Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Roberd winced again, as if her words had stung him personally. Iseult studied the pain in his face, her mind racing. Could she get through to him, get him to understand? “Brias can end the fighting,” she said, trying to keep her voice low and reasonable. “My people want a king. They want order and peace. I know you understand that. You are royal. You understand the responsibility.”

  “I do,” Roberd agreed, still as if she’d scratched his nerves raw. “But even if he believes it to be his responsibility, it’s not yours.”

  She had to keep going. “Do you love your people, Roberd?”

  “This isn’t about me,” he snapped.

  “I love my people,” she said, “and they need me.”

  “Iseult—”

  “Have you thought about all the good you could do for your people if you actually lived among them?” she pressed. “You told me that you always wanted to build bridges and dams and towers. How many of those will you have the chance to build on Maze Island?”

  The gleam in his eyes told her that she’d scored another hit. He liked to think of himself as an engineer. But he only said, “I’ll be able to build something greater.”

  Patronizingly, she raised her eyebrows. “The Circle?”

  “The Circle will do more good than anything you can hope to accomplish here. Believe me.”

  Iseult shook her head. “You don’t believe that yourself.”

  Roberd studied her, and then his face relaxed, to become solemn, sympathetic. It was so sudden it had to be a trick, something to manipulate her, and he proved it by saying, “This won’t bring back the family you lost.”

  You bastard. Her mother and father, her grandfather, her uncle, so many cousins, so many friends, so many lost to these wars, these two centuries of civil wars. Only with peace could she protect the family she still had. Her last two warrior cousins, her sisters and all the other women and girls scattered by marriage, all the babies being born to them, they were all counting on her. They needed her. Their lives depended on her. Her jaw hurt from the effort to keep from screaming her grief as she whispered, “You have never lost anyone.”

  Roberd’s eyes hardened again. “You don’t know what I’ve lost,” he growled.

  “Then tell me!” she begged. “Tell me what happened to you!”

  Roberd stared at her for a long time, obviously trying to decide if he should answer her. Iseult managed to stand up straighter and compose herself as she waited, breathing deeply, holding the warm magic of her people within the cool depths of the earth magic surrounding her. Talk to me, Roberd. Show me how to change your mind.

  “If I tell you,” he said finally, “will you promise to come back with us? Where you belong, where you’re truly needed?”

  She doused a flare of impatience. “I am not asking for a secret or some kind of bargain.”

  “Then—”

  “Roberd, just explain. Convince me that you are right! How else can I trust you?”

  “How—God in heaven, would you think about it for one moment?” His fingers curled, as if ready to strangle her or tear his own hair out. “What you’re doing here, what you’re trying to do, it doesn’t work! It’s never worked! We’ve studied it, we know what’s happened every time in history that sorcerer becomes the power behind the throne. We know what’s happened when a sorcerer tries to enforce the peace!”

  I am different. She knew it was true and she did not need to repeat it to him. I will not make the mistakes that other sorcerers made.

  “You can’t have both absolute authority and a clear conscience,” Roberd insisted. “You may think you’re protecting your people. But the world needs to be protected from us much more than it needs to be protected by us.”

  Nothing Roberd was saying was new, and none of it applied to her. “Those are proverbs, not arguments,” she said calmly. “And you believe them no more than I do.”

  Roberd bit back his next words half-formed. His eyes narrowed. A shift in his stance raised alarms in her mind, and slowly he pulled his arms close to his body and rested his clenched fists against his chest.

  Within her, Iseult felt the thousand tiny streams of warm Thendal magic slow down, as if choked with sludge. She braced herself and tightened her grip on her people. Then his next breath was very deep, and he stood straighter, his arms falling to his sides but his hands still in fists. The streams of her people’s magic began to break out of their smooth, straight courses to her, squirting and spraying, slipping, and she dropped deeper into the cold well of earth magic to boost her strength with its power. But Roberd could command earth magic too, and its icy current constricted under the pressure of his will.

  Suddenly and instinctively, she crouched down, and an enormous raven split the air where she’d been standing. She darted her eyes up to the sky and saw Diero. The Medean sorcerer shrieked past Iseult’s head again, but Iseult ducked again, and he missed again. Just above him spun a vortex of winds that she could not see, only feel, but she knew what it could do. The spinning air was charged with static lightning, and Diero only had to touch her to bring that lightning down on her with a sound like rocks breaking the sky. On Maze Island, only months ago, Iseult had seen and heard him use it to kill one of his own magi.

  The two of them should have been on the same side. He should have been supporting her in resisting Roberd. The Medeans had also been embroiled in civil war for generations, and Diero should have been helping his people just as Iseult was helping hers. But Diero had never wanted peace. He was a thug. If she let him touch her with that lightning and thunder, Roberd would use that distraction to wrest her people’s magic and the earth magic from her completely, and then he and Diero could smother her will. Marlon had done it during her training, and the helplessness she’d felt had been sickening.

  The dread she felt now was just as sickening, but no matter what, she had to keep her head. She needed time, and she needed distance. As she backed away, her eyes, ears, and skin were tuned to Diero, but her core stayed focused on Roberd. She stretched her mind further to reach more of her people, to tap strength not only from the townspeople and Brias’s force, but from the farms and villages for miles around. She strained to raise more earth magic, to merge the land, her people, and her will into a single seamless flow of power. Roberd could do the same, but the Thendal magic would not bind so strongly to him as it would to her.

  She hoped. She did not know.

  This is my homeland! These are my people! That is the truth!

  She ducked away from Diero again. As she moved, her body stretched, and that helped her mind to stretch and gather more streams from more of the people. The further she reached, the less she could feel of Roberd. She avoided another dive from Diero and slipped by Roberd’s outstretched hand, and the churn of Thendal power smoothed toward her and away from him. This is my homeland! These are my people!

  Then Roberd’s strength suddenly surged. Iseult lost her balance, panicked, and fell. She landed hard on her side, and Diero shrieked and struck, but she rolled away and his claws missed her. She clenched her fists and teeth and mind to hold onto her people’s magic and the earth magic as she tried to climb back her feet, but another slash from Diero sent her ducking and rolling away again.

  Then his claw caught in her hair. Light blinded her eyes and noise shattered her ears, and everything rocked. She screamed without thought at the pain, clenching herself inward, fighting to anchor herself to the ground, to the earth magic, to her people, to her own power. She forced her eyes open, and from flat on her back she saw Roberd standing over her.

  He was not alone. Hana was at his left, still wincing from the light and noise, but her hand held tight to his shoulder. The mystic Kroldon sorceress did not like violence, but she was here anyway. She was here to help beat Iseult into submission. Only Vonn could have convinced her to do that.

  Vonn. He stood with his hand clamped over Roberd’s right shoulder. Too tall, gangly, and beardless, the Khenroxan sorcerer looked no more comma
nding than he ever had. His magic and the force of his personality had always been so strong that he’d never needed to look the part. Right now she hated him more than she’d ever hated anyone.

  Her mind was stretched wide across the land as she groped for more power, but she could not sense any other sorcerers near. If the others of their Circle really were here, they were keeping their distance. Holding my magi. Bringing the ship. Vonn was taking no chances. He was keeping both Kemur and Pellata away from her so that neither broken love nor broken friendship could possibly be mended.

  Iseult rolled to stand up. Diero hovered in his vortex above her. Roberd held onto the earth magic and the energy of Iseult’s people with renewed strength. Tripled strength, Iseult realized, dread and awe closing over her pounding heart. Roberd had inherited from Sorceress Felise not only Telgard magic, but all magic—Thendal, Khenroxan, Kroldon, all of it. Marlon had told Iseult that this might happen, but she hadn’t understood what it meant. It meant that Roberd could draw magic from Vonn and Hana as if they were Telgard magi. That meant the two of them could strengthen Roberd’s grip on the Thendal magic, so that he could pull more of that energy than Iseult could. And instead of trying to draw earth magic themselves, they could strengthen Roberd’s grip on that, so that he could pull more of that energy than Iseult could.

  It meant Roberd could draw power from everyone, from everywhere. It meant Roberd was an entire Circle in himself. It meant …

  “You don’t need me,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  Vonn seemed about to speak, but he bit it back. Hana’s dusky face remained as solemn as ever. Roberd’s blue eyes widened with entreaty, but he too remained silent. They did not need her in order to complete their Circle. Roberd could be the Circle’s link to all Thendal magic. He’d said it only moments ago. “I can bind to the Circle’s Thendal magic, and tie you into it.”

  This was not about them needing her. It was about them controlling her. They had decided that they did not approve of what she was doing, and therefore they should stop her. Since they did not need her, they would not care if they hurt her, or even if they killed her.

  Fear seized her then, fear she hadn’t known for years, not since she’d broken through her inhibitions and found her magic. Without a miracle, Roberd and the others would overwhelm her. My God, help me, Iseult prayed. Please help me! I am saving lives. I am forging peace. Help me resist them!

  Suddenly, she saw a chance, and before she could lose her nerve, she attacked. A deluge of earth magic flooded into Roberd’s mind and made him stagger. Iseult kept forcing all her power into the torrent, despite the pain tearing through her head. She would push it so hard and so fast, it would rip all Thendal magic out of his control. But with Vonn and Hana strengthening him, he held on. His magic silted all the streams, and Iseult could feel the flows of all the foreign magic giving him power. As they struggled for control, the ground beneath them began to tremble.

  Hoofbeats. She could sense hoofbeats through the ground. Now she could hear them clearly, hundreds of hoofbeats. Brias. Brias was coming with his mounted knights, dozens of them, maybe all two hundred of them. She’d told Louis to tell Brias to stay in camp, but she should have known that Brias would not. He would think that he and his cavalry could help Iseult defeat Roberd. But whatever he thought he could do against one sorcerer would be useless against four. Worse than useless. They must stop! They must stay clear!

  Diero lunged, forcing her to back even further down the hardened dirt road. As the raven swooped back into the air with a screeching call, Hana and Vonn broke away from Roberd to run past Iseult, and Iseult immediately threw her strength into another attack, hoping to break Roberd’s grip on her people’s magic completely. But though the streams resurged toward her, still Roberd held fast, and suddenly she realized that she could not focus on him anymore. The oncoming knights had split into two columns, one curving to the right to bear down on Hana and the other moving left to confront Vonn, and Iseult’s heart pounded with fury and terror as she realized what the Kroldon sorceress and the Khenroxan sorcerer meant to do.

  “Stop!” she screamed desperately with her voice and her mind. She could not protect Brias’s men, and they could do nothing to protect her. “Stop!”

  She saw Vonn face one column of knights, his body rigid and his hands pushing slowly forward. All at once the horses in the lead lost their footing. As they fell, the horses behind them crashed into them.

  Wordless anguish tore out of Iseult’s throat. She ran toward them, stretching her reach, trying to use the earth magic beneath them to break apart the force of their motion and stop the chain reaction Vonn and Hana had started. But Diero kept forcing her to evade him, and Roberd’s mind dragged at hers like a sea anchor, fighting her for control of the magic. As she watched, helpless and horrified, the lines of horses and armored knights piled up like snow driven against a mountain’s face. Harder and faster and further they crashed, from the front of the lines all the way to the back, to the commanders now cresting the ridge, to Brias—

  She did not see what happened to him. She did not need to. Her bond with the king was not weak, and his death scalded her mercilessly. She staggered.

  Vonn was in front of her now, rage contorting his face. “This is how you help your people?” he shouted at her. “By throwing them at us? By making them die for you?”

  Iseult stared up at him, just trying to breathe, just trying to endure the burning pain engulfing her mind. With an animal snarl, Vonn swung his fist and smashed it into her jaw.

  She was on the ground, blood filling her mouth. In that instant, Roberd’s power erupted like a geyser. This scalding was so severe it blinded and deafened her, and worse, something cracked inside her, a terrible shearing like glacial ice. Suddenly her power was tearing itself apart, spinning away in all directions, the earth magic draining out of her body, her people’s energy evaporating from her mind.

  She was empty. She was hollow.

  A shadow and a gust of air fell over her, and Diero’s claws drove into her back. A flash of lightning drowned her in agony, and then oblivion.

  Chapter 1

  Tabitha sighed and looked down at her hands. Her pale skin was almost blue with chill, and she curled her fingers into the folds of her skirt. The air in the chapel felt damp and cold as she sat in the back row of the choir benches with her face turned toward the wall. All of the little Lord Abban’s Lights in their brass racks had guttered out. The dimness and the musty smell of the tapestries perfectly matched the melancholy that hung over her like rainclouds.

  Master Manay had finally ended the lesson and stalked out on his stubby legs. He had kept snapping at her to pay attention, to focus on her technique, to stretch one octave higher. He did not understand how wrong it felt for her to sing right now. He had not shown one bit of sympathy. He had even taken the oil lamp with him.

  Nan would not have liked to have seen Tabitha’s skin so clammy. She would have muttered to herself as she fetched a big shawl and some hot tea. Her nanny had always been worried that Tabitha was not warm enough, and had never been satisfied until there was a flush in her cheeks.

  More than a month ago, only a few paces from where Tabitha sat, Nan’s coffin had lain over the altar well. More than a month without her kindness, without her watchful eye, without her ghost stories. She had told so many ghost stories about this very castle, she should have become a ghost here herself.

  More than a month ago. Why am I still so sad?

  “M’lady?”

  Tabitha looked over her shoulder, and across the dim chapel she saw old Aime. The head housekeeper was framed by grey daylight peeking through the garden door, and behind her stood a guardsman and his dog. “M’lady, your father the duke requires your presence in his study.”

  Tabitha sighed again, but stood, and she smoothed her veil and her skirt before she rounded the choir benches. She followed Aime out to the covered walkway, hurrying to get indoors again before the spring wind could gust,
and then into the empty, echoing dimness of the great hall. At the short passage connecting the hall to the ducal palace, the guardsman took his post while Aime led Tabitha through the unlit council chamber to the narrow door in its corner, held by another guardsman and dog. He bowed and opened the door for her, revealing the golden glow of lamplight.

  Her father was hunched over the counting-table, and he ignored her as she came in and took one of the heavy chairs. Under the table, his old hunting dog snored as it slept. Tabitha sat with her head bowed over her cold hands folded in her lap, hoping that if her father noticed that she was upset, he would let her go. But he just kept moving counters from one stack to another and writing figures on an open ledger. Annoyed, Tabitha focused on the bald spot in his gold-and-silver hair and tried to decide if it had grown bigger since the last time she had noticed it. It probably had. He was old, after all, well past forty, almost fifty. He even looked a little fat today, his bearded face jowly and his signet ring gripping his finger too tightly. Tabitha watched him for a long time before losing patience, and she sighed loudly to remind him that she was there.

  He did not look up, but briefly raised one finger to her. After a few more notes, he finally set his quill down. He leaned back in his chair, and his grey eyes regarded her expectantly.

  She knew that he wanted her to make a guess about why he had summoned her. She knew that there were clues in the study, and that he wanted her to notice them and consider them. But she did not care. “You sent for me, Father.”

  His nose wrinkled in irritation. “And can you deduce why?”

  I am not a maga. I can’t read your mind. “No, Father.”

  His eyebrows lowered. She waited. When she decided she had waited long enough, she asked, “May I be excused?”

  He looked at her sternly for a long time, but then said, “The Telgard ambassador has agreed to present the proposal to his king.”