The Star Bell (The Cendrillon Cycle Book 3)

by Stephanie Ricker

  Elsa rolled out of the way, feeling clumsy and as if she weren’t moving half fast enough. She staggered to her feet, using the ice jag to pull herself up, and swung herself around it to put it between her and Cilla.

  Cilla didn’t spare a breath on words. With the mammut herd all but past them now, her silence was eerie. Elsa lashed out with her ice axe, but Cilla was far, far faster. She slashed at Elsa and made contact this time. The blade sliced through the thick parka and into the flesh of Elsa’s arm, lifted to ward off the blow. Elsa cried out and slashed with the axe again. Cilla dodged backwards, but Elsa knew she didn’t have a chance of defeated a trained assassin in a fight.

  She turned and ran.

  She did her best to shove aside her fear and pain, though her arm was hurting her dreadfully. It would only grow worse, she knew; adrenaline was in her favor right now. She felt a pang of despair; she had dropped her survival kit when Cilla attacked. But she pushed those thoughts away and focused on just one thing: listening.

  She could hear the far-off bellow of a mammut in the distance as the hunds made their kill.

  She could hear Cilla’s harsh breathing behind her as she ran, slightly clumsy in the snow. The unaccustomed terrain was the only reason Elsa was staying ahead of her.

  She could hear the ice creak.

  She faltered and slowed, taking careful sliding steps for a few feet before stopping altogether. She turned to face Cilla.

  Cilla reached her, knife slashing, and Elsa circled to the right, swinging with her ice axe to make Cilla circle in turn. The ice creaked.

  The ice held. The color drained from Elsa’s face. She had to drive Cilla backwards somehow, further onto the rotten ice over the crevasse. She was losing blood, and the cold was seeping in through her slashed parka. A lassitude was overcoming her, making it hard to focus and even harder to move quickly. She prayed Cilla wouldn’t throw the knife; she doubted she could dodge it in time.

  In the midst of her flight, she had forgotten all about the hund that had been watching her.

  The hund slipped in sidewise, appearing from nowhere, and lunged at Cilla with a vicious snarl.

  Startled, Cilla leaped back to avoid the animal, and the ice finally gave way. With a rush, the surface ice fell into the crevasse below—and Cilla fell with it. The hund danced back out of the way in time before it too slid into the deep gash in the snowfield’s surface. There was no telling how deep the crevasse was.

  Cilla didn’t even scream. The silence was complete now; all Elsa could hear was the wind. She shuddered, feeling sick.

  The hund regarded her levelly. Dizzy and weak, Elsa couldn’t muster the energy to be afraid. If it attacked her now, she didn’t have much strength left for the fight.

  But the hund didn’t seem inclined to attack her. Its eyes seemed familiar—even more like Harmattan’s than before.

  It was impossible, of course. This couldn’t be her old hund. The last she’d seen of Harmattan was when she sold him with the rest of the team to a livery in Atticora, nine years ago. She was being silly, she told herself.

  The hund chuffed softly to itself, a sound its species made when it was pleased. It gave her one last look, then picked its way out through the rotten ice with delicate grace before lengthening its stride to run after the pack.

  Elsa stared after it dumbly. A particularly cold blast coming in through her slashed parka sleeve awoke her from her stupor, and she realized she needed to act fast if she was going to survive till morning.

  Without conscious thought, she turned her back to the wind. She adjusted her glove wraps so that the ties held the remains of the parka tight against her wound. The bleeding was already dramatically slowed by the cold.

  Following the path the hund had taken, she wove her way through the rotten ice, giving the crevasse where Cilla had fallen a wide berth. She felt cowardly for it, but she couldn’t bring herself to look down inside. Seeing Cilla’s body sprawled at the bottom would be too similar to seeing her father’s body, years before.

  She found stable ice and circled back, hunting for the jag of ice she had sheltered behind before. As she walked, however, she kept her eyes open for a place where the snow had drifted thickly over the ice. She couldn’t be too particular; it was nearly full dark now, and the temperature was dropping quickly. If she didn’t find the ice jag soon, she’d dig in as best she could. She was careful not to hurry, though; she must stay dry. She would lose heat much more quickly to the moisture of sweat than to the air. She kept her mind on the steps of survival and did not allow herself to think of the woman dead at the bottom of the crevasse.

  Elsa had just avoided death from a powerful assassin. But now that she had survived, an even greater killer loomed. A night on the snowfields of Anser was an even surer instrument of death than Cilla’s knife. She had minutes left to find shelter, stop her bleeding, and conserve her energy. If she didn’t fill those needs, Cilla would have carried out her mission just as surely as if she’d killed Elsa herself.

  She found the ice jag at last, relieved beyond her ability to put into words. She searched carefully around its base for the small, precious bundle that would save her life.

  Her hand touched it, and she nearly cried in relief, except that the tears would’ve frozen as soon as they fell.

  She put the ice jag between her and the wind, and slowly, methodically, she dug a trench with her ice axe, pushing the snow up on the sides to make the walls of the trench deeper. When it was two feet deep, she stopped and climbed inside. The trench was just large enough for her lie down in out of the wind, and no larger. The ice jag would keep the worst of the wind off of her, but if it changed direction, she would be in trouble.

  She unwrapped the bundle with clumsy hands. The wrappings could serve as food in a pinch, but things weren’t quite that dire yet. She had several high-calorie food bars, and that would last her the night. In cold such as this, she might need five or even six thousand calories in a day to stay warm, but she didn’t intend to be out here for more than a day.

  Inside the kit was a reflective heat cocoon. She spread it out inside the trench, climbed inside, and pulled the flap over herself, using the spikes in the cocoon’s edges to anchor it to the trench and seal herself in. One side of the cocoon was designed not to permit any heat transfer, while the other side reflected the heat back to her. She left a small opening near the ice jag for ventilation. Sealing oneself in too tightly and succumbing to carbon dioxide poisoning was a rookie mistake she would not be making.

  Once she had created her cocoon, she took out a fire stick from the kit and broke it in half to ignite it, placing it on a folded-over piece of extra cocoon. The non-heat-transferable side made it the perfect site for the fire stick, which would provide her with smokeless heat for at least six hours. The glow instantly made her feel better, and not just because of the warmth. The moons hadn’t risen yet, and the night was forbidding and filled with memories she didn’t want to touch.

  She dug into one of the high-calorie bars, not bothering to unwrap it. The packaging was also edible, if not very delicious, and she needed to eat immediately and often. While she chewed, she pulled a small collapsible pot from the kit, filled it with snow, and put it over her fire stick. Hydration was incredibly important on the snowfields. While the snow began to melt, she pulled her snow goggles down over her eyes and covered her face entirely with her face wrap, leaving no skin exposed. She added handfuls of snow to the pot as it melted, but waited to drink it until it was hot.

  She was already feeling warmer, and the hot liquid helped. As soon as she drank it, she started heating more while she took stock of what she had done. What was she missing?

  She rifled through what was left of the pack. Four more fire sticks, half a dozen food bars, a compass since commlink signal was notoriously bad out on the snowfields, five flash-bangs to frighten night predators, and a flare dart to signal rescuers.

  No one was coming to her rescue.

  She pushed that
thought aside before tears threatened to spill over. She dug out her commlink. She had a fair amount of power, enough to last her two days if she was sparing of its use. She tried to connect to Gahmuret, but her signal was so poor she couldn’t sustain a connection. She set the commlink’s beacon to pulse; at the very least, any overflying skiffs would detect it. There would probably be traffic tomorrow. She hoped so.

  She drank her melted snow, nibbled on the corner of another energy bar, and loosened the binding on her arm now that the bleeding had stopped. Tight clothing wasn’t as warm, and as long as she kept the gash in the parka towards the fire stick, the injured arm didn’t feel much colder than the other one. She set the loudest alarm on her commlink to wake her in a few hours, just in case she fell too deeply asleep.

  At last, there was nothing left to do but stare at the fluttering flame of the fire stick. And to weep. She couldn’t keep the tears back anymore—not because of her situation. That was serious, but not fatal if she continued to keep her wits about her. She wept because Karl Tsarevich was dead, and there was nothing more she could do, no more distractions of survival techniques, to keep her mind from that thought.

  The incessant beeping of Bruno’s commlink woke him at last. Yawning hugely, he flung one arm out from the covers to pull the offending piece of technology towards him. It wasn’t time to wake up for his shift, which meant that someone was sending him a priority personal message, and he was going to have the head of whomever had woken him in the middle of a well-earned night’s rest. He’d been working like a dog on the Sovereign’s repairs all week.

  He blinked at the commlink screen, not registering what he was seeing.

  The message read, “Your young friend sent this to me and asked me to pass it on to you discreetly. Listen to the attached file. Still think the Common Union is trustworthy? Call me. –Ruby Volkova.”

  Bruno’s bushy eyebrows shot up. Why the hell had she sent him a personal message? Why not just send it through normal Fleet channels? His curiosity piqued, he opened the attached file.

  Elsa woke violently, jerking awake from some dream she already couldn’t remember. Her disorientation upon waking was so complete, she wondered if she was still dreaming. Awareness came slowly, as if she were clawing her way up out of some pit towards wakefulness. Anser. She was back home on Anser. She realized her own shivering had jolted her awake. Her fire stick had nearly gone out.

  Then she remembered. Karl was dead.

  She didn’t cry anymore, but the hollowness of her heart was worse than frostbitten cheeks. She couldn’t think about it. She had to focus on staying alive.

  She fished another fire stick out of her kit and broke it, melted more snow, ate another food bar while it melted, then drank the water. She checked her wound, but there was little more she could do for it. She hoped Cilla’s knife had been fairly clean.

  Then she rolled over and proceeded not to think as hard as she could until daybreak.

  Volkova, unsurprisingly, dispensed with all pleasantries. “Well?” she demanded. “You heard it?”

  Bruno nodded, face impassive. “I heard it.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “And? She wouldn’t have sent it to you just so you could sit on it.”

  He ignored the jab. “And I say we use it to expose the Tremaine Mining Company and tear its hold on the Common Union.”

  She grinned, flashing white teeth and looking years younger. “I agree.” She looked at him, far too shrewdly. “And if that means separating the Fleet from the Common Union?”

  He steeled himself. “Then so be it. Even if it means the end of the Fleet.” His jaw ached, and he realized he was clenching his teeth. It had cost him a lot to say that, and he had a feeling it would cost him far more before the end.

  Volkova had looked at him with pity before, but now she looked at him with respect. There was no reason in the worlds why that should quiet the alarm in his head saying he was making a terrible mistake, but it did. She nodded. “I’m going after your little friend on Anser. We need her back as fast as we can get her here, and that skiff she took is sluggish compared to the Strelka.”

  She moved to terminate the connection, but Bruno stopped her with a word. “Ruby.” It slipped out. He had never called her by her first name before.

  She looked back at him. “What?”

  “What exactly are you planning to do?” It was one thing to declare that they would rip apart one of the most long-standing, interwoven political relationships in the galaxy. It was another thing to actually figure out how to do it.

  “That remains to be seen. Depends on what your girl is willing to do with that information. And what Tsarevich is willing to give up. Don’t worry, I won’t act until we rendezvous at the star bell with the Sovereign. And I may need your help convincing Tsarevich to join us.” She grinned wolfishly. “But I may have my shot at redemption yet, my friend.”

  Bruno didn’t dispute the title of friend, unwarranted though he believed it to be. He was too occupied with bracing himself; he knew that smile. He hoped Elsa was prepared for the storm she had unleashed. He hoped he was too.

  By the time the sun was fully up, Elsa had been walking for half an hour. Her pace was steady—not slow, but not fast. By her reckoning, her campsite for the night was much closer to Atticora than to Gahmuret, so she had decided to proceed on her way. If she kept this pace all day, she would reach Atticora well before nightfall. That was essential. She couldn’t spend another night out on the snowfields. At least, not if she hoped to keep all of her toes.

  She had drummed herself into a state of automatic functioning that required very little thought, and she intended to keep herself there. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, watch for rotten ice, make sure to stay on course, don’t overheat, eat and drink often, check your face for frostbite, watch for predators, and above all, do not think about Karl Tsarevich.

  So focused was she on her mantra that it took a solid ten seconds for the hum of a skiff’s engines to penetrate her consciousness. She spun around. A skiff was approaching, flying low—no doubt looking for something, as that was the only reason to fly low over the monotonous snowfields.

  She fumbled in her kit for the flare dart, but her hands stilled when she found it. What if Cilla had signaled to someone else with the mining company before coming after Elsa? Could this be reinforcements sent to check on their missing assassin? Were they still hunting Elsa? An irrational part of her mind whispered that perhaps Cilla had survived after all and was coming for her.

  Maybe she should hide. She cast about for some sort of shelter and wondered if her white parka would make her invisible enough. But the skiff was moving very slowly, scouring the snowfields with daunting thoroughness. Her parka wasn’t perfect camouflage; they would see her, especially if they had any kind of sensor capability. There was no mammut herd to hide in and mask her body heat.

  The skiff flew ahead of her, but the pilot had clearly spotted her. The skiff descended swiftly and made a hasty, messy landing in front of her.

  She narrowed her eyes. In spite of the botched landing, there was something familiar about that flying style.

  The skiff bore the Strelka’s markings.

  The hatch opened almost before the skiff had fully settled. Elsa tensed, and she hefted her ice axe, comforted by its weight. The similarity of this moment to the situation yesterday was unsettling.

  A figure in a white parka burst out of the skiff at a run and barreled towards Elsa.

  Elsa dropped the ice axe as tears instantly welled up in her eyes.

  Karl pulled her into a bear hug, lifting her off of her feet.

  “You glorious girl, I haven’t a clue how you’re still alive, but I’m so glad you are!” He let her down but clutched her tightly.

  “Easy on the arm,” Elsa said in a strangled gasp. “Pleased to find you still breathing too.” She blinked furiously, trying to clear the tears from her eyes.

  He released her quickly, his face a picture of cont
rition. “What happened?” He half-turned her to see her arm. The injury itself wasn’t visible, but the white parka was stained red.

  “Cilla tried to kill me,” Elsa said bluntly. “It didn’t work.”

  “Where is she?” Karl glanced around as if Cilla might leap up from the snow and attack them at any moment.

  Elsa swallowed. “Dead.”

  Karl looked at her, eyes wide. For the first time, she noticed bruises in several places on his face.

  “I assume,” she added. “She fell down into a crevasse last night.” At the look on his face, she said, “I’ll tell you the whole story, I promise. But we need to get back to the Strelka as quickly as possible.”

  He adjusted his hood with a shiver. “By all means, let’s go inside first. Your world is a little too brisk for my taste.”

  He took her hand with an unstudied ease that made her smile, and he led the way to the skiff.

  She hesitated just a moment before going in. She turned to look out over the snowfields. Would she ever see this world again? It might be another decade or more until she returned.

  But there wasn’t time for nostalgia now.

  Elsa moved inside the skiff, and the hatch closed behind her.

  Karl was waiting for her. “Is it hard to leave again so soon? I would’ve thought that after a night out in the cold, you might not be feeling homesick anymore.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Elsa replied, although now that she gave herself permission to feel it, she was tired and cold and sore in every fiber.

  Karl started the launch sequence, and Elsa sat down heavily in the co-pilot’s chair. She noticed scorch marks all along the pilot’s console and raised her eyebrows. Where had Karl found this thing? She strapped herself in, favoring her injured arm, as Karl took off at a steep incline on a course to leave the planet’s atmosphere.

  “Could you put up the rear camera on the viewscreen?” she asked. Her voice sounded small in her ears.