Soul of Cinder

by Bree Barton

  She leaned in impulsively and kissed her sister on the cheek.

  “This feels nice.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?”

  Mia’s misgivings evaporated like a puff of steam. She hadn’t known how much she missed Angelyne until she had her back. Now she couldn’t imagine the island without her.

  “Look,” Angie said, pointing to a place in the distance where the ocean met the shore.

  Mia stopped short. A magnificent structure rose out of the sand. A castle nestled atop a wooded bluff, graced by a sweeping balcony and an iron door with a rose-shaped knocker.

  Mia knew it instantly.

  “Home.”

  Angie nodded. “In the beginning I spent all my time here. We don’t go so much anymore.”

  She waved her hand. All at once, the cottage crashed into sand. Gigantic clumps of balcony broke apart on the shoreline, followed by the door, the rose knocker, the mountain itself. Every trace of the Rose family home disintegrated into sea foam.

  The pain was visceral. Mia cried out.

  “Why did you—”

  “I told you. We don’t live there anymore.”

  Angelyne started walking again, faster this time. Mia had won every race she’d ever had with her sister. Now she struggled to keep up.

  “Do you know what Prisma means?” Angie asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I bet you don’t.”

  “It comes from the word prysm, which in the old language means ‘something seen.’”

  “Mia Rose, Scholar of the Old Language, Knower of All Truths.” Angelyne tossed her strawberry hair over her shoulder. “Not all truths. You were always the better student. But all those hours Father spent teaching you, I spent lying in bed, listening. Prysm doesn’t mean ‘something seen.’ It means ‘something sawn.’”

  She stopped and spun around so quickly Mia nearly collided with her. Their eyes locked.

  “A prism saws the world into a new shape,” Angie said, “distorting your view. It creates a kind of fragmentation. The cutting requires an act of violence. Only then can you bend the light.”

  Angelyne pivoted away from the ocean—and drew her hand across the mist.

  Mia saw the four kingdoms.

  Or, rather, she saw their dissolution.

  In the snow kingdom, glaciers fractured, avalanches crushing towns and hamlets, sealing them in ice.

  In the glass kingdom, the desert sun whipped the sand into sharp and shimmering cyclones. Cities sank as the earth tore open at the seams.

  In the fire kingdom, volqanoes shivered to life, spewing ribbons of lava. The ocean seethed as enormous blue ramparts engulfed whole islands.

  And in the river kingdom, Mia’s beloved Glas Ddir, scarlet flames reduced whole villages to cinder. Proud trees, ripped from their roots, slid down hillsides, as the hills themselves crumbled.

  Mia gasped. She knew some of these things had already happened. Others she hoped never would. Was she watching an illusory performance, Angelyne’s cruel fantasies playing out in the space between? Or had her sister rendered a dark magic on Prisma that was being inflicted on the four kingdoms in real-life?

  In an instant, the fog in Mia’s mind cleared—and the memories came screaming back. Her real memories. Angelyne’s betrayal. The hopefulness in Pilar’s eyes. The rejection in Nell’s. Quin lifting his hands, his fists full of fire.

  “Do you know how much I wanted to kill you, Mia?”

  Angie’s words made her blood run cold.

  “I was so sick of feeling powerless. My whole life I’ve been little. A speck so small no one sees or even cares. You thought you saw me, but you never did. I was your delicate little sister who couldn’t possibly survive without you. I went half mad just to prove you wrong.”

  Mia stared into her sister’s bright blue eyes, wondering who this stranger was. This half girl, half demon. Gwyrach.

  “Is that what you’re doing, Angelyne? Destroying the four kingdoms so you’ll finally feel powerful?”

  “No,” Angie said quietly. “Not anymore.”

  “Did you get tired of murdering innocent people?”

  “You have the order wrong. I didn’t come to Prisma to destroy the four kingdoms. I came to Prisma because I already had.”

  Angelyne extended her arm, palm facing up.

  Mia’s stomach twisted.

  Under the snow palace, Angie had gripped the seven-pointed gem in one fist, their mother’s ruby wren in the other. Now a jagged black wheel was seared into her flesh.

  Mia cradled her sister’s hand. To say the black stone had left a mark would be inaccurate. It had left itself. The entire wheel was embedded in her palm, marred only by pink ridges of scar tissue, her skin’s failed attempt to heal.

  “Do you remember my little monologue,” Angelyne said, “about the Elemental Hex? I said there were seven elements, not six.”

  “The seventh is death,” Mia murmured, touching the seventh spoke.

  “You don’t deserve to die, Mi.”

  Slowly, Mia looked into Angelyne’s eyes. She was prepared to see brutal hatred, or savage calm.

  She was not prepared to see her sister’s face crumple.

  “I deserve to die,” Angie said, and began to cry.

  Chapter 34

  Two Spikes

  QUIN HAD NEVER BEEN so happy.

  He knelt with the orphans on the floor of the lodging house. The children fought over who would sit closest, shoving and arguing, until finally he organized them into a circle and placed himself at its heart. They were as raucous as he remembered, and as delightful.

  But there were new faces, too. Quin had not visited the orphanage since before his wedding to Mia, and months had passed since then. It grieved him, knowing these were children for whom the loss of their parents was still fresh.

  “Your Grace?”

  Quin turned to see the man from the lodging house porch. Now that he no longer stood in shadow, Quin recognized him. Here was the grizzled farmer who had so kindly shared his rabbit stew with Quin during his long journey back to the Kaer.

  “Stoddard,” the man offered, in case Quin had forgotten.

  “Of course,” Quin said a little too quickly, ashamed that he had.

  “The children come from all over,” Stoddard explained. “We’ve been searching the villages day and night, hoping the cutthroats didn’t find them first.”

  Quin had a thousand questions. For Stoddard, and for Callaghan, too, who sat at a nearby table, watching the joyous reunion. One thing he did know: the fear he’d felt staring at the carved symbol on the lodging house door—and in the du Zols’ cabin—had vanished the moment the children looped their arms through his and tugged him happily inside.

  They wanted to tell him jokes and stories, climb onto his back, run their fingers through his curls. One little girl begged him to play a song. “Like the olden days, Your Grace.” When no piano could be found, he sent them on a hunt through the lodging house, promising to play whatever instruments they dug up. They brought him tin cans, spoons, and a violin so out of tune it was laughable. Quin made a great show of it, flapping his imaginary tailcoat and bringing the bow to the strings—only to play hideous, screeching tunes that made the children shriek with laughter.

  As he strutted and performed, Quin slowly became aware that the lodging house held not only children. Women and men were streaming in. More reticent than the children, but no hostility in their faces. Only curiosity. And perhaps a dash of hope.

  “All right, children, all right. All eyes and ears on me, please!”

  Stoddard clapped his hands, calling for order. Quin marveled at how easily the crusty old farmer had transformed into the jovial, avuncular fellow who now stood before him.

  “Time to share King Quin for a bit, children. Do your chores and I reckon he’ll play with you again.”

  There was one elated squeal, and a good bit of groaning, and then the children began to file out in separate directions. Quin fel
t sad to see them go.

  “Your Grace.” Stoddard nodded toward the table where Callaghan sat, now with two steaming mugs in front of her. “I hope you like butterfel.”

  Quin’s whole face lit up. “You wouldn’t believe how fervently I’ve longed for a hot mug of butterfel.”

  He slid into the seat and took a sip. It was just as good as he remembered. Heavenly, even.

  “You’re a man reformed, Stoddard.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only that when I saw you last, you were determined to stay in the farmhouse forever, missing your wife.”

  “Still miss her, Your Grace.” He touched the metal band around his finger. “I figure she’d want me to help the living, is all.”

  “Did you always know who I was?”

  “I suspected. We’d all heard rumors you were coming back. We hoped very much they were true.” He beckoned to the other adults, who were waiting shyly around the room. “Come meet the river king. He won’t bite.”

  They came to Quin, one by one, each with a bow or curtsy. He met farmers and innkeepers; merchants and sailors; potters, bakers, blacksmiths. There were women who had worked in taverns and brothels; men who had led houses of worship before those houses were destroyed.

  Here were the subjects Quin had so dearly sought, whom he had feared all dead or fled to Pembuk. For all his sweeping proclamations, he had failed to find them—until a puckish girl had taken him through the forest to a lodging house packed with Glasddirans ready to swear fealty as he claimed the throne.

  The question was, did he deserve it?

  “They all seem to believe in you.”

  Callaghan sat across the table, sipping her butterfel, watching him.

  “You don’t,” he said. “Evidently.”

  “You’re great with the orphans, don’t get me wrong. That was a sight to see. But in the castle? It’s like you became a different person.” She shoved her mug away. “Maybe the Kaer is cursed. No Killian can set foot inside without turning into a soulless tyrant.”

  “Is that what you think I am?”

  “Maybe.” She scrunched up her nose. “I reserve the right to change my mind.”

  Quin regarded her, thoughtful.

  “You remind me of my sister. Have I told you that?”

  She brightened. “I loved Princess Karri. We all did.”

  “As did I. She had the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. Karri was a Killian, but she didn’t fall victim to the castle’s curse, as you say. She would have loved”—he motioned around them—“whatever this is. What is this, exactly? If you’re not Embers.”

  “We’re the resistance to the resistance.”

  “I see. And do you have a name?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No. We don’t have a slogan, either.”

  “Then may I ask why you have the symbol of the Embers on your front door?”

  Callaghan looked confused. “The Embers?”

  “The triangles. The three flames.”

  She burst out laughing.

  “Those aren’t flames! And the Embers have nothing to do with it. Dom and I carved those.”

  Quin sat back. Trying to make sense of this.

  “Did you leave them for me to find in the forest?”

  “Not everything is about you! We didn’t even know you were alive. We thought you might come back, but unlike some”—she lowered her voice—“we weren’t convinced that would be a good thing. We worried you might try to claim the throne by show of force.”

  She stared pointedly at his hands, then skewered him with another of her withering looks. He was almost starting to like them.

  “But to be honest, you weren’t our main concern. The du Zols and I had been watching the Embers for a while. We saw the way Tobin was sweeping the countryside, promising a new kind of rule, then killing anyone who didn’t agree. The symbol was meant to warn people. Whenever Dom or I got a whiff of where Toby was headed, one of us would slip away from the group and run to the village to carve three triangles in the places he intended to do harm.”

  “You were trying to protect people,” Quin said, stunned.

  “Sometimes we even succeeded. That’s how we found the children. We brought them all back here to give them food and shelter.” Her face fell. “But we failed many, many times.”

  Now Quin understood why the symbol always marked sites of death and destruction. He had assumed the triangles were carved after the violent deed was done, when in fact they’d been intended to prevent it.

  “Not all the Embers are rotten,” Callaghan said. “Most of them are innocent. They’re just people trying to survive. And Sylvan and Maev were never as cruel as Tobin. If they were, I never saw it. I think they truly believe they’re creating something better than Ronan or Angelyne.”

  A blade appeared in her hand. So deftly Quin startled.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Not for you.”

  She pressed the tip of the knife into the wooden tabletop.

  “That’s the thing about power. It corrupts even good people. My mother taught the histories, remember? She said it’s always the same cycle: first there are the monarchs.”

  Cal scored three sharp lines, etching a small triangle.

  “Then, after the kings—or queens, they can be rotten, too—come the ones who overthrow them.” She engraved another, bigger triangle around the first. “But they’re often just as bloody and violent as the kings and queens themselves. That’s the second wave. It’s up to the next wave of people to overthrow them.”

  She drew a third triangle around the first and second. Then set the knife down, satisfied.

  “The third wave is the biggest. That’s because we have the people on our side. The power is shared among all of us. We’re the ones who balance things out again.”

  Quin peered intently at the triangles. With his fingertip, he traced the first, then the second, then the third. How could someone so young be so wise? He mulled it over, the idea that power was by its very nature corruptive. It had certainly corrupted his father. King Ronan had been drunk on his own might—and the river kingdom had paid the price. Same with Zaga. Then Angelyne.

  Would power corrupt Quin, too? Or had it done so already?

  “And then I came back,” he said. “Just as desperate and hungry as Tobin.”

  She nodded. “We were eager to see what the Embers would do with you. We wondered if they’d put your head on a spike to prove a point.”

  He grimaced. “Thanks for the concern.”

  “Your head would look nice on a spike.” She shrugged. “Easy on the eyes.”

  Did he detect the hint of a grin? He caught a glimpse of Brialli Mar, the girl he’d found so charming.

  “You know, you really had me fooled. I never thought to look past the sweet, wide-eyed girl skipping through the woods with the Embers. You’d do well in the pretending arts.”

  “Not as well as you.” She sniffed. “The thing is, I still can’t tell if you’re a tyrant pretending to be a good person, or a good person pretending to be a tyrant.”

  Neither, Quin realized. He was failing at both.

  The door swung open with a bang. Quin and Callaghan looked up sharply as Domeniq stormed into the lodging house.

  Cal sprung to her feet. “What’s happened?”

  “It’s Maev and Sylvan.”

  She went ashen.

  “Did they find us? Do they know we’re here?”

  “They didn’t find anyone. Their heads are on two spikes outside the Kaer.”

  Quin’s stomach pitched. Before he could respond, Dom turned to him.

  “Tobin wants yours next.”

  Chapter 35

  Choked

  PILAR COULDN’T FIND STONE.

  He wasn’t in his sfeera. Wasn’t at the circle, either. When she poked her head into the Manjala, she got nothing but a scowl from Celeste and the stink of incense in her nose.

  Pilar hated herself for stalling. She knew exactly whe
re Stone was. She just couldn’t bear to say goodbye to that dirty, sweat-soaked room she loved so much.

  But she owed Stone an apology for the way she’d treated him the night before. She didn’t want his last memory to be her knocking him on his ass before he had time to defend himself. She couldn’t let her last words to him be You failed.

  There was another reason she needed to apologize. When it came to last words, she couldn’t get the ones she’d said to Rose out of her head. You really do break everything you touch. She had called Mia a failure. And for someone like Mia Rose, failure was the worst possible thing.

  Pilar didn’t doubt Mia had crossed the Bridge to Prisma for a million reasons she would never understand. But she would always, for the rest of her life, wonder if her words had dealt the final blow.

  So Pilar trudged to the farthest wing of the House of Shadows. Down the hallway she’d walked so many times—and into the Gymnasia.

  At least, that was the plan.

  The first thing she noticed was the sign.

  Someone had nailed a large piece of parchment to the closed door of the Gymnasia. The message screamed in bloodred ink.

  Kaara akutha! Here at Manuba Vivuli, you are warmly invited to explore modes of healing and self-expression that do not hinge on physical violence and aggression. We encourage all guests and residents to attend the circle, try jougi, or spend time in the Creation Studio!

  To facilitate a better, safer, healthier experience at the House of Shadows, the Gymnasia will be permanently closed. We appreciate your understanding.

  Blessings,

  Celeste, the Keeper

  Furious, Pilar ripped the sign off the door. It came loose in damp strips, the ink still wet. Parchment stuck to her palms and gummed up her fingernails. She wasn’t going to let Celeste take this away from Stone, Shay—any of them. They deserved a place they could gather. Joke and laugh and learn how to protect themselves. They deserved to feel safe.

  Once she’d peeled the last scrap of parchment from her hands, she looked back up.

  The sign was still there.

  What in four hells?

  She ripped it off again. This time she kept her eyes glued on the door. Forced herself not to blink. And watched the sign regrow itself.