This was power, and Linn couldn’t help but laugh at the undeserving visage of the one it belonged to.
“Right, then,” she said, not taking her eyes from their images in the floor. “What do I do with it?”
“With what?”
“The fear,” she said. “Or is there nothing to be done?” She felt an unsettling disgust at the prospect. Felt it mounting the longer Kole took to respond.
“You don’t want to do anything with it, Linn,” he said. It was starting to bother her how he was speaking. She tried to swallow it down. When he met her eyes again, the feeling went away. He spoke from the heart, as he always did. There was no harm intended, just advice offered freely, to be done with what she would.
“It’s something you’ll have to bear, I suppose,” Kole said. “As I have. I used to think myself cursed for carrying it. I tried to drown the fear in anger until I realized—too late, some would say—that the two formed opposite sides of the same coin. Ever since that night, my life has been defined by one or the other, with little left along the polished wooden edges for something else. For my father. For you and Iyana.”
“Kole …” Linn started, reaching for him again. He did not recoil, but winced, and Linn let her hand drop back to the cold stonework.
“I used to think myself cursed for carrying that fear, Linn,” he repeated. “Now I know it’s the biggest blessing I’ve ever had, apart from those who’ve shown it to me in ways they could never know. To fear oneself is to know oneself. That is what separates us from these …” He looked up at the crystal spires, his eyes alighting on each in turn, tracing their glittering, dreamlike edges and marking the ghosts of frost that shifted with the changing of the wind.
He never finished the thought, but Linn thought she understood.
“There’s nothing more important,” Kole said. “Nothing more painful to bear. No weapon more righteous in the right hands, more deadly in the wrong.”
“And how do we know which one we are?”
Kole smiled softly at her. “Ask, I suppose.”
“Ask ourselves?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I would guess T’Alon Rane asked himself the same right up until the end, and look at where it got him. To trust oneself implicitly must be the height of arrogance. Take all the varied, many-colored sins of the world and all its powers, great and small, through the centuries, through the millennia, and I think you’d find the truth of that. It’s what got my mother killed in the passes.”
It was shocking to hear him say it, so much so that Linn didn’t know how to react. She looked away, afraid he expected her to say something.
“We need to ask each other,” Kole continued. “Even if we do it in other ways. I saw you fight at the Valley peaks, Linn. I saw you call down a bolt at Center that frightened an Ember king, and I saw you blast the Sage of Balon Rael through a ring of fire with the same power.” He paused. “I was in the same bowl as you, here in the north, so far from home, and I saw you do things I’ve never imagined. You, Linn, and not the thing you fear you’ve become.”
The words felt like the warmest balm Linn could have imagined, sliding over her like the most true and tight embrace. She imagined it must be true, if she felt it so strongly. She imagined it did not matter, as long as she believed it to be so. And though she didn’t say it and later regretted it, the look she turned on Kole was meant to tell him that she felt the same way about him. That he was not a monster. That he was the man she had known all her life. That she loved him, in all the complicated ways he loved her, if not more.
She supposed the kiss did enough on that account.
His lips were even hotter than she would have thought if she’d spared a moment to do so. They stung as they met her own, and when he reached out and gathered her in his arms, his heat enveloped her completely. She made a sound, low in her throat, in her chest, and leaned into him, the leaves shaking above, curling in his heat and ripping free from their desperate holds in the wake of the wind she called without meaning to.
She imagined them climbing to the top of one of those glittering towers, sliding beneath the richest furs like a prince and princess from so long ago, and joining together in a way they had only once before, on the mossy banks of the southern Valley, when they were too foolish to know better and too wise to carry the cares and worries they later would.
An image flashed in her mind’s eye of the sleeping form far below their feet. The white-blond prince in his brilliant armor, his eyelids flickering as the dead orbs beneath were lost to some black dream from which he could never wake. She didn’t know if she pulled away or if Kole did, but the result was the same.
Cold. It felt cold in the icy courtyard. Colder than it had before, with the sweat clinging to her neck and plastering her dark bangs to her brow, from the steam rising from Kole’s skin, and from the threads of his breeches, ankles and the hands that had just held her in any way but in friendship.
“Kole …” she started and then stopped. She wanted to tell him of the prince in his dark vault and of the queen’s plan to call him back from whatever sleep gripped him. She wanted to join with him in whatever path he would choose.
But she did not, and though the truth was bitter to swallow, Linn knew it was because she feared he would decide wrong—that he would march in a fury into the queen’s throne room and call up all of his fire and the allies he had around him—herself included—who couldn’t help but rise to it and join with him, for better or ill.
Despite all that, she was about to. She was about to damn it all and confide in him what she knew, even on the eve of a battle with the Eastern Dark and his allies, one that might decide the fate of the world. To tell him would be to fracture the fragile alliance they had formed with the only being yet left in the world who could stand against that agent of darkness, against their always enemy, the Eastern Dark.
“You’re right,” he said. He wore a look of such profound hurt that he covered with a smile that never reached his eyes, and Linn felt her heart break, though she did not know what to blame it on. Kole edged back from her, leaving an extra stone on the short wall. The wind Linn had called out of reflex fell like a skirt, sweeping the gathered and curled red leaves away like the sound of sparrows’ claws.
“No,” Linn started, but Kole shook his head.
“Do you trust her?”
Linn blinked, caught in the space between all of her warring thoughts and the things left unsaid.
“Queen Elanil,” Kole said. “Do you trust her?”
Linn felt disappointment, and that, too, she could not attribute to any one thing in particular.
“I trust her in one way above all others,” Linn said. Her voice had gone soft, and Kole frowned, his eyes switching between her own, searching for the reason why.
“What’s that?”
“That her enemy is our own,” Linn said. “That she is the greatest power left in the world that we might count a friend, apart from our own company.” She glanced back down at the Nevermelt. “I trust that her reasons are pure, if … personal.”
Kole took it all in. For an instant, she feared he would say something different. Instead, he nodded. “I think the same.” He actually smiled. “I don’t know how I know it, but despite my earlier misgivings, I think she has her heart in this, if nothing else.”
He had no idea how right he was. She would tell him as soon as the Eastern Dark was vanquished on the morrow. She would make the queen tell him herself, so that they might stop the coming of the World Apart by joining their powers to the prince and princess out of place and time.
“I don’t know why I’ve had so much trouble trusting any of them,” Kole said.
Linn laughed. “Most of them have done nothing but give us good reason not to.”
“True,” Kole said. “But it isn’t in the deed where the greatest sin lies—”
“But in intent,” Linn finished. “You were listening to Doh’Rah’s stories.”
“Ninyeva was the storyteller,” Kole said, smiling fondly at the memory before a grimace wiped it away. “Doh’Rah gave us lectures in the place of tales, but I’d never pretend there was nothing of substance in them.”
He sighed as he looked up into the same blue-black canvas she had. There was a streak of dark red across it that looked like a shooting star frozen in time, or a ribbon of blood. Linn frowned at it. She hadn’t noticed it before. Kole didn’t seem to.
“It’s control,” he said. It seemed like he was talking to himself more than her. “Control is what I never thought they could have. But then, if power was the root of evil, we’d have Ember kings far less virtuous than the stories from the desert days. We’d have Faeykin installing themselves as lords in the Valley if any approached the power of Mother Ninyeva in the long years of that place. The Sages are fallible, yes,” he said, “but maybe that’s because they are just what I’ve never been able to see them as before now.”
“What’s that?” Linn asked, fascinated.
“Us,” Kole said. “Just us, albeit older and with longer memories weighing on longer minds.”
Whether he meant Landkist or people, or whether it mattered either way, Kole did not say and Linn did not ask.
“It all seems too easy, in a way,” Linn said.
“How do you mean?”
“That the Eastern Dark has come here, to the edge of the world, just where we are. That we’ve found allies so powerful, albeit proud … alright,” she nodded to his knowing look, “insufferable, more like, but no less potent because of it.”
“We followed him here.” Kole shrugged.
“We followed Rane,” Linn said with a shake of her head. “We followed plans half laid and less followed. And yet, we ended up just where we wanted.”
“And where is that?”
“At the place where we’ll decide it. All of it.”
Kole took in a deep breath, filling his chest. It was almost comical, seeing him weigh the effect of her words, and Linn hoped the effect was intentional.
“Remind me how easy it was once we’ve done it,” Kole said. “Remind me once the Eastern Dark lies frozen on the salted wastes, and when his allies are no more. Remind me when the World Apart is beaten back by whatever power the queen has hidden here.” He looked around, and Linn felt that a part of him knew of the dead prince, like a shadow that slipped away as he turned to catch it.
“I will,” Linn said. She surprised herself by meaning it.
Kole nodded, seeming distracted. “I’ve meant to ask her,” he said.
“Ask her what?”
“How she means to do it. Stop the World Apart. We’re assuming she’s right and he’s wrong, and that it really can be stopped without her dying right alongside him. The Sages are tied to its coming. Of that there can be no doubt.”
“They must be tied to its undoing, then,” Linn reasoned, hoping to be right. It was a dangerous way to think, but what choice did they have? What if they did burn them both away, only to be left clinging to wind-blown ashes and powers without the ancient knowledge behind them to face off against the full might of another world and whatever it held?
Still, no matter his words, the longer Kole spoke on matters involving the Sages, the more suspicious he seemed to grow.
“Did you see the way she reacted to the news that the Quartz Tower had fallen?” he said. “You’d think she used the thing as bait, and its defenders. Taking stock of her old brother in arms and whatever new followers he’s brought along with him.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“How can it not matter?” Kole asked quickly, his ire rising to replace the calm he had seemingly worked so hard to conjure.
“Because it’s done,” Linn said, breathless. “It’s done, Kole, and there’s no changing it now.” She hated how callous the words sounded. She pictured the old soldier, Guyy, and how blackened his fingers had been as he’d been attended to in the caves. As much as the queen’s dispassionate reaction had unnerved her, it had paled in comparison to the expression he’d worn—one that told Linn all she needed to know about the intent the Eastern Dark was bringing along with him.
“He’s desperate, Kole,” Linn said. “Valour is desperate.” He flinched at the name, but Linn wouldn’t hide from it any longer. These figures were no longer half-real stories from the depths of their collective memory, but kings, queens and warlords the world over. They were here, and they were ending. Best to say their names and be done with them.
“We don’t know why,” Kole said, shaking his head slowly.
“No,” Linn agreed, laying a hand on his thigh. “No, we don’t. But what does your heart tell you? That he’s come all this way, done all he’s done, visited such darkness on the world that it has never seen before, all in order to save it in the end?”
Kole didn’t answer.
“Ray Valour dies,” Linn said. “That’s how this ends.”
How quickly things could change and turn around.
Perhaps Kole was right, and that they were the best hope each other had.
She lifted her hand from his leg and turned it up, palm facing the sky and all its observing lights, fingers splayed.
“Together,” she said, tensing.
He lifted his own hand and placed it in hers, squeezing. His face hardened into a look of determination, one she had seen many times before, standing against the approaching darkness on the borders of Last Lake. There was no better look to see before a fight, assuming you were on the same side as him, and Linn would ensure that she always was.
“Sun’s rising,” Kole said.
Linn looked from him to the northern sky, which had begun to take on an orange haze that washed out the red scar she had forgotten.
They heard a rapid tapping sound coming from the southern hall and let their hands drop.
Shifa slid into the courtyard, clawed legs scrambling comically for purchase as she misjudged her speed and the changing conditions. Kole stood and greeted the hound while Linn peered into the blue gloom back the way she’d come.
She saw a hulking form with a more slender one beside it and stood, expecting to see the glint of golden armor and the most unfriendly face she had yet encountered in the north.
Instead, she saw familiar faces, albeit stretched tightly.
“Baas,” Kole said.
“Jenk,” Linn echoed. The two men nodded at them and then looked to one another.
“What is it?” Linn asked, heart quickening in a mix of fear and anticipation.
“Queen Elanil has ordered her knights out onto the ice,” Jenk said. “She’s going with them, and she … requests that we join them. She said—”
“Let us not gamble the fate of the world hiding behind frosted walls while the end approaches,” Baas interjected, his tone showing nothing of what he thought of it.
Linn looked to Kole and found him looking back, Shifa standing stiff, tail up and rigid, fur along the nape of her neck and spine making waves of its own.
“Guess she’s human, after all,” Linn said.
“Good to know.” Kole smiled.
“Then …” Jenk offered, looking from them to Baas and back again. “We’re going?”
Linn fixed him with a hunter’s stare that seemed to take him aback.
“Misha will be thrilled,” he said.
They ventured out farther than Linn thought safe, out beyond the northern wall of the crystal palace and among the frozen waves. Any fear she had of falling through the ice or finding an icy river just below her feet were quickly dispelled. The frost stretched out farther than she could see, and far deeper, the waves curling and held in the midst of all their fury, some reaching higher than the Untamed Hills of the Valley. The troughs between them went deep, s
o that the bases of the waves formed blue walls that picked up and reflected the brilliance of the day. And deeper still, Linn could feel the wind passing through chasms of untold depth.
Was the whole of the land Nevermelt? Had the ocean itself been tamed, held in bondage by the Frostfire Sage? And if so, for how long?
The sun carved the white-capped ridges from the blue of the sky and lit them like tongues of flame. It shone through the thinner waves, bathing them in blinding azure light so that their skin and armor—those who wore it—lost its golden glow for a time and instead recalled sapphires.
Still, no matter how solid the ground or how thick the ice, Linn knew they were in treacherous terrain. Too many hidden alcoves. Too many paths that twisted away out of sight, spilling them into valleys amidst the frozen sea.
Apparently, the Sage agreed.
“Ember,” she said, stopping at the bottom of the next soft blue rise. Jenk, Misha and Kole turned toward her from their various positions, none taking kindly to her tone. At first, she seemed taken aback by their confusion, and then she nodded, almost to herself. “Kole,” she amended.
He strode over to meet her as Tundra and Gwenithil, the Blue Knight Kole had fought in the red yard to the west, moved to stand closer. Linn matched them, and she nearly laughed when Shifa came streaking back into their midst from one of the sheltered alleys, kicking up tiny shards of ice as she went.
Not Nevermelt, then. Nevermelt did not chip or shatter. Not under the claws of a hound, at least.
They were surrounded on three sides by sheer blue-white walls, the salt shimmering as the day’s sparing heat did what work it could to warp the surface.
“Take two of my knights and two of your own,” the queen said, the only one in their company not squinting. “Preferably the fastest.” She nodded toward the trench Shifa had just sprinted out of. “He may have allies in the trenches and eddies. If he does, burn them out.”
The queen spoke with the voice of one used to commanding, being followed. Kole regarded her as one used to being commanded, albeit by different folk than she. He looked to Linn, who matched the stare. She thought of their exchange the night before—just hours before, in actuality—and hoped he would do his best to help them all get through the day, whatever it brought in its wake.
The Frostfire Sage Page 55