Soul of Cinder

by Bree Barton

  Pilar rubbed her forehead. She was sweating so much her hand slid right off.

  “How are you even doing this? You’re like a human flamingo.”

  Shay giggled. “I told you it’s hard. It just takes practice. Now shh.”

  Pilar guzzled water from her leatherskin and sat the next one out.

  They ended where they began. On their backs, tipping their knees from side to side. Then they stilled their bodies like they were sleeping. Or dead. She was so tired she felt halfway dead. The teacher walked around the room with sweet-smelling oil, flapping a towel over them. The cool breeze felt delicious.

  Pilar stared up at the ceiling. There were wood rafters.

  She flinched. Waited for Orry’s cottage to drag her back. Her body stiff and numb.

  But her mind was strangely calm. Her body relaxed and open. Instead of the cottage, she was in the Manjala, surrounded by a circle of sweaty strangers lying quietly on their backs. Overhead, cheerful square flags dangled from each rafter.

  Only then did she realize her headache was completely gone.

  “See?” Shay whispered from her blanket. “I told you you’d like it.”

  “I wouldn’t say I liked it.”

  The truth was, she loved it. Even if her pride had taken a drubbing, her body thrummed with energy. She felt both grounded and vibrantly alive.

  Shay reached out and squeezed her hand.

  “Thank you for being here. I feel much calmer now. I hope you’ll come with me again.”

  Why hadn’t Pilar come to jougi before now? Why hadn’t she done so many things in the House? If she’d felt this grounded, this calm, maybe she would have been kinder to Mia. Gentler with Stone.

  Pilar tried to smile, but tears blurred her vision. She blinked them back before Shay could see.

  Her head was no longer hurting. Only her heart.

  Chapter 32

  Back from the Dead

  “I’M NOT BRIALLI MAR,” said the girl Quin knew as Brialli Mar, her eyes boring into him. “My name is Callaghan.”

  “Callaghan’s been indispensable,” said Lauriel, leaning over the breakfast table and dividing the leftovers between three small plates. Junay was actively gobbling as much as she could while Sach’a looked on disapprovingly. “As we find more Glasddirans, her work becomes all the more important.”

  Lauriel waved them over. “Callaghan, Sach’a. Come. Vuqa. You’ve earned a hot meal.”

  Sach’a installed her grandmother on the bed and deposited the black puppy in Nanu’s lap for safekeeping. After they were both situated, she wheeled her chair to the table.

  Brialli—or, rather, Callaghan—didn’t move. She was staring at Quin. It took him a moment to realize she wanted his chair. He stood clumsily, and she sat without ceremony. When she turned her attention to the food he breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t think he could bear the ferocious intensity of those blue eyes for one more second.

  Quin tried to make sense of these new revelations. Brialli was, first and foremost, not dead. She was also not Brialli. And while Brialli Mar had seemed to adore him, Callaghan unmistakably did not.

  “You’re not one of the Embers,” he said.

  Callaghan shook her head vehemently. “Dom and I move freely between here and the Kaer, gathering what news we can of the Embers’ plotting, and bringing it back to the others. Dom’s been doing it longer, but I’ve got the advantage. No one suspects a little girl of being a spy.”

  Including me, Quin thought.

  He had so many questions. Who were the “others”? And how long had Callaghan been a spy?

  But what he asked was, “Did you really lose your mother to the Hunters and your father to Angelyne?”

  She looked up, mouth full of minha zopa.

  “Why would I make that up?”

  “You lied about your name. Why not your parentage?”

  “Briallihandra Mar is the name my mother gave me. But since the day she died, I’ve gone by Callaghan: the hero in an old fairy tale my father read to me. Sweet little Brialli would never have survived this long.”

  She shot him a withering glance.

  “If you act like a decent person, I might let you call me Cal.”

  He felt irritated. Why did he care about being liked by a little girl? He was a king, for gods’ sakes.

  “Your Grace.” Sach’a set her spoon down neatly beside her plate.

  Quin turned, pleased to be properly addressed. Though even he had to admit the title felt out of place in this humble trapper’s cabin. In the Kaer he’d been all might and glory; here he was a toy soldier who didn’t know what to do with his hands.

  “I know all the things you’ve said about the sisters.” The girl’s clear, knowing gaze unnerved him. “But I think your decision to group them together is flawed.”

  Quin crossed his arms. Then uncrossed them. He had long feared this was true. Even in his darkest moments, he would see Mia’s gray eyes, or Pilar’s strong jaw, and his rage would soften.

  “You can’t deny they’ve all caused harm,” he argued.

  The puppy slid off Nanu’s lap and toddled over to Sach’a, curling himself protectively against the wheel of her chair. She reached down to scratch his ears.

  “Everyone causes harm at some point,” said Sach’a. “Whether they mean to or not. I think you’re probably right about Angelyne. She’s beyond saving. But you’re wrong about Pilar and Mia.”

  “Sometimes you have to skin a few rabbits to make a good stew.” Quin leveled his gaze at Callaghan. “Isn’t that right, Cal?”

  The girl spooned up minha zopa, thoughtful, then let it dribble back into the bowl.

  “Sometimes it’s better to just not make the stew.”

  This time, it was Quin who looked away.

  “Magic should only be used in the direst circumstances,” he said tersely, aware of the irony.

  “You have magic, too,” said Cal. “You could use it to help people.”

  “Also, have you seen your kingdom lately?” Junay brandished a fishbone toward the window. “It’s pretty dire.”

  “Give him time, Jun,” her mother chided. “He’s still recovering from Tobin and the Kaer.”

  Quin turned on Callaghan.

  “Didn’t you just tell me the Kaer was fine? How could it be, when I saw the whole thing crack wide open?”

  Lauriel and Callaghan exchanged glances.

  “The thing is,” Cal said slowly, “that didn’t really happen.”

  Quin blanched. “What?”

  “You are a Dujia who can manipulate Fire.” Lauriel had begun to collect the washing from the line, bundling the clean clothes onto the bed. “Tobin is a Dujia who can manipulate Stone. His gift lies in shifting the aether to change what the eyes see. He used head magic to make you believe you saw something that wasn’t real.”

  Quin thought of the Snow Queen’s Reflections. In the space between, he’d seen things that weren’t real. Then he thought of Mia and Pilar journeying there together, and how abandoned he had felt. That was the moment he had realized the sisters would choose each other every time.

  Now Tobin was practicing the same dark magic. He had made a mockery of Quin—in his own castle, in front of his own people.

  “It wasn’t just you,” Callaghan said. “Tobin made all the Embers see the same thing. Dom and I had our uzoolion, so we weren’t fooled. But in the ensuing chaos we were able to get you out.”

  “Tobin had no right.” Quin could feel his blood igniting. “I am the king.”

  “Do you remember what I told you on Refúj?” Lauriel set the laundry on the bed. “Kings are just men in paper hats, darling.” She touched his cheek lightly. “Even if your hat is made of gold.”

  Quin froze. Why had she touched him? Was she using magic?

  Forcefully he shoved Lauriel’s arm away. A shower of sparks arced from his hand, falling to the floor below.

  “I could cut off your hand for that,” he growled.

  The roo
m went dead silent.

  Quin’s words hung, suspended in the air. Even he couldn’t believe he’d said them. They dangled, raw and bleeding, like the hands in his father’s Hall.

  On the floor, the puppy began to cry.

  Sach’a reached down and pulled him onto her lap. “You could have hurt him,” she murmured, combing her fingers through his fur, checking for embers. Junay stamped out a smoldering spark on the bearskin rug, glaring at Quin.

  His rage leaked out as shame oozed in. He couldn’t meet their eyes. His gaze fell to the dog, though that was no good, either. All he could see were Wulf and Beo as puppies. Their sweet, cold noses pressed into his hand.

  He did not want to set this family on fire. He did not want to hurt them at all.

  It was Callaghan who spoke first.

  “Do you want the rest of my soup, Jun?” She pushed her bowl away, the iron scraping over the wood. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

  She stood. Faced Quin, fists clenched at her sides.

  “My mother believed you were different. She saw you visit the orphanage. She said you weren’t rotten like your father, that you had a kind heart. But right now you’re just like any other Killian. Or any royal, for that matter. You’re as cruel and heartless as Ronan. And you’re as angry and vengeful as Angelyne.”

  Callaghan turned to face the others. She had reminded Quin of his sister before, but now, standing proud with her blue eyes blazing, she was the spitting image of Karri.

  “I want to show him.”

  “Tell me you’re not serious,” Junay scoffed. “He’d set them all on fire!”

  “It might be our last chance to make sure he doesn’t set fire to anyone. Tobin will be looking for him. For all of us.” Callaghan nodded toward the uzoolion gloves on the floor. “He can wear those. And Dom will be there if anything goes wrong.”

  “For once I agree with my sister,” Sach’a said. “I don’t think it’s wise.”

  Callaghan threw up her hands in frustration. “None of this is wise!”

  “Mamãe?” Sach’a looked to her mother. They all did. “What do you think?”

  “Duj katt.” Lauriel sighed. “Just because it isn’t wise doesn’t mean it isn’t right.”

  Callaghan nodded, satisfied. She reached for the gloves.

  “We’re going on a little trip,” she said.

  Quin appraised her. The former Brialli Mar, this devious girl spy, who had far more layers than he’d ever suspected.

  He was still suspicious. But he was curious, too.

  “And why do you think I’ll go anywhere with you?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Callaghan said. “Or I get to punch you this time.”

  Ilwysion was beautiful. The fresh alpine air, the susurrant rustle of leaves, the majestic oaks and elms reaching as far as the eye could see. Even with his hands behind his back, Quin was happy to be outside. It made his heart light with possibility.

  “Junay told me the Roses lived not too far from here,” said Callaghan, leading him through the woods with a walking stick in her hand. At least she had the decency not to prod him with it. “In a big cottage on a bluff.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen it.”

  Quin envied Mia for having grown up in this place. So different from the cloistered Kaer, where the air was always stale, the corridors dark and narrow.

  How would his life have been different if he’d been born in Ilwysion? He felt a deep longing as his eyes took in the green peaks and valleys, the elegant Natha River a piece of black thread stitching everything together. He had never been given a decent chance to love his kingdom, but here, in nature, he felt it call to him.

  As a common boy in a river town, would he still have had to pretend to be someone he was not?

  “It’s not much farther,” Cal said, and prodded him with the stick.

  At first blush, the lodging house looked deserted. Heaps of snow piled on the roof, icicles dripping from the eaves. But then Quin saw it: a thin coil of smoke snaking into the sky.

  As his gaze fell to the front door, his blood ran cold.

  A symbol was carved into the wood. Three triangles, one inside the other. Quin recognized the hallmark of the Embers. A mark of violence.

  Death.

  Callaghan had lied to him. They were part of the Embers after all. There was no time to run. The door creaked open, and a man stepped out onto the porch, his face cloaked in shadow. He folded his arms over his burly chest.

  “So it’s time, then,” he said.

  “It’s time,” said Callaghan.

  The man turned his head, calling through the open door.

  “He’s here! The king is here.”

  Quin heard a shriek from inside, then a shout. The sounds of many pairs of feet rumbled through the lodging house, so many it shook the walls.

  He flinched, feeling Callaghan’s grip tighten at his back. She was fumbling with the uzoolion. To his astonishment, his hands lightened as the gloves dropped to the ground.

  Quin did not have time to coax fire from his palms. They were pouring out of the lodging house, coming so fast, girls and boys barreling toward him, shouting, laughing. They had come back to him, back from the dead.

  The orphans of Killian Village.

  Chapter 33

  GWYRACH

  “MIA?”

  It startled her. Not her little sister, sitting in the mist. The sound of her own name, which she had almost forgotten.

  “Angelyne?”

  That word, too, felt strange in her mouth—but also sweet. As if she’d forgotten the taste of a sun-ripened peach, then sunk her teeth into its flesh.

  “I knew you’d come, Mi. The real you, not the one I’ve been imagining. I could never get the freckles quite right, no matter how hard I tried to remember.”

  The mist moved outward, enshrining them both in a white halo.

  “We didn’t know when to expect you,” Angelyne said.

  She sat beside a burbling stream, trailing her fingers through the water. Mia’s heart flooded with joy. Her sister’s strawberry hair tumbled down her back, full and lustrous; her complexion had recovered its smooth, peachy glow. The last time they’d met, Angie’s face had been drawn, her body emaciated.

  The memory jarred. Mia saw glittering shards of ice and dead-eyed children, though she couldn’t quite recall how they fit together.

  “Come.” Angelyne beckoned. “Sit with me.”

  Mia felt a twitch of warning. Fragments of a memory pressed at the edges of her mind.

  “You don’t have to remember,” Angie said. “At the very least, you don’t have to remember right now.”

  She patted the soft sand beside her. Angelyne’s blue eyes were piercing, vivid in a way nothing else on Prisma had been.

  Mia sat. She mirrored Angelyne, trailing her fingers through the crystalline stream, the water surprisingly warm. Something pleasant bubbled just beneath the surface, another time she’d submerged herself in water like this. A hot spring?

  “I just saw you,” Mia said, struggling to remember. “I think we were dancing. Yes, that’s right. In our cottage. We were much younger. And we were wearing . . .” She lost hold of it.

  “Mother’s gowns?” Angie smiled. “Yes. I have that memory, too. It’ll get easier to pluck out specific ones, don’t worry. The mist can be disorienting when you’ve just arrived.”

  “Have I only just arrived?”

  Angie didn’t answer. She stretched, drawing her arms overhead. Yawned. Unbent her legs, flexing and pointing her toes. Angie had always had small, dainty feet with fine arches. They used to hurt her, Mia remembered, whenever they walked in the forest for too long.

  Now she dipped her bare toes in the water. Shook her ginger tresses off her shoulders.

  “Would you like to see my island?”

  Mia cocked her head. “I thought it was mine.”

  “You must have wanted to share it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have found us.”

  “U
s?”

  “The island and me. We’re in constant dialogue. As are you.”

  “Is that what’s been speaking to me? The island?”

  “Yes and no. The voice is the island, but the voice is also you. I like to think of Prisma as a kind of ship. The voice provides the parchment, and the mist is the ink. But the map is of your own making. You are the one charting your course.”

  In the mist, Mia saw a pale yellow coracle shaped like a walnut shell. Then a varnished black teardrop bobbing on the ocean. Then a dhou with long coconut ropes rigging a triangular sail. So many boats, for a girl who hated boats.

  They blended together, one dissolving into the next.

  Mia felt the twitch in her chest again. She should say no to her sister. Fade back into her own mist, her own island.

  “Ange?”

  “Mm?”

  “It’s so good to see you. I just . . . I feel like there are things I want to say.”

  Angelyne reached out and touched Mia’s wrist.

  “You’ve still got your fyre ice frostflower. Beautiful.”

  Mia blinked at the indigo mark. She’d forgotten all about it.

  “You’ll see the magic I’ve worked with fyre ink,” said Angie, “a little later on.”

  She squeezed Mia’s hand. The skin of her palm felt different than Mia remembered. Grooved where it used to be soft.

  “Don’t worry, Mi. We have time.”

  Her rose-petal lips curved into a smile.

  “We have all the time in the world.”

  Had her sister been wearing a green dress by the stream? Mia didn’t think so. But she wasn’t sure. As they walked side by side along the beach, Angie’s emerald gown swished against her delicate ankles, the bodice cinched severely at the waist.

  “Are you wearing a corset?” Mia asked in disbelief.

  “Why not? I like corsets.”

  “How are we related?” Mia muttered, and despite everything—or perhaps because of it—they both burst into laughter. It had always been that way with Ange: ready to kill each other one moment, then shrieking with glee the next.

  “Now I know you’re not a figment of my imagination,” Mia said, once their laughter had subsided. “Not in one million years would I have thought to conjure you in a corset.”