The fire in the grate flared back to life. Sigis smiled, though it seemed forced as he rubbed his knees. “Not exactly a display worthy of an audience.”
Wine stained the oak table and spattered the floor with a ruby rain. The silk at my wrist had melted in the pattern of his fingers, and the skin beneath was red and tender. I watched as Aino righted our cups and cleaned up the wine until lunch was served.
The lunch was more Drysian than Kylmian, and I wondered if that meant the cook was on Sigis’s side. I glared at my cheese dumplings and cabbage browned in butter. Aino took a little piece of everything, nodding as she determined it safe to eat. I drank enough wine to wet my tongue and tried not to make a face at the sour burn of it.
Sigis toasted again. “To your father, to his legacy, and to the coronation trials.” He took a long drink.
I swallowed carefully. My heart refused to slow its patter. My dress and coat pulled at me in all the wrong places, but shifting would make me look uncomfortable, and I couldn’t show him that. Grand dukes didn’t show discomfort. They acted as though other people were beneath them. And really, Sigis didn’t even rate in the “people” category, no offense to the animal kingdom. I started to classify him.
Hunting tactics: keeps prey off-guard, always nervous and fearful.
“I presume you’ve executed his servants, of course.” Sigis shook his head at my blank look. “You have too soft a touch, Ekata. It was the servants’ task to protect their sovereign, and in that they failed quite miserably. In Drysiak, we would never tolerate such laziness.”
Weaknesses: incredible arrogance and nationalism. “Of course not.” I took a bite of pigeon, another Drysian delicacy.
“And your man of the people. You must have done something with him.” I frowned, and Sigis rolled his eyes, clarifying. “Reko. Execute him as well. Swiftly and quietly, if you can. Kamen had a soft spot for him, but you don’t have to.”
I swallowed my pigeon. “Why do you care? Win the coronation trials and you can do whatever you want.”
Aino cleared her throat behind me. Sigis’s mouth turned up in what more foolish people would have called a smile. “Perhaps I will. And what happens then?”
“Then you can talk to Father when he wakes up,” I said.
Sigis set down his knife and fork. “There’s one trial I can’t do without you, Ekata.” He reached for my hand. I shot back. His stare was unwavering, blue eyes clear and shining and dangerous. “I need the will of my wife to become grand duke. No other woman will do.”
I could still hear him snarling, Her Grace is a child. “I’m afraid I’m already married.”
“A trial marriage.” Sigis lifted my cup, brought it to his lips. Wine trailed from the corner of his mouth, red as a kiss. “To a horse rider. You can go back to her tiny, peasant islands and be nothing, or you can stay with me and be a queen. Travel the world, learn as you like. Or come back and fix all the things that are wrong with Kylma. But do it with me.” He stopped, and his eyes ran over me again. “You’d look so stunning in our royal scarlet…”
“Does that compliment actually work on girls?”
Behind me, Aino let out an explosive cough. Sigis turned red under his beard. “Don’t get so cocky,” he snarled. “It’s not like everyone’s lining up to get a taste of your winning personality.”
So much the better. I was already trying to get rid of a wife and a suitor; how much more could I be expected to take?
The rest of the meal was awkward. Any small talk I came up with sounded trite in my mind. I couldn’t fathom marrying him. Our relationship would be like my parents’. Was preserving a duchy worth that?
“It’s time, Your Grace,” Aino said at last, and I almost slumped in relief before remembering I wasn’t allowed to.
“Second trial.” Sigis’s polite pleasantness was back. “Best of luck, my Ekata. You won’t catch me unsuspecting this time.” His smile was all teeth and charm. “I have always been so fond of the archimandrite. She stood against your stubborn father for years. I hope you don’t make the same mistake.”
“All of Kylma stands together at this time,” I said stiffly as I rose.
Sigis made a derisive noise. “You realize no one’s on your side because they like you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have friends.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
We retreated to my rooms, where Aino prepared me for the trial and parade among the people. Layer after layer was piled on: cotton, wool, fur, petticoats, bodices, and long underwear. “You’ll wear your father’s ceremonial cloak, of course,” she said.
“Why?” I’d look like a doll wrapped in a full-size blanket.
Aino’s mouth twisted. “It’s part of the symbolism of the royal house. Your father always looked the part, even for the people.”
“Do they hate him?” I said.
She began to braid my hair. “That is a difficult question to answer. Your father has done things… that make it difficult to love him.”
I supposed I could understand that. Why should I expect the entire duchy to love my father when I bore no love for him myself? “Aino?”
“Hmm?” She tied off the braid and wound it in a crown around my head, pinning it with diamond-studded hairpins.
“What should I do? To make people like me?”
The tugging at the back of my head paused. “Make them feel like you care,” Aino said. “And be strong. You need to look like someone they can trust to get things done.” She opened my wardrobe so that I could see myself in the mirror attached to the inside.
“How is anyone going to know what I look like?” I turned around in my enormous dress. It felt as if I’d gathered twelve full sample baskets from one of Farhod’s expeditions in the mountains and strapped them to my hips. “No one can even see me. Why can’t I go out in something more practical?” I wore a winter suit of fur and a leather split-skirt when I had expeditions with Farhod.
“You’re not practical. You’re a duke. And you ask me how people will like you more? You act like a duke.”
“Literally anyone could stand in this contraption. We could stuff the dress with straw, and no one would notice the difference.” I pulled the hood up and faced the mirror, raising a gloved hand in a mock wave. “If I’m such a powerful duke, why can’t I get someone to do this for me?”
Aino heaved a sigh. “If you didn’t wish to bear the responsibility, you should have run with me that first night. I did offer, remember?”
“I remember.” I wished I’d taken her up on it. We could be cozily sequestered in a mansion far into the hills, surrounded by nothing but wind and ice. Instead, I had hourly meetings with countless people who’d prefer to dissect me on a slab in Farhod’s laboratory.
“It’s never too late to run,” Aino said, handing me my mittens.
I took them, but my mind was far away, in the laboratory at the top of the tower. Aino was right—but I didn’t want to run away. I wanted to run toward, toward finding a cure for this illness, toward saving myself and others. I could solve this—but first, I had to be my father for a little while.
The kennels were a long, low building attached to the side of the palace, warm and musty and smelling of sweat and wet fur and pine. Six dogs waited outside their stalls, hooked up to a pine sled and looking piteously bored as the kennel master finished with their harnesses. Inkar lingered near the kennel door, her bright smile somewhat fixed.
“I told you we used dogs,” I said.
“I know,” she said, and I noticed an uneasy tinge to her voice. “I simply—hoped you were joking. Do you truly not use horses?”
“You’d have to be very stupid to think horses would function well in this environment,” I said.
She didn’t flinch. “Stupid like the man who brought his army on horseback?”
“Exactly like that.” I couldn’t help laughing. What we said would probably get back to Sigis. But Inkar smiled at the easy joke.
Our sled dogs were long-limbed, with w
hite-and-tan fur and brown eyes. The kennel master hooked them up two at a time. One yawned, showing off wicked teeth. Inkar drew back.
“It’s okay,” I said, stifling the urge to take her hand. I bent down and scratched the dog behind the ear instead. “Your horse is in the guest kennel, if you want to ride it behind the sled.”
Inkar smiled, and her smile, though brittle, was unyielding. “I do not run from things I fear. And I wish to stand with you.”
The kennel master approached us and bowed. “The dogs are trained to a slow pace, Your Grace,” he said. “Another sled will follow behind in case you have any trouble.”
“We won’t.” I’d driven a sled on family hunts, when I couldn’t get out of them, and on expeditions with Farhod whenever I could go. I wasn’t an expert, but I’d manage. Inkar muttered something. “I beg your pardon?”
“I am merely reciting a prayer. I do not wish for my first diplomatic incident to be falling on my ass,” she said.
“It would be rather anticlimactic for you,” I said.
I hadn’t meant it as a compliment, but Inkar’s smile cracked a little, revealing something more genuine underneath. “I agree. If I do not take off heads, I will be ashamed of my first public embarrassment as grand consort.”
“You could always aim a swing or two while you’re falling on your ass,” I suggested.
Eirhan oiled up beside me, wearing a dour expression. “I hope you are preparing to be suitably mournful during the procession.”
I tried not to look as though I’d been caught flirting. I’m not flirting, I reminded myself. I don’t know how to flirt.
“Am I—supposed to say anything, or do anything?” I asked.
“Listen to the archimandrite. Do what she wants. Don’t bother trying to charm anyone else. No one will hear you anyway.” As Eirhan turned away, I heard him mutter, “And what a blessing that will be.”
The kennel master brought the hounds out, and we followed, taking our places on the long wooden sled. I had to pull Inkar off the claw brake and rearrange her behind the handlebar. She clung to it, gasping as the sled began to move.
“It’s all right,” I said. I took a deep, cold breath, hoping the dogs knew their jobs better than I knew mine. If that didn’t say something about the state of Kylma Above, I didn’t know what did.
The gate opened, and we faced the crowd.
The dogs began to wag their tails and loped out onto the road. I lifted my face to the sky, gray as a pearl, punctuated by the deep-blue ice spires of the Grand Theatre. Snow dusted my shoulders. The crowd looked like a herd of fantastic winter creatures in their coats of white, brown, and black, their leather and fur. A few foreigners stood out in brightly dyed wool. I spotted slices of arms, hoods, faces. I was on display for the entire world to see, but I saw the world in only the briefest glimpses.
The boulevard was lined with soldiers, and the lamps to either side were lit. The crowd pressed up against the soldiers but did not shout. They reminded me of the curious citizens Below, and I imagined their bending the ice sheet, cracking the ground with their weight, sending us Below in our dragging garments. My scientific mind knew the ice sheet would hold, but my unscientific hands clenched around the bar of the sled.
I pushed my chest out and forced my head up. Father wouldn’t show fear, and neither would I. Aino said I had to be likable and strong. Father had gotten by on strength alone, and strength was what I needed now. Strength to inspire faith.
Inkar leaned toward me. “How is it so cold?”
Southerners. If I wanted her to leave me, I could give her the rooms with the coldest privy. But I fished for the edge of Father’s cloak. “Here,” I said, holding it out to her. She stared at me, eyes widening. They were a lighter brown than they’d looked in the gloom of my rooms last night, with a little bit of green in them. “The whole family fits in here.”
She inched over, little by little, hands still gripping the bar. I draped the cape around her far shoulder. I could feel hundreds of eyes following my movements, and I could only hope they took our interaction as a good sign. Maybe they’d think I wasn’t caving in too easily to Sigis.
Our grandest buildings lined the boulevard to either side—the stock exchange, with its great dome; the dowager’s mansion, with a sharp tower at each corner; the Grand Theatre, with its clear fluted columns; and the covered market. Like our palace, they were carved in ice, though the Grand Theatre had an interior lined with wood and thin stone tiles. Behind them lay the rest of the city: the houses, the shops, the little theaters and coffeehouses, and beyond them the less desirable places, like the tanners’ quarter and the fishermen’s quarter and other parts of the city where I’d never ventured.
I looked from building to building along the boulevard. Silver and electrum threaded through the edges of their roofs, making them gleam even on this gloomy day. And the most opulent building of all—the Snowmount—stood at the end.
The dogs slowed at the steps of the Snowmount. Legends ran that the Snowmount had once been a cave in the ice. Sjiotha, the goddess of winter, had protected the first settlers of Kylma Above by shielding them from the wind and snow. But when spring came, her jealous brother, Morvoi, had broken the ice and dragged citizens to Below to become his worshippers beneath the lake. When the Avenkos had learned the secrets of magic, they turned the cave into a temple, and every duke found a way to make it more impressive. It had five domes and a monastery, and the roof was shingled with electrum, copper, and gold.
The archimandrite waited at the top of the stairs to the temple. She’d exchanged her white-and-silver robe for a black one. The cloak that covered it was stitched with pearls. Her staff tapped out seconds on the ice.
I dismounted from the sled, inadvertently pulling Inkar with me. The archimandrite stood straight as a pillar while we disentangled ourselves. The cloak dragged on the ground as I walked up the steps to the entrance of the Snowmount, as though Morvoi was trying to pull me under. If there’s any time to do it, it’s now, I prayed.
Inkar followed me to the steps and imitated the bow I gave to the archimandrite. The archimandrite did not bow back.
“Welcome,” she said in a voice that told me I most certainly was not.
She held out a gloved hand, and I hesitated over her rings. I opted to kiss the largest one, and she didn’t complain. She beckoned, and we followed her through the pale doors, into the Snowmount.
The wide hall was all curves and soft angles, like the black structures Below. Ice buttresses fluted from columns carved with roses and wolves and bears and strung through with electrum thread. A shrine to Morvoi was ornamented with ice fish, nonmagical pearls, and a messenger bowl. Inkar’s eyes widened as she took in the carved relief on the walls depicting Sjiotha, a wild-haired, wind-tousled goddess riding a sleigh pulled by bears.
At the altar of Sjiotha burned the eternal torch, the light of which was said to have been given to us by the goddess and had never been extinguished. I pushed back my hood and leaned toward the flame.
“Come,” the archimandrite said in a voice of iron. I stiffened at her tone. As we started to follow her, she held up a hand. “The candidate only,” she told Inkar. “You may stay and contemplate the matter of your conversion.”
Inkar raised her eyebrows. “My what?”
The archimandrite turned and walked away without answering. I tried to shoot Inkar a look that was pleading and reassuring and confident all at once, then hurried after the archimandrite.
We left the main hall of the church through a side door, coming out into a small, open space where winter poppies did their best to bloom through the snow. From there we entered another hall and passed into Sjiotha’s monastery, where the buildings were low and the walls bare.
As we walked, the archimandrite spoke. “The coronation trials are a chance to renew faith and cooperation with the church. My blessing is required to pass the trials, and I will give it to only one of you. Three grand dukes I have blessed. You would be
the fourth.”
“Only until my father—”
“I have always despised your family’s method of succession,” the archimandrite interrupted. “Your grandfather sacrificed his father to Morvoi.” That was a fancy way of saying that Grandfather pushed his predecessor into the moat. “Your father poisoned your uncle, and I have not forgotten it. But I have never known a candidate to kill so many at once. Your brother Svaro was only eight. Did you really have to kill him?”
“He’s not dead. I haven’t killed anyone,” I protested.
“What difference does it make? They cannot rise. They cannot work; they cannot rule. You think this is better than murder?”
“Yes,” I snapped. Because I was going to wake them up.
Give her what she wants, Eirhan had urged me. I took a deep breath. Nasal. Premaxilla.
The archimandrite led me into a room without a fire grate. “Sjiotha has been known to speak in this room,” she said. “We will commune together.”
She tapped her staff on the floor. A door opened, and two acolytes came in, bearing wooden cups. I tried not to sigh. The sour wine served by the archimandrite at mass was worse than Sigis’s Drysian offerings.
An acolyte held my glass in one hand and a round mollusk shell in the other. In its dark and shining center, two fat pearls glistened.
My heart skipped a beat. Magic. Did the archimandrite hold the secret to its refinement?
The archimandrite picked up a pearl and dropped it into her cup. I hesitated, then imitated her. I tried not to breathe in the wine’s bitter scent as I drank. I felt a solid mass slide between my lips, burst against my teeth. My tongue tingled, but I couldn’t know whether that was the effect of the wine or the magic.
I exhaled softly. I closed my eyes and bent my mind toward creation and control, thinking of the winter flowers we’d passed on our way in. I thought of light, the way Meire had painted my skin with it. I thought of the tapestry animals, dancing with life. And finally I felt the same pull as the night before, the tug of magic drawing something out of me.
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