Ice Like Fire (33 page)

“You’re okay,” he said, or asked, just needing to feel the words in the air between them.

Meira nodded, holding against him the same way he held his forehead to her. Breathing, resting, using each other like nourishment in a famine.

“Are you?” She pulled back but didn’t unwind from him, so close to him,
so close to him
. “How did you—why are you
here
?”

The question sobered her and she spun out of his arms, gaping at the Thaw who had hung blissfully quiet behind them. Phil met Mather’s eyes, a sly smile stretching his mouth. A waggled brow joined Phil’s smirk when Meira took Mather’s hand, held it absently like she needed some touch to keep her steady.

Mather didn’t care to return Phil’s teasing with anything but a smile of his own. He could breathe now, breathe
where he hadn’t in days, and the sensation made everything sharp and beautiful for a moment that he knew would be all-too fleeting.

“Who are you?” Meira asked the Thaw, her voice awed and dazed.

Mather stepped forward, weaving his fingers more firmly with hers. She analyzed each of the Thaw, quick, studious sweeps, and as she did, her shock hardened into something like determination. The dangerous expression her face had taken so often growing up, but now, it held a resolved twist, like she had gone from simply being stubborn and wild to channeling that energy into a goal.

And as she looked at the people before her, Mather knew what that goal was.

Winter.

“These are the Children of the Thaw,” he introduced. “And we have much to tell you, my queen.”

Meira

WE SPRINT WITH
all our might over Rintiero’s houses and shops. The multistory buildings and mismatched structures make our path staggered, interrupted by bursts of scrambling up taller buildings or sliding down shorter ones. But we’re moving, all of us, Mather and his Thaw behind me as I lead the way toward the palace, high above any possible blockades or soldiers in the streets.

Raelyn and her troop were gone by the time we returned to the square, nothing but bloodstains to show that the fight had occurred. She still has Ceridwen and Lekan—they have to be alive. They have to be, because I will not allow myself to believe that while I fled the soldiers, I let my friends get slaughtered.

Mather’s tale plays through my head as I run. How Noam gave the order for the Winterians to stop training our army; how Mather trained this small group in secret,
building a defense for our kingdom despite Noam’s threat, despite my not even knowing my people needed it. My heart floods with a cool, violent emotion, one I could put a name to, but would undo me.

Mather watched over Winter. He saved them, like he always has—his own goal that has fueled him for as long as I’ve known him.

If we live through this, I’ll have to find time to thoroughly think over how much of an idiot I was. For now, I hold the emotion from our embrace on the rooftop like a light at the end of a long and bloody mine shaft. Another goal to aim for.

Mather doesn’t know what state Winter is in now, though. Whether or not Sir escaped; who even survived at all. My stomach cramps when I think of Henn, riding blind into a takeover—but he’s just as capable as Sir. If anything, his presence there will help.

But the one detail that slammed through all others was the last one Mather said. His lips trembled but his face remained a stoic, impassive shield as he muttered,
Alysson’s dead.

The memory of his words makes me stumble now, but I kick myself faster. I should have known Noam would betray us. I should have known all this would happen—I
did
know all this would happen, felt it every moment of every day since Winter was freed, but I could never bear to face this. To tell my people what could come, what Angra could do to the world.

I underestimated them, I know that now. Some of them may have broken, but the ones behind me, as well as Garrigan, Conall, Nessa, Dendera—their lives have not beaten them down, but helped them grow into people who know how to survive.

Those people are the deadliest of all.

I stop on a rooftop a few streets from the palace to let the rest catch up. They may be fast and determined, but adrenaline courses through me in unstoppable waves, and I crouch on the roof, fingers prying at the curved clay tiles.

The king of Summer is dead. The Ventrallan queen is consumed by Angra’s Decay and planning a coup. The Cordellan king betrayed and overtook Winter.

And somewhere, out in the world, Angra is alive.

Everything is falling apart. My attempts to find the keys and keep the chasm closed to prevent the spread of the Decay—it was all for nothing.

Maybe Angra did win.

I force myself to stand. Angra won’t win until there is no one left to fight him, until
I
am dead.

I choke on the words.

No.
I won’t have to die. I am the queen of Winter; I am a conduit. And more than that, I am the girl who destroyed Angra’s camps. I am the girl who, even when things seemed at their worst, managed to save everyone—including herself.

So when Mather and his Thaw catch up to me, when I’m surrounded by the start of what I know Winter can
be—strong and brave and competent and deadly—I give them a firm, decisive nod.

I will stop this. No—
we
will stop this, because I’m not alone anymore.

I never was.

Carriages full of guests arriving for the celebration in our honor clog the courtyard of Donati Palace. Seeing the palace’s walls glowing under the evening sun, guests in their extravagant, glittering Ventrallan outfits, footmen leading couples up the wide marble steps, I stifle a moan. The celebration. Everything going on as usual—proof that no one else knows what has transpired. Maybe Raelyn didn’t come back—maybe she fled, ran off to regroup elsewhere. Maybe I’ll have time to warn everyone.

But even as those words echo through my heart, I feel their weightlessness. Nothing is ever that easy.

I march up the courtyard, past the arriving guests, past the slack-jawed footmen who blink at my tattered pants and the arrow wound on my arm and my retinue of battered Winterians. A few servants rush toward me, try to stop me from bursting inside, and I silence them with a stern glare and a flash of my locket. They know what this is, and they know the only person who would ever wear it, even if that person has a chakram strapped to her back.

Once inside, I follow the flow of guests to the ballroom, meandering through tall, white halls with gilded mirrors. I
catch glimpses of myself in those mirrors, forgotten flashes of a girl with a ragged braid of white hair, her hands in fists, her face set with a scowl. My body hums, the tense moments of peace before a wall of snow collapses in an avalanche, so I keep my mind on only the next step ahead, afraid if I think more than that, I’ll dissolve.

Walk faster. Turn here. Chakram? No, no weapon yet. Slow down. Wait for Mather to catch up.

The ballroom appears on our right, a series of doors thrown open into the hall that let airy string music drift out on waves of laughter and clinking glasses. I stop, staring into the teardrop-shaped room, my heartbeat an alive and determined creature trying to claw its way out of my throat. The ballroom’s walls are pale peach, the floor a swirl of gold-and-white marble. Windows make up one of the swooping, concave walls of the ballroom, showing the fading light of evening and the glass garden beyond. Ceridwen told me about the garden on our way up from Yakim, how every plant is formed from glass—another example of the ways this kingdom tries to make things unnaturally perfect.

Thoughts of Ceridwen swarm me and I dig my fingers into my stomach. I’ll find her after this. I’ll save her like I should have the moment Raelyn marched into the square.

My eyes dart from the windows to the crowd. There are at least two dozen people here, mostly Ventrallans with their dark hair and hazel eyes, all wearing those maddening
masks. They make scanning for a familiar face impossible, and I survey each person for a recognizable attribute—Cordellan blond hair, or the Ventrallan conduit hanging at a man’s hip.

Arms clamp around my neck and fear flares through me before I recognize Nessa’s voice.

“Where have you been?” she mutters. “Conall came back, and we thought—we thought something happened, and—”

I pull her off me as her brothers slip out of the crowd, their faces conflicting mixes of worry and anger. Dendera follows them, and she isn’t at all conflicted about how she feels—she flies in front of me, her lips in a tight line, her fingers digging into my arm.

“Why in the name of all that is cold did you send Conall back without you?” She stops, her focus drifting to Mather and the other Winterians around me. When she pivots back to me, her eyes open wider, her worry giving way to concern.

“Raelyn killed Simon,” I hear myself say. “And Noam—”

The music stops mid-song, the violins whining as their players jerk to an abrupt halt. The same deliberate type of noise as Lekan knocking on Jesse’s study door, as the stick snapping under Sir’s boot when he stumbled back to camp. It’s the sound of things starting, and I rotate toward Raelyn on the musicians’ stage in the corner, her hands clasped against her skirts, the green silk of her mask glinting in the light.

I gag on panic. How did she get back so quickly? We didn’t make good time clamoring over Rintiero’s rooftops—and she had horses, free rein of the city. Plus she’s in control of this situation, probably planned every moment once she knew Ceridwen had gone to confront Simon.

Ceridwen.
My panic twists, thrumming wild and chaotic. What did Raelyn do to her? Where is she?

“Raelyn!” Her name tears out of my throat and I surge forward, my eyes dropping to the barely perceptible bandage on her shoulder. Instinct courses down my fingers, filling my muscles with the need to pull out my chakram and slice through her neck, no missed marks this time. But there are too many people in the way now, and I’m appeased by the fact that she won’t leave this room alive. I won’t let her.

Raelyn cocks a smile as I carve a path through the crowd for my Winterians to follow. I feel them move behind me, the hush that falls over everyone when I reach the stage.

“Winter queen,” Raelyn intones, tipping her head. “Are you not enjoying the celebration?”

The crowd murmurs confusion, ripples of discomfort at the unorthodox interlude. I don’t bother to hide my snarl. I can no longer afford the luxury of propriety.

“You should’ve run, Raelyn.” I motion to her arm. “I won’t miss a second time.”

The crowd shuffles next to me, and Jesse surges through. He’s still wearing his clothes from earlier, not bothering to
match his wife this time. His dark hair gleams in a tight ponytail, and he flicks his attention from me to Raelyn and back.

“What’s going on?”

Raelyn sighs. “Oh, I suppose there’s no harm in you knowing now, darling.” Her words drip venom, poisonous spells that make Jesse take another step forward, and the crowd takes an equally large step back.

Raelyn faces the crowd, her smile just as deadly as her tone. “Thank you all for joining us. The Winterian queen, the Summerian royal family, and the Cordellan prince have gathered together in a tour of peace. Unification is indeed a feat to be celebrated.”

She spots something at the rear of the room and grins. I flick my head over my shoulder.

Noam.

Mather catches me as I twitch forward, holding me back from starting a slaughter in the throne room. Noam sees my reaction, his eyes glittering behind his Cordellan mask, his lips twitching into the grin I’ve come to know too well. Condescending, controlling.

I’ll cut that grin off his face.

“And today, we will rejoice in the knowledge that unification has been achieved.” Raelyn’s voice rings out. “King Noam, would you please join me on the stage?”

Noam, eyes still on me, jerks back. Confusion chases away his grin, and that single shift of emotion stokes my
instincts higher. Noam wasn’t expecting Raelyn to call him forward. Why is he here?

Where is Theron?

Noam weaves through the crowd, flanked by two of his men. He reaches the stage, standing directly across from me over it. “What is this about?” he asks, eyes skimming around him. He can feel it now too. The wrongness.

“Raelyn,” I snap, yanking her attention onto me. “Why don’t you call the king of Summer to the stage too?”

The crowd, watchful, mumbles curiously. Raelyn tips her head, and the moment her eyes flicker in pleasure, horror plummets through my stomach.

She turns to an open door just off the stage, beckons to someone within its shadows. A soldier walks out, a brown canvas bag in one hand. He tips the bag onto the stage and with a heavy, wet
thunk
, Simon’s head drops out, his lifeless brown eyes gaping up through tendrils of his flame-red hair.

The crowd breaks. Screams echo against the peach walls, glasses shatter in the fray, and everyone disintegrates into chaos as they tear their way to the doors. But we just stand there—my Winterians, Jesse, Noam, Raelyn, and their soldiers. Unable to move from the staring, empty eyes on the king of Summer’s head.

Jesse wakes from his stupor first. He climbs the stage, and in the moments before he reaches his wife, every image I have of the weak, desperate Ventrallan king splinters away.
This man is muscle and power, his body tensing and winding, his eyes more flames than sight.

He grabs the collar of Raelyn’s dress and lifts her off the ground. “What did you do to Ceridwen?” he growls, each word an arrow that should pierce his wife’s heart.

But Raelyn merely laughs. The noise makes unease roll through me, another burst of instinct, and without knowing why, I spin to the door behind me.

“Theron,” I say.

He enters the ballroom. He isn’t wearing a mask, so there’s nothing to keep me from seeing the worry that makes him gray, and when he reaches me, he doesn’t seem to notice any of the other Winterians around me. As his mouth opens, Raelyn cuts in.

“Your whore is alive, for a little while longer, at least,” she snaps at Jesse.

I exhale in relief, some of my guilt ebbing at the knowledge that Raelyn hasn’t fulfilled her threat yet. But just as my lungs deflate, Ventrallan soldiers march through the door the other soldier entered—the men who had accompanied Raelyn earlier.

Jesse blinks a few times before he realizes they’re pulling him off her, that his own men are holding him on his knees. “Release me!” he commands to no avail, the glare he shoots at Raelyn filled with hatred. “What are you doing? Release me!”

“They don’t obey you anymore.” Raelyn straightens her gown, her voice twisted ever so slightly with annoyance. “Now, where was I—ah, yes. Unification.
Proper
unification. Weak leadership will no longer be tolerated, and the Seasons are no longer allowed to claim themselves as kingdoms—well, three of them, at least. Summer, Autumn, and—” She stops, glances at Noam. “Winter. May I tell them, or was that your secret to reveal?”