And with that, the life leached out of her face, draining every inch of skin, until she vanished. Cielo’s clothes, left unoccupied, rippled to the ground.
“What . . . ?” Mimì asked, spinning a hopeless circle. “Did that strega just magic right out of existence?”
Silence encroached on my heart. Cielo wouldn’t go that far to win a game, and yet I worried. Once Cielo had undone all of my magic by accident. What if my strega had used too much power again and simply vanished?
I took a step, and the stones beneath my feet rippled.
I took another step, and the stones bucked. I flew forward, trying to loosen my body as I’d learned to do when I was a little girl and Beniamo cast me to the ground.
I landed, and the stones bent and softened, like warm butter.
The others were falling and staggering as well. Xiaodan was tearing at her dress as if she had been seized by a rash, and Mimì tossed a knife out of her pocket, almost hitting Vanni with a flying blade.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Above our heads, the sky tore open, like a great hungry mouth. It looked as if it could swallow all of Zarisi.
My magic crashed through me until I thought I would crumple. But I didn’t know what to change, how to fix this. And besides, I’d meant to train Mimì, Vanni, and Xiaodan, not to pit my own powers against Cielo’s.
“Help!” Vanni cried.
“Truce,” Mimì said. “Now show yourself.”
Cielo arrived back in her clothing, looking drained and even paler than usual. When the pink sprang back to her lips, she ran her fingers over them, the way I touched mine after a particularly revelatory kiss.
“What did you do?” Vanni asked. “Make a quick pact with the devil while we were out getting your olives?” He brandished a bag, and Cielo swiped it from Vanni with a wide smile. A moment later, Cielo had untied the bag with her long fingers, and her smile became merely a gate for olives to pass through.
She chewed as the color returned to her face, slowly. “I became gray.” The streghe around me traded looks of disbelief.
“You became a color,” I said, to make sure I understood what had happened and add it to the growing catalog of Cielo’s abilities.
“Yes,” Cielo said. “I really will have to add a page to the book for that one.”
I sat down on the cobblestones, the cold leaching through my wool dress and into the backs of my legs.
Cielo knelt in front of me. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “I thought you wanted to play.” She held out an olive. I shook my head.
“I don’t care about losing a game,” I said. “But this is a real war we’re heading into. I can’t let them face the Capo, the Eterrans, and our own army. I can’t risk their lives when they were just laid low by one strega.”
Cielo’s kiss was soft but insistent, the brine of her olives salting my lips. “You’re forgetting that we are on the same side. This is not a matter of each strega battling alone. No more foul mathematics. This is all of us, or nothing.”
“Then it will have to be all of us,” Xiaodan said, her hands plucking at the strings of the world, pulling emotion from the air. “People are afraid. And it’s growing stronger. Spreading.”
Vanni ran to the street, but by the time he came back carrying news, I already knew what he was going to say. Still, I unclenched my fists and waited, wanting to loosen my body the way I had when I was falling, to keep the impact from shattering me.
“What is it?” Mimì asked.
Vanni swallowed. “The Eterrans have taken the pass.”
When my eyes first settled on the town of Zarisi, I’d believed it was abandoned, but as word of the Eterrans breaching the pass spread, a contagion of whispers and shouts, any villagers and profiteers who had stayed behind were inspired to leave as quickly as possible. They streamed out of shops and houses, some half-dressed and dragging on their furs.
My little band of streghe looked at me, waiting for instruction. I had lured them here, baiting their steps with grand notions of a country that could be made safer for their kind, as well as everyone they loved. I was a liar with a heart full of hollow promises. A strega whose magic could rage and reshape and ruin but not heal. A thief who had stolen people away from their lives and marched them toward death.
“What do we do now, General di Sangro?” Cielo asked.
“This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be! You said we’d have more time!” Vanni cried, placing the obvious in my path so I would have to trip over it yet again.
“All of my battle plans were based on defending the pass,” I said. “I will have to . . . redraw them.”
When I went into the dungeons of my mind, usually filled with an endless supply of di Sangro scheming, I came up with nothing but darkness. Father did not believe in outright war. He used every weapon at his disposal to avoid battles and armies. When my brothers played at being soldiers with the boys of Chieza, Father would frown at their invented victories and draw me under his arm. He would lean down and look at me as if I were wise and say, No one wins a war, Teo. There is only a side that loses less.
“While you’re drawing up plans, you could sketch a line to the nearest inn with a warm bed,” Vanni says. “No one knows we’re here, Teo, except for the five families. It’s not too late to turn around.”
“Are you always this cowardly?” Mimì asked, whirling on Vanni.
Vanni looked more stung than he had when Cielo chased him as a mass of hornets. But he pushed his lips together staunchly, recovering a bit of his pride. “It’s not cowardice. It’s a healthy fear, and it keeps me alive. Do you know how many people in my family are confident and dead?”
I thought of Signora Moschella and her talents, including the one for keeping her children alive in the face of constant revenge, skirmishes, and assassination plots. I would have traded every drop of magic in my blood for that skill.
The magic seethed at that thought. We are made for this, it said. We are here to change things.
I had promised my magic—promised myself—that I would not let the world go on as it had. I looked down the alley at the sparse handfuls of Vinalian soldiers coming up with improbable ways to hold the streets of Zarisi as long as they could before the Eterrans overwhelmed them. The last of the villagers flowed against the tide of nature, up from the valley into the mountains.
Follow them, my magic whispered.
The last time it had given me similar instructions, it wanted me to run after Cielo. My magic was reckless, but it was often right. I did not always know how to believe the voice inside of me as much as I believed in the cruelty of the world.
“We follow the villagers,” I said. “They know the safest paths.”
“We give up?” Xiaodan said, looking around at Zarisi as if she were being held back in the wings when she should be making a grand entrance. She stared fearlessly in the direction of the pass, the battle a song that could not go unsung.
“We strike from the mountains, like I said we would.” My magic did not like being forced into a corner. It needed a vantage point to work—it could not change the world without truly seeing it first. “The soldiers will funnel through the town, and our magic will work better if we’re not fighting one man at a time.”
Xiaodan nodded brightly. “We need strategy, not sweaty combat.”
“Besides, the Eterrans can’t spread out and attack every slope of the mountain,” I said, my plan gaining speed, tumbling together as I spoke. “It would thin their forces, and the Neviane are treacherous, full of snow that will give way under your boots, burying you before you scream. Not to mention the avalanches you can start by yelling at the wrong pitch.”
“So that’s why everyone in town was so whispery,” Vanni said with a shiver.
We started up the nearest slope, and I found myself wishing I hadn’t just given breath to all th
e reasons we had to fear the mountains. Our steps bit through the top layer of ice, scraping along our legs and sinking deeper, until our knees were swallowed. Mimì looked disgusted, and Vanni seemed to be on the verge of another fainting spell. I braced his arm with my own. If he passed out now, he might roll downhill all the way back to Zarisi.
Xiaodan kept tossing nervous glances over her shoulder, her hands moving as if they were muddling their way through a thick stew. “Our soldiers are tired. I can feel their sadness at the breach of the pass. It feels like losing more than a battle, Teo. It feels like losing . . . everything.”
My heart was a whirlwind, carrying me back to the day in the Uccelli when I’d lost my home, my family. It was happening again, but on a grander scale. Vinalia was my home as much as the cold stones of the di Sangro castle had ever been.
The Vinalian soldiers understood that giving up the pass meant the Eterrans had free rein to invade the rest of the country. They would most likely march straight to Amalia and declare themselves our new rulers. On the way, they would plunder our fields, and later put their fingers all over the trade in our ports. Our lives would no longer be ours, our fates at their mercy. As if that weren’t enough, the Eterrans didn’t believe in the brilliant life. They would strip this land of its magic—and not only the kind practiced by streghe. Their ways were cold, bloodless, their days without beauty or passion.
Fiorenza had told me so many times, That is not life. It is simply an absence of death.
My hatred for the Capo rose in great, sickening waves, and I had to swallow against bile at the back of my throat. He had brought on this invasion so he might prove his greatness. He might as well have written the Eterrans an invitation in his best handwriting.
But I could not punish the Capo. Not yet.
One enemy at a time.
“I want you to work on the Eterrans,” I told Xiaodan, my voice shredded into strips by the wind and the effort of marching uphill. “If they’re feeling confident, keep at them until they can barely see past their own pride.”
Xiaodan nodded briskly. But when her hands went to work, they caught on something—a visible snag. “I’ll need you to stop crowding the air first.”
“What?” I asked, feeling dizzy as we rose higher and the battle drew closer.
“Your feelings are thick. I can’t work past them.” She tried to stretch her hands apart, but they hit the same blockage every time. “Fear, fear, fear,” she muttered.
“Of course I’m afraid,” I snapped. “What decent person would send anyone into a battle without worrying about their fates?”
Xiaodan nodded as if I’d said reasonable things, but I could tell she was holding back. Her own emotions had a way of sliding across her face in strong but fleeting glimpses, like fast-moving weather.
“What?” I asked.
“The worst of your fears all cling to one person.” She nodded at the figure leading our little pack, sure steps punching through the ice, black hair swinging. “You’re so afraid to lose Cielo.”
I prickled along all the seams of my body. “What is Cielo afraid of?” I whispered, knowing even as I asked that this was not a fair question. It would be wrong to invade Cielo’s mind that way. And yet I’d had the feeling, ever since Mirella’s wedding, that Cielo was holding something in reserve.
Not lying. My strega was terrible at lying.
Xiaodan’s fingers reached toward Cielo’s back, running in the smooth, waving lines of a waterfall, combing through Cielo’s emotions. But before she could report anything back to me, Cielo spun around and Xiaodan twisted her hands together.
If Cielo noticed, she gave no sign. She nodded at the ridge above us and to the west. “Our magical, knife-happy friends have arrived,” Cielo said. Sure enough, a line of figures appeared, backlit by the sun. It hammered gilt all over the mountains. It made everything look majestic, even as the Eterran army spilled in from the north.
“Do you think those leathery bastards will stop the Eterrans?” Vanni asked. “Shouldn’t we wait for them to do the job for us?”
“The soldiers of Erras don’t care who wins this war,” I said. “If they did, Dantae would be knee-deep in glory by now.”
Cielo grabbed for her book. “I still haven’t properly thanked them for the red necklaces they carved into our throats,” she said, flashing a glance at my neck, which ached as soon as it was mentioned. More likely, it had always been aching, and I’d forgotten until someone brought it up. “Let me deal with them.”
“No,” I cried, the word knifing out of me.
Cielo’s face clenched and set. Her every-colored eyes blinked once and then offered up a gritty stare.
Xiaodan’s hands chopped the air as she focused on the soldiers of Erras. “It’s true. They don’t want to be here.”
“Can you increase that feeling, please?” I asked. My phrasing was overly polite for a wartime general, but I didn’t like the idea of ordering Xiaodan to feel anything.
And I knew I was taking a risk—if the soldiers of Erras worked out that their emotions were being magically toyed with, they would no doubt find us. Then we would have two battles on our hands.
Xiaodan’s hands worked harder and harder. I wanted to ask her if feelings were always running through the streams of the air, invisible, and Xiaodan simply had a way of reaching a hand into the current.
The soldiers of Erras turned and disappeared over the rise. Xiaodan breathed out a gush of cold air and doubled over. Vanni clapped her on the back, and Xiaodan came back up smiling. Mimì put an arm around the slender girl. Cielo was the only one left out of the celebration, her face gathered around a hard center of disappointment.
I wanted to let Xiaodan recover fully, but we could not stop for long. The Eterran army was still rushing into place at the northern edge of Zarisi, dressed in light blue that made their soldiers look like shards of ice. Now that we’d sent away the soldiers of Erras, we were the only real power standing between those troops and the rest of Vinalia.
We took shelter behind a promontory of granite with a ledge that reached into the open air. I walked to the end, looking past the toes of my boots and the bitten edge of the rock. The world pitched down and away. This was the perfect place to work from, offering us both a hiding place and a view, even if it was a breathlessly dangerous one.
“Stay with Xiaodan,” I said to Cielo. She nodded and took Xiaodan under the silken wing of her cloak. The singer’s breath was coming hard and fast.
Had the soldiers of Erras been too much for her? I could only imagine going straight from using her magic on willing, delighted audiences in the opera house to willful streghe on the battlefield.
I beckoned Vanni and Mimì to the edge of the rock. Mimì strode out, edged by death on all sides. Vanni, on the other hand, turned sideways and shuffled, with a whimper to match each step.
Mimì waited for Vanni, drawing from a deep well of sighs. I had to admit that I wanted him to move more quickly, but I knew that if I bludgeoned him with all of the terrible things that could happen, he would stop moving altogether.
When Vanni reached the end, I put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Give the Eterrans a strong blast of magic as they enter the town,” I said. “Greet them the five families way.”
“But that’s all backstabbing,” Vanni said. “This is more . . . front stabbing.”
I bore down on his shoulder, friendly but firm. “You’re right. The sixth family does things differently.”
“What’s the sixth family?” Vanni asked, turning his head to me, as if he’d finally broken the staring contest he was having with his own fear.
“I’ll tell you if you take out half of the battalion,” Mimì said.
Vanni and Mimì loosed their magic, Vanni snatching beams of light grown potent when they hit the reflected snow. Mimì scooped great white handfuls, and my fingers burned cold j
ust watching her. But the snow slid to water in her hands before she sent it in fiery streams down the side of the mountain.
Light bombs exploded at the feet of the Eterrans, and Mimì’s fire was not far behind.
The troops scattered and screeched. Some turned back. Others fell, blinded by light or overcome by smoke. But there were hundreds of men, and then hundreds more, and as soon as Vanni’s light faded back to shades of gray, and Mimì’s fire sizzled out, the Eterran troops pushed their way into Zarisi.
“I’m sorry, Teo,” Xiaodan said, her voice coming from where she hid in the shadow below the promontory. “I know I said I’d work on the Eterrans, but . . .” I could hear the strain in her voice, the inner cords close to snapping.
She is exhausted, the magic said. I knew that feeling—and I knew Xiaodan would not be able to fight again until she overcame it.
“Rest,” I said, trying to subdue Xiaodan’s worries even as my own took on the sharp point of panic. From our perch, I could see part of the Eterran forces sheer off and head up the mountainside, toward our promontory.
They had spotted us.
“Don’t bomb the climbers,” I said. “If we hit the wrong place on the slope, it might take down the whole mountain.”
“That’s one of Teo’s specialties,” Cielo yelled.
Mimì gave me a quick, baffled stare.
“I’ll explain later,” I muttered.
I turned my attention back to the men on the slope.
Change them, I told the magic, but it was already too strong inside me. If I unleashed it on the troops below, it might spill out in every direction, changing more than I had ever asked for.
“Right now would be a nice time for one of those avalanches you mentioned,” Vanni said.
I shook my head. “It involves hitting the right note, at the right volume,” I said, talking myself into a valley of despair before remembering that we had Prai’s most beloved opera singer with us. I looked over the edge of the rock at Xiaodan. Her magic was exhausted, but her voice was another matter.
The Storm of Life Page 10