple jewel out of her necklace and clenched it tightly in her fist. She closed her eyes. Exhaled.
Pilar felt a strange jarring in her bones. A vibration. It coated her in an easy, melted sort of bliss.
“There.” Freyja opened her eyes. “Better?”
Pilar wiggled her toes in her boot. Unbroken. She opened and closed her mouth. She hadn’t been able to move her jaw without pain in months. The fractured cheekbone and the scar that marked it were both gone.
The queen had healed her without touching her skin.
“Despite my Addi heritage,” said Freyja, “I am the only one in my family who does not have magic. I must rely on my stones.”
“Then I suppose I was wrong that stones can only store a Dujia’s magic,” Quin said darkly. “They appear to be able to yield power to people who do not have any power themselves.”
Pilar was angry. She hadn’t asked to be healed. But she was also struck by Freyja’s expression. The queen was beaming. Healing those wounds had made her happy.
Pilar was reminded of something she’d nearly forgotten: magic wasn’t always dark.
“Come,” said the queen, cracking her neck. She slid the purple gemstone back into the twisted metal band around her neck. “Our supper awaits.”
Chapter 20
Only One
THE FEASTING HALL WAS ugly. At least Pilar thought so. Long table. Low bench. Wooden rafters.
She didn’t like rafters.
“We are a people of many stews,” Freyja explained, nodding toward the steaming bowls being carried out from the kitchen. “Reinsdyr, lamb, fish—they say a hearty stew is the best way to stave off the cold winters. Sometimes we add lobsters for good measure.”
Pilar glanced at Quin, who looked away. They were both starving.
“No poison.” The Snow Queen picked up a lobster tail, drenched it in melted butter, and popped it in her mouth. “Just lobster.”
Pilar took a sip of vaalkä. Her first ever.
It was even better than she’d imagined. Like drinking a spiced cinnamon apple. She took a bigger sip. More of a swig, really. The slab of butter at the bottom of the glass greased her lips.
If the queen were trying to kill them, she’d have done it already. Pilar stabbed a filet of arctic char and dunked it in sweet dill sauce. Her tongue exploded with flavor.
Quin was more cautious. She watched him spear a boiled egg on the tip of his fork.
“We have Addi mooncake for Jyöltide.” Freyja motioned toward a tray of sweets. “Peanuts and taro—very rich. Be sure and try the snowdrops, too. Black licorice cake balls dipped in ivory chocolate. They’re a Luumi delicacy.”
She offered them the platter, then swiped one herself.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she said between chews, “I walk the Watching Chamber myself on occasion. Afterward I invite my uncle to observe my Reflections.”
“Why in four hells,” Pilar said, “would you willingly subject yourself to that?”
“It keeps me honest. If I’m hiding from some unpleasant truth in my own life, the Reflections ensure that I don’t hide from it for long. What right do I have to interrogate others if I don’t first interrogate my own mind?”
Pilar considered it. Though the effects of the Watching Chamber had faded, she still felt exposed. How was what Freyja had done any different than Angelyne with her moonstone, that foul white orb always swinging from her neck?
Still, the Snow Queen seemed different than Angelyne. Her methods were unorthodox, blurring the line between right and wrong. Her chamber of nightmares was brutal. But when Freyja said she tried to cause the least pain for the fewest of her people, Pilar believed her.
She felt another lick of guilt. After watching her mother use magic to cause people pain, Pilar had sworn it off entirely. But what if not using magic caused a person pain? She’d watched Quin getting gored right in front of her, when she could have saved his life.
Pilar had a disturbing thought. Most of her life she’d practiced magic because it was what her mother wanted. Now she was not practicing magic, because it was the opposite of what her mother wanted. Didn’t that mean, at the heart of it, her mother was still controlling what she did?
“I’d hoped to introduce you to my lady”—Freyja nodded to the empty place beside her—“but she isn’t feeling well tonight. Lord Dove, however, should be along shortly. Of course you’ve met already.”
“Do I hear you gossiping about me, Niece?”
A lean older man with a full white beard hurried into the Hall.
“Lord Kristoffin Dove,” the queen announced, smiling. “My most trusted advisor. The Grand Fyremaster of Luumia. And perhaps most important: my jolly uncle.”
Pilar recognized him immediately. During their journey from Glas Ddir he’d stayed on the outside of the carriage, bundled up in heavy cloaks and scarves with just his blue eyes peeking out. But she remembered the twinkle. He looked jolly. At the time she’d found it insulting.
“At last!” Dove cried. “Forgive me my tardiness. Now we can meet on proper terms, without a carriage wall between us. My niece has some funny ideas about making new friends.”
Pilar wholeheartedly agreed.
“Pilar d’Aqila!” Lord Dove pumped her hand with vigor. “Daughter of the fire kingdom, with a spirit to match. And you, young Killian prince!”
Dove extended a hand, which Quin stared at. After a moment the older man clapped him warmly on the back. “Very well, very well. It’s a pleasure to be reacquainted with you both.”
He settled himself on the bench next to Pilar. When she started to dip a forkful of lobster in a mysteriously lumpy cream sauce, he leaned in and whispered, “It’s full of clams.”
“Who puts clams on lobsters?”
“It’s ludicrous.” He tucked a napkin into his collar. “An affront to good sense.”
She couldn’t help it. She liked Lord Dove.
“So, my dear niece.” He turned to the queen, one eyebrow raised. “I assume you’ve thanked the Seven Souls for this Jyöltide feast?”
“You assume wrong.”
“Ever ensnared by assumptions, this is a man’s lot. Do you know who said that?”
“Let me guess. You’re about to tell me.”
“Takk, the great Addi poet three centuries ago. A fine purveyor of moral truisms!”
The queen sighed. “You’ll pardon my uncle. He’s always pilfering old proverbs. He speaks of dead men as if they sit among us.”
“Do they not? Their words have the power to carry them into this room, hundreds of years after their bodies have moldered in a crypt.”
“We’re eating, Uncle!”
“Who are the Seven Souls?” Pilar asked, genuinely curious.
Freyja waved a hand. “My uncle is referring to Græÿa and her six children. We pay homage to the
m every year at Jyöltide. It’s an old Addi myth, one that’s become very popular with the new visitors. Some believe Græÿa and her children did in fact exist, only to meet brutal ends.”
“Your dear old uncle, for one.” Dove turned to Pilar. “A culture is only as strong as its mythology. I believe our myths teach us about our own inclinations, both good and bad. What are we without our origin stories?”
“What do you care about those stories? You’re not even Addi!” Freyja waved a dismissive hand. “My uncle is a man of science, yet curiously also a man of faith. I myself have never been superstitious. I believe we each have the power to be goddesses of our own choosing. There is magic and majesty inside us all.”
“But you don’t have magic,” Quin said icily. The first words he’d spoken since sitting down. “It would appear there is not magic and majesty inside us all.”
The queen’s grin remained as good-natured as ever.
“As I said, magic does not belong to us, though we often act as if it does. The natural world has its own system of balances and imbalances. This is the power of the Elemental Hex. It is why the discovery of new fyre ice is so valuable, and why my uncle toils night and day in his laboratory to harness its power. He has merged magic with science in a way that no longer requires human pain.”
Pilar leaned forward, rapt. “You’re saying you’ve found a kind of magic that doesn’t come from an abuse of power?”
Lord Dove nodded. “I have divorced magic from suffering. The extraction process hearkens back to a much older time.”
He sat up straighter. “The history of Luumia is colored by the dark stain of the past. But we all bleed crimson. Oppression is a uniquely human legacy, one we can—must—change. Fyre ice has given us a way to exploit the world’s natural counterbalances for good instead of evil. It is both catalyst and container, a tool and a gift.”
“How does it work?” Pilar asked. “How do you extract the magic?”
Dove chuckled. “Forgive me, but the process is a bit technical. I’m sure you’d find it all rather boring.”
“Thanks to my uncle,” the Snow Queen said proudly, “we have emerged from a land of darkness into a land of light.”
Pilar was staring at Quin’s place, which no longer held Quin in it.
She pushed back her chair.
“Leave him be,” said Freyja. “He can’t have gone far.”
“Try the music room,” Lord Dove said. “I have a sixth sense about these things.”
The queen cast a sideways glance at her uncle, then picked up another lobster tail. Her fingers were slick with butter.
“East wing. But you should know—”
Pilar didn’t hear her. She was already gone.
It wasn’t hard to find the music room. Pilar followed the sounds of the piano.
The doors were propped open, but she lingered in the shadows behind them.
Quin had his back to her on the piano bench. The piano was solid white, just like everything else in the room, including two violoncelloes and a hideous clavichord.
Pilar noticed a pale birchwood violin mounted on the far wall. She wanted to touch it but didn’t want Quin to see. He might stop playing, and she loved hearing him play.
Quietly she leaned against the purple-veined wall. The strain of guilt she’d heard at supper was getting louder, mingling with the notes. I should have used magic to save him.
Pilar hated that she had one more thing to feel guilty about. One more apology she owed him. Like Karri and Mia Rose weren’t enough.
She closed her eyes. Instantly she was back in Kaer Killian. Lurking in the library with Quin at the shiny black piano. The song he’d played that night had power. The song he played now had even more.
His fingers stopped moving.
“I hear you,” he said.
“Liar,” she shot back. “I haven’t made a sound.”
“I feel you, then. Come in.”
She hugged the perimeter of the room as she entered. Made a playful attempt at punching the walls, which were warm.
“Fyre ice walls here, too.”
“It would appear the whole palace is one giant fyre ice cube.” Quin patted the piano bench beside him. “I’ll teach you a simple duet.”
“No.” She stayed upright, feeling suddenly shy. “Play me something.”
He didn’t need much convincing. The melody began in the lower octaves, the sounds as round and deep as thunder claps. Pilar felt the notes in her belly, and when his hands moved up an octave, in her chest.
When Quin closed his eyes, she could watch him unnoticed. She liked his expression when he played. It wasn’t that he looked calm or peaceful—the opposite. Sometimes he scrunched his nose until creases appeared on his forehead, curled his lip like a note had caused him physical pain. The prince didn’t look pretty. He looked real.
The melody was winding down. Quin’s fingers stilled.
“I wrote that for you,” he said.
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying. Only I suppose I shouldn’t say I wrote it—I haven’t composed music in some time. At least not on paper.”
He dragged his hand from the highest key to the lowest, the notes clanging together. Pilar winced.
Quin smiled. “I did make it up with you in mind, though. It used to be my favorite thing: sitting down at the piano in the library with no idea what I was going to play, then plunking my way toward something beautiful. It felt like I wasn’t in control, like there was some greater force flowing through me. Almost as if my fingers had a mind of their own.”
“You really made that up just now?” She sat on the bench, an inch of space between them. “I could never do that with violin.”
“Different instrument. Different musician.”
“You play music like it hurts you,” she said.
“Doesn’t music hurt everyone?”
Pilar wanted to hug him. Instead she folded her arms over her chest.
“When I play violin, it hurts,” she said. “But when I don’t play, it hurts more.”
“Music is meant to be a gift. For me it’s become an instrument of grief.” He splayed his fingers over the keys, struck a sweet-sounding chord. “You sure you don’t want to learn a duet?”
“You mean the Doomed Duet of Pil and Kill?”
“Gods no.” He leaned in, nudging her shoulder. “I was thinking something more cheerful.”
Pilar’s cheeks felt hot. Fiery.
“I didn’t know cheerful was your style, Killian.”
“I have been irredeemably glum, haven’t I?”
“I bet you could still redeem yourself.”
She pressed one knuckle into a skinny key. The sound hummed through her bones. For a moment she felt happy.
A truth settled into Pilar’s heart. She was scared. And not of the ice leopard.
Scared of losing Quin.
“I’ll play a duet with you,” she said. “But you’re on piano.” She nodded toward the violin hanging from the wall. “I’m on violin.”
“All the better. Then I can feast my ears and my eyes. You really are beautiful when you play.”
Pilar stood abruptly, hoping Quin wouldn’t see her pink cheeks. Her eye caught something small and brown on the music rack.
“Your dead men’s stones!” She reached for the leather pouch. “I’m dying to know what treasures you’ve been hiding in here.”
“I’ll take that back now.”
“Don’t be so sentimental.”
“Give it back, Pilar.” Quin’s voice had an edge.
She squeezed the contents between her fingers. To her surprise, she felt only one stone: a perfect round orb.
A knot formed in her belly’s pit.
“What’s in the pouch, Quin?”
He wouldn’t look at her.
“What have you been hiding?”
Pilar willed her hands steady as she shook out the leather pouch. Even before it thudded into her palm, she knew.
&nb
sp; Angelyne’s moonstone.
Chapter 21
Kissed by Fyre, Steeled by Ice
“IT ISN’T WHAT YOU think,” Quin stammered. “I can explain.”
Pilar stood and backed away from the piano bench. She ripped the moonstone off the chain, clutched it so tight her fingers turned white. She wanted to crush it to dust.
“Angelyne sent you. You’re her spy.”
“It isn’t like that. Please, I’m begging you—”
“And the protective stones you stole from the dead men in the Kaer? Was that a lie, too?”
“I . . .” He stared hard at the piano. “I started to steal them. That was the plan. You know what it was like, being in that place, under her control.”
Quin’s face was so pink and flushed it made her sick.
“I did go to the Hall of Hands.” He looked up at her. “That’s not a lie. But Angelyne found me. I tried to use the stones against her, but she was too strong.”
“Why should I believe you? You’ve told me nothing but lies.”
“He’s lied to us both,” said a voice behind her.
Pilar whirled around. It was Freyja, of course. The Snow Queen had a habit of creeping into rooms undetected. For once she wasn’t flanked by Frigg and Fulla.
“Why didn’t you watch his Reflections?” Pilar hissed. “Why did you only watch mine?”
“The wren only shows the Reflections you ask it to. And you asked me to leave him be.”
Pilar thrust out a hand. “Give it to me.”
The queen didn’t argue. She reached into her snow-fox cloak and pulled out the ruby wren. When she whispered into the cage of her hands, the bird flew across the music room.
Pilar snatched it from the air. She turned on Quin.
“Let’s see who you are, Killian. Who you really are.”
She coiled her arm, then chucked the bird as hard as she could against the marble wall.
At first, nothing. Maybe all nightmares had to be watched in the throne room.
Then on the wall, the purple veins ignited—and the darkness split into shadows.
It was a strange thing, watching someone else’s nightmares. A dark-haired boy hunched over a piano. The scene shifted: the boy was on his knees, screaming in a crypt. A man stood over him with a sticky knife.