by Ellie Cypher
A figure with hair as silver as the freshly falling starlight.
CHAPTER 43 On All Sides
Vela.” I didn’t scream it, didn’t say it any higher than a whisper, really. But nonetheless Bass flashed me a triumphant smile.
Everything, every look and gesture Vela had ever given, every word she’d said or lie she’d told, they all slammed into existence inside me. Next to me, Cody’s mouth were near to on the floor. Whatever he had been thinking, it certain clear weren’t this.
The women placed Vela, her head lolling limp between them, into the chair, securing her chains. None too gentle. And like the circling of desperate seals under the ice, the crowd were closing in. Fast.
My heartbeat thundered in my chest. The room suddenly too hot, too small, too—too everything all at once. I tried to stand. Only to find a hand slapped down hard on my shoulder. And myself back down on the chair.
Bass were standing right over me. Smile wide. I craned my neck, seeing little other than the worn gray furs of her coat.
“You gave us quite the chase out there, pigeon. Though to be honest, I didn’t think we’d find you again after that last storm. Nasty one, that. Miracle, really. Though Rill and Vig near lost your trail a few times, we found you in the end. Just like I said we would.”
Like Dev said she would. Please do not let Bass have killed him. I scanned desperate the faces around the room. He was not here.
Bass’s hand squeezed tighter and I cringed. “Nothing to say about it? Well, that’s alright, isn’t it, men?” She spun round to room. “We all have to thank you, it seems. What a treasure our little bird has brought us tonight. I’d ask you how you managed it all, though I think it would spoil the effect.”
The room laughed. Bass’s eyes sparkled. I ground my teeth. Cause nothing good out here ever sparkled. She leaned in close, her next words for me only.
“Some of the men said you were her. The Ice-Witch.” Bass shot a glance over her shoulder to Vela, who were now moaning low. “But not me, pigeon. Not me.” Bass gave me a gentle pat on my cheek. “You’re far too smart for that.”
I spat.
Bass, sidestepping it, ignored the gesture. “All this is just as my gran foretold. She said, ‘Sebastia, watch for the signs. For when our winters have grown too long, for when the ice refuses to let in even a single flicker of green, that’ll be the time. The Witch, with her gathered pieces, is testing her cage. And when her heart has come back to her, when she thinks she is the strongest, she will be at her weakest. With that mortal heart comes a mortal life. When that happens, you strike. And strike hard. It is what Warders were born for. Not to guard her, but to finish her. To shatter the Witch once and for all.’ ” Her voice had dropped, a shiver of something real. And gave my cheek a hard enough pat to leave my skin stinging. “I’ve no intention of lettin her down.”
She spun from me, arms raised high. Buoyed by the chants and calls of her people. Of people born into the ice, lives forged by myth and shadow. Born destined to break the heart of a waking Witch, or die in trying. To do it before she killed them.
Unease flared raw and red in my marrow. Vela had certain fallen into the Warders’ hands mighty easy.
A hungry sparrow with a meal in its beak didn’t always feel the hawk watching.
Behind Bass, Vela stirred.
“Ah,” Bass said, clearing her throat and coming round to crouch in front of Vela’s chair. “Seems our guest has finally awoken.”
Vela snapped up her head quick as lightning and lunged forward. Wild.
“Oh, I wouldn’t try that if I were you. Chains, you see. Silver. Haven’t had a proper chance to use them yet, but we made them new, just for you. But of course, you don’t mind, do you? Stories say you do like silver real well.”
Vela glared at Bass. I were surprised the other woman’s skin didn’t catch on fire, right there in the middle of the tent. Enough hate spilled out of those rose-gold eyes to burn a town to the ground. To burn it to ash. Hair obscuring her face, Vela’s lips began to move in a near-silent whisper, like gathering winds before the squall.
“Nothing to say for yourself? No desperate pleas of mercy? No apologies for the suffering you’ve caused my people?” Bass’s eyes blazed. “Any last curses, Witch? Before I shatter your heart?”
Vela hissed then, throwing her body against the restraints. She only managed to rattle them before the force of her body against the metal made the red welts on her wrists and neck begin to bleed.
Only her blood, it weren’t red. Thin lines of silver spilled out of her wounds. The smell of it odd familiar, sweet almost. Like a piece of meat left too long in the sun. A low rumble of laughter filled the room.
Something Vela had said, it clawed at me. Digging to get out. What is shattered can hardly be broken again.
Oblivious, Bass strutted about the now-bleeding Vela. “If there is no survival without victory, we, my Warders, we will not only survive, we will thrive!” Bass called. “We shall shatter this curse, break this Witch now and for forever. We will not be held to the mistakes of our ancestors. I will finally free us of this charge. And our children and their children, they will be free!”
Shouts of “Bass, Bass” and “victory” went up in a hearty chorus. Bass, circling back, leaned down in front of Cody and whispered. I couldn’t hear. Cody gave a start. Bass said something else, trying to press an object into his hand. Cody jerked his arm back.
Bass spun abruptly away. And stalked to her prisoner. She leaned in, all bravado and sway. I caught a sliver of Vela’s contorted face, a tick at the corner of her lips. Bass reached out a hand to Vela’s chin. Their eyes met. A pale glowing light began to pulse under the surface of Vela’s skin. Bass didn’t seem to notice. Vela’s eyes snapped to Bass’s. Ever so slow, Vela licked the blood from her cracked lips. Bass’s shoulders went taut as she growled something I couldn’t hear. My mind raced. Stars, something were wrong. Very, very wrong.
I stood. We had to get out of here. On her pallet, Brenna began to shake. Seizing. Spit leaked out of the corner of her mouth, tinged red where she were biting her tongue. Then behind me Bass were screaming. Everyone were screaming.
And into that rising red chaos, Vela began to laugh.
CHAPTER 44 Whatever the Cost
The chains around Vela’s neck and wrists were glowing red. Dark lines curled up her arms, her neck. Great sheets of frost formed and melted and reformed all across her skin. Until, from in between the cracks in the icy covering, a thick black-green water began to leak. Running down her legs and arms. And with every wild laugh that burst from Vela’s blistering mouth, Bren’s body grew colder, twisting under my hands.
And then, the chains simply broke. “Time, I think, you learn that silver, like Witches, are not all made the same.” With her words the hiss of smoke rose, the smell of melting metal and a rotting sea, sweet and bitter and cloying, filled the air.
Dark drips of molten metal cascaded to the floor. Her chains gone, her body once again growing over with ice, like a second skin. With eyes glowing bright as newly forged steel, Vela got to her feet. All her welts were gone. With a little flick of smile, she flung the scorching metal out into the crowd behind her.
Vela stood and surveyed the thunderstruck tent around her. A woman screamed as the metal seared into her skin, pulling useless at her furs as the blistering chains heated through them, catching fire. A few of her fellow Warders turned to help her. Finally, her cries died away, leaving an open, uneasy hush.
“Such little creatures, so frail, so weak.” Vela sneered, eyes blazing bright as stars. “So very mortal. How naive. How limited. How very small. Always so confident in what you do not understand. You say there will be no victory here without your survival.” She raised her arms. A small ball of pale white light, a cold and burning sun, swirled into life in her palms. Hair eddying around her with an unseen wind. “Well, I am happy to show you otherwise.”
Outside the tent, the world trembled, and the very air beg
an to scream. For a long moment time was suspended, held still by unseen hands. Every nerve in my body ringing. And then, into that perfect storm, Vela let the orb of light go.
Confusion erupted throughout the tent. I pushed hands to my ears, trying and failing to block it out. My pulse ripped through my veins, adrenaline spiking and painful. Making it hard to breathe.
I scrambled to my sister’s side. I put my hand on her brow, her head tossing under my fingers. Stars. Instead of cold, she were scorching. So cold she burned.
What is happening? I dug my fingers hard into the furs over her, tying to keep her down. But the violence of her convulsions tore her from me. Her back arching impossibly off the pallet. And then Cody’s hands were on mine, his weight helping to hold Bren. The world behind us erupting into chaos.
“Brenna, hold on!” For a brief shining moment, I thought she heard me. Her eyes opened and focused on mine. But then it was my turn to start screaming.
The mote, the one in her eye. It weren’t small any longer. In its place a red-rimmed blackness spidered, spreading outward. All from that one little red-gold spot. The Witch’s mark.
A knife flew over my head, the edge of its blade just brushing the edge of my ear. I ducked reflexively, barely feeling the cut. The blade snagged into the fabric of the tent in front of me, falling to the ground. At the same time the roar of bullets began to fill the tent.
“Jorie! We have to go!”
I shot a look over my shoulder. People were churning all over the tent. Shots and knives flying. The tent opening was flapping in the wind, the just-lightening sky swirling with what could have been snow, but the soft red glow said otherwise. It were smoke. The camp was burning.
Vela was nowhere to be found, but I had no doubt she was at the center of it all. I gripped Brenna by the shoulders and looked up at Cody. Cody frowned, but agreed. “Hold on.”
Under my hands, Bren’s skin continued to burn hot. Cody darted out into the fight. The tent overhead began an ominous creaking. In a second, though it felt a hundred, Cody fell back.
“Here.”
He handed me a short-handled revolver.
“It has only two bullets, but it’s something.”
I didn’t want to know whose it had been. Bloody fingerprints littered the grip. I wiped them off onto my pants.
“If we—”
Someone slammed into my shoulder, rolling off. I shoved at them, not seeing their face as they spiraled into the crowd. A second later, another face, this one familiar, came tearing in our direction.
Her shirt was torn, exposing long welts and a massive gash that ran deep from ear to hip. A red scar trailed from the eye of the great serpent inked on her side. As if the snake itself were weeping. Bass stumbled toward us, eyes raw. “This is all my fault. I should have listened to Dev. But I wanted to help my people, my family. It is all I have ever wanted my whole life. And I have failed.”
I shook my head.
“I have. I misjudged her strength. I’m too impatient, always have been. I thought it was me, that I could kill her. I were wrong. But if we hurry, you might still have that chance. You can still free our people from this curse. To let us all just—live.” We both glanced down at Bren.
“Me? How?” Everything were happening so quick. Like I’d not the air to make it from one breath to the next. “I don’t know anything.”
“You don’t need to. It’s in your blood.”
“What are you talking about?”
Bass shook her head. “Look, the Witch’s magic, we ain’t ever found a way to kill it. Only hold it, hide it. But that kind of power, it don’t take to settling real nice. It finds ways out. Maybe it’s only a little at first that you don’t notice, but it leaks out all the same. Why do you think our winters get worse year after year? We can’t stop it, we can only slow it. Didn’t you ever wonder about that necklace your sister wore, about why it were only passed from mother to daughter for generations? Well, it ain’t cause we needed to keep it warm. No one can be that close to that much power for as long as your family and not be changed by it.”
Realization dripped cold at the edge of my thoughts. The Warders. The prison. The stone. Bren. This woman had known Bren, and then me, had carried the last piece of the Witch’s heart. That it were leeching into us slow and corrupting and had done nothing about it. Stars, she had not even told us.
“Jorie, look at me. I were wrong. But this ain’t over yet. The Witch, she still needs your sister.” She were begging me to understand. “She needs her body. She needs an unbroken shell to hold together the gathered pieces of her broken heart. Your sister is that shell. And if we let that happen, the Witch won’t just kill you, she will cover the whole world in her winter. She will drown us all.” Bass fixed on me then, eyes watery and more than a little wild. “Do not let her.”
Bass took my hand and placed it over Bren’s eye. “That spot, I’ve seen it before. It is a spike. Are you watching? A thin sliver of enchanted ice. It’s how the Witch controls them, the people she chooses. Once she places it, the mark anchors them to her. She feeds from it, stealing their life one breath at a time. You need to get it out.”
My head spun with the noise and the heat of the tent. With the words being said.
I opened my mouth, but then Cody were there, hand on his side, mouth pressed in a painful line. “She’s coming!”
Vela was coming. Inside, my heart could not beat any faster. I could feel every spring of its pale muscles beating in my chest. Aching. Forcing blood through my veins, oxygen to my brain. If you are still alive, Jorie, you had better pull yourself together.
“Take this. It is the last true piece my grandmother ever made. Before our supplies ran out. I’m sorry there ain’t more. I’m sorry for everything.” Bass pressed a small silver coin into my hand. It was warm in my palm. A little buzz flitted up my arm from where the coin brushed my skin. “Your sister will need to swallow it. Like all creatures of her making, the Witch can’t survive the touch of silver.” Bass’s eyes went wide then. “The touch of this silver.” She pressed the coin harder into my palm. “Do you understand? Have your sister swallow this coin. It will loosen the spike. Only a little, but enough. You can pull it then, and once it is out, she will lose control and—” Bass gave a startled cry, her back arching to the point of obscenity.
A deep coppery-red blossom spread across her chest. A look of shock passed over her features. She placed a hand over the stain, her eyes gone wide, her fingers coming away wet. This was it. A hunter always knew a fatal shot when she saw one. A small smile flickered across her lips as she fixed her eyes on mine. Urgent.
“Go, pigeon,” she whispered. “Go.” With those final words, Bass slumped to her side. Sprawled body twitching, chest bleeding out across the rug underneath.
“Jorie!” Next to me, Cody was shooting hard. “Jorie, we have to move.”
Raising Bren’s head into my lap, I said a little prayer, for all the good it had ever done me, and shoved the silver coin through her clenched lips.
The moment the coin reached the redness of her throat, Bren let out a bone-splitting scream, her lips pulled back in a rigor of a snarl, her body tensing.
It was the most inhuman sound I’d ever heard.
CHAPTER 45 Of Snow and Ash
When we finally managed to stumble out of the tent, the night outside was freezing.
The stars above were fast fading into the dawning sky. A last hint of the aurora borealis haunted the horizon, a pale green specter clinging to vanishing glory, hounded by the fire raging behind. By Vela’s white fire.
“This way,” I called, striding in the direction of the supply tents. Least where I remembered them to be. We had just made it out in time. Whatever Vela had unleashed in there, it hadn’t only flattened the tent we’d been in, but near to everything nearby. I stumbled as my boot caught a splinter of broken wood. I glanced down. No, not wood. Bone.
From overhead, thick flakes of snow began to fall, heavy and uncaring ar
ound us. A few settled on my eyelashes. I wiped them away. But they didn’t go clean; instead they smeared. I looked down at my hands. It weren’t falling snow. It were ash.
It were raining ash. Screams filled the air. My stomach turned.
Between us, we lugged Bren. Running farther and farther into the camp. At least she had stopped shaking. I frowned. I weren’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
We rounded a corner.
“You. Stop.” The woman’s voice cut the air. Her black hair were disheveled, a thick river of red ran from her temple. Raising a hand to her temple, she swayed on her feet, eyes blinking far too quick to be right. But whatever swirled in her head, it didn’t stop her from aiming her gun.
“Stop,” her words slurred. “You.”
I gripped Cody’s arm. Her concussion must have been worse than she knew.
“We mean no harm. We were just leaving,” Cody said, voice soft. Kinder than any words I could’ve mustered.
The woman ran a hand over her face, arm erratic. Jerky. “I think you’d better come with me.”
I stepped toward her. But just then a massive boom erupted into the night. The woman staggered, stunned. Her gun fell. She soon after it. White light flashed across the sky. Followed quick by billows and billows of smoke. Vela were not leaving nothing standing in her wake. Which, I knew very keen, would include us. But first she needed to find me. I didn’t need to be told twice. As the disoriented Warder lurched in the dirty snow, scampering for her gun, we ran.
Tent after tent, none of them were right. The first held nothing but straw and ice. The second and third were filled with people. All of them huddled against the white backdrop of the canvas. All of them, though scared, were nonetheless all too bravely ready to fight. The sky around us burned and burned. And so too did the Warders.
I had near to given up when, lurching into the fourth tent, I miraculous saw what we needed. There, stacked perfect against the pale canvas, were what I wanted. Supplies.