Ice Like Fire (36 page)

He’ll keep my kingdom safe. He’ll keep
our
kingdom safe, and knowing that, feeling that, makes me cling to him all the tighter.

He was a choice I should have made too.

Mather’s fingers dig into my back, gripping me just as fervently, and for this one moment, we’re us again. Meira and Mather, uncomplicated.

Determination chases away my sorrow, leaving nothing but pure, unmarred resolve. Rares rushes up the stairs without another word and I pull away as Mather works to open the cells again and Theron still screams for someone to free him. Chaos, just chaos, and I’m running away from it all.

No—I’m not running away. I’m running
toward
something, toward help.

I will fix this,
I promise them.
Whatever it takes. Whoever I have to be.

I will not let this world fall.

SEQUELS ARE HARD.
I swear they suffer from some bookish form of middle-child syndrome, which is why I owe this book’s life to SO. MANY. PEOPLE.

Firstly, always firstly, to my agent, Mackenzie Brady, and all the people on the New Leaf team (especially Danielle, who gave me AWESOME notes). If every author could have an agent as awesome as Mackenzie, the world would implode with happiness.

To Kristin Rens, the lighthouse to my meandering, wordy cruise liner. This book HURT (again, sequels, blurgh), but somehow, she got me past the pain and past the angst and helped nurse a coherent novel from my agony. She is eternally glorious.

To the fabulous Harper team—Erin Fitzsimmons (your designs are absurdly gorgeous); Caroline Sun (Publicist
Extraordinaire—thank you forever for wrangling all my scheduling craziness) and Joyce Stein (Publicist Extraordinaire the Second—your patience and persistence are invaluable); and the entire Epic Reads team for supporting my books with care, grace, and general badassery.

To Jeff Huang. Dude. This chakram. Your skills continue to leave me breathless.

To Kate Rudd, for not only giving voice to Meira but being so, so excited to do it.

To Kelson, the most supportive, patient, proud husband an author could ask for. I’m endlessly glad our romance turned out to be far less troublesome than Meira’s.

And because I didn’t get to include them in
Snow Like Ashes
’s acknowledgements: double thanks are owed to who are now my in-laws. Annette, Dan, Trenton, and Caro—you guys make being married to Kelson so much fun. And to Mike, the non-in-law in-law—thank you times infinity for putting up with my crazy gaggle of author friends. Your house is lovely and so are you.

To my parents, again and always. Your continued excitement and support makes me think of twelve-year-old Sara, and how deliriously happy she’d be to know her weird little words morphed into a book. To Melinda, Sister of the Year—sorry your character wasn’t in this book, but I promise, you’ll be very important in Book 3.

To the rest of my family. Grandma and Grandpa, Debbie, Dan, Aunt Brenda, Lisa, Eddie, Mike, Grandma
Connie, Suzanne, Lillian, William, Brady, Hunter, Lauren, Luke, Delaney, Garrett, Krissy, Wyatt, Brandi, Mason, and Kayla the Librarian. Also, to Kelsey and Kayleigh—you girls made my signing day 100 percent more special.

To my writer-peeps (even though I abandoned most of them to move out east—I hope you still love me!). J. R. Johansson, Kasie West, Renee Collins, Natalie Whipple, Bree Despain, Michelle D. Argyle (your designs are beautiful), Candice Kennington, LT Elliot, Samantha Vérant, Kathryn Rose, Jillian Schmidt, and Cousin Nikki (and your kiddos, every single one of them).

To my new writer-peeps, in all of their varying forms. Claire Legrand (our books play so well together), Jodi Meadows (your calligraphy skills are EPIC), Morgan Rhodes (I still squeal over your blurb for
Snow Like Ashes
), Anne Blankman (neighbors! kind of), Lisa Maxwell (More! Coffee! Dates!), Martina Boone (always a YASI at heart), Joy Hensley and Kristen Lippert-Martin (fall debuts UNITE), Sabaa Tahir (ELIAS), Sarah J. Maas (east coast FTW), and all of the YADCers (so, so, SO honored to be a part of you guys. And not just because of Pocket Jamie).

This may be the most important paragraph of the whole acknowledgments section: to my fans. You guys. YOU GUYS. I cannot properly express in coherent words how much I adore each and every one of you. The excitement and openness with which you’ve embraced Meira, Mather, Theron, and the whole
Snow Like Ashes
gang is mind-blowingly
incredible. While I would love to put every person’s name here, I know I’m going to forget someone and feel awful about it, but I’ll try. THANK YOU THANK YOU to: the
Snow Like Ashes
Twitter fan accounts, Wesaun Palmer (your analysis of
Snow Like Ashes
will forever have a special place in my heart), Masha, junapudding, Ri, Iris, Celeste, Marguerite, Dessy, Stephanie, Katie, Eli, Crystal, Carol, Morgan & Fallon, Amanda, Kristy, Gaby, Jess, Julia Nollie, Sarah K, Jackie Larrauri—and I know I’m forgetting people, but I’m tearing up too much and YOU GUYS I JUST LOVE ALL OF YOU.

And, of course, to the many, many bloggers who have made these books such a success (again, I know I’m going to forget someone—if I do, feel free to berate me harshly on Twitter): Lisa Parkin (Uppercase and HuffPo FTW!); Nikki Wang at Fiction Freak (always. ALWAYS); Rockstar Blog Tours; the Valentines; Jen at Hypable Books; Nova at Out of Time; Awkwordly Emma; Jenny at Supernatural Snark; Tween 2 Teen Books; Chyna; Ariana at the Bookmark; Karolina; and all the fabulous bloggers who have interviewed me, reviewed my books, and just generally made publishing a wonderful world to live in.

I told you, this book is owed to a LOT of people. But
Ice Like Fire
would still be nothing at all without YOU, dearest of all readers. You, forever and ever more, are stronger and better and far more glorious than any conduit. Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you for continuing to
share Meira’s story with me. I am thrilled to be here, with you, at the bittersweet place between the beginning and the end.

Let’s finish this war together, shall we?

SARA RAASCH
is also the author of
Snow Like Ashes
. You can visit her online at www.sararaasch.tumblr.com and on Twitter @seesarawrite.

Snow Like Ashes

Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

ICE LIKE FIRE
. Copyright © 2015 by Sara Raasch. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.epicreads.com

ISBN 978-0-06-228695-6

EPub Edition April 2015 ISBN 9780062408075

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FIRST EDITION

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