Of Ice and Shadows

by Audrey Coulthurst

  “Wait!” I said, panicked at the thought that she might refuse to talk to me at all.

  Across the table, Hornblatt was gesturing for the honeyshine.

  “She hasn’t even spoken to me yet!” I said. Despair was already rising in me. What if she didn’t come back?

  The mirror cleared again, and I saw Denna’s face, directly this time, in much dimmer light. “Mare?” she said incredulously.

  Hearing my name on her lips made my heart feel like it was going to stop.

  I passed the honeyshine to Fadeyka, who smugly gave it to Hornblatt. He wasted no time uncorking it and taking a sip straight from the bottle, his expression instantly giving way to rapture. My view in the mirror rippled a little.

  “You can’t get drunk yet!” I scolded him.

  “I must be losing my mind,” Denna said. “Or this is one of Eryk’s mind games.”

  “Who is Eryk?” I asked.

  Her expression stayed tense and dubious. “One of the other trainees. Tell me something only you would know about me. Or us.”

  I glanced up to see both Fadeyka and Hornblatt staring at me expectantly. My cheeks burned as I went through possible things I could say. Most of them weren’t appropriate for my current company, or any company, in fact.

  “The first time we met, my horse knocked the wind out of you and I reminded you how to breathe,” I finally said. The memory ached now. I hadn’t known her then, and I feared I didn’t know who she’d become since she left me.

  Her eyebrows drew together, and I could see that the memory had gutted her, too. I just hoped it wasn’t because she wanted to forget our time together.

  “It really is you,” she said, her voice soft.

  “It is,” I said, a little of my uncertainty slipping through. “I may not be able to speak long. Are you somewhere safe?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I was at lunch with the other trainees, and I’ve stepped out to the toilets. I don’t think anyone can hear us. Just to confirm something, though . . . you’re not really in my wineglass, are you?”

  I smacked my free hand on my forehead. “It figures he’d manage to connect with a glass of wine.”

  “For what it’s worth, I wasn’t planning to drink it.” Denna smiled. “These Zumordans keep strange drinking hours.”

  Hornblatt took another swig of honeyshine as if to prove her point.

  “How is your training going?” I asked, feeling awkward. I barely knew where to start after all that had transpired in the weeks since we’d last seen each other.

  “It’s going well,” she said. “I struggled at first, but the queen has been a real help to me. She’s gone out of her way to help me feel at home here. Of course, there’s still a lot to learn.”

  She felt at home? My worst fears were coming true. I wanted to apologize to her for the fight we’d had before she left, but didn’t she owe me an apology for leaving without really saying good-bye? A heavy pause drew out between us.

  “Zhari and Laurenna told me that the training you’re doing can be dangerous and that you have to compete at Midwinter. Fight each other.” I waited to see what she would say.

  “That’s true,” she said. “And it has been hard—at least learning to use my magic. I never set out wanting to hurt people.”

  “I know you didn’t,” I said. She’d never been that kind of person.

  “But it turns out I think I have a multi-Affinity. I still need more information, but it would make a lot of sense and explain some of why my magic has been particularly hard to train or control.”

  “I’ve heard of that,” I said. “Fadeyka might have one, too, but they aren’t sure yet.”

  Fadeyka popped her head into the frame, making Denna smile.

  “Hi, Faye,” Denna said, earning a warm smile and an excited bounce from Fadeyka in return. “Back in Mynaria there was a book I read that mentioned the possibility of using more than one kind of magic, but it sounded more like the stuff of legends than reality.”

  “It’s just uncommon,” Fadeyka said.

  Denna nodded. “The queen told me Zhari is the only guardian who has one.”

  “Then you should come back here to train with her,” I blurted out.

  Denna’s expression went flat and unreadable. “Why?”

  “Because this training you’re in—it’s too dangerous. People have died battling each other at the Midwinter Revel. This isn’t worth your life, you have to understand—”

  “No, you have to understand,” Denna said, her voice firm. “This is my Affinity, and learning to master it is the only important thing. I’m finally getting some control over my powers thanks to the queen’s help, and you just want me to leave all that behind because it’s too dangerous? Do you see me as someone who quits? Do you think I’m a weakling?”

  The mirror rippled again, for longer this time. Hornblatt had already put back a sixth of the bottle of honeyshine.

  “No, I—”

  “It’s like you didn’t listen to anything I said. You’d be perfectly happy for me to pose as your maid forever and never embrace my powers.” Her agitation grew.

  “That’s not true!” I was frantic for her to understand. “I want you to be powerful, but I also want you to be safe, and I want your help with everything that’s going on here—so much has happened.”

  “I left because I wanted to be worthy of you. I wanted to be your protector, not your liability. Your equal, not your maid. Do you even understand that?”

  “No, I don’t understand,” I said, my voice breaking. “I don’t understand why you left without even saying good-bye. I don’t understand why you couldn’t have told me what you needed. I wouldn’t have held you back if this was what you thought was right for you. We could have gone to Corovja together. You’re the only reason I came to this sarding kingdom in the first place.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be the only reason,” she said. “Your kingdom is depending on you. Doesn’t that matter?”

  I tried to blink back the sting of her words, not to hear them as a rejection, but that was exactly what they were. At some point, she’d decided she was better off without me, and I was the last to know.

  “Of course,” I said softly. “But I also wanted us to be together. To be safe.”

  “I can’t live my life in fear, waiting for the world to be safe,” she said, her expression hardening in an unfamiliar way. Training was already changing her—I could tell. “I will complete my training and participate in the Revel, and if the gods see fit, I’ll return to Kartasha as Zhari’s apprentice.”

  The mirror flickered dramatically, and we lost contact for a moment.

  “But what if you don’t win at the battle?” I could barely choke out the words. “What if you die?”

  “I need you to trust me to take care of myself,” she said. “Think of your kingdom for once. Think of the hundreds of thousands of people depending on you.”

  The image in the mirror tilted at a wild angle. I opened my mouth to shout at Hornblatt, only to realize that it wasn’t him. Denna had poured out her wine. The mirror went milky and didn’t come back.

  I set the mirror back on the table. My throat felt tight with emotion. No matter what I said, it was always the wrong thing. Instead of talking her into coming back to me, all I’d succeeded in doing was pushing her further away. I wished I could have had even five more minutes to explain that I still wanted a life with her, and to figure out if she still wanted a life with me. Instead she’d cut me off at the worst part of our conversation.

  “When can we reach her again?” I asked Hornblatt, who was swaying in his chair to music only he could hear. His eyes wandered in my general direction, but didn’t focus at all. He muttered some nonsense to himself, then took another sip of honeyshine, spilling some of it down the front of his shirt. I glanced at Fadeyka, who simply gave me a nervous shrug and kept dangling a piece of string for Jingles to swat.

  “Six sarding arses,” I swore. It was useless trying to talk
to him right now. I’d have to wait until he ran through this supply, and then bring more to bribe him again. At the rate he drank, it shouldn’t take too long.

  “We’ll show ourselves out, then.” I stood up, and Fadeyka followed me.

  We picked our way through the mess and back out the front door. I couldn’t help but observe that the horrible disaster of Hornblatt’s house strongly resembled the shambles of my own life.

  “Why were you calling Lia ‘Dennaleia’?” Fadeyka asked as soon as we were out in the alley.

  “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to speak about any of this again,” I said, feeling sour.

  “You didn’t say I couldn’t ask questions,” she pointed out.

  “You are definitely a politician’s daughter,” I grumbled.

  “Fiddleshits!” Fadeyka exclaimed.

  “I’m not sure that’s the right way to use that curse—” I started.

  “The only Dennaleia I know of was Princess Dennaleia of Havemont,” Fadeyka interrupted. Her small body looked about ready to explode with excitement.

  “Never heard of her,” I said unconvincingly.

  Fadeyka squeaked loudly enough startle a man passing on the other side of the street. “You abducted a princess of Havemont!” She was far too gleeful about this news. “She’s alive!”

  “That’s not what happened,” I said. “Not at all.”

  “You’re in love with a princess of Havemont!”

  “Stop!” I mock-swatted at her, but the taunts continued all the way back to the Winter Court, and the barn, where she fortunately got her wits back about her long enough to help me brush Flicker.

  I’d hoped that talking to Denna would leave me feeling more certain about our separation, but instead I felt more frightened and lost than ever. She’d basically placed the burdens of my kingdom on my shoulders, and now I felt like the only way to win her back was to succeed at the mission I’d never wanted in the first place. I thought we were working toward the same future, but what was that future? I didn’t know.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Dennaleia

  TALKING TO MARE IN THE WINEGLASS HAD BEEN SO brief and surreal that sometimes I thought it was a dream. In some ways, I wished it had been. Her words haunted me, digging deep under my skin and burrowing into my heart. It didn’t make sense to me that she couldn’t see my side of things, that she didn’t seem to care if I was her equal or not. By choosing her over her brother, I’d already given up everything for her once. How could she be asking me to consider doing that again? She had seemingly accepted my gift back in Mynaria, but now it felt conditional. When I failed to keep my magic under control, suddenly it wasn’t all right for it to be part of me anymore. I tried to think about it as little as possible, focusing my energy on the Midwinter Revel instead.

  In spite of my confidence when talking to Mare, outright winning the competition at Midwinter seemed impossible. Eryk and Ikrie would fight ruthlessly, and as fond as I’d come to be of Evie and Tristan, their powers were also formidable. The only person who might have the answers I needed to master my abilities was Sigvar, and I also still wanted to know how the boy from Duvey had ended up in his cult. I needed to get to the prison as soon as I could. However, it turned out to be more complex than I expected.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked, shivering in my black cloak. Powdery snowflakes fell from the night sky to sting my face. Tristan, Evie, and I stood in the middle of the Grand Temple ruins with only a small mage light to see by.

  “It should,” Tristan said. “I can try pulling us back into the shadowlands if we end up in the wrong place.”

  Casing the prison the week before had been less helpful than I’d hoped. The building was embedded in the side of the mountain, meaning most of the cells were deep underground, with no windows or other ways to get a sense of the layout from the outside. The front of the building seemed to contain mostly administrative offices, processing rooms, and temporary holding cells for criminals who had committed only minor infractions.

  “I don’t know why you question me about the layout,” Evie said. “I’m telling you I can feel it, and it looks just like this.” She gestured to the slip of paper in front of us.

  After his ice wine had gone over very well, Tristan had talked me into letting Evie in on the plan. Her earth magic let her sense the structures underground that we couldn’t see, and she’d managed to draw us a crude map based on what she could tell from how the building was built into the mountain.

  “We can do this if we all trust each other,” I said. My role was to provide Tristan with a little extra magic to help make our shadow walk easier.

  “Then let’s go. It’s colder than the balls on a brass horse out here,” Evie said. “Aim for this area.” She pointed to a stairwell on the map that we’d agreed was the best place point of entry. It led between two floors of cells—the ones we thought were most likely to be housing Sigvar. Above were larger cells that seemed likely to have multiple occupants. Below, smaller cells for solitary confinement.

  “Take my hands,” Tristan said, holding out one to each of us. We accepted them, and the now-familiar feeling of the ground dropping out from beneath my feet hit. In spite of its being my third journey with Tristan, the whispered voices still made my skin crawl with dread. The shadowlands were no warmer than the frigid air outside. Instead of relying on my senses, I called up my Sight, which made the shadowlands take more form around me. Sparks of light in many colors drifted all around us as we pressed forward. Evie was a silver form in the lead, directing Tristan, who glowed purple.

  We dropped out of the shadowlands into a narrow stairwell. I barely caught myself against the wall, my stomach still doing somersaults from our journey. The stone was cool against my palms, but the stagnant air in the prison felt warm after the Grand Temple. The reek of urine and unwashed bodies hung heavy in the air. All three of us froze, waiting to see if we heard any sounds. Dim light glowed from the bottom of the stairwell, barely enough to see by.

  “There’s no one down there but the prisoners,” Evie whispered, “but there’s a guard on the next floor up.”

  I silently blessed Tristan for roping Evie into this. We’d surely get caught without her earth sense. I pointed down the stairs, indicating that we should go that way first. The other two nodded their agreement, and we carefully descended to the lower level. The reek of body odor intensified as we drew closer to where the prisoners were being held.

  The stairs opened into a narrow hallway lined with about two dozen tiny cells. Each one was barely wider than the cots inside them, and the only light was from dim mage lights at either end of the hall. A few occupants of the cells pressed their faces against the bars with hollow and haunted stares. I shrank away in fear but forced myself to look for Sigvar. I worried that the other prisoners would start screaming and reveal our presence, but every time one of them caught a glimpse of Tristan, they scurried away from the bars, whimpering.

  “What are you doing to them?” I asked him in a whisper.

  “When they look at me, they see the face of someone they know who died,” he whispered.

  I shuddered. “Isn’t that rather cruel?”

  “Better they think they’ve seen a ghost than alert the guards to our presence,” Tristan said.

  “You ever do that to me and I’ll turn you into stone and then pound you into gravel,” Evie threatened.

  “Noted,” Tristan said, looking a little alarmed.

  At the dead end of the hallway was a prisoner who didn’t move from his bed when we approached. One arm hung off the edge of his cot, the symbols inked on his skin blending into the shadows in the cell.

  “That’s him,” I said. “Tristan, can you keep the other prisoners distracted?”

  He nodded, and paced back the way we’d come to make sure everyone was too frightened to be curious about what we were doing.

  “And Evie, can you make sure no one comes down here?”

  “I’l
l go back over by the stairs. Worst-case scenario, I can avalanche some rocks to block the stairwell.”

  I paled at the thought of being trapped in this airless cave with no escape, even though I knew we could shadow walk out again. I tried to still my thoughts and open myself to the Sight, relieved when it came to me with only a few flickers.

  “Sigvar?” I spoke softly.

  He looked up suddenly, as though I’d startled him. I barely kept myself from recoiling when I saw his face. Gouges only recently scabbed over laced through his beard. His brown eyes no longer held false warmth—only fear. Though Queen Invasya had been ruthlessly efficient when she stripped him of his gift and ordered his capture, I hadn’t expected to find him like this. His condition spoke of far more than simple imprisonment. The queen seemed prone to swift punishments when she deemed them necessary, but she didn’t strike me as someone who would favor torture.

  “Who are you?” he asked, squinting out of his cell.

  “My name is Lia,” I told him. The lie had become so familiar, it almost felt real. “I have some questions.”

  He sat up on his cot and drew his thin blanket around his shoulders. Even without him standing up, I could tell he’d lost a dramatic amount of weight since I’d seen him in Tilium. His once-muscular body was now lean and wiry, his sun-kissed skin paler thanks to being underground.

  “Kill me and you can ask me whatever you want,” he said, then laughed. It was a strange, pinched sound that sent a shiver racing through me.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, showing him my open palms.

  “I’ll die if I see her face again. I’ll die,” he babbled.

  “Who?” I asked.

  He scooted farther forward on the cot until he was only a few feet away from me. The gashes on his face were even more terrifying up close. Dried blood and scabs crusted the jagged edges, a few of them green and yellow with infection.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I need to know about your cult,” I said. “There was a blond boy from Duvey who had joined your flock. Do you remember him?”

  “There were three,” Sigvar said with a choked laugh.