Of Ice and Shadows

by Audrey Coulthurst

  Do to her what she does to you. The voice sounded excited now, which didn’t quite fit with the anger I felt. Still, I obeyed. I opened my mouth the barest bit and inhaled deeply. Ikrie’s scream stopped, replaced by a gurgling sound as I took away her breath. Moments later, she lay immobile on the floor, a blistering handprint rising on her neck. I stumbled back as bile rose in my throat. The thunder of the audience’s cheers increased until it was so staggering I couldn’t hear myself think.

  I knew I chose the right one. The satisfaction in the voice felt completely at odds with my emotions, and it was then that the horrifying truth struck me: the voice in my mind wasn’t my own.

  My instinct was to bolt from the stage, but a heavy warmth blossomed in my limbs to root me in place. I hyperventilated like a trapped animal.

  Shh, the voice said. You have nothing to fear.

  I had everything to fear. Someone had manipulated me in battle. If they could take over my mind in the heat of a fight, they’d be able to do it at any time. The implications were terrifying. How much of what was in my mind could they see? What else might they make me do? Fright pulsed through my body as the queen floated onto the stage beside me.

  “I now present to you this evening’s champion: Lia!” She took my hand and raised it alongside her own. “May Zumorda prosper forever!”

  The audience let out a final cheer of joy as servants poured into the room, carrying platters laden with every manner of feasting food.

  The queen kept my hand as she led me offstage. I followed her obediently even as panic swirled in my stomach.

  “I knew you could do it, little bird,” she said once we were in the wings.

  “Something is wrong,” I managed to choke out. I opened my mouth to explain what had happened in the battle, but before I could, the voice returned.

  Don’t be frightened. The queen smiled at me. Isn’t this a better way for us to speak?

  The heat of panic swiftly faded as a chill consumed me. She was the one whose voice was in my mind. Her gift had not been to help me with my magic or with learning—it had been to share her consciousness with me and to communicate from mind to mind. She was the one who had helped me, but also the one who had pushed me to defeat Ikrie in a far more brutal way than I would have if left to my own devices. I backed away, reeling at the betrayal.

  “This isn’t what I agreed to,” I said. “You said you’d given me a gift of learning.”

  “It’s a much greater gift,” the queen said, reaching out to caress my cheek. “Before you join the celebration of your victory, I have some important news to share with you, since I expect you’ll be choosing to apprentice with Zhari. Come with me.” She led me away from the party, and I followed. My fear and confusion coalesced into anger as I walked. I did not like Ikrie, but I wouldn’t have burned her on purpose like that. The queen had forced my hand, rigged the competition even. Had she done it because I was her blood or because she wanted to use me in some other way I couldn’t yet anticipate? By the time we reached her study, I was ready to confront her and demand that she take back her “gift,” but before I could, she said something that made the words die on my lips.

  “I’m afraid there’s been a riot in Kartasha,” the queen said as soon as the door was closed and we were sequestered away from curious ears.

  My blood ran cold. “What?”

  “Kartasha has been taken by the Sonnenbornes. There’s been a betrayal.” Her demeanor had completely changed from the celebratory mask she’d worn at the Revel. The forbidding expression she wore now indicated that someone would pay for what had happened.

  “But there can’t be.” My hands trembled. “You told me Zhari and Laurenna caught the slavers who were creating problems. You said they were going to use them to trace the Sonnenborne conspiracy back to its source.” One question that I knew there was no answer to consumed me—what had happened to Mare? Even if someone knew, the queen would not have cared enough to ask.

  “Zhari has served me for over a century and is loyal unto death,” the queen said. “She’s the one who reached out to me and is still in contact, deploying countermeasures to retaliate against the Sonnenbornes. For something to go this catastrophically wrong, it would have had to be mismanaged locally. Guardian Laurenna has been put in prison on my orders and will be tried for treason.”

  “But how bad is it?” I asked, still in shock. If Zhari was still in control, it couldn’t be a complete takeover, could it? “How could you let the Revel go on with this happening in Kartasha?” If it had been up to me, we would have been on the way south as soon as the news arrived.

  “Canceling the Revel would not have had any impact on the situation in the south. It would have only served to upset people in the north, which is the last thing I need. As for the severity of the situation, the last I heard from Zhari, she had barricaded herself in the tower at court. I’ll continue to monitor the situation through her.”

  “But what about Mare?” I blurted.

  “What about her?” The queen looked confused.

  “Where is she? Is she alive?” Unanswerable as the questions were, they were burning me from the inside out.

  “Do you really care for her so much?” the queen asked. “I always thought she was just a means to an end. You got what you wanted—passage to Zumorda and training for your gift. What does she matter?”

  Mare was the only thing that mattered. As upset as I’d been with her, the reality of it crushed me with such totality that I couldn’t breathe.

  “I have to go,” I said, my voice hollow. Although I’d needed training for my magic, this wasn’t at all what I’d wanted. What good would it do me to be apprenticed in Zumorda if I would never be a guardian? I hadn’t come here to ruin Evie’s and Tristan’s chances to compete, and I had never wanted an unwelcome consciousness sharing my own. The only thing I wanted was to get back to Mare. I could only hope she’d forgive me for leaving in the first place.

  You must be tired. Rest now and we’ll talk more tomorrow. Emotions flooded into me along with the queen’s words. I could feel the way she cared for me, a kind of protectiveness that bordered on possession. I wanted to scream and throw her out of my mind. I wished I knew how.

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “I don’t want this. The honors bestowed on me as winner of the Midwinter Revel—they’re not for me. I didn’t win because I fought well or fairly. I won because you pushed me to use my powers in ways I never would have on my own. That’s not who I want to be.”

  Shock was written on the queen’s face. “No one leaves the elites.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “But what about me?” the queen said. “You’re more than a trainee. You’re my blood. My heir.”

  The word made my breath catch in my throat. “Blood is not the only thing that keeps a heart beating. Please excuse me, Your Majesty.” I stood up and walked out of her study, slamming the strongest shield I could manage around my mind in hopes it would keep her out. I needed to leave for Kartasha, and I needed to do it tonight—which meant I needed to get my friends back.

  After gathering the few things I wanted to take with me back to Kartasha, I found Tristan and Evie in Tristan’s chambers. They hadn’t bothered to attend the Revel, and I couldn’t blame them.

  “Please hear me out before you shut the door,” I said hurriedly. Evie already had it half closed again as soon as she saw my face.

  “We heard you won,” Evie said. “Congratulations. Now leave.”

  “I’m not taking an apprenticeship,” I said.

  Tristan snorted. “Really? We lose our opportunity to compete, you somehow escape punishment, and now you’re going to turn down the chance of a lifetime like it’s nothing?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t have enough words in the world for how sorry I am. I tried to take the blame, but I’ve made all the wrong choices up to this point. Hurting the two of you was one of the worst of them. I never should have asked you to help me break into
the prison. All the benefit was for me and all the risk was to both of you.”

  Evie and Tristan both frowned at me, clearly undecided about whether to accept the apology. I fidgeted uneasily, worrying that every minute I spent here was a moment that Mare could be in danger, and it would be my fault if something happened to her.

  “Why do you look like you’ve seen one of Tristan’s death visions?” Evie said.

  “Kartasha has been overtaken by Sonnenbornes,” I said numbly. “That’s why I’m turning down the apprenticeship. I have to get back there right now.”

  “My parents and older brother work in Kartasha.” Evie looked stricken.

  “The person I love most is in Kartasha,” I said.

  Tristan looked back and forth between us. “How in the Sixth Hell are you planning to get there? There’s thigh-deep snow from here halfway to Orzai! No one is maintaining any of the roads.”

  “I’ll just have to do my best,” I said, my voice grim. “There are sleds. Perhaps I can use my fire magic to melt the snow.”

  Tristan sighed. “C’mon, just admit that you need me.”

  Evie and I stared at him with equally humorless expressions.

  “Bad joke,” he said. “But I can help you. With enough power, we could shadow walk most of the way there, I think. I just need an anchor.”

  “My cousin’s farm is just north of Kartasha,” Evie said. “I know the stone in that region—it might be strong enough to be an anchor for the shadow walk.”

  “You can’t possibly mean to come with me,” I said. “Haven’t I already ruined your lives enough?”

  “We could have said no to helping you break into the prison,” Tristan said. “We had that choice.”

  Evie nodded. “I’ve been upset about how things worked out, but the real problem was that you didn’t come talk to us.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you hated me. I’d understand if you did.”

  “I was angry,” Evie said. “Still am, a little bit. But I don’t think it was your intention to hurt us.”

  “Of course it wasn’t,” I said.

  “Don’t get me wrong—good intentions are not a cure-all excuse.” Evie pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders.

  “Of course not,” I said. “Intentions don’t change the fact that I hurt you. And I am so, so sorry for that. You deserved a better friend than I’ve been.”

  “Well, we will have lots to talk about on the road.” Tristan stood up. “Let’s go before the queen decides to stop us.”

  I nodded my agreement, though a shiver of fear crept down my spine. The queen would probably be able to sense our departure through her bond with me. The thought made my stomach turn.

  Tristan and Evie collected a few essentials and then headed for the Grand Temple. But as quickly as we’d made our move, the queen had also made hers to stop us. As we bolted through the gardens, birds swooped down from every side to trail the three of us. I ran until my lungs felt like they were on fire with the icy winter air, until my legs no longer felt attached to my body. I ran until we crossed the bridge to the Grand Temple.

  Wind gusted over the crumbling platform of the old temple floor. The Sight came to me so easily I would have wept with gratitude if not for the urgency of our mission. I reached for Evie’s and Tristan’s hands, letting the familiar tingle rise into my arms and releasing my magic as gently as I could toward Tristan. He jolted with the impact but managed to keep his grip on my hand. Birds screeched overhead as a group of Swifts closed in on us. Still connected, the three of us faced the broken archway that had once been the entrance to the temple. Tristan’s magic bound around the empty doorframe like snakes made of shadow until a dark hole opened up where the door had once been. Inside, swirls of blue and purple fog seemed to mix with the shadows. My stomach dropped a little as I remembered what shadow walking had been like before, but there wasn’t time for me to hesitate.

  Together we stepped into the darkness.

  It felt as if the mountain had fallen out from under us and we were lost in a cold tunnel. Whispers caressed my ears, and at one point I could have sworn I felt sharp teeth nibbling at my throat. The walk seemed to last an eternity—an endless span of time in which my heart still raced as if the Nightswifts held knives at my throat. When we dropped out of the shadowlands and onto a patch of dead grass and rocks, nausea rose in me like a tidal wave. Evie and I both clutched our stomachs, gagging.

  I tried to slow my breathing and waited for the sickness to fade. The bracing chill of the night air helped quell the nausea. Stars glimmered overhead and a nearly full moon weakly illuminated our surroundings. A herd of sheep regarded us warily from farther up the rocky hill, no doubt startled from their grazing by our sudden appearance. Squinting, I could barely make out the profile of a mountain looming near us, but I didn’t recognize it from what I saw.

  “Where the Hells are we?” Evie asked, her breath misting.

  “Um,” Tristan said, eyeballing the sheep warily. “Somewhere near where you were thinking?”

  “I thought we were going to end up where I was envisioning. I don’t know this place.” Evie sounded panicked.

  “We’re probably within a half day’s walk of it,” Tristan said. “Shadow walking isn’t an exact science. There are probably just more dead things here.” He pointed to the left, where a well-picked deer carcass lay draped over a flat rock.

  Evie retched again.

  I looked up at the sky. “Let’s be logical about this. There’s the huntress’s star.” I pointed at a bright star. “That means that way is north.”

  “And the place I was envisioning was my cousin’s farm to the north of Kartasha,” Evie managed. “This isn’t it, but I doubt we overshot and went too far south. Though it’s awfully dry here. This isn’t normal for this time of year.”

  “Look,” I said. “The ground slopes downward a little bit here. If we keep traveling downhill, we should eventually reach a river or a road. We’re in a sheep pasture, so we’ve definitely made it to some farmlands. That means we should be near a trade road as well, since farmers need them to get to market.”

  Evie seemed mollified by this logical information, but she still couldn’t resist another jab at Tristan. “I don’t suppose you can ask the dead which way we should go?”

  “Not at the moment,” he said. He was starting to look a little gray in the moonlight. The long shadow walk must have drained him more than he wanted to admit.

  “Well, there’s no helping this, I suppose. But tell anyone I let you ride me and I’ll never heal you again,” Evie said. As she finished speaking, her limbs elongated and she transformed into an elegant reindeer. She walked up alongside the fence and gestured for us to get on, or at least I assumed that was what her head toss meant. It was either that or I’m going to gore Tristan if he doesn’t stop fooling around.

  “I guess we get to ride,” I said to Tristan.

  Evie gave me a unimpressed look and an impatient snort. I climbed onto her back, startled when a small black cat leaped from the fence to sit behind me.

  “Tristan?” I asked.

  The cat blinked inscrutably. Somehow, his manifest was perfectly appropriate.

  We rode south slowly, all of us exhausted from the ordeals of the night. But the important thing was that we were safe, far away from the queen and her dark plans for us. Or so I thought, until her voice echoed inside my mind as clearly as if she stood behind me:

  Where did you go, little bird?

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Amaranthine

  THE EXODUS TURNED OUT NOT TO BE THE WORST PART of Kartasha’s loss. It was the battle that came in the days after, while we waited for the cavalry and Wymund’s forces to arrive. Though Alek’s message had reached Wymund quickly, it would still take days for the soldiers to travel southeast to us. Those on horseback wouldn’t be much faster than those on foot due to the need to keep their mounts fresh for battle.

  I stood with a tree at my back, out of bre
ath and with my cutlass up in front of me and Harian and another fighter flanking me on either side. A pack of dogs barked somewhere in the distance, sending shivers of dread down my spine. Every few sunlengths they attacked, just often enough to ensure that no one in our camp got more than a few hours of sleep at a time.

  I gazed at the encampment we’d built. Tents and lean-tos were clustered everywhere with little organization. The fighters we had at our disposal ranged from hardened mercenaries to awkward farmers who looked uncomfortable carrying their swords, with the majority being the latter. Those of us who had at least some fighting experience were assigned to the areas near the road as the first line of defense from attackers coming from Kartasha. I tried to stem the rising tide of despair. Even with the help of the cavalry, how were we going to take back the city with nothing but tired and defeated people on our side?

  “Look out!” Harian shouted.

  I whirled to the right just in time to knock aside a lunging dog with the hilt of my sword. The aching muscles in my arm protested. I’d been on guard duty since the previous night and had no energy reserves left now that the coral light of dawn was blooming over the eastern mountains.

  The fighter on my left, a small woman with earth magic named Carys, used her gift to draw vines out of the ground to knot around the legs of another approaching dog. The animal fell in a tangle of limbs, still barking and snapping at us. In the last sunlength or so, I’d started to worry about Carys—exhaustion made a gray mask of her face.

  “I curse the day I ever heard of Tamers,” I said. After gathering information from throughout the camp, Alek and I had figured out how the Sonnenbornes had staged their coup. Not only had they infiltrated the city with false businesses populated with “workers” who were fighters in disguise, but they’d somehow built an alliance with the Tamers. The loans for animal kennels were for the Tamers’ familiars, which had been set loose on the city the day the riot broke out and were the source of our torment now.

  “I never would have thought they’d turn against us,” Harian said.