Soul of Cinder

by Bree Barton

“Yes, Pilar, I do. Considering how we parted ways, I’d at very least like to say I’m sorry.”

  How many apologies was she going to get today?

  She sighed. Sat up. Spun round to face him.

  “All right, Killian. Have at it.”

  He winced. “Could you perchance call me Quin? Or really anything but Killian.”

  “I will call you Quin if you promise to never say perchance again.”

  He grinned. She’d won a small victory.

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” he said, and began anyway.

  The apologies came in a strange order. And not always the ones she expected. Quin was sorry for almost killing her. For wanting to kill her. That was the big one. Also for knocking her down using her own moves.

  “You were trying to teach me to protect myself,” he said, “and I used it against you.”

  He was sorry he had lied a million times while Angelyne was enthralling him. Even sorrier that he’d kept lying when she wasn’t enthralling him.

  He was sorry for other things, too. Undercooking a rabbit on their journey to Luumia. Not complimenting her violin playing enough. His continued inability to correctly pronounce the i in Pilar. She found these confessions sweet, if somewhat beside the point.

  By the time Quin finished apologizing, he looked beat. She got the sense he was relieved to get it all out.

  “You do this a lot now, don’t you?”

  “Is it that obvious?” He shot her a rueful grin. “The Art of Making Amends. I’ve been getting plenty of practice. You’d think I would have tightened it up a bit by now.”

  She looked at him. Thoughtful. Did he expect her to forgive him? Did she expect herself to forgive him? Under Angelyne’s enthrallment, he had broken her trust. She’d felt used. Betrayed.

  But magic was tricky. Now, with more distance—and less raw fury—she understood Quin had been used, too. Pilar had blamed the victim for the crime.

  As for the snow palace? The moment when some essential part of Quin had broken, and he had decided her life was worth less than his? She didn’t know what to do with that. But she knew he was a product of his past—like her, like anyone—and he had known only violence, beginning with his father. She felt real grief over what that violence had cost them both.

  “I’m sorry too, Quin.”

  She touched the bloodbloom in her pocket. Let the air out of her lungs.

  “I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to endure. And I’m sorry I was cruel to you. I blamed you for things that were never your fault. Angelyne hurt us both. I want you to know I admire everything you’re doing here to make amends. You should be very proud.”

  Her apology was simpler than his—and a lot shorter—but it felt right.

  They sat in companionable silence. He petted his dogs. She flopped back onto the fountain wall, flung an arm over her eyes. The sun made her sleepy. Who knew apologies were so exhausting?

  “Here’s a question,” she said. “Do you think we ever would have had an honest go?”

  “You mean the Doomed Duet of Pil and Kill?”

  “The timing wasn’t right, obviously.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  She was about to make a joke when he said, simply, “I’ve always cared about you, Pil. Beneath all the lies and all the magic, there was always that truth at the core.”

  Heat rushed to her face.

  “I think we each gave each other something we needed,” he went on. “You reminded me I might actually deserve to be loved.”

  “And you made me feel safe again.”

  He smiled. “These days I think a lot about power. People who’ve had their power stripped away often seek out others who’ve been hurt in similar ways. We were both victims, and we clung to each other because there was nothing else to cling on to.”

  Pilar sat bolt upright.

  “We’re also survivors, Quin. Don’t forget that. We helped each other survive.”

  She took him in. His fiery green eyes. His taut, lean body, which—she did not mind admitting—had brought her great delight. She thought of every moment they’d spent together. The sensual. The playful. The infuriating.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said.

  “Of course.”

  “Did it make you feel strong?”

  He looked at her, curious. “Which part?”

  “When you did the move I taught you—and knocked me on my ass.”

  “I don’t know if strong is the word I’d use. Powerful, maybe.”

  “Do you think if you’d learned to fight when you were younger, you would have felt more powerful?”

  He considered it.

  “I think so, yes. Perhaps in the end it isn’t so different from magic. That night I felt powerful in my body, whether I was using your sparring moves or sending flames from my hands. I had never felt that kind of power inside me. Perhaps my life would have been very different if I had.”

  Pilar grinned as wide as the sky. She stood. Leaned down. Kissed Quin on the cheek. She was surprised to feel a lump rising in her throat.

  “You may not be a Killian,” she said, “but you are still a prince to me.”

  Chapter 50

  The Greatest Love Stories

  MIA WASN’T HARD TO find. Pilar went straight to the hospital.

  Rose was loitering by the front steps. Staring at the front door. Brow furrowed.

  “Or you could go in,” Pilar said over her shoulder.

  Mia didn’t turn. Somehow she’d known Pil was there.

  “Why? I’m not sick.”

  “Only half the people in a hospital are sick. The other half are there to make them better.” Pilar plopped herself down on the top step. “You should talk to Quin.”

  Mia was silent.

  Nothing could have prepared her for seeing Quin on the sun-soaked hilltop. She was gripped by shock and joy, hope and terror. He was alive. She had drunk in his tousled golden curls, his warm green eyes, his tenderness. Even before he’d opened his mouth to bungle an apology, she knew he was not the same person who had penned the letter.

  It alarmed her how quickly she forgave him. How easily she let the old tide of feelings sweep her away. She could feel herself tilting toward him, as if pulled by an invisible string. She had taken exactly one step, then stopped. Nell’s words pierced her consciousness.

  I’m not entirely convinced you know what love is. At least not the kind that’s freely given, freely shared.

  Mia had grown so much over the past few months. No doubt Quin had, too. But had they grown together or apart? It seemed too much to hope that their separate journeys would now perfectly intertwine. The thought that she would finally choose him—that she was ready to freely give him love—only to have him reject her? She couldn’t bear it.

  And so, as Quin showed them a revitalized village, she’d kept her face stony and impassive, even though she was deeply moved. At the hospital she’d wanted nothing more than to go inside, yet she had turned away, studiously avoiding eye contact. It wasn’t that she was scared of what she might see in Quin’s eyes. She was scared she wouldn’t see anything at all.

  “I have nothing to say to him,” Mia lied.

  “You have everything to say. And you know it.”

  Mia sighed. That was the thing about Pilar. She could spot bullshit from a mile away—and she never beat around the bush.

  Mia sank onto the stoop beside her.

  “What did Muri say? I never asked.”

  Pilar sighed. That was the thing about Mia. She could shift an interrogation so smoothly you were suddenly the one being interrogated.

  “You were right. Muri had no idea about Celeste. She asked me to come back to the House, if you can believe it. Told me I could keep sparring. She wants my help rooting out the rotten people no one else can see.” Pilar lifted her chin, cocky. “She thinks I have a knack for it.”

  “Will you go?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Maybe.”<
br />
  “Come on, Pil. Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “You so clearly love it there. Your whole face lit up when you told me about your fight students. You love everything about it.”

  Mia smiled. She liked the idea of Pilar in the House of Shadows. Sweating and sparring; bonding with her brood; holding people to account. The irony was not lost on her. Pilar had stomped around the House, claiming to hate everything, and yet she’d found a home there. A family. Mia had been blissfully in the House’s thrall, only to leave it behind.

  She felt a twinge of grief. Would she ever see the Curatorium again?

  And yet, when she thought of returning to the House—of turning her back on the river kingdom—the grief was far greater.

  “I can’t go with you,” Mia said softly. “I didn’t know how much I missed home until I came back to it.”

  Pilar held her gaze. “I was thinking,” she said. “Pembuk and Glas Ddir aren’t that far apart. Really the only thing between them is a vast, brutal, endless desert. Now that you’re an expert kama rider, a vast, brutal, endless desert is a piece of cake.”

  Mia laughed. “I think you sorely overestimate my aptitude on a pink kama.”

  “There’s always the water. I know how much you love boats.”

  Pilar enjoyed teasing her sister. She’d never had a sister she could tease. But she wondered if Mia could hear the fear beneath the jokes. Pilar didn’t want to accept that she might never see her sister again. Couldn’t accept it.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have to.

  When Quin was taking them around the village, Pilar’s brain had started popping with ideas. Or maybe it had popped earlier, when she’d seen the children run around the stage, the little boy fling himself onto Quin’s back. If she was going to expand the Gymnasia, why not train younger children, too? It would be more tumbling than fighting, but that was fine. It would give them a physical outlet, a way to get comfortable in their bodies without feeling any shame.

  The idea made her so dizzy with happiness she actually felt faint.

  “I was also thinking,” she said aloud, “that I could create different kinds of programs—different sparring styles, sure, but not only sparring. A lot of times my brood just wants to talk. What if I started a group where we sat in a room together and talked? Like the circle, but with actual words.”

  “No humming?” Mia said wryly.

  Pilar grinned. “Never.”

  “I think that sounds divine.”

  Pil traced the wooden stoop between them, running her finger down the grain.

  “I could offer the same programs to students from all four kingdoms. Teach in different places, or maybe recruit students to come back to the House. I know we can’t heal ourselves before we heal the world, or we can’t heal the world before we heal ourselves, or whatever it is they say. Obviously you can’t spar with a volqano or punch a glacier back into place. But maybe, if I can help my students feel strong and powerful . . . it’s something.”

  “It’s more than something, Pilar. It’s everything. The whole reason we’re in this mess is because people wanted to feel powerful, and they didn’t care about the cost. That’s why the world is breaking open. My sister . . .” She swallowed. “Our sister wanted to feel powerful. She just didn’t have the right tools.”

  Mia had wondered countless times if things would have been different if she—or the Shadowess—or anyone, really—had been able to give Angie the right tools.

  But when her mind wandered there, she gently drew it back.

  Angelyne had made her choice. It had broken Mia’s heart, and yet here she was, with her heart still beating. No matter how well she knew the anatomy of a human heart, she would never be able to understand it. Maybe she didn’t need to.

  “If you’re sailing around the world recruiting,” she said, “would you promise to come see me whenever you’re in the river kingdom?”

  Pilar felt a rush of warmth. So Mia would miss her, too.

  “Don’t worry. You can’t get rid of me so easy.” She cocked her head. “Wait, where will you be exactly? Natha Village? Ilwysion?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Mia answered. Going back to her cottage seemed too sad, too painful.

  “I’m not worried,” Pilar said. “You always seem to land on your feet.”

  “Says the queen of feet landing! I hope you know you’re well on your way to becoming a legend, Pilar d’Aqila. The girls and boys of the four kingdoms have no idea how lucky they are.”

  Pil reached out and took her hand.

  The only time they’d ever been side by side, hands clasped, was during their Reflections. They had been suspended, almost incorporeal, floating in the dreamlike space between.

  Here, in Natha Village, the air smelled of dust and moldy fruit. Two boys unloaded a cart of wares across the street. A little girl coughed violently as her mother shepherded her toward the hospital. A man hocked a wad of spit onto the cobblestones.

  “You should really talk to Quin,” Pilar said. “I think he wants to apologize. But be prepared, because his apologies are a lot.”

  Mia grew thoughtful. She and Quin had been children when last they’d met. She had thought she knew what love was, the way she’d thought she knew everything. She had applied the same rubric to her feelings for Nell. Those feelings had not entirely dissolved; she could still feel their imprint on her heart.

  But loving Nell—or failing to—had changed her. She now knew to nurture her beloved’s feelings as much as her own. And she knew something else, too: that she could love whom she loved.

  For seventeen years she had been constrained by the flawed system she’d inherited. But she had finally shucked off the guilt and constant questioning of her own desire. Now she could come to Quin exactly as she was, because she knew who she was.

  Something Mia had read in a book long ago drifted through her mind.

  “‘Perhaps, in the end, the greatest love stories are not about our lovers. They are the stories of how we learned to love ourselves.’”

  Pilar let the words wash over her. She’d never been much for love stories. But this one was worth a try.

  Mia lifted their clasped hands. Planted a peck on Pil’s knuckles before she could object.

  “Though, for the record,” Mia said, “I do love you.”

  Pilar pulled her close. Laid her head on Mia’s shoulder.

  “I love you, too.”

  Chapter 51

  Ignite

  MIA’S HEART WAS SORE. She had already said goodbye to one sister. Must she say goodbye to another?

  But as she watched Pilar swagger off down the cobbled road, ready to take on the world, she knew this was a different kind of ache. She would see Pilar again. Unlike Angie, Pilar was not relinquishing her life. If anything, she had finally begun to live it.

  Was Mia finally ready to live hers?

  She stood, brushing the dust off her trousers. Drew a smooth, steady breath.

  The door of the hospital yielded easily as she stepped inside.

  It was quieter than the Curatorium. The wide, bright room lined with tidy cots thrummed with the murmur of nurses speaking to their patients and each other. Unlike the long blue robes of the Curateurs, they wore brisk white shirts and unfussy trousers.

  A nurse approached her.

  “Ill, wounded, infirm?”

  “None, in fact.”

  “Here to visit someone?”

  Mia threw back her shoulders. “I came to see if you need assistance.”

  The nurse looked her up and down.

  “You have prior experience?”

  “Some, yes.”

  “You’ve studied anatomy? Physiology? Wound theory?”

  Mia smiled, thinking of Wound Man.

  “Extensively.”

  “How are you with blood?”

  “I love blood.” That hadn’t come out the way she intended. “I only mean I don’t get queasy at the sight of it.”

&nb
sp; The nurse placed a hand on her hip.

  “Performed any surgeries yourself? I’d wager not. You look a bit green.”

  “I once extracted an arrow from a man’s back, stanched the flow of blood, and later cured an infection that had gone septic. I saved his life.” Mia lifted her chin. “Twice.”

  The nurse looked suitably impressed.

  “There is one thing,” Mia said. She braced for the woman’s face to cloud with fear and suspicion. “I have magic.”

  “Healing magic? All the better.” The nurse gave a quick nod. “Can you start today?”

  After that, things happened fast. Half an hour later Mia, too, was wearing a brisk white shirt and trousers. She was given a whirlwind tour of the facilities—admittance room, patient rows, surgical chambers, restatory—introduced to a few nurses, and set loose.

  Mia knew immediately where to go. She headed toward the patient rows, following the sound of the deep, rasping coughs she had heard the moment she stepped inside.

  A little girl sat on a clean white cot. Her mother perched in a chair beside her—clearly as frightened as her daughter, but trying to hide it.

  “She’s been coughing all morning,” the woman said. “She can hardly catch her breath.”

  “It hurts,” the girl whimpered. “Like I’m being crushed.”

  Mia sat beside her. “You’re being very brave.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “I understand. It’s a scary thing, not to be able to breathe. But you are doing beautifully.”

  She couldn’t help but think of Angelyne. The horrible hacking coughs Angie had suffered when her magic first bloomed, the relentless pressure on her chest. Was this girl blooming, or simply sick? Either way, Mia would do everything in her power to lessen the pain.

  A new awareness settled comfortably, warming her from the inside. She could no longer heal Angelyne. But, thanks to Angelyne, she could heal this little girl.

  She pulled the ruby wren from her trouser pocket.

  “This stone has healing magic. As do I.” She turned to the girl’s mother. “May I touch her?”

  The woman hesitated. “Will it help?”

  “I believe so. I’ve done it before.”

  Mia thought of Nanu. How Domeniq’s grandmother had coughed and wheezed until Mia placed a hand on her chest, summoning the winds of Ilwysion, magic pooling in her fingertips as she smoothed the gaps in Nanu’s breath.