Ice Like Fire (22 page)

As we cross a bridge over a branch of the Langstone River, the buildings get a little drabber. Shorter, skinnier structures with cracked walls, tiles missing on roofs, dirt smudged on windows. The fashion remains much the same, only dingier as well, and more people work as opposed to stroll down the streets.

Ceridwen leans her elbow on the window across from me, our knees bumping with every jostling sway of the carriage. She surveys me as we ride, her eyes darting every so often to Theron, still holding my hand, but his attention is out the opposite window, his expression murderous.

We sit in heavy, choking silence, until at last Ceridwen heaves a long sigh.

“They built Putnam University away from the castle, in the center of the city,” she starts, just to fill the air with words. We roll past a glass shop, a fire roaring behind a man who blows into a long metal tube. A bubble of translucent white forms before we’re gone, rolling onto the next street. “Yakimians thought it better to divide their assets in case of war.”

I shift and Theron’s grip on my hand tightens, almost painful, refusing to let go of me. My throat convulses as I add my own words to plug any leaks that might spring in the awkwardness. “Not so everyone in the city could have easy access to it?”

Theron glances at me, surprise cutting through his anger. Should I have stewed in silence? Besides, what she
said moments ago wasn’t wrong. Just blunt.

Ceridwen shakes her head. “Sadly, no. Only certain Yakimians have access to the universities spread throughout the kingdom. The rest . . .”

She waves her hand out the window, at a group of children carrying wooden rods hung with dozens of heavy iron horseshoes. Their skinny legs barely seem strong enough to hold up their own bodies let alone the weight of the iron, their faces smudged with soot, their clothes rumpled and stained.

My stomach tightens. “Giselle isn’t trustworthy, is she?”

“She’s similar to my father,” Theron adds slowly. I squeeze his hand. “I often wonder why he agreed to marry a woman from Ventralli rather than Yakim. Yakim shares more of his beliefs—efficiency, structure, enterprise. But despite their commonalities, there is still one difference big enough to put off even my father.”

“What is it?” I ask. But Ceridwen already points outside. I follow her finger to an alley back the way we came and the carriage rolling down it, deeper into the city. The wine-stained wood boasts the painted flame of Summer. It would seem Simon has opted not to meet Giselle.

I drag my eyes away from Simon’s brothel carriage, unable to stop myself from guessing why it might be pulling away. Making money off its services? My stomach rolls over.

“For all my father’s faults,” Theron continues, his voice
soft, “I can never say he isn’t a good king. He views each and every Cordellan, no matter how small, as
his
, and turns green at the thought of selling anyone to Summer as Yakim does.”

Ceridwen scoffs. “A Rhythm with a conscience. I wonder what other oddities will plague the world—maybe it’ll snow in Summer.”

Her statement at first sounds like just a declaration of absurdity, but when she meets my eyes for a beat, I feel the unaddressed issues she still has tucked in her mind. How I made it snow in Juli. How I uncovered a hidden pit in her wine cellar. I bite my teeth together, refusing to be ruffled by her.

Theron’s face darkens. “Do not insult my kingdom when your own overflows with faults.”

She gapes at him, startled, before she bares her teeth and crosses her arms defensively.

I lift both my eyebrows at Theron. “I thought your goal for this trip was unification. You know—breaking prejudices, being
nice
.”

He blinks at me, the darkness in his face lifting on a shake of his head. His grip on my hand loosens and I wiggle free, stretching my fingers as he shifts forward.

“I’m sorry,” he offers Ceridwen.

“I admire your father’s stance, actually,” she responds, her own version of an apology. She looks back out the window. “I wish more kingdoms appreciated their citizens that way.”

Theron half smiles. “Maybe through this unification, they will.”

I bite my lip, the images from the ride swirling in my mind. The fine upper-class citizens walking by their perfect homes; the children hefting horseshoes down the road. For the briefest moment, I’m sucked back to Abril and the sight of the children there. The only difference between them was their coloring. In a kingdom that claims to be so advanced, no one should bear any resemblance to someone from Angra’s work camps. Not even peasants, not even the poor. There shouldn’t even
be
a divide—there was no difference between Angra’s other Winterian prisoners and me, and yet here I sit, riding in a fine carriage. What is the only difference? My conduit magic?

My eyes shift out the window again, to the sudden switch in scenery. No longer run-down buildings and child-workers and poverty—now we’re surrounded by high walls and fine brick buildings and more people in traditional Yakimian fashions—straight lines, brown fabrics, and copper accents. We must be at the university. That quick of a switch—no middle ground. Like the way most of Summer’s people are forced into intoxication and the fog of happiness. Accept it or . . . suffer. Ceridwen is proof of that. This world is nothing but extremes.

There needs to be another option—something more than compliance or struggle. More than the abusive magic in existence today or the threat of everyone having magic.
There needs to be a choice to just be
normal
.

Would people still divide themselves and hold prejudices and foster hatred without magic? Of course they would. But if there were no magic, no Decay, nothing to make one person inhumanly different than another, things would at least be even. Just because it wouldn’t cure everything doesn’t mean it wouldn’t make things better than they are.

I sit straighter in the carriage’s seat. That’s what I will ask the Order, if I ever find a clue that leads to them.

How to cleanse our world of magic.

Theron’s hand envelops mine, jerking me out of my sudden epiphany. I jump, panic lancing through me before I can calm myself.

Just like that, just that easily, my magic gushes up through me, ice running in a jagged flow through my veins, crashing around my body in a frenzied assault of snow and chill. I rip free of Theron’s touch, slamming back into the corner of the carriage, blind to anything but the unexpected influx of magic. I’m not threatened or scared or anxious—why is it reacting like this?

I gasp, unable to breathe past the knot of frost in my throat, and when I blink, I’m on the floor of the carriage in Garrigan’s arms.

“My queen!” he says, and I don’t know how long he’s been calling to me.

The carriage door flies open. The servant teeters just
outside, his dark eyes sweeping over me before he levels a gaze at me again—but instead of studious, it’s sad. Sympathetic.

Poor, broken Winter queen,
the look says.

No one counters him—if anything, Theron, Ceridwen, Conall, and Garrigan echo him.

Coldness roils in my chest and spreads down my hands, turning every muscle into crystalized ice. I shove out of Garrigan’s arms, the magic thrumming and eager to rush out of me, to pour into him and Conall, to use them because that’s all it does. Hurt and control and destroy, and I scramble back from them, pressing myself against the cushioned carriage seat.

“Go!” I shout. Maybe if they get far enough away, maybe if there aren’t any Winterians close to me, the magic will just dissipate into nothing, and I won’t hurt anyone. Or maybe I’ll call down a blizzard in Yakim and it won’t just be the Summerian princess who sees my magic’s flaw—it will be a university full of Rhythm citizens.

My lungs burn but I hold my breath, refusing to give myself energy until I calm down. What would Hannah say if she were here? No, I don’t want her here—
I don’t want her.
She’s part of the magic, and I am so tired of magic. I don’t need her.

Calm down, calm,
please be calm
—

The icy chill rushes down my limbs and leaps from my fingers, barreling out of me before I can control it, before
I can stop it. My ribs crack open, a bolt of lightning gouging through my flesh, incinerating my muscles, cutting my heart into two pieces as my eyes meet Garrigan’s, Conall’s.

But none of it compares to the sheer horror of watching what I do to them. Not just putting strength in them like I did with Sir—the command I screamed at them,
Go!
, reverberates through me. It gathers the magic and spews out of me on a surge of frost, ice crystals that slam into their bodies—

And fling them from the carriage.

Mather

THE CHILL WIND
bit across Mather’s face, fighting the sweat that beaded along his brow. He stood only one story in the air, but the wind snaked between the other half-repaired cottages, causing snowflakes to stick to his exposed chest, ice and cold melting into exertion and heat. The gust teetered him forward on the skeleton of this cottage’s roof, and he used the movement to test the sturdiness of the boards he’d just finished nailing into place. They groaned but held.

“I’m not going to catch you.” Phil slanted an amused eye up to him, his fingers fast at work salvaging old nails from rotted planks of wood on the cottage’s floor.

“Your concern is moving, but I’m not going to fall,” Mather panted. To prove his point, he stood straight up, balancing on the joist that made the base for the
triangle-framed rafter.

Phil snorted. “Show-off.”

Mather grinned, holding himself steady on the ridge board, the single long plank of wood that ran the full length of the roof, or what would eventually be the roof. From here, he could see the entirety of the square—a dozen other skeleton roofs and unfinished buildings crawling with Winterians performing the same tasks as he and Phil.

Mather’s attention pivoted to the northeastern part of the city. The Thaw’s cottage was still at least three sections away from being the focus of the repairs. They had another couple of months before they had to seriously consider moving elsewhere, or at the very least packing up their training gear until the builders passed them over.

They had been lucky so far. Lucky that few people went to the outskirts of Jannuari’s inhabited section; lucky that as long as Mather and the rest of the Thaw occasionally helped with the repairs, no one noticed them missing on other days; lucky it had only been little more than a couple of weeks since they’d started their secret training so they hadn’t yet needed real weapons beyond the few flimsy knives Mather had managed to steal.

A group of Cordellan soldiers circled the square, lapping the area as they had been doing all day. Mather glared at them, knowing his glare would go unnoticed but feeling better when he threw it. From the soldiers’ hips hung one
sword and two daggers each, perfectly sharpened weapons that dangled unused and taunting. Even the wooden swords the Winterian army had used before Noam’s ban had been borrowed from Cordell. Would the Cordellans notice if a few of their swords went missing from their weapons tent? Probably.

Mather glowered as the soldiers marched toward this cottage, taking in the surrounding Winterians with a possessive air that felt like a dull blade running up Mather’s spine.

Thwack.

Mather dropped his eyes to the cottage next door, the one Hollis, Trace, and Feige had been assigned to. Their roof was nothing but half a dozen joists running parallel to the floor, leaving the entirety of the one-story cottage open for Mather to gaze down into.

And when he did, alarm spiraled through him so strongly that he wobbled on the roof until his fingers caught the ridge board again.

“Still not catching you,” Phil sang, analyzing a particularly stubborn nail.

But Mather ignored him. His eyes shot to the Cordellans, one building away.

Any sudden movement would only draw attention, which was the last thing they needed. Because Feige stood in a throwing stance, one arm wound back—and a knife in her hand. Another she had lodged into the wall on her last
throw, the handle still vibrating from the force. Two of the pathetic blades Mather had stolen for their training, but
only
for their training in the Thaw’s cottage, safely tucked away from Cordellan eyes.

Mather hissed at Trace and Hollis, who were out behind the cottage, one holding a beam steady while the other sawed through it. But with hammers pounding and saws grinding into wood, it got lost in the air, swirling away as uselessly as the flakes that danced all around.

“Well, what do we have here?” one of the soldiers ducked into the cottage just as Feige released her final dagger. It sailed through the air, knocked off course by her jolt of surprise, and clattered into the wall before dropping to the floor.

Feige dove for it, snatching it up and whirling with it held before her. The cottage wasn’t more than ten paces from the front door, which the soldiers now blocked, to the back wall. Even Mather would have felt a spike of fear at that, but Feige’s face was downright petrified. Her ivory skin grayed to a deathly hue, her eyes unblinking, her small body bent into a defensive hunch, both trying to protect herself and readying for an attack.

Mather moved the moment the first soldier stepped closer to her. He propelled himself off his roof and leapt into the air, clearing the space between the cottages.

“A weapon, eh?” the soldier asked, his boots gliding across the floor in daring increments. “What are you doing
with this?”

Mather landed on the cottage’s roof, momentum chasing him. He welcomed that momentum—because in the next second, Feige screamed.

This was the scream every Winterian wrestled into submission deep inside them, a scream that came from torture, from repeated and endless suffering. Mather felt it like a wolf’s howl, the noise catching at his insides and igniting. It spoke to him in a way he hated and feared and cowered from, both because he understood such fear and because he knew the things Feige had endured had been far worse than anything he had experienced.

She lunged, screaming still, and sliced the dagger through the soldier’s cheek. He howled, shock numbing him enough for Feige to swing again, the blade only battering against his sleeve this time. The soldier ducked Feige’s next swing and angled his body to tackle her.

Mather gripped the nearest joist and swung into the cottage. The raw wood bit into his palms but he pushed on, locking his legs into a battering ram that he slammed into the second soldier. The man flew to the ground, the air knocked out of him enough that he rolled helplessly as Mather dropped and turned to the other soldier, who flew up from his intended tackle.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the man bellowed, but Mather grabbed his collar and hurled him out onto the street just after Trace and Hollis darted inside.

Mather turned, skidding to a stop when he saw Feige curled into a ball in the corner, holding one of her daggers straight out. She still screamed that awful, sickening scream as though she had lost control of it. Maybe she had never had control of it to begin with.

When Hollis reached her, he knelt an arm’s length from her and glanced back at Trace with the broken, echoing expression of a man who had expected a battle but gotten a war.

One soldier still rolled around on the floor in front of Mather, coughing to recover the breath he had lost. Mather grabbed his arm and dragged him out as the other soldier gained his footing in the yard, sword drawn, face livid.

“King Noam banned all weapons except those held by his army,” the soldier barked.

Inside, Hollis’s gentle murmurings were now interspersed with Feige’s screams. Mather deposited the second soldier at the feet of the first and dug the heels of his boots into the snow in front of the cottage.

“She had a kitchen knife,” he growled. “Nothing more.”

They had drawn quite the crowd by now. All surrounding Winterians turned, pausing with nails in fists or hammers raised midswing.

“Besides,” Mather continued, “if you touch her, I’ll gut you.”

“
We
will,” Phil added, coming to stand beside him with Trace. Movement from just off to his right, and Kiefer and
Eli ran forward as Feige’s screams continued. They planted themselves alongside Mather, a single, united front.

“Mather!”

The pride swelling in Mather fogged his mind. His attention flicked to William, who shoved through the crowd alongside Greer. Alysson followed, pulling away from where she had been passing out water to the workers. All three stopped between him and the Cordellan soldiers.

“Stop,”
William hissed, and had they still been in their nomadic camp, the order would have worked.

But now, Mather staggered forward, all of his anger and adrenaline fading to disbelief. “You’re ordering me to stop? What about
them
?” He jabbed a finger at the Cordellans, who watched the dispute unfold with unadulterated rage.

“Don’t make a scene,” William growled, and swung to face the men. “I apologize for the misunderstanding. We will rectify the situation and comply with all of King Noam’s orders.”

The words made Mather snarl. “You can’t be—”

But Greer stepped in as Mather launched forward. “Stand down,” he snapped.

Mather tugged at Greer’s grip. The old man held tight, eyes set and dark. “Didn’t you hear her screams? They did that to her!”

Feige had quieted by now, whether from Hollis’s comforting or because the fear had snuffed itself out, Mather
didn’t know, but he was grateful.

One of the soldiers seemed to come to the conclusion that winning this fight didn’t deserve his energy, because he waved William off. “We won’t be so kind next time, General.”

William dropped his head in a bow. “Thank you.”

The soldier clicked his lips in disgust before turning away, pushing into the crowd. His comrade followed, both of them throwing victorious sneers back at Mather. They had won something. A different battle, one that left Mather gaping as William turned to him.

Before he could get a word in, William heaved him out of Greer’s grasp and bent his head to hiss in Mather’s ear. “The Cordellans are our only allies until the queen gains others. If she can’t, if Cordell is all we have, we cannot antagonize them.”

“They would have hurt Feige,” Mather spat back. “They would have—”

“You don’t know that.”

“I didn’t want to find out! Would you have let them make her scream
more
?”

Behind William, the Winterians departed back to their tasks, chased off by orders from Greer. Only Alysson remained, her eyes flicking from them to the cottage where she smiled, the same comfort Mather had seen so often before. A smile that let him know he would be okay, because
how could anyone look at him like that if his life was destined for misery?

Feige stood in front of the cottage now, her hands wringing against her stomach in quick, tight jabs. She didn’t have her daggers anymore, and she stared at the snow packed along the road with eyes that weren’t seeing. Mather took a step forward, but Hollis, hovering just behind her but not touching her, shook his head sharply.

“Feige?” Mather tried.

She flinched. Tears welled in her eyes when she locked on him.

“I didn’t want to be defenseless again,” was all she whispered.

Mather’s heart cracked.

Hollis led Feige away. The rest of the Thaw lingered still, watching, hesitating, trying not to seem like they were still waiting for someone to break.

Mather had a sinking feeling he would be that someone.

“What if we never have other options?” Mather swung to William. “What if Meira comes back and our most powerful ally is still Cordell? What if Noam opens that damn magic chasm and becomes even more powerful?
What then?
”

William’s jaw hardened. “We will not be in that position.”

“We’re already in that position! You did this to us once before, in Bithai. Angra had sent his army after us, and
Noam had agreed to sell me, and you just stood there, because even though we had come so far, all you saw left to do was give up. We’ve come
so far
, so many times, but that seems to have only made you even more fearful. What are you afraid will happen? We’ve already lost everything, and we survived. We can survive without Cordell! We can fight them!”

“Just because we could fight Cordell doesn’t mean we should. There are other options—paths that do not risk our people’s lives.” William shot forward, exhaustion vanishing in one last burst of certainty. “We did lose everything, and it took decades to get it back. We will not risk it again. We have it now; we will embrace it. Our kingdom, our lives, our families.”

Mather’s jaw dropped open. The way William said the word
families
like it was just another task, easily accomplished, made Mather look behind him, to Phil, Trace, Kiefer, and Eli. Ahead, William and Alysson waited. A definitive division.

“We were all each other had for sixteen years,” Mather started, turning back to William. “All of us. Finn and Greer and Henn, Dendera, everyone who died too. And I never once felt like we wanted to be together. But we
didn’t
want to be together—we didn’t want to set up a permanent family somewhere else, because it might’ve made it impossible to get our real families back. But—we’re supposed to
be a family now? Just that easy?”

Alysson pushed closer. “Mather, we all loved one another—”

“I know we did,” he cut her off, anger making his voice snap, and he wasn’t sure he knew what he wanted out of this. No, he knew what he wanted, he could feel the question hovering on his lips, burning his mouth, filling him up, and bleeding him out all at once.

William just stared at him, didn’t respond, didn’t react, and Mather straightened, sucking in breaths and trying to calm his nerves. He couldn’t though, couldn’t stop what he had started, and the question burst out of him in a roar of need.