Ice Like Fire (18 page)

By the time the staircase deposits us into a wide space, my body buzzes with adrenaline, eyes snapping to every detail as if the Order of the Lustrate itself might be standing down here, waiting just for me. But darkness clings to the stones so all I know is the reverberating echo of our footsteps hitting walls many paces off.

Ceridwen lifts a lantern and flicks it to life, the gold flames shooting light over a wine cellar.

Or a wine
warehouse
more like. Rows and rows of wooden shelves stretch in every direction, with more beyond the lantern’s reach. Every shelf holds bottles swathed in dust or casks stacked in neat rows. The pungent tang of oak swirls around the musky stench of time, confirming that this place has withstood generations of turmoil and war, struggle and hardship. A place untouched for decades—or hopefully centuries.

“Welcome to the Preben reserve,” Ceridwen says, her tone dry, and nods us on as she ducks down a row, her lantern’s light swaying off the dust-covered bottles. Garrigan and I follow in silence, every step dredging up dust.

Left, left, right, left—Ceridwen makes so many turns I know I won’t be able to find the way out on my own. This cellar has to stretch at least the whole width of the palace, if not more—maybe the whole area of the palace compound. The farther in we go, the thicker the layers of dust, the heavier the stench of age and mustiness on the air.

Finally Ceridwen stops and waves at a shelf that, to me, seems like every other wine-coated shelf we’ve passed. The top few rows hold bottles, neck out, while the bottom few hold small casks stacked horizontally.

“The oldest wine in existence,” Ceridwen announces, clearly unimpressed with her own kingdom’s possessions. “It’s a point of pride for every king to leave them aging here.”

I start to reach for one but stop, eyeing her over the flickering lantern light. For all my anticipation, I didn’t process the fact that these are
important
to someone. Not things I can open and sift through. But do I even need to open them? Maybe the outsides will have a marking.

My hesitation makes Ceridwen’s lip curl. She grabs a bottle and thrusts it into my hands, dust billowing off in a small cloud. “Do whatever you need with it. My brother has pride in a wine reserve, but caring for his people? I have just as much love for his priorities as he does for mine.”

I snake my fingers around the neck. “He doesn’t know where you stand?”

Ceridwen chuckles bitterly. “I’m pretty sure he knows, but he’s never sober long enough to do more than idly wonder why I’m such a grouch. So what are you searching for, exactly?”

The question cuts hard into the air, weighted with the favors she’s done for me.

I tip the bottle upside down, right-side up, flipping and cleaning and searching every free space for . . . I don’t even know what. The Order of the Lustrate seal, maybe.

I keep my eyes on the bottle, though I feel the abrupt dip of severity in my throat. “I’d rather you weren’t involved in this until I have no other choice.” My eyes shoot up. “You have plenty of problems of your own, it seems.”

Ceridwen grunts in halfhearted acceptance.

I set down my bottle and pick another.

After twelve bottles, none of which give me more than a sneezing fit from the dust, I drop to my knees, facing the casks. Garrigan lingers behind me while Ceridwen gave up trying to help nine bottles ago and collapsed against the end of the wooden shelves, head bowed against her chest, lantern resting on the floor beside her.

The first cask sloshes when I ease it out. There’s nothing unusual on it, no Lustrate seal or keys stuck to the rim. The next one is the same.

And the next.

And the next.

I slide out another, brush my fingers over the exterior, analyze the wood. My surety all but snuffs out as I ease it back in and reach for the next. Maybe I was wrong—there are only a few more casks. It could be—

But this one sticks when I tug on it, clinging tight to the shelf. I pull again, but it holds.

Ceridwen curves forward, drawn by the way the shelf shakes with every fruitless yank. “Need help?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, fingers flying over whatever parts of the cask I can reach. I brush the bottom, a smooth line of something like wax that bends along the curve of the cask.

My forehead pinches. Someone fixed this cask to the shelf? Why? Is it that special to Summer?

Or is it that special to someone else?

Every cask bears a cork in the flat side, facing out. A swift jerk and I could open this one—and be met with a stream of wine if I’m wrong.

Or . . .

It’s the
or
that makes me swivel onto my knees, bracing myself on the cold stone floor.

I wrap my fingers around the cork.
Please, please, please . . .

Ceridwen flies to her feet and squeaks in protest as I fling my whole body back, using every spare muscle to wrench out the cork. She freezes, hands splayed, expecting the worst—

But nothing comes. The cork sits in my palm, the opening in the cask wide and clear.

My lungs depress beneath the yelp of shock I release.

It’s empty of wine. So what
is
inside it?

Ceridwen’s arms flop to her hips, brows pinched, but she says nothing as I near the cask again. The edges of the flat side are expertly crafted, unable to be pried off, so I stand, turn, and kick through it with my heel.

The wood splinters with a silence-shattering explosion, cracking into a few frayed chunks. I whirl back around and haul them off completely, littering the floor with shards of wood. The lantern flickers from just beside Ceridwen’s feet, casting light into the cask.

And deep inside, jutting up from the bottom, sits a lever.

Warning flares through me, edging awareness to bite sharply at the edges of my mind.

This is wrong,
my instinct says.
This is dangerous. Don’t pull it. . .

I inhale, wrap my fingers around the lever, and yank back as hard as I can.

The lever sticks for a moment but relents when I throw my body into it. The wood groans and slams toward me, moving only a hand’s width, but enough that something deep beneath the stone floor grumbles and grates. Heat licks my boots, eats into my legs, crawling higher in a sudden eruption of warmth that makes my entire body throb with warning.

The floor cracks.

I whip to my right, where Ceridwen leans over me, confusion wrinkling her face.

“Move!” I cry as the grumbling in the floor and the waves of heat intensify, darting out to open in a chasm just beside me—right where Ceridwen is standing.

I fling myself at her, knocking her and the lantern back as the stone floor drops between the shelves. A small opening, barely two arm lengths wide, but deep, and as Ceridwen trips onto the solid part of the floor, the lantern clanging along next to her, I plummet into the fall that would have swallowed her up.

“Meira!” she shouts as Garrigan bellows, “My queen!”

My fingers catch on the edge of the newly formed pit, taking all my weight as I slam to a halt against the side of the hole. Rock grates against my face, misshapen stones dig into my stomach, but otherwise, I’m unharmed. Shaken like a boulder down a landslide, but unharmed.

Ceridwen grabs my wrists. “Are you okay? Hang on—”

But I don’t move into her assistance. This pit opened up when I pulled the lever, which means it’s related to the key or the Order. Or it’s just a mean Summerian trick hidden in a vat of their wine.

Nerves flaring, I cast a glance over my shoulder. Below me, about two heights down, light flickers up from the bottom of the pit in the form of a fire ring.
Did the lever activate this too? Why?

The rest of the sides of the pit are rock, jagged and cut quickly, leaving large chunks poking out. Nothing else is unusual, no other flames or markings, and I drop my eyes back to the fire ring.

There, in the center of the flames, something glints in the light.

“Wait,” I call up to Ceridwen and now Garrigan, who both have bent to their knees to help pull me out. They hold, and in their brief spurt of pausing, I release the rock wall. The unexpected tug of my weight makes them lose their grip on me and I drop, collapsing in a burst of grimy dust at the edge of the fire ring.

“My queen!” Garrigan’s voice twists with panic and he shuffles toward Ceridwen. “Do you have a rope? A ladder? Something?”

Ceridwen grunts. “Sorry, Summer doesn’t have a lot of climbing gear in our
wine cellar
.”

“Then get some!”

“Calm down, Winterian, she’s fine!” But Ceridwen’s voice fades as she talks—she must be moving toward a storage area, or back up to get what Garrigan demands.

“Hold on, my queen,” he calls down to me.

“I’m okay.” I take a tentative step toward the middle of the fire ring. I didn’t exactly expect the floor to drop out the first time, and I’m not about to be caught unaware again. But the jagged stone floor holds, the fire adding light and waves of heat that encourage more sweat to bead down my
face as I bend toward the object in the middle of the ring.

It’s a key. Old and iron, as long as my hand, with latticework swirling at its top to encase a seal—a beam of light hitting a mountaintop. The Order’s symbol.

I drop back, disbelief draining any emotions from my body.

I actually found it.

“Look out!” Ceridwen’s voice precedes the smack of a rope on the stone floor just next to me.

A chain snakes out from the key’s latticework. I grab the chain, shove the key into my pocket, and scramble for the rope, breath trapped against the possibility of any more surprises. But nothing happens again, like the key wanted me to take it, like the pit was waiting for someone to pull that lever and reveal all its secrets.

And maybe it was.

By the time I reach the cellar’s floor, Garrigan is positively gray with worry. He takes my elbow and guides me to my feet, his mouth opening in another question of any injuries—

When a rumbling reverberates beneath our feet.

I spin. The pit is gone.

Ceridwen bites her lips together and screams into them, pointing at the stones, then at me, then at the wine cask. “What—was—
that
?”

“I . . .”
Snow above, how am I going to explain this?
I fish the key out of my pocket and let it sway before me on the chain.
“I found what I needed. If that helps.”

Ceridwen shakes her head and presses her fists to her temples.
“Which is?”

“A key,” I say, and she makes a
No, really
? grunt of obviousness. “A key to something . . . terrible. And old. And—” I stop, my fingers still clasped around the chain.

Hope sucks my breath away, a whirlwind that spirals through my lungs. I did it. I found the key—I found the clue the Order left for us.

I actually did it.

And this is proof, even more than the door, that the Order exists.

But . . .

Uncertainty gnaws at me, my ever-present worry growing in a new direction, and I look at the magically covered pit again. No heat anymore, like it never existed. Only the lever in the wine cask sits as a hint of the pit’s existence.

Why was any of this in Summer at all? That still doesn’t make sense, why the Order even put one of the keys in this kingdom. Why not Autumn or Winter or Spring? Why in Summer, in Juli, in the palace’s wine cellar?

I look at the shelves again. The age of this area, the dust on the bottles, the reverence Summerians—well, other than Ceridwen—apparently show to this wine, means it would have endured time. This has been one of the symbols of Summer for centuries—wine.

The Order put this key in a place significant to Summer
so it would be guaranteed to survive over the course of history. That at least explains part of the reason—why the cellar, not why
Summer
.

Will the other keys be in similar places?

“Meira,” Ceridwen barks, and I jerk to her. Her shock is gone, covered by the same look she gave me when I made it snow moments ago. Logging my weaknesses for future use, analyzing me and trying to figure out a way to make this beneficial to Summer. It should feel like Noam’s treatment of me, but she sighs, rubs her eyes, and shakes her head.

“You’re involved with something dangerous, aren’t you?” she asks.

I start to respond, but through the weighty silence of the cellar, a scream shoots out, frantic and horrified.

My head snaps toward it.

I know that voice.

“Theron.”

Mather

“RELAX YOUR WRIST
and exhale as you release.” Mather positioned Hollis’s arm, aligning the knife in his hand with the target at the back of the room. “Even though your hand does the throwing, your whole body should feel it. Your shoulders, your waist, your legs. Follow it through.”

On an exhale Hollis let the blade fly, spinning end over end through the air, until it struck the wall with a trembling
thwack
, five lines off from the center circle. Disappointment coated his features, but he didn’t say anything, just marched down the line to yank the knife out of the wall.

“He’s getting worse,” Kiefer offered from his perch atop the table. It sat now against the front door of the abandoned cottage, opening the whole back half of the room while also barring anyone from bursting in unannounced.

“If you think you can do better,” Mather said, and held
out a knife to him, hilt first.

But Kiefer just shook his head and settled deeper against the wall, his legs spread out across the dents and stains of the tabletop. “You lot don’t need my help getting yourselves killed. That Captain Brennan will find out about this, and I’m content to watch Once-King Mather discover what repercussions are for
real
, nonroyal folk.”

Mather lowered the knife. “You’re an ass, Kiefer.”

“All my life,” he responded, but even as he kept his eyes shut, Mather could see the twinge around the boy’s lips. Flinches like that, knowing Kiefer was nothing but words and attitude, were all that kept Mather from repeating their earlier fight in the training barn.

Mather surveyed the rest of the room. Hollis faced the target again while a few paces to his left Trace and Phil sparred in the sad excuse for a sword ring. Nothing but a circle drawn on the floorboards in ash, the line blurred with every session as the boys slid over the boundary to avoid each other’s mock blades, thin lengths of wood scavenged from the cottage’s walls.

It had been four days since William had enforced Noam’s order to cease training the Winterians—something Mather himself had suggested not long ago. But Mather had only meant it was pointless to train men who could barely hold down nutritious food, let alone hold a blade. The older ones, the fragile ones. He hadn’t meant they should
all
stop—and honestly, most of what he had said since they had returned
to Winter had been out of anger. Everything he had said to Alysson, to William—ice above, even to Meira.

But Mather had sixteen years of proof that even the smallest of groups could inflict damage. The six of them were better than nothing. Well, five, but Mather knew Kiefer would cave and start training eventually—already his brother, Eli, had given in, and sat against the wall next to Hollis, watching him work through each throw.

Thus far, it had been easy to evade William—so easy that Mather wondered why he hadn’t tried to do it sooner. As long as he intermittently stopped by the cottage he shared with him and Alysson or was seen rebuilding the occasional structure, Mather was left alone.

Getting supplies was another issue, one he still worked on—the only usable weapons in Winter rested with the Cordellans, and he couldn’t steal them without drawing attention, but he would figure out a way. He’d already managed to steal some knives at meals.

Trace swung his mock sword down onto Phil’s. The force cracked Trace’s blade in half, one piece staying in his hands, the other flipping up into the air. Mather cursed softly at losing another brittle sword when Trace’s hand snatched the other piece of wood in flight.

Now equipped with two forearm-long pieces of wood, faux knives instead of mock swords, Trace’s face lit up like a fantastic revelation had occurred to him. He stabbed at Phil, who had barely managed to regain his balance and
held his sword with wobbly arms. Trace slashed and lunged, a flurry of wood and limbs that made Phil stagger back.

Finally Phil collapsed, his mock sword skittering out of the circle as he threw his arms over his head. “I surrender!”

Trace pulled back, face streaked with sweat. His gaze flashed up to Mather and he grinned, panting. “Black suns, that felt good.”

Mather beamed. “You should definitely fight with knives,” he said, and nodded to Hollis, who watched with fascination. They had all shared that expression at least half a dozen times since Mather had started them on this insane venture—when someone blocked a blow, when someone hit a mark. More often they shared the flash of disappointment Hollis had shown when he’d missed the target. They needed to savor moments like these, when someone succeeded.

Trace marched out of the sword ring, still grinning as he joined Hollis.

Phil grimaced up at Mather. “Does this mean I have to spar with you again? I don’t think my pride can handle so many losses in one day.”

Mather laughed and walked forward when someone else beat him to the ring. Feige, who had been nothing more than a silent, observant shadow in the corner, smiled at Mather as she picked up Phil’s discarded mock sword.

“I’ll spar with our Once-King,” she said.

Mather had made sure she knew she was welcome to train, but Hollis always made an excuse for her. Mather could never figure out why he didn’t want her to fight, nor why Feige gave in to her brother when she had shown so much fire that first night. Since then, in fact, she had been nothing more than Phil’s all-too-fitting nickname for her—a ghost lingering just beyond their interactions.

Hollis passed the throwing knife to Trace. “Feige, I don’t think that’s—”

“I didn’t challenge you,” she replied, voice cold. “I challenged the Once-King.”

Mather felt Hollis’s gaze on him, a weighty presence off to his right. His muscles twitched, and he already knew he would do this. The soldier in him needed to know what kind of a fighter she was that Hollis kept her chained, if that flicker of eeriness in her eyes extended to more than wise words.

Without a word, Mather picked up a length of wood as Phil scrambled to get out of the way. Hollis hissed in protest, expecting Feige to obey him, expecting Mather to be smarter than this. Everyone else fell silent, and even Kiefer leaned forward with interest.

Feige entered the ring, biting her lower lip as she appraised Mather. He took her in too, keeping his feet just outside the charcoal line. Her clothes hung loose around her skinny frame—the baggy fabric would be a hindrance
to her, as would her loose hair. She either didn’t realize these obstacles or didn’t care.

A burst of coolness lit within Mather. Eagerness mixed with adrenaline, and he stepped into the ring.

Feige dove at him, her mock sword singing through the air. Mather danced back, staying on the defense. She had grace, her movements fluid and methodical, like she had worked out every motion before she’d even stepped into the ring. Maybe these days of watching them train had let her develop her own series of attacks. Whatever the reason, she fought with a need that Mather had never seen before. Or, he had seen it, just never on someone other than an enemy soldier—bloodlust and desperation and hunger for a fight. Mather enjoyed the movements of fighting, using his muscles in a controlled, active way, but this girl enjoyed the
feel
of fighting, the threat of blood being spilled by her hand.

The realization sent the smallest jolt of fear through him, and he returned her blows. However eager she might be to fight, she was still no match for him, and he saw her realize that as he slowly beat her back.

The glee in her eyes dimmed to confusion, her smile vanishing in a scowl. Now she fought him with anger, which only led to accidents. He needed to end this before she hurt herself or one of the boys outside of the ring, watching with wide eyes.

This was why Hollis hadn’t wanted her to fight. The others may have been broken and hurting, but none of
them let that interfere with their training—if anything, their training seemed to help alleviate some of their strain. But Feige put every moment of her past into her fighting until Mather couldn’t tell if she knew this wasn’t real. Or if maybe she had set her sights on killing him just to see if taking this to its end would soothe her pain.

Mather swung the mock sword in what should have been a killing blow, the wood sailing through an opening and smacking against her exposed neck. But Feige didn’t surrender, just batted his sword away and lunged. Mather blinked, surprised long enough for her to swipe at his legs. She sent one buckling under him and flung herself on his back. Her mock sword stung where she pressed it against his neck, jerking his head so he stared up at her on his knees.

Mather heaved her over his head, slammed her onto her back, and pinned her with one arm across her chest. He tugged her mock sword away and tossed his own, his jaw tight.

“You could be a good fighter,” he snapped. “If you learn to control your anger.”

As Feige glared up at him, Mather’s instincts screamed. Once, as children, Meira had talked him into stealing a bottle of Finn’s Summerian wine. When William found them, he had taken the half-full bottle and smashed it into the fire, and the wine had urged the flames from steady fingers of orange into a burst of roaring heat. Mather saw
that now in Feige—flames shooting higher, egged on by primal fear.

She snarled up at him. “Get off me.”

Before Mather could react, Hollis flew forward and yanked him away. Mather stumbled to his feet as Feige shot up, her shoulders caved, her wild ivory hair reaching around her face.

Mather stepped forward but Hollis shot a hand out, his fingers digging into Mather’s arm. “Feige, you’re done,” Hollis snapped.

“No.” Mather felt everyone around him draw breaths in confusion. “We can’t ignore things because we’re afraid of them—your sister needs to learn to control her anger.”

“I don’t need to do anything,” Feige growled. “I’m
fine
.”

“You’re not fine. None of us are. And until we admit that—”

He stopped and reached into his pocket, closing his hand around the carving he kept there. When he pulled it out, Feige stayed quiet, staring at her creation.

“Child of the Thaw,” Mather whispered, rolling through his thoughts. He tightened his fingers around the snowflake-wildflower hybrid, tipping his head down to catch Feige’s gaze. When she met his eyes this time, she seemed almost meek, and he couldn’t believe one girl could show such a vast array of emotions in so short a time.

“You were right,” he said. “None of us belong to Winter,
do we? Everyone else tries to cling to a Winter they once knew. But such things don’t burden us—the Winter we know has always been one of our own creation, a kingdom we built on dreams. So you’re right, Feige. We’re all”—he paused, rotating the snowflake-wildflower carving to show the script on the back— “Children of the Thaw. Our own hybrid of the past and the future.”

The smallest, most delicate smile fluttered across Feige’s lips. It took Mather as much by surprise as her abrupt mood changes—the girl was a storm of emotion.

Just like the wild girl who had gotten him into all kinds of trouble as a child, a girl whose eyes flickered with the same desperate, blinding drive to succeed.

Someone who had only smiled at him like that once in the past three months—because he had chosen not to make her smile like that again.

He had slammed the door on Meira, locked the bolt tight. All that waited before him now were these people—maybe he could help them where he couldn’t help Meira anymore.

Where he had never been able to help her.

“Children of the Thaw,” Phil echoed, scratching his chin. “Like our own little group?”

Eli’s eyes flashed with eagerness and he turned to Kiefer, still on the table at the edge of the room. Kiefer seemed to be rolling those words through his mind, testing their
strength, mimicking the hesitation from the other boys. Like they needed to belong to something, but no one wanted to be the first to admit that need.

Finally Trace broke into a smile. “I like it.”

Phil laughed and hooked his arm around Mather’s neck. “The Children of the Thaw, led by the fierce Once-King of Winter! We’ll strike fear into our enemies’ hearts.”

“And hope into the future,” Mather added.

That sobered Phil, and he unwound his arm. “Aye, that we will.”

The rest of the group seemed just as enthralled with the idea, smiling and tossing jokes about it as they went back to training. Even Kiefer moved warily closer to the throwing range and hovered beside his brother and Phil, all of them watching as Trace worked through throwing.

Feige returned to her seat in the corner, where she pulled out her whittling knife and hunched down again. When Mather turned away from her, Hollis waited next to him.

“You are our leader, my lord,” Hollis whispered. “Do not abuse that power.”

Mather swallowed. “I won’t. We need this, Hollis. We need to face what we are.” He motioned to Feige. “All of what we are, especially the parts that hurt.”

Hollis stared at him, uncertainty framing his face. But he nodded and trailed Feige to the corner. Somehow, that silence was more intimidating than if Hollis had threatened him. Feige may have been a storm of emotion, but
Hollis was the eye of that storm.