I curled my lip. Your army doesn’t scare me. If I thought it vehemently enough, I might even believe it. But it didn’t matter how much Sigis showed off now. I had to defeat him, not his thousand men.
The bridge lowered, and Sigis strode across. He walked right up to me, moving in until he knew I was uncomfortable. Inkar put herself between us. He laughed.
“Last chance, Ekata. I have a ring for you,” he said over her head.
My insides buzzed. I didn’t answer.
Water churned in the moat. A dark blue head, covered in scales, emerged from the wavelets and blinked round eyes at Prime Minister Eirhan.
Urso came forward, rubbing a damp hankerchief under his collar. How could he be sweating? The breeze froze the tears at the corner of my eyes, and Sigis’s bold smile was starting to look forced. With a last squeeze of my hands, Aino and Inkar stepped back, leaving me alone. “Your Grace,” Urso said, sounding more nervous than ever. “Your Highness.”
Sigis and I nodded.
“The trial Below is a test to win the alliance of our dearest partners. Once Below, you will receive instructions for the competition. He—erm, the one who earns the favor of the duke Below wins the trial. Are you prepared?”
“Yes,” said Sigis, as though the question itself were ridiculous.
I tried to keep my tone even, calm, befitting a grand duke. Because that was what I was, and Sigis wouldn’t take that away from me. “Yes.”
“Then disrobe.”
Sigis made a great show of unclasping his cloak and letting it fall to the ground. He pulled his clothes off piece by piece until he stood in a pair of scarlet shorts that made me roll my eyes. It couldn’t be often that he had permission to parade his royal butt for his subjects. One of his hands made a loose fist, and I thought I knew what was held inside it. I removed my layers one by one, thankful that Aino had made me wear my crinoline and corset, if only to watch him grow more and more uncomfortable as he waited. By the time I stood in my shift, he was trying not to rub his arms.
More shapes disturbed the surface of the water. Something glittered on the moat’s surface, and ice began to spin out in petals and leaves, filling in the water until just one dark hole remained. One way in, one way out.
We moved to the edge of the hole. My toes squeezed together at the cold. “Do you really think you’ll be a better grand duke than me?” Sigis asked in a low voice.
Not alone. But I’d vowed to give up my absolute power, something I knew he’d never do.
“I was begged to come save Kylma from you. Why fight for it? Why insist on ruling a country that will never love you?”
Something snapped in me. “Maybe you’re right,” I said, filling my voice with weariness. “It’s not like anyone ever taught me how to rule.”
“It’s not your fault.” Sigis’s voice was syrupy-warm. “Your father taught you that hating your siblings was more important than nurturing your own people. You simply don’t have the necessary skills, Ekata.” He opened his fist. A little ring sat on his palm—far too small for his fingers, but not the wrong size for me. He held it up with a smirk. Behind him, identical expressions of horror crossed Aino’s and Inkar’s faces. Eirhan looked hopeful, the utter bastard. “Take it,” said Sigis gently. “Don’t be a grand fool.”
I plucked it from his fingers. I couldn’t help myself. “Sorry, but grand fools make grand gestures.”
I drew back my arm in a wide move that everyone could see. Then I hurled the ring into the moat.
It tumbled into the depths, losing sparkle as it fell. I had the satisfaction of seeing, for a bare instant, a look of utter shock on Sigis’s face. Then I dived. The cold hit me, and I couldn’t think about anything else.
I began to shake. The moat was so much colder than the water in the palace entrance to Below. I fought not to gasp. It had been too many years since I last dived in. I wasn’t used to it anymore.
The water began to feel warmer—or maybe I was losing all feeling. I tried to pump my arms and legs, but they dragged and refused to work. My heart worked slowly, painfully, and my lungs began to burn.
Above me, the roar of Sigis’s army was muted by the water as he leaped in, too. His face transformed into horror as the cold hit, and his mouth formed around a curse. Maybe the trial was about who could last the longest underwater.
A shape appeared beneath me, and I recognized Meire’s green mane. Hands glittering with magic pressed against my face, and the need for air receded. Next to me, a citizen Below I did not recognize brushed Sigis’s mouth and nose.
I opened my mouth to say something, but Meire pressed a long finger to her lips. A kick of her feet took her down, away from me, and I knew not to follow.
Light grew around us. Dozens—no, hundreds—of lamps strung beneath the ice gave it a blue-green glow. Flowers hung next to them, laced through seaweed orbs. Thirty or forty feet below, I spotted a dark net of woven seaweed, meant to keep the rest of Above from Below’s business. And as the light grew, so did the warmth. I saw Sigis’s mouth turn a slightly less violent shade of blue.
A fishman swam to meet us. He bore an electrum staff that glittered blue and green, and his dark mane was edged with gray. “This is the trial Below. You shall proceed to the Stonemount. There is a pearl, a gift from the duke Below for the crown of the duke Above. Whoever retrieves the pearl receives our blessing to wear the crown.”
He looked from Sigis to me, blinking his great eyes. “You will not harm each other. You will not touch or be touched by a citizen Below. You will not leave the light.”
Sigis moved first, shoving past him and shooting off through the lamps. I swam after him, though my brain pinged a warning. He couldn’t possibly know where the Stonemount was. Could he?
Something flashed beneath me, far enough that I nearly missed it. Meire coiled behind a burst of pink flowers, about twenty feet away. She met my eyes and beckoned. I turned from Sigis’s retreating form and set off after her, sticking close to the net.
Meire disappeared as I drew near, showing herself only in brief flashes to let me know I was on the right track. From time to time, I glanced around the hanging garden; Sigis’s body became a thin line moving between lamps, then a dot, then disappeared. The tightness in my chest began to unclench. Inkar might be right. I might win this after all. And maybe I wouldn’t win through superior intelligence, but who cared? I’d win through making allies, and perhaps that was more important for a grand duke. I set my pace.
Something gripped my ankle, and I let out a short scream. Sigis pulled me back and propelled himself forward until we were shoulder to shoulder. He hadn’t tried to get ahead of me at all. He’d let me think I was secure, and now he was going to steal my victory.
He swam with practiced ease. A hot fist squeezed around my heart. Even if I did find the pearl first, he would just take it from me.
Meire had vanished. She couldn’t let Sigis see her. As the net dropped away beneath us, I angled down, feeling the water stir as Sigis followed me. You must outthink him, Inkar’s voice whispered in the back of my mind. Sigis knew that I’d been Below and would consider that my advantage. And he expected me to lead him to the Stonemount.
I slowed my pace, as though I were tiring. Then I dived straight down.
I heard a bubbling shout of anger as Sigis followed. The water darkened instantly, reducing the ice to a creaking monster somewhere far above. A figure swam up beside me. “Go back,” said a voice I did not recognize. I shook my head and kept swimming. The guard didn’t touch me. He couldn’t touch me.
Sigis’s shoulder slammed into mine, sending me spinning through the water. He shot me a look of pure hatred. Two years ago, that look would have pinned me like an insect, made me run off to some servant’s corner and hope that someone else would make him angrier before I had to venture out again. Now I bared my teeth, kicked him in the knee, and hurtled into the dark. The guards called after us: Stop. Come back. It is dangerous. But I ignored them, and so Sigis ignored
them, and we plunged toward the deep dark.
I felt the first brush of something on my wrist and swallowed my spike of fear. But at the second brush, I shot back up. I couldn’t see Sigis anymore, but I heard a yelp and guessed that one of the creatures of the deep had fastened itself to him. A tentacle wrapped around my calf, and I struck out in panic. How ironic if both of us were to die down here.
I kicked again, and the sentinel freed me. Then I swam, hoping I was still headed in the right direction. Gradually my eyes picked up shapes, long and thin, looping through the water around me. My mind attached names to the shapes, questioning.
Focus. At last, I spotted the light, and as I kicked closer, it resolved into lamps. I checked behind me. Fish and fishmen, long things and finned things. But no Sigis.
Two guards appeared beneath me, and two came up to swim beside me to keep me from leaving the lit area. None of them was Meire.
But I didn’t need her anymore, I realized. Something floated in the water around me, giving it a strange, oily sheen. As it dusted my fingers, strange eddies appeared in the water. Ice crystals formed like rose petals and fell away from my body. Magic. It illuminated a trail before me.
The trail led to a rocky face that loomed like a mountain. Little flowers, pale as moons, dotted its surface, tilting their bloodred stamens toward the lamps.
They clustered around an opening in the rock. A light flickered from within. I aimed for the light and swam.
As the Snowmount had been carved Above, so had the Stonemount Below. Black-on-black scenes showed Morvoi, the God Below, bringing the first citizens down to be his subjects. Sharks terrorized fishmen, and kraken wrapped their arms around pillars. Little fish and squid as dark as stone swam back and forth above us. The petals that brushed against my body darkened, turning as thin and sharp as volcanic glass. I pressed my legs together, thinking of their knife edges, of the little sharks around us.
The duke Below floated beneath a relief of Sjiotha and Morvoi. He wore his electrum crown, with points like teeth. His dark, dark eyes regarded me. In his hand, he held the pearl.
He beckoned. A guard swam in, bearing a body in his arms. Sigis.
I didn’t know whether my former foster brother was unconscious or worse. Welts covered him, wrapping around both legs and his torso, kissing his neck and cheek. The duke Below observed me, as I, in turn, observed my rival. “You match your father for ruthlessness.”
It was the sort of statement I’d been chasing after all week. Now it left me cold.
“We are not in the habit of starting wars,” the duke Below said. “But you have won your trial.” He held out the pearl, sparkling, the size of my little fingernail. It was cool against my fingers, and so light my stomach lurched with the fear of losing it.
“Hail, Your Grace,” he said, and curled into a bow to me. Around us, the citizens Below followed him.
“Hail,” I replied.
“It pleases me that it is you,” the duke said. “We will keep you.”
What did he mean by that? Doesn’t matter. My mouth was dry, for all that water surrounded me. Now was my chance. “And if I’m grand duke, do I not get a grand duke’s privilege?”
His eyes hooked into me. “Like your father, you hunger for our magic.” It did not sound like a compliment. “What will you do with the secret when you have it?”
“I’ll bring my family back.”
A low hissing sounded around me. Was it the wrong thing to say? “And after?” the duke asked, never taking his black eyes from my face.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. I hadn’t thought beyond the awakening until yesterday. Maybe a parliament would demand the knowledge, or order the creation, of a guild. Maybe our trade would become less restrictive. But it wasn’t a decision for me to make alone.
The duke regarded me a few moments more. Then he said, “You will be a friend to us, Ekata Avenko. As we are a friend to you. So I say, as a friend to a friend, we will give you what you need to stabilize your magic Above. In return, you will not try to wake your family.”
Something strange and heavy coiled in my stomach, dragged at my feet. What? “Why not?”
The duke cocked his head. “Because we do not want it. We cursed them, after all. We made you the Grand Duke of Kylma Above.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
You—you…” Panic wrapped its cold grip around my spine. My feet stilled in the water; my hand loosened around my prize pearl. “You cursed us?”
The duke Below signaled a servant. She bore a messenger bowl, shining, white, strange. The duke withdrew four shimmering pearls from the pouch at his belt and crushed them in his fist. He opened a handful of light that flashed through the water and dipped it through the oily barrier, into the air Above. “We cursed only those who deserved it most. And now that the succession is clear, we can be finished. If you are so reluctant, I do not mind taking on the task—” He began to stir with his fingers.
“No.” The word burst out of me, and even I was surprised by the vehemence of it. But I meant it, I realized. “You can’t do that.”
The duke’s mane flattened against his head. “Why not?” Was it the strange light, or did the orange spurs at his elbows seem brighter?
“You can’t kill them. Maybe they don’t deserve to live, but that’s not your choice.” It was for my ministers, for my parliament. Maybe for me, even. But not for him.
“He who has the power makes the choice.” The duke’s head turned. He regarded Sigis, supine in the arms of his guard. “There is one who understands this. Should we wake one of your sisters and make Sigis grand duke instead?”
“You can’t threaten my life. You can’t hurt me during the coronation trials.”
“We may not touch you during the coronation trials,” the duke Below corrected. “But we may… adjust things with regard to your family.”
“I…” They’d cursed us. It made such horrible sense. But if they had—“Why did you tell me about Yannush?”
“Yannush favored the wrong candidate. He tried to kill you even when we instructed him not to. I told you we are friends, Ekaterina. We did as friends should do.”
My stomach twisted bitterly. He’d killed three of his own citizens to make me trust him. “And now you’re threatening me.”
“I do not wish to. But look at the weapons we hold,” the duke said. I didn’t think he meant it as a mark of intimidation. Their rotting spears spoke of desperation. “Your father stopped trading iron and wax. Things decay around us, and we cannot replace them. We must defend ourselves from the deep. We are not servants of Above. We are not interesting and exotic things to study. We are our own people, and we have our own needs.” He continued to stir the air with his hand. Magic was volatile, magic didn’t follow orders, magic couldn’t be controlled—except by them. How?
“You told me you didn’t meddle in the affairs of Above,” I said, more to buy time than anything else.
He smiled. “Of course I told you that.”
“But if you don’t care… why didn’t you kill me the first time I came Below?”
“Kill you?” The duke seemed puzzled. “Why would we kill you? You are curious. You are spirited. You are dazzled by us.” Easy to manipulate. “And we need someone of the Avenko line.” His hand paused. “Tell me it can be you, Ekaterina.”
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even think.
“We demand respect.” His hand made lazy figure eights in the bowl. “If you will not give it to us, then we will stop extending our protection to you. We will find another Avenko—the little one, perhaps. He is young enough to be molded for many uses.”
Two figures swam between us. My body flushed with electric fear. “You cannot touch me,” I said automatically.
But they didn’t need to touch me. One raised his hand, and I felt the magic drawing out of me, the tightening of my lungs, the rising tide of panic.
I flailed, gripping my pearl, grabbing for the little black petals until their tips bit into
my palm. I sliced up out of desperation, hoping that if I distracted him, I might buy my lungs a moment more. But what did it matter? I was so far away from the surface I’d never make it.
The blade of the petal caught his arm as he threw it up to deflect me. It scraped off his scales to bite into a soft, unprotected piece of forearm. Blood ribboned out.
Around the wound, magic began to coalesce. My hand brushed it, and I felt the tug, deep in my belly. The weight on my chest loosened. I no longer needed to breathe. Around my fingers, the water flashed, taking on shape, putting a barrier between me and my enemy.
It was doing what I needed. It was doing what I wanted.
The secret to magic was inside us, Meire had said. I’d assumed she meant in a more general sense. That if I dug deep enough, I’d find it for myself. But that wasn’t true at all. The secret was literally in their blood.
The guard started toward me, fingers clamped around his arm. The water wall between us shattered. My arm darted out to grab his. I closed my eyes, pulled for the magic all around me, focused my thoughts. My fingers lengthened, growing bluer and extra-jointed. Webbing stretched between them. I shot away from him, through the arch of the Stonemount and toward the surface, swimming too fast and too desperately. Lanterns and fishmen blurred around me. Still I pushed for more speed, more power. Magic was temporary. How long did I have? The water churned behind me as the guards followed. But true to the laws of the trial, they did not touch me.
I swam up in the gloom, past fish that hid behind arrangements of flora. I swam until the glow of the lanterns shone against the dark of the ice sheet, illuminating the jagged hole in the moat. My limbs ached. My fingers took on a pink tinge, growing nails. The magic was wearing off. But the ice was only a few strokes away—
A long body joined mine. Meire’s green crest was flat, her pupils wide. She couldn’t touch me, but I reached for her. If anyone would help me here, she would.
Between her fingers she held a single, glowing pearl. She kicked past me and pressed it to the bottom of the ice. More citizens Below joined her. Magic broke in glittering clouds around their fingers.
The Winter Duke Page 28