Soul of Cinder

by Bree Barton

  “Tell me about him. Hardly any girls had brothers on Refúj.”

  Nell smiled. “He was terrific, such a sweet soul. He looked up to me. He looked up to everyone, honestly, he opened his heart so easily. I worried about him constantly. He trusted anyone who paid him the tiniest bit of attention. He wanted so much to be loved.”

  Pilar thought about how much she had wanted to be loved. By her mother. By Orry.

  “He loved his fight lessons,” Nell continued. “They made him so happy. He had a teacher from the river kingdom whom he absolutely adored.”

  Pilar froze. She felt herself start to sink. Surely Orry hadn’t . . .

  “My brother was so sad when she left for Prisma. He locked himself in his room for days.”

  Pilar let out her breath. Relieved.

  A female fight teacher. She liked the sound of that.

  “You talk about your brother like he’s dead.”

  “Great sands, no! I don’t mean it like that. He was only eleven when I left Pembuk, and then he was lost to me, just like everyone else. Sometimes it feels like a whole separate life.”

  Nell’s head sank an inch lower, chin disappearing beneath the surface.

  “My brother wasn’t just sad about his fight teacher. He was sad a lot of the time, for reasons none of us—including him—understood. Even as a little boy, he was sad.”

  The water slapped soft against their arms.

  “I wish I’d taken him with me,” Nell said. “I did what I had to do, don’t get me wrong. I felt like I would die if I stayed, like I was being crushed from all sides. But I’ve never stopped feeling guilty for leaving him behind.”

  They were silent a moment. Pilar watched Mia on the boat, swaying unsteadily. Poor girl with her scientific theories and library books wasn’t cut out for sailing the open sea. Despite the multiple daily healings and Nell’s fancy fish cream, Rose’s white skin continued to turn the color of an actual rose.

  Look on the bright side, Pilar had told her. At least you can’t feel the sunburn!

  She was beginning to wonder if her humor could use a little fine-tuning.

  “Mia likes you, you know,” Pilar said. It was obvious from the way Rose looked at Nell. The way she begged to be touched every day. Even if Mia wouldn’t admit it—might not even be aware of it—she clearly felt something for Nelladine.

  Nell sighed.

  “She thinks she does, yes, I know. She wants me to be the one to save her, to fix all her broken parts. And I’ll do everything I can to help her. I think Mia is used to fixing things—her sister, her family, her own body. She doesn’t understand some things aren’t meant to be fixed. But she’s not alone in wanting that. It’s why so many people go to Prisma. They’d rather see themselves as who they could be, instead of who they are.”

  “I just wish she’d stop trying to fix me.”

  Nell shielded her eyes from the sun. “I understand. Believe me, I do.”

  Pilar gargled salt water. Spat it back into the ocean. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought of telling Nell what had happened on Refúj. But whenever she imagined dragging herself back to that dark place, fatigue punched her in the gut. She was tired. Talking about it cost too much. Pilar hated that this was now part of her story. Hated that everyone she would ever meet, for the rest of her life, would fall into one of two categories: those she’d told, and those she hadn’t.

  “I want you to promise me something,” Nell said, keeping her voice low as they drifted closer to the boat. “When we get to Pembuk, will you look out for Mia?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I want to. It’s just, once we get there, things will change.”

  After growing up with a mother who spoke in riddles, Pilar could read between the lines. Nell was going to leave once she dumped them with the Shadowess. Mia would probably trail after her, abandoning the sisterhood she and Pilar had begun to forge. Proving that even the people who promised to love her always left her in the end.

  But Pilar had always been curious about Pembuk. She didn’t know much about it—lots of sand, glass cities, ugly animals with humps. And so on. What interested her was that not a single Pembuka had ever come to Refúj. Clearly, the Dujia of the glass kingdom hadn’t managed to escape. Or maybe they hadn’t needed to.

  She set her jaw. She would meet the Shadowess. After that, she made no promises.

  As for Mia? Pilar owed her nothing. Rose might be her half sister by blood, but at the end of the day, blood was just another kind of sweat. It leaked out of you in a fight, but you never missed it.

  Pilar hardened her voice.

  “So what happens after you ditch us in Pembuk? Will you slug some ale in your old haunts? Or turn tail to Luumia so you can make more clay pots?”

  Nell was quiet. She treaded water, watching Pilar.

  “You don’t have to make my life sound small. I’ve made a home in the snow kingdom. Friends.”

  “Friends like Ville?”

  As soon as the words came out, Pilar regretted them. They had explained to Nell how her friend Ville had never been Ville at all, but Lord Kristoffin Dove, the Snow Queen’s uncle, who abducted and enslaved children, wrenching power from their deepest pain.

  “How did I not know?” Nell said softly. “It was right in front of me. Ville’s lewd remarks, the million subtle ways he undermined me, day after day. I think of myself as a strong woman, confident in who I am, what I’m worth, and even I couldn’t see.”

  Dove had charmed Pilar, too. She’d walked right into his trap.

  “Nell, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Look!”

  Something orange swam beneath them. Instinctively Pilar tucked her knees in to her chest.

  “What was that?”

  Another creature churned past, then another. The ocean was no longer dark. Arcs of gleaming orange light illuminated the water, whirling, spiraling. An eerie chatter cracked the surface of the sea.

  “Nelladine?” Mia called from the boat. “Pilar? What’s happening?”

  Pilar didn’t know how to answer. The whole ocean seemed to be rippling orange. The water felt thin and hot, teeming with life.

  Nell’s face was radiant. “Melonfish!”

  They didn’t move like any fish Pilar had seen—and she’d seen her fair share. They spun in circles, their orange fins fanning out on all sides. What had Nell called them? Lappets. To Pilar they looked more like flames.

  Mia was shouting: Aretheydangerousdotheybite? But Nell was lost in her own world.

  “You know, it’s funny: I thought we were still several days from the cove. But then, you have to remember, four years is a long time! And if the melonfish are here . . .”

  “Then we’re almost at Pata Pacha,” Pilar finished.

  “No,” Nell said. “We’re already here.”

  Chapter 4

  Abandoned

  IT DIDN’T TAKE QUIN long to find the mark.

  It was carved neatly into the trunk of the tree where his cousin had been tethered. Three triangles, one inside another. Quin had seen the symbol before. He’d spotted it above the door of a burnt-out cottage in a deserted river town, a woman’s charred body on the stoop. When he’d walked into an empty tavern a few days back, ravenous, he’d found bread crawling with maggots—and the symbol cut deep into the blood-soaked wood floor.

  The closer he drew to Kaer Killian, the more triangles he saw.

  Quin had a theory. The symbol was carved after some murderous act was committed—or to mark a murderous work in progress, such as Tristan strung up by his neck, awaiting fate. As if to say, Violence was committed here. Or—and this was better—justice has been done.

  Perhaps, in the end, they were one and the same.

  During his long, solitary trek from Luumia, he’d had plenty of time to think. There were different kinds of violence. Violent acts born of hatred and a flair for gruesome showmanship—the backbone of his father’s regime—were troubling.

  But Quin di
dn’t feel hateful. His mind was sharp and slick and cold, like the stone head of an arrow. The violence he sought was productive, a necessary stop on the path to retribution. He would not hack off the hands of innocent women and dangle them from the ceiling, as had the king. Nor would he stack their bodies in the Hall, as had Zaga.

  But if the Twisted Sisters came back to Glas Ddir—assuming Mia, Pilar, and Angelyne had not been digested by a raging sea—he would hold them accountable for their actions. They had used and abused him, wounding him irrevocably. And not just him. Wherever the sisters went, death and destruction followed. In order to resurrect himself as a just and noble king, he would first need to expunge all those whose presence was a threat.

  He’d spent the last few weeks composing a letter to the sisters saying as much, continually revising and reshaping the words on a piece of parchment he kept close to his heart.

  I once believed that hurting people made you weak. I don’t believe that anymore.

  Not that he’d sent the letter. You couldn’t exactly dispense a courier to the Lilla Sea.

  Quin knew the carved triangles were leading him somewhere. Perhaps not him, specifically—he hoped not. His best advantage was the element of surprise. No one expected the little golden prince to resurface in Glas Ddir and reclaim the throne, even if it was his birthright. No one ever expected anything of him. That was the problem.

  Needless to say, he followed the symbols.

  Violence was his birthright, too.

  The brothel stood just outside the borders of Killian Village, which, Quin imagined, meant it was the first place a traveling merchant might stop before entering town. It also meant the women who lived within its walls were beyond the protection of the law, and hence more vulnerable to heinous acts. Though in the river kingdom, heinous acts were all but sanctioned by the state.

  Quin traced the three triangles grooved into the knotty wood door. The symbol was so tiny he’d almost missed it. He took a breath. He’d encountered enough corpses in the last month to dread the stench of decaying flesh.

  But as the door creaked open, there was nothing. No blood on the floor, no bodies. The brothel was abandoned.

  He let the air out of his lungs.

  Whoever had been in this brothel had left in a hurry. Quin noted at least a dozen pint glasses, some overturned on tables, others full of flat yellow ale. A lacy black chair had been flipped over, its four shapely legs thrust upward in a way that was almost indecent. On the ground a perfect boot print was stamped into an emerald silk scarf. Whether in mud or in blood, he couldn’t tell.

  What horrors had befallen the river kingdom in his absence? He’d spent months chasing Mia and Pilar to Luumia, then returned alone. In every village, he had stopped to scrounge food and information. Most towns were deserted. Occasionally he stumbled upon a lone shop or farmhouse with a candle burning in the window, and if he was lucky, the shopkeeper or farmer would share their meager food. No one ever recognized him. He’d grown a scruffy blond beard and left his curls dirty and disheveled. After weeks of uneasy sleep in the forest, dark circles had bloomed under his green eyes.

  A few days earlier, Quin had come upon a stone farmhouse. Inside he’d found a crusty old farmer, the lone survivor of a gutted village. The man had offered him a cup of rabbit stew and a thin straw mattress for the night: the greatest kindness he’d been shown in ages.

  “I’m a fool to invite you in,” the farmer said, watching Quin slurp down his supper. “You’ll slit my throat for another cup of stew.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first to try.”

  Quin wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Who did this to your village? Was it Angelyne?”

  “They said things would get better with the young queen. Another pack of lies.” The farmer scratched his gray stubble. “Used to be only women had cause to be afraid. I’m not saying that was right. I lost my wife to the Hunters long ago. But now we men got a taste of it. We all became the hunted.”

  Quin nodded, his expression grim. In the castle he’d watched Zaga and Angelyne enthrall innocent men like Domeniq du Zol, sending him out into the villages to kill anyone who opposed magic. After promising to end Ronan’s reign of hate and murder, they had merely expanded it.

  “It’s not done, neither,” the farmer said. “With the young queen gone, there’s a whole new pack of cutthroats rose up to take her place.”

  Quin set down his spoon.

  “Cutthroats?”

  “Don’t know where they come from. Band of thieves and murderers calling themselves the Embers. Tried to get me to join up—said I’d starve if I didn’t. I told them I’d rather starve than spill more innocent blood.”

  “So the Embers are the ones carving the symbols,” Quin said, putting two and two together.

  “Don’t know about that. But I know the Embers aren’t to be trusted.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve heard rumors of the young king. That he might be alive in Luumia. If he came back, I think he’d find many of us loyal.”

  Quin tried to downplay his interest.

  “Seems to me the prince never did much of anything for anyone.”

  “I heard he spent time at the orphanage in Killian Village. He might be a bit wet behind the ears, but I wager he’d grow into a fine king. At least he’d never be his father.”

  The farmer gathered the stew cups, leaving Quin to unpack his complicated feelings.

  “I’ll say this for the young queen: at least she opened the borders. People can run to the west, find something better in the glass kingdom. Half the ruins you see around here are the Embers’ doing, not the queen’s.” He shook his head. “When a gap in power opens up, only power-hungry fools try to fill it. My wife used to say that.”

  “May I ask why you have not run west?”

  “Because this house is full of her.” The farmer’s grizzled voice had gone soft. “She’s in every room. If I leave home behind, I leave her, too.”

  He touched the tarnished metal band around his finger.

  “Twelve years. I still miss her every day.”

  Something flickered in Quin’s chest. A memory of Mia Rose in the Royal Chapel arose unbidden. A fragment of his wedding vows echoed through his mind.

  Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,

  I give you my body, my spirit, my home.

  He’d once thought those words were romantic, even beautiful. What a powerful act: to give yourself so fully to another person.

  Now they horrified him. Marriage was a capitulation. Mia had enthralled him, a fateful harbinger of all to come. He had not given his body, his spirit, or his home.

  It didn’t matter. They’d all been taken from him anyway.

  Quin walked deeper into the brothel. He hadn’t eaten a real meal since the farmer’s stew, and that was days ago. His stomach growled in protest.

  In the front parlor, he came to a halt.

  A piano stood in the corner.

  He felt a powerful urge to touch it, and a commensurate urge to turn away. Music—the piano in particular—symbolized the feeble, mewling part of himself he sought to eradicate. He had no desire to remember his own cowardice.

  His gaze lingered on the polished bone keys. He couldn’t help it. He thought of his music teacher.

  Tobin was barely older than Quin, a musical prodigy with an inimitable gift. The first time Quin saw him play, he decided Toby had the most beautiful hands he’d ever seen on a boy. The most beautiful hands he’d seen on anyone, though to be fair, Quin had seen very few girls’ hands ungloved. Tobin’s fingers were broad yet elegant, nails cut to the quick. “Any musician who lets his fingernails grow long,” Tobin was fond of saying, “loves himself more than his instrument.”

  Watching Toby’s hands fly over the piano keys had stirred something deep inside him. His teacher loved the piano fiercely, the way a drowning man loves the rowboat come to save him. Quin sometimes wondered which he fell in love with first: the piano, or the boy who
taught him to play it.

  Under the plums, if it’s meant to be. You’ll come to me, under the snow plum tree.

  The image darkened, blood seeping into the frame.

  He pushed farther into the brothel. In the kitchens he found salted pork and a loaf of oatnut bread. No maggots this time. His mouth was watering. He carved off a sizable slab of pork—salty and delicious—and devoured three slices of sweet, yeasty bread. He even found a slug of goose milk in a leather flask and swilled it, smacking his lips in pleasure.

  With the flask gripped firmly in hand, Quin found a stone staircase in the back corner. He took the steps two at a time—easy with his long legs—and trod lightly down the upstairs corridor, where he passed door after open door. In the brothel’s chambers he spied mother-of-pearl screens and sumptuous beds strewn with lush velvet. An array of silks and satins dripped from the walls, garments so pretty you’d never suspect the atrocities that had surely befallen the women wearing them.

  Another memory emerged. The night it happened, Quin had been silly enough to fret over what to wear. White linen tunic or blue silk? Jacket or no? He knew the crypt was apt to be freezing. He also knew the royal buttons were a pain in his royal ass. Every night, when all he wanted was to disrobe and go to sleep, he instead had to muscle twelve gold knobs through twelve rigid loops.

  Not that Tobin would have any interest in disrobing me, he’d thought at the time. Not that Toby’s given any thought to pushing each button through its stiff hoop, one by one, inching slowly down my chest from top to bottom.

  Quin exhaled audibly, as if he could breathe the memory out. He pitied the fifteen-year-old version of himself, the boy so preoccupied with buttons he hadn’t seen what was coming.

  But he was smarter now. Stronger. His powerlessness had sparked powerful magic inside him. For the first time in my life, he’d written in his letter, I feel no fear. I have always known myself to be broken. But finally, after so many years, I understand my brokenness is a gift.

  In order to reclaim the throne, he would need to prove his newfound power. Especially if a gang of bandits was running wild, savaging what remained of his kingdom. Quin spent hours every day honing his magic, learning to direct his molten streams of fire. The first step was to retake Kaer Killian. If he met with opposition, he would need to perform far better than he had with Tristan.