Nikolai hesitated, then began:
A thousand years ago, Breakfire was the name given to a demon by a powerful sorcerer. Katerini thought it was stupid. The demon was ripped from the fabric of the heavens and offered a contract by the sorcerer who so rudely summoned him. The sorcerer did not have enough power to bind him, and offered a trade instead: the demon was to serve the sorcerer obediently until his desire was fulfilled. Upon completion, the demon could ask for one wish within the sorcerer's power to grant. Amused and intrigued—for what could the sorcerer offer him the demon could not already obtain himself?—the demon agreed.
Breakfire was used to fight a war alongside the sorcerer, to end it and allow the sorcerer to reunite with his lost love. As the sorcerer and Breakfire battled day by day, Breakfire saw the sorcerer's valor and determination, listened to the stories of his lover, and fell in love with them. When the war was near its end, the sorcerer and his lover were reunited unexpectedly, marking the end of the contract. Breakfire, however, stayed by them until the war ended. Upon its victory, he asked for both of their hands.
They refused.
Anguished, Breakfire wept bitterly and fled back to the heavens. In his carelessness, molten tears fell from his starry cheeks back to the earth as shards of glass, scorching the sorcerer's eyes and blinding him. One tear fell separate from the others, however. This tear was filled with the magic of the broken contract.
"And so it will grant the request of whomever asks it," Nikolai finished. He watched her.
Katerini rubbed her face again. "Demons in love are even more troublesome than humans," she muttered. Her stomach twisted with phantom pain. When she looked up at Nikolai, she asked, "And you believed this story? It sounds like a ridiculous myth."
He pursed his lips. Then he lifted a hand to his face, his fingers brushing the skin right below his eyes. "Well…" he said, "At least one person every generation in the Irini line has had these eyes. I felt the tale had merit."
She blinked, then scowled. Of course he had demon tears in his eyes. She'd never be rid of demons, it seemed. Bah!
She listened as Nikolai explained his and Bravka's plan. After Nikolai was summoned to the capital for his naming as heir apparent, he met with Bravka in secret and established a way for them to talk: the guise of estranged relatives seeking Bravka's presence. Nikolai had been young then, a freshly oathed Darkrow freed from his training. From the start Bravka had thought the idea was ridiculous, to the point where he had dismissed Nikolai altogether after years of fruitless effort. All the clues to finding the mirror had turned out bare or imagined. Nikolai had almost given up himself, doubting every facet of the tale—until Clyish summoned two demons from the heavens.
Her father's fatal blunder had given Nikolai hope, Katerini thought grimly. If demons were real, then the mirror was too. He had reestablished correspondence with Bravka and they'd begun the search anew. This time, Nikolai had used his experience as an oathed Darkrow to pluck a shard of glass from his eye—an experience he never wished to repeat, if the blood draining from his face was any indication—and they had used the glass as a compass. It pointed north, to the Svarinard. Clumsy divination revealed the glass was somewhere at the Top of the World. Bravka had volunteered to go, not wanting to endanger the Blue Prince.
"And now we're here," Katerini sighed. "You want to finish what he started and find this Breakfire's Glass."
"You have glass magic," Nikolai said, a little helplessly. She could see the anxiety oozing from his every fiber. The panic bleeding through his eyes was bright and raw. She was his last hope. He would do whatever he had to alone, but he knew he would fail without her. "You could use my eyes—"
She saw red. "I will not take out your eyes!" she roared. The force of it shook dust from the ceiling.
He froze. Then he smiled, his eyes glimmering as he said, "Of course, my lovely Katerini. That was rather insensitive of me. I rather like my eyes in my head. I meant you could try to sense the mirror with your glass magic. The shards in my eyes are magic, after all."
She stared at him. His smile turned into a grin. She scoffed, throwing off her pack and emptying the contents onto the cave floor. "I will help you. Of course I will help you. This is insane. Utterly mad—but you won't make it without me." She motioned at him to do the same. All of his spindles clattered on the floor, his distaffs landing on top of them. She frowned. "Nikolai, if we are to succeed, you cannot spin anymore. I mean it, more than I did before. You cannot conjure this fleece from—from wherever it is you conjure it from, and you cannot use any magic except for when I say. That is my condition for helping you."
He didn't answer for a long time. He stared down at the laden spindles, then the unspun fleece. "As long… as long as they come with me."
She sighed. "Fine. We burn anything that can't be used. Might as well—this will be our last night's sleep in a shelter, I suspect, so we should make it a warm one." She began to sort through the gear. "All but the food and your stupidity must go."
Nikolai laughed. "Oh, my Katerini, you will not let me forget what you think of the spinning, will you?" He imitated her and sorted the gear.
"No, I will not," she grumbled. Nor would she ever partner with him again if they were to survive this. Standing, she said, "I will check if Bravka has anything we could use. I won't make you come, but it needs to be done. And he had a shard of your eye, yes? I will take that too, if I can find it." She did not know if she would be able to, not with something so small. Nikolai's head jerked up in surprise as she made for the entrance of the cave. "Heavens forbid I ever make another friend like you, Nikolai Irini," she said as she pulled up her hood and grabbed her mask.
Nikolai surged up and tugged her backwards, his hand grasping her arm, the other on her waist. Spinning her, he gave her a slow, sly grin and lifted her hand to his lips. "I would hope you never make another friend like me, my lovely Katerini." He pressed her gloved fingers to his lips, his expression turning sad. "Thank you." He leaned forward to press a kiss on her forehead. "You are my hope."
She blinked. Then she pulled away and strapped the mask to her face, muttering, "When you are strange, you are very strange, Nikolai."
His laughter followed her out of the cave and into the cold.
Chapter Six
The land beyond the Svarinard was a white nightmare, an unending plain of snow and ice and moaning winds. The climb down from the last summit of the Svarinard into the uncharted lands was slow going, steep and slippery with giant swaths of snow breaking off and rolling down the mountain at the slightest breath. A strange sound began to penetrate the wind, a thin wailing and tinny screech, like the scraping of a thousand nails across ice. It grew louder and louder, and when they reached the bottom of the mountain, it was deafening.
She had been secretly frightened before they departed, which she furiously hid from Nikolai. He was apprehensive enough. Unlike him, however, she understood the scope of their undertaking. He was too blinded by the search for the mirror. A thousand deaths waited for them at the Top of the World. When her foot struck the solid-packed ice marking the end of the Svarinard, she recoiled. Thrumming up from deep below, she felt the ground shifting. It was a slow push and pull. The scraping was drowning out the sound of the wind, and she realized the harsh squealing and cracking was from this—water. An ocean frozen over, yet still restlessly rolling underneath them. Standing at its edge, terror bit deep into her bones.
There was no shelter, no reprieve from the endless cold. They were to walk across frozen water, no land for days on end. The world was split between sky and ice, both blinding white, and Katerini staggered and fell against Nikolai. He let out a muffled yelp of surprise and caught her. Her eyes burned from the brightness and she buried her face in Nikolai's cloak for a moment, ignoring his questions if she was all right. She was fine. This was madness, but she was fine. She took a breath and pushed away from him, entwining their hands together.
"Never let go, not even in sleep," she s
aid, the mask making her voice loud in her ears. "The landscape is bare. The snow is constant. If we lose each other, we will stay lost. Follow my lead and stay next to me, not behind me." He nodded. "I will use the shard Bravka carried to track the mirror."
"Will it be enough?" he asked.
"It will have to be," she replied. To track the mirror through Nikolai's eyes would take too much power. She didn't tell him she had swallowed the shard after she had plucked it from between Bravka's frozen fingers. It was what he had cradled so preciously against his chest. The damn thing was so tiny she had almost lost it in the wind. So she ate it. The shard had melted down in her molten magic and she felt its pull, realizing Bravka faced the direction they were to go. If she told Nikolai about eating the shard, no doubt he'd say something insufferable. Nonsense about being one.
He squeezed her hand. "Thank you, Katerini."
She grunted, steeled herself, and crossed over from land to shifting ice.
They fell into a rhythm. Katerini guided them, Nikolai keeping pace without complaint. She was too busy tracking the faint pull she felt from the shard to worry about him, though her mind tried. She growled and muttered, reminding herself that, yes, Nikolai was a wandering Darkrow and, no, he wasn't enfeebled. Just mad. His tight grip around her thin hand reassured her, the occasional squeeze sending relief pounding through her veins. Eventually everything faded away, the world narrowed down to her, Nikolai, and the ceaseless cold.
The wind screamed around them, carrying ice like knives on its currents. Katerini lifted one leg, then the other. The cutting wind and ice made no difference to her, did not stop her relentless push forward. She sunk into a dream-state, pulling deep inside herself to find the strength to continue. Whenever she felt Nikolai's grip loosen, she jerked awake and yelled at him, her heart in her throat. Like her, he sank into a daze the longer they walked uninterrupted. He would hold, she told herself—he would have to if he wanted to survive.
It went on for hours, the trudging. One leg up, one leg down, one leg up, one leg down. Over and over. A numbing repetition of the same motion. The constant awareness of her own body like a shell, of Nikolai imitating her every step. She kept her eyes forward unlike Nikolai, who bowed his head, her eyes roving the horizon for anything. Any sign. The tugging inside her was small and getting smaller, and she became panicked as the hours dragged into days.
Her magic she blew out in gentle puffs, like shaping the most delicate ornaments, to give them heat and energy, nourishment when they ran out of food, rest when it became too dangerous to sleep. Her years of wandering Zhakieve had taught her how to ration her power accordingly, but it wasn't enough. Deep down, she knew they wouldn't have enough to return. The cold was incessant, and the storms never seemed to stop—just for a moment, she wished they would stop!—and she wanted to sleep. She was so tired. The exhaustion was fire in her veins, eating away her strength. One leg up, one leg down. She focused on the motions. One leg up, one leg—
The nights were the worst.
The sun never truly set, nor did the moon, but the world would darken to a hazy twilight as the sun crept towards to the horizon. The already frosted air transformed into sheets of ice, which they scraped through, and cold became a living thing, clinging to their faces and backs, licking them with rough tongues. She was forced to burn an extensive amount of her magic, more than she had calculated. Panic clung to her edges. She didn't want to use Nikolai's magic yet, since he had so very little left, and it was too dangerous for them to sleep in the open. The ice storm would have torn them to shreds. As they walked further away from land, the ice grew from knives into swords. Katerini ignored the slicing as best she could.
Days bled into nights, and she lost track of time completely. At one point, Nikolai began to stagger. It was almost unnoticeable at first, but soon every other step he would limp or lose his footing. He had even less magic. She didn't know why. She could stop, she thought desperately, turn around and store him away safely, try again by herself—no. No, he would never forgive her and it would never work. They had run out of food. Even with the shelter offered by the Svarinard, without food she could never gain her energy back. They must keep going. She reached down into herself for more magic, to sense the trail left by the sha—
She stumbled to a halt.
Nothing.
She felt nothing. No tug. No shard. She gasped in despair. She had lost the trail! She panted, dropping to her knees. Nikolai scrambled next to her, frantically asking what was wrong, to talk, please, Katerini, say something. She ignored him, wracked with anguish. Somewhere in the numbness she had been careless and lost track of the magic. The shard was lost to her, and she didn't have enough magic to keep them alive and track the mirror through Nikolai's eyes—tears stung her eyes and she gulped for breath, trying to hold them in because even with the mask they would freeze on her face—she had failed—
Nikolai pressed against her and grabbed the sides of her head. "What's wrong? Katerini, look at me, answer me. What happened?"
She threw her arms out, gripping his shoulders. "The shard—I cannot feel it, Nikolai—I cannot find the trail—we are lost, Nikolai, I have failed—"
"Are you certain you have lost the shard?" he asked. "Kateri—"
"I swallowed the damn thing!" she snapped. "I cannot feel it inside me anymore! The trail is gone! If that is a grin under your mask, I swear I will—"
"No, no, never, my lovely Katerini," Nikolai replied hurriedly. She could hear the grin in his voice. "Concentrate, maybe the shard will—"
"It. Will. Not!" she ground out, shaking his shoulders. "I have failed—I have—"
"No, you have not," Nikolai said. "Calm down. We must be close."
"Close?! Have you finally gone insane?!" she screeched. "The shard would have shown me—"
"My eyes feel like they will burst from my face!" he interjected. She blinked. "We are close, my lovely Katerini. You have not failed. Use my eyes." She opened her mouth and he interrupted her again, "Forget about the magic. Use all of me—my magic, my eyes."
She stared at him. "But you'll die."
"You must stop thinking I am about to break, Katerini. I am not glass," he chided. He stood and hauled her up, hugging her to him. When he released her, he said, "You are strong, Katerini, as strong as diamonds." He held out his hand.
She swallowed, her heart pounding furiously, and tangled their hands together tightly. Then she lifted one leg and walked. One leg up, one leg down. She panted. One leg up, one leg down. She felt the coiling threads of Nikolai's magic, no more than a broken spindle's worth, and choked down her anxiety. He was not glass. The threads were thin and tatty, no luster in them. One leg up, one leg down. She tried to stretch them like fleece, give them more reach, and a few snapped. She felt him flinch. One leg up, one leg down. She sent the threads out like feelers from his eyes, and he cried and stumbled in pain. She yanked him forward, one leg up, one leg down, one leg—
A glint.
She stumbled to a halt. Nikolai collided into her, knocking them over. He gave a weak shout, scrambling to haul them both up. His fingers trembled at first, then became steel around her arms. He hugged her tightly. Ah, she thought. He thinks I'm finished. What a fool. He's the one who should be finished. She slapped his head and he jerked back in alarm. She could see his glittering eyes through the slits in their masks, searching for hers. She raised a finger and pointed. They both looked in the direction of her finger, Nikolai refusing to release her.
Time dragged. Katerini began to wonder if she had imagined it when—there. A glint in the never-ending white. Like a flash of starlight. Nikolai squeezed her and let go, walking with renewed vigor. Katerini grabbed his arm, shook her head, and showed him the numbing pace they were to walk. Such hastiness would burn away their strength. He nodded reluctantly, letting her take the lead again. But she ended up walking quicker than was wise. They were close, so close! They walked as fast as they dared through the whirling ice. The glint was farther o
ff than she'd calculated. It took them quite a while to reach, even when the blizzard curiously died away. Tinkles filled the air, like chiming glass, and she cautiously threw back her hood.
Warmth.
Faint warmth drifted through the musical air. Glimmering lights twinkled all around them, ice suspended in little clouds and catching on sunlight. She could see her blue eyes reflecting in the bigger shards, thousands of mirrors hanging midair. She was too exhausted to be unnerved. Relief shuddered through her bony frame as she ripped off the mask and collapsed to her knees. Beside her, Nikolai did the same. She never thought she'd feel warmth again, even this piddling amount.
"We've made it!" he gasped. "We've made it! Where, where is it? Where is the mirror?" He ran his hands frantically over the ground and she jolted to see raw red marks down his face. His eyes streamed with tears, though from pain or triumph she didn't know. It didn't matter. He needed to dry his face.
She crawled over to him and rubbed his face with the inside of her cloak, ignoring his protests, her fingers metal clasps on his chin. Some of the raw marks were crusted with dried blood. "Stop your wibbling!" she snarled. He sniffed. "Sit here while I search for the damned mirror. If you shed a single damned tear, I'll kick your face."
He smirked, muttering, "So vicious," but otherwise did as he was told. Carefully, abandoning the use of his eyes, she tracked all over the ground. She could see the ice-storm whirling around them like a white wall. Nikolai had been right—she had lost the trail through the shard because the power of the mirror was like a net. It throbbed all around them, the eye of the ice-storm. Daylight streamed down onto them like liquid glass through a mold. She scraped through the crusted snow and ice, snagging and ripping the tips of her gloves, until she reached the middle of their strange shelter. Her fingers touched something smooth and she felt sick with excitement.
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