Fireblood

by Elly Blake

  “You’re not wrong,” she admitted.

  “So when you talk of interrogating Arcus, how do you think I’m going to respond? He’s been my steadfast ally, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. When you threaten him, it makes me want to defy you.”

  She stared at me thoughtfully for a few beats. “Let me ask you this, Ruby. Who am I to you?”

  “I—you’re the queen.” The title of “aunt” seemed far too cozy for the stone-hearted ruler sitting across from me.

  “The queen,” she emphasized. “Am I your queen? Will you pledge your life to me at tomorrow’s initiation? I wonder if you harbor some doubts about where your loyalty belongs. In fact, I am starting to have some doubts of my own.”

  I was nearing another patch of quicksand. “Isn’t that natural? To doubt?”

  “Certainly. But that doesn’t make it desirable. Not in one of my masters. Not when the kingdom might be on the brink of war. Not in my heir. So, who, I ask again, am I to you?”

  I wanted to say that I would never fight in her war. But she held Arcus’s life in her hands. She could hurt me all she liked, but I wouldn’t let her take her wrath out on him. Rebellion was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

  “You are my queen,” I forced out.

  “Then stop pushing me.” The words came as a low-voiced warning.

  Her face remained smooth and controlled, but her nostrils flared, her eyes gleaming with fathoms of dormant embers ready to combust. Beneath her polished veneer, a cauldron of tempestuous power. I had a moment of startled recognition. Her emotions were like mine: quick, fervent, near the surface. Perhaps she had trouble controlling them, too. A part of me felt a kinship with her, whether I liked it or not.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said in a lighter tone, “I have much to do before the wedding. Be ready for the seamstress. She will come this afternoon to measure you for your wedding gown.”

  As I rose and curtsied, my hands curled into fists. Once the initiation was over, she would turn her attentions to Arcus. She’d all but said she planned to torture him for information tomorrow. I couldn’t keep waiting and watching. I needed to act.

  As I strode angrily from the anteroom, I noticed the Frostblood servant standing sentinel in the throne room, his back against the wall next to the fireplace.

  A spurt of indignation heated my skin further. The queen must have chosen that spot deliberately. A punishment for being a Frostblood, no doubt. How uncomfortable it must be for him, standing for long periods so close to that blazing heat. He let nothing show on his face, though. He’d had years to perfect that blank look. At least twice as many years as I’d been alive, from the look of the harsh creases in the finely drawn map of his skin.

  I approached him slowly, still deciding how to play this. I needed him to trust me.

  “You know the Frost King is a captive in this castle.” I left a moment of silence for him to fill.

  He kept his eyes aimed at the wall behind me. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  His voice was as rusty as an iron bucket left in the rain. Did no one ever talk to him? My heart contracted in a brief pulse of sympathy. It had been like that in Blackcreek Prison when Captain Drake first captured me. I could have melted into the stone floor or frozen to the iron bars of the cell, becoming just another fixture in the prison, and it wouldn’t have mattered.

  “I have a theory,” I said. “The tunnels under the lava fields—they were created by Frostblood servants, weren’t they?”

  He swallowed but didn’t speak.

  “I saw some carvings in the walls during my first trial. Frostblood symbols I’ve seen on pillars in the king’s castle. Now, why would the Fireblood masters of Sudesia carve Frostblood symbols into their tunnels?”

  He didn’t even blink. I tried not to be impatient, praying I wasn’t wasting my time.

  “They wouldn’t, of course,” I answered myself. “Which means Frostbloods were there. I think they dug those tunnels and left marks on them, something that was precious, a tribute or an act of rebellion. Most of them died, didn’t they? The heat. The lava. So many ways for a Frostblood to suffer despite all that thick, frozen skin. The king has burn scars. I bet you have some, too.”

  One of his hands twitched, a butterfly’s wing of movement. A tiny, telling reaction.

  “There aren’t many Frostbloods left here, are there?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I bet it was you who made the container of ice for my second trial. Suspended on a bridge? Is that right?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you know the tunnels?” If he could navigate for me, we might be able to use them to get Arcus back to his ship. “The queen plans to interrogate the king and I don’t think she’ll be gentle about it.”

  He shook his head, his lips pressing together until they turned white.

  Encouraged, I went on. “You don’t know King Arkanus, but I can tell you that he is a good king. A good person. He doesn’t deserve what Queen Nalani plans to do to him.” No reaction. I tried a different tack. “Have you ever been to Tempesia? Most of it is covered in snow for more than half the year. In the north, they barely have a summer at all. There are festivals in the mountains to celebrate the snow. Frostblood craftsmen create magnificent sculptures out of ice. I know the king would take you on his ship. You could live among your own people.”

  His eyes held longing, but he shook his head once again.

  I sighed in frustration. “What’s your name?”

  “Broderik.”

  “Broderik, are you a Frostblood or not? The king has no one to help him but me, and I can’t do it alone.”

  I watched him, waiting. I was about to give up, when he gave a hesitant nod. My heart leaped. “If you can tell me anything, anything at all that might—”

  “She plans to move him after the initiation,” he whispered. I had to lean in to hear him. “He’ll be transferred to the prison tomorrow morning. I overheard her telling her personal guard.”

  Panic gripped my chest. “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  So she’d already been planning to move him to the prison for interrogation before I’d even spoken to her. Questioning me must have been an afterthought, or a way of gaining information. Either way, this meant her plans for him were firmly in place.

  “Don’t you know anything that could help?” I asked. “If you don’t know the way through the tunnels, is there anyone else who does?”

  He hesitated before saying in a rush, “The only people who use the tunnels are the masters. And sometimes Prince Eiko. But there’s no sense asking any of them.” His eyes darted to the corner and back to me, widening. “Go. She’s coming.”

  He returned to his blank-faced stare.

  The door to the anteroom started to open. I slipped from the throne room.

  There was no doubt where I had to go next. If Prince Eiko sometimes used the tunnels, perhaps he had a map. Queen Nalani had said that the prince slept late in the mornings.

  A perfect time to search his observatory.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I VAULTED UP THE OBSERVATORY tower stairs and entered the room at the top, narrowing my eyes against the sudden brightness. The round room was well lit by three tall windows and crowded with tables, bookshelves, nautical instruments, and metal contraptions I had no name for. I swept toward the nearest bookshelf, which also held rolled-up maps.

  I had another reason for searching the observatory. Ever since my failed mission in the library, the whereabouts of the book had played on my mind. Prince Eiko had intercepted me the night I’d broken in. He’d known I was looking for something and certainly seemed to know more than he was saying. If he had the book, where better to store it than among a hundred other volumes in a tower used only by him?

  I traced my fingers over the spines of books, then pulled scrolls from their perch on the shelves, unrolling and tossing them aside one by one. There was nothing neat or methodical about this. Prince Eiko would
know his inner sanctum had been ransacked, but I had no time to be careful.

  “Can I help you with something?” an amused voice asked.

  I jumped and whirled, recovering my composure with a glare. “You startled me.”

  Prince Eiko sat on a chair tucked into the shadows between an armoire and a painted screen, making him almost indiscernible at first glance.

  “It’s my observatory,” he pointed out.

  I cleared my throat, opting to be blunt. He had shown me in small ways that he wanted to gain my trust. I hoped I wasn’t wrong about him. “When you followed me to the school that night, you told me to come see you when I realized my time had run out. I’m out of time.”

  “You were looking at my bookshelf rather hopefully,” he remarked.

  “There’s a book I need. And I have a theory you might have it.” I wasn’t ready to tell him I needed a map of the tunnels. Telling him about the book would be a safer way to gauge whether he was willing to help me.

  He didn’t even ask which book. He just pointed. “Bottom shelf, far right, behind the volume on ocean currents of the Vast Sea.”

  I hadn’t expected him to tell me so easily. Hiding my surprise, I bent and found the book.

  The Creation of the Thrones stood out in gold letters on the black leather cover. I touched the spine with reverence, lifting the book gingerly and placing it on the table. Elation and relief made my hands tremble.

  “You had it this whole time,” I breathed, opening to the first page.

  “For a while, anyway. Long enough to translate the old tongue and understand most of its contents. The masters have the knowledge, but they do nothing with it.” He paused, as if deciding whether or not to go on. “They don’t care if my wife is taken over by a curse. They only care about the power the throne gives her.”

  “So the throne is on Sere!” Triumph surged through me. In my dream, the throne had been in an underground cavern. Once again I wondered if Sage was sending me visions. “Does the queen know?”

  “No. She believes it was destroyed in the last eruption. Only the masters—and I—know the truth. Shortly after Rota disappeared, their father, King Tollak, died and there was an uprising on some of the islands. The masters saw that series of tragedies as a sign that the curse was awakening in the throne. The curse has periods of dormancy and activity, according to the book. At any rate, when a volcanic eruption occurred within months of Nalani being crowned, the masters saw an opportunity to hide the throne, to claim it had been destroyed. In truth, the castle was destroyed, but the throne remained. As there seemed no way of destroying it, the best they could do was hide the throne, hoping the distance would protect the queen.”

  “Is that all in the book? Or did the masters tell you?”

  He shook his head. “The book is ancient, and the masters are an outrageously secretive lot. No, I confess I found out by accident. Years ago, while using the tunnels between the observatory and the castle, I sometimes noticed a master or two passing by. One day, I followed. I saw the cavern where they keep the throne and the guard who is always posted.”

  “You’re convinced the curse is affecting the queen?”

  “I am. I noticed changes in Nalani when King Rasmus took the throne in Tempesia. Her understandable grief and anger at his massacring Firebloods could have accounted for the changes, but I began to grow nervous. I started actively trying to find out more. Finally, I stole the book.”

  “Are her veins black? That’s a sure sign of possession.”

  He came forward, close to the other side of the table, and gestured to the book. “A black vein is a sign of full possession by the Minax, but the creature exercises a lesser influence on people outside its immediate vicinity. Even with the throne hidden at a distance from the castle, the curse affects the queen, although the changes in behavior are less obvious. At first, I didn’t want to see the signs, but when she had Frostbloods executed—” He broke off. His expression darkened. “That is not the woman I married.”

  “And now she’s planning a war she can’t win. That’s exactly the kind of thing the Minax craves. Death and chaos and all the lovely grief that follows.” All this time the Minax had been right under my nose.

  “May I show you something?” Eiko reached forward and flipped through the book, pointing when he found the page he sought. “There.”

  An illustration showed two indistinct figures, one throwing fire and one throwing ice, the two streams meeting in the center to form a blue-white flame directed at a dark, orange-veined throne.

  “A Fireblood and a Frostblood creating frostfire. Destroying the throne of Sud.”

  He turned to the next page. The throne was gone. In its place was an oval outlined in black, a malevolent pair of eyes staring out of it. Even the illustration was enough to make the back of my neck prickle.

  “The Minax,” he said calmly. “Trapped in a remaining shard of the throne. I’ve translated the ancient Sudesian and the instructions are quite specific: The shard must be at least as large as an ancient Sudesian coin.” He opened a small wooden box and produced a gold coin, which was not much larger than modern Tempesian ones. “A smaller stone would risk its escape.”

  “But how could anyone know this?”

  “Well, Pernillius devoted his life to recording the prophecies of Dru. She was—”

  “A prophetess, I know. I understand enough. We need to destroy the throne with frostfire but keep the Minax trapped in a shard of the throne. And then what? A friend of mine in Tempesia found something that indicates a Minax can destroy another. Could I use the shard to kill the other Minax?”

  “Only one who can master or control the Minax can use one against the other. What was the phrasing in the book?” He flipped a few pages and translated. “‘Only shadow can create shadow. Only shadow can move shadow. Only shadow can destroy shadow.’ It seems we cannot destroy the ‘shadow’ in the throne without the other one. The best option is to trap the Minax in the shard and remove it from the island completely.”

  “And who is going to do that?”

  “You, I hope. On the ship of your friend the king, if he is willing?”

  I nodded. Arcus would surely agree once he knew that removing the curse from the queen’s island might be our best chance to prevent a war. If the queen was free of the Minax, she might change her position on Frostbloods. And I needed to take the shard back to Tempesia to destroy the frost Minax.

  “We’ll need to get him back to his ship once the throne is destroyed,” I said. “I hear you know the tunnels well?”

  “As well as the masters themselves.”

  Some question lingered at the back of my mind. I turned the page to the illumination of frostfire destroying the throne, then stared, narrow-eyed, at Prince Eiko. “What a happy coincidence that the two people you needed to make frostfire ended up in Sudesia.”

  “Not such a coincidence,” he admitted hesitantly. “I suspected you had royal blood after hearing that you melted the throne of Fors. You see, Pernillius believed only the gifts of two people of royal blood can make frostfire. When Nalani sent Prince Kai to recruit you, I suggested to him that if it turned out your situation in the Frost Court was unsafe, he should bring you here and I would smooth things over with the queen.”

  “Lucky for you that I was in danger, then.”

  “It wasn’t luck so much as probability. It was likely that you would be in danger. The Frost Court isn’t known for its acceptance of Firebloods. To put it mildly.”

  “What about Arcus? The mysterious letter implying I was in danger?”

  “I sent the letter to lure him here, instructing Kai to have it delivered before he left port and only if he was bringing you to Sudesia. He had no idea of the letter’s contents, so do not blame him. I gambled that you were the princess and, if so, I needed the king to come here so you could destroy the throne together. There was certainly no way Nalani would see past the Minax’s influence. She’d never agree to combine her fire with y
our king’s frost.”

  “You lured him here to possible torture and death. Did you ever think about that?” I stared at him, the flames in my heart burning hotter.

  He leaned in urgently. “I’ve done everything I could to protect him, as I have with you! I instructed the scouts to avoid the eastern edge of the island, creating false reports that it had already been searched. I assumed his ship was most likely to find a hiding place there. I’ve kept Nalani from questioning him until now. But you must understand, the risks to him were secondary to my goal. I did all this to protect my wife. I love her more than anything.”

  This was too much. If what he was saying were true, it meant I did have royal blood, because Arcus and I had created frostfire when we’d melted the throne of Fors. If the book was right, I really was the queen’s niece. “You couldn’t just tell me all this from the beginning? You let me take the trials—risk my life—for nothing!”

  “Not for nothing. Your training has made you stronger. And I needed the trials to reveal whether you were truly the princess.”

  I pulled from his grasp and looked down at the book, forcing myself to take a moment to think. I hated being manipulated. I hated lies and subterfuge. He’d not only risked my life by letting me take the trials, he’d put Arcus in danger, too. My emotions were raw. My chest hurt, as if my very heart were bruised. I felt like a fool for not seeing through him.

  I lifted my head and looked at Prince Eiko. He was watching me anxiously, one hand clutching an oval pendant that hung from his neck on a silver chain. As his thumb caressed the smooth ivory, I saw that it was a miniature of Queen Nalani, her distinctive features replicated with tiny, delicate brushstrokes. My heart gave a little squeeze. He wore an image of his wife around his neck. There was nothing deliberate about his nervous gesture, his hold on this small likeness that gave him comfort. It was clear that he truly did love her.

  I let out a long sigh and asked myself one question: What wouldn’t I do to protect Arcus? I could hardly blame Prince Eiko for doing what I would have done in his shoes. Besides, we had a common goal. I needed the Minax to destroy the other one, and he needed to get rid of it.