Tears of Frost

by Bree Barton

  Mia lifted the dram of silver death and shook the dregs onto her tongue. She had to ask the question. This could be the one time it yielded the right answer.

  “Have you happened to come across a red-haired woman? Big boned? Hazel eyes? You’d remember if you saw her. She’s very striking.”

  Mia heard the wildness in her voice. The mounting desperation.

  Kristoffin’s blue eyes were kind, but with a glaze of pity.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t help. My niece might be able to, she knows everyone. But unfortunately she’s in Valavïk.”

  He took a step toward her, as if he were about to put a reassuring hand on her arm. At the last second he seemed to think better of it.

  “I can’t offer you anything concrete, I’m afraid. But I can share a piece of wisdom from an old Luumi poet, a line that has given me much hope over the years. Sometimes the darkest night sparks the brightest dawn.”

  How Mia wished that were true.

  She painted on her most convincing smile. “Thank you. And Good Jyöl.”

  “Good Jyöl to you, my young friend.”

  Kristoffin tipped his head in farewell. She watched as he slowly ascended the creaky alehouse stairs.

  The barmaid swept both empty drams off the bar, the glasses clinking. “You know who that was, don’t you?”

  “A very self-effacing lord?”

  The girl blinked at her in dismay. “You were talking to Lord Kristoffin Dove.”

  “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t know who that is.”

  “You haven’t heard of the Grand Fyremaster? The Snow Queen’s uncle? The most renowned of all her advisors?”

  The barmaid grunted, back to her insolent self. “It was the Grand Fyremaster who discovered new pits in the heartlands. After years of death and darkness, Lord Dove has brought warmth and light back to Luumia.”

  Mia had heard nothing but fyre ice this and fyre ice that since arriving in White Lagoon. She tried to imagine doddering Kristoffin Dove as a renowned scientist and explorer who’d saved the whole queendom. It seemed unlikely.

  Then again, Mia wasn’t the best judge of character. Her sweet little sister had turned out to be homicidal.

  From the swamp of spirits, Mia dredged up something Kristoffin had said. My niece knows everyone.

  His niece the queen.

  The barmaid flourished a hand toward the door. “Surely you’ve seen the frostflowers outside.”

  Mia’s vision blurred until the girl had a double. Brilliant. Two obnoxious barmaids.

  “How could I miss the floating flowers? They’re every two feet.”

  In addition to all the pine trees dyed Jyöltide colors—pale silver and royal purple—the streets of White Lagoon were peppered with holiday decorations unlike any Mia had seen. The white blossoms hung suspended in the air, inner petals stained a deep violet, as if someone had spilled a thimbleful of purple dye. Most striking were the cold lavender flames flickering at their hearts.

  Old Mia would have concocted theories, conducted experiments to test how the mysterious candle-blooms levitated with no ropes, how they burned with no fire.

  New Mia was tired. She didn’t have the energy to be a scientist. Most days she hardly had the energy to stay upright.

  “The frostflowers are meant to light the days leading up to the Weeping Moon,” the barmaid said proudly. “Lord Dove has given the Illuminations back to us. On the last night of Jyöl, the story of our people will be writ large across the sky. A testament to all we have survived—and all that lies before us.”

  Mia belched. The dram of silver death was coming back up her throat.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said. “I’m going to spew bile.”

  Chapter 10

  Angel of Ashes

  SHE MADE IT OUTSIDE, at least.

  Mia knelt on all fours, vomiting into the snow. She wiped her sticky mouth on her unburnt sleeve and cursed her carelessness. Without the sensation of nausea, it was hard to keep track of how much she’d drunk.

  What was she even doing there? What was she doing anywhere?

  As she clutched the snow, retching, a memory rose to the surface—and not one she expected. She saw Pilar d’Aqila, Zaga’s ornery daughter. Sharp eyes glassy as she sat enkindled in the Grand Gallery. The girl whose first misdirected arrow launched Quin and Mia on their flight . . . and whose second arrow landed deep in Princess Karri’s stomach.

  Who had truly killed Quin’s sister? Pilar held the bow, but it was Mia who pressed her hands into the wound, snuffing out Karri’s life when she’d meant to save it. They had both been lied to and manipulated by Zaga, two pawns nudged exactly where she wanted them.

  And yet, when Mia thought of Pilar, she felt no kinship. Pilar had never apologized. Not for trying to kill Mia—and not for nearly killing Quin instead. On the contrary, she’d clearly relished every opportunity to put Mia in her place. During their brief stay in Refúj, Pilar had done nothing but shame and belittle her for being ignorant about magic. As if it were Mia’s fault she’d had a heap of lies crammed down her throat for seventeen years.

  Even if Mia should have questioned the narrative she’d been taught, Pilar was no better. She had grown up privy to her mother’s dark magic and twisted ways. Why had she trusted Zaga so implicitly? Why hadn’t she seen through the guise?

  Mia knew exactly why. Pilar was selfish and stubborn, reckless and obstinate. The girl was too prideful to acknowledge her own mistakes. If she’d seen her mother for the traitor she was, Pilar might have saved them all.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  A boy stood framed in the alehouse’s doorway, red clay tankard clasped in his broad hands. He looked to be nineteen or twenty, with wide-set, rounded eyes a dark shade of brown. His hair was bone straight and shoulder length, glossy blue-black in the moonlight, slicked back and tied neatly at the nape of his neck.

  “Good Jyöl,” he said. As he held out the red tankard, his biceps swelled beneath his shirt. His skin was the color of pale copper warmed by candlelight. Mia was drawn to the warmth.

  “Zai,” he said.

  She hadn’t heard this Luumi greeting. “Zai to you as well.”

  He gave her a curious look. “You misunderstand me. Zai is my name.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re the redhead who leaves a trail of charred flesh, aren’t you? They call you the Angel of Ashes.”

  “My reputation precedes me!” Mia tried to stand but was too woozy. She sank back down. “I only char the flesh of boys who touch me when I don’t want to be touched.”

  “Fair enough. Though I hear you’ve also charred your own flesh on more than one occasion.”

  “You hear an awful lot of things, don’t you?”

  “People like to talk at alehouses. As the spirits flow, so do the rumors.”

  He crouched and offered her the tankard.

  “I think I’ve probably had enough,” she said.

  “It’s water.”

  She took a cautious sip.

  “Do you want to come home with me?” she blurted.

  She’d brought home a handful of night companions over the last few weeks. They weren’t hard to find: Luumi boys were infatuated with her auburn curls and freckles. Even after the innkeeper voiced her disapproval, Mia brought the boys back to her cot. As they lay entwined, she would tell them where to touch her, desperately hoping the feeling of their skin against hers would spark heat or sensation.

  It did not.

  Once she’d even brought home a raven-haired girl, thinking perhaps the soft hands of a girl would arouse her.

  They did not.

  Mia’s desire to feel something was excruciating as every new companion would fumble about, trying to please her and failing miserably. To their credit, they all made a noble effort, with varying degrees of self-confidence. One boy had inched himself slowly down the cot to pleasure her, grinning widely as he crowed, “Prepare yourself!”

  If
he’d meant “Prepare yourself for nothing,” he was correct.

  Maybe Zai was different. Maybe, with those strong hands, he’d be able to achieve what others had not.

  Maybe, if he came home with her, she wouldn’t feel so alone.

  “Thank you for the offer.” Zai smiled. A genuine smile, albeit sad around the edges. “But I have to stay at the alehouse until we close.”

  “You work there?”

  “I own it.”

  She blinked and his blurry face snapped back into focus. “Aren’t you a little young to own an alehouse?”

  “Is this yours?” He was holding her white flower, tracing the bird at its heart. It must have fallen out of her pocket while she retched onto the snow. “I’ve never seen one with a raven.”

  “Raven is my name.”

  The lie came instinctually. These days she trusted instinct more than reason.

  “Good. I’d rather not call you Angel of Ashes.” He was still studying the flower. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was a gift.”

  “I see.” Zai handed it back to her, then stood and brushed the snow off his trousers. “Come down to the dock tomorrow, Raven. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  She struggled to her feet. “Is it about the flower?”

  “That’s not a flower,” he said. “It’s a compass.”

  Chapter 11

  Delicious

  AS MIA WALKED BRISKLY down the cobblestones the next morning, the sun still hadn’t risen, the moon staining the sky a cold, quiet blue. Three hours of daylight left Luumia cloaked in darkness well into the afternoon. The Luumi even had a word for how to survive the long winters: hiio. Sipping a toasty cup of Jyöltide cinnamon cocoa? Hiio. Cuddling up to a crackling fire in a seaside cabin? Hiio. Spending precious time with family? Hiio.

  Wandering White Lagoon utterly alone, devoid of any sensation, and unable to find the one person she’d come to find?

  Hiio could go fuck itself.

  Mia worried the bone carving in her trouser pocket. She didn’t want to get her hopes up—prophylactic pessimism, as she’d come to think of it—but a compass from her mother could change everything.

  Of course, she had to learn to read it first.

  The town bustled with activity, reinsdyr pulling carriages down the narrow streets. On the wharf, men and women carted barrels from a freshly docked ship. Mia recognized the vessel—she had bartered for passage on this very ship to cross Dead Man’s Strait.

  “Bartered” was perhaps not the right word. When Mia arrived penniless on Glas Ddir’s forbidden southern shore, she had to work extra hard to convince the salty, hirsute captain to take her on board. This was when she’d first discovered her magic was an unruly mistress—she’d meant to set fire to a small Luumi flag on deck, not the mast itself.

  At the end of the day, the flaming sail turned out to be more effective.

  When the ship deposited her on the shore of Luumia, she had lingered to thank the captain. He’d spat on the ground at her feet.

  “One thing you’d do well to remember, girl, is that in this kingdom, magic is a gift, not a blade.”

  Then why, she’d been tempted to ask, does it make such a handy blade?

  Zai hadn’t told her where to meet him. Or maybe he had and she’d forgotten.

  “Raven?”

  It took her a moment to recognize the name as her own. She turned.

  “You came,” Zai said.

  He was more handsome than she remembered, not that she remembered much. Long black hair tied back at the neck; a wooden carton tucked under one muscled light-brown arm, and a cord of rope looped over the other. Mia’s face flushed. She’d asked him to come home with her, hadn’t she? Not the most tempting proposition from a girl vomiting into the snow.

  “Listen, about last night . . .”

  “You don’t need to explain yourself. I own an alehouse, remember?” Zai adjusted the carton under his arm. “Follow me.”

  She trailed him down the quay. She couldn’t help but admire the breadth of his shoulders, how deftly he shifted the carton from one arm to the other.

  A memory of Quin appeared unbidden, so vivid she sucked in her breath. He stood in the river, moonlit gold curls and scintillating green eyes, a smear of freckles over fair, wet skin.

  “Are you all right?” Zai asked. With his question, the memory disintegrated.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  Zai looked nothing like Quin. He didn’t move like him, either; he was more surefooted, solid on the earth.

  “Are you taking me to stow away aboard a ship?” she teased. “Shall we pretend to be pirates?”

  “No.”

  Zai seemed immune to her sparkling wit. It was disconcerting.

  To their right, the ship lowered its gangplank, expelling a host of excited passengers in festive Jyöltide hats and striped purple-and-silver scarves. Mia craned her neck, scanning the crowd for a head of red hair. At this point it was instinctual. Her first few weeks in White Lagoon she’d spent hours lingering at the docks, immune to the cold as she scrutinized every passenger embarking or debarking, absolutely certain she’d see her mother’s face.

  “Three times as many ships as usual,” Zai called over his shoulder. “I’ve never seen this many visitors for Jyöl.”

  Mia liked the foreigners. She felt a kinship with people from other kingdoms. Even better: they loved buying magical salves. If she told them the creams were a Jyöltide novelty, her sales would double. “Græÿa’s tears,” she called them. Or, when she was feeling mischievous, “Witch milk.”

  “Have you been to the lagoon?” Zai asked, cutting across one wooden ramp and leading her down another.

  “No.” Admission cost fifty silver coins, and at best she earned five a day selling creams. She had her daily diet of spirits to consider.

  “I grew up hearing my parents talk about it,” he said. “I just never thought I’d see it myself. Now that the lagoon has reopened, it’s changed everything. The crowds can be a bit much, but it’s one of those rare attractions that deserves all the praise it gets.”

  “I’m sure it’s lovely. There’s nothing like it in the river kingdom.”

  “We don’t see many of you Glasddirans. Not since your king closed the ports.”

  “I don’t think many of us make it this far.”

  “How did you?”

  “Luck, I guess.” And magic. And mystery. Oh, and dying helped.

  “They say your new queen has reopened the borders.”

  “There’s no telling what the new queen will do,” Mia said darkly, and meant it.

  Zai’s boat was broad and sturdy, much like Zai himself. It bobbed just off the pier, a cheerful yellow canvas stretched taut overhead. Between the boat and pier, a rudimentary rope bridge swayed above the water.

  Zai held out a hand.

  “I’ll manage,” Mia said, stepping onto the bridge—and nearly tipping over the side. There was more give to the ropes than she’d expected.

  She recovered quickly and clambered onto the boat, Zai a step behind her.

  “Welcome to my home,” he said.

  “You live here?”

  He nodded. “I don’t take her out much anymore. That’s what running an alehouse will get you. But she’s as good a place as any to bunk at night. I like the sounds of the port. Can’t sleep when it’s too quiet.”

  That surprised her. Zai didn’t seem like the type to seek out noise.

  “This is the galley,” he said. “Doubling as my quarters.”

  The space was cozy, the furnishings simple: a low bench at a small round table, big enough for a single diner or maybe two squeezed close. In the center of the room a stone slab boasted an assortment of jugs, bottles, bowls, and cutlery. She wondered briefly if Zai was as good a cook as Quin. She doubted it.

  In the far corner an unadorned cot was tucked into a nook. An impressive set of reinsdyr antlers embellished one wall, much like the ones gracing t
he alehouse.

  “You like reinsdyr.”

  “They’re beautiful beasts. My family has herded them for centuries.”

  “The antlers are stunning.”

  He slipped the rope coil off his arm and hung it from one of the horns. “And functional. We use every part of the animal so nothing goes to waste. We eat and sell the meat, make the skins into mittens, cloaks, and shoes. We even pulverize the antlers into healing salves.”

  “Yes, I think I’ve sold some of those.”

  He set his cargo on a low stool. As he bent to unlatch the carton, his shirt stretched above his bicep. Pale, shimmering blue peeked out: an icy current of ink flowing over his mellow copper skin.

  Mia was intrigued. She’d taken the moving ink herself when she first arrived in Luumia, but her mark was a deep purple indigo: a small six-petaled frostflower on the inside of her wrist. Fyre ink, the indigenous Luumi called it. Ink painters pulverized fyre ice into a pigment, which meant they were quite literally injecting magic beneath your skin. To Mia the ink resembled more river than flame; when she held her wrist up to the light, the flower pulsed and churned like water.

  People said taking the ink was excruciating—which was exactly why she’d done it. Another desperate attempt to feel something. But the mark cost her nothing: no pain, and no coins, either. One of her night companions was an ink painter, and he’d marveled at her stoicism as the needle pricked her skin.

  In her drunken haze, Mia had nursed a wild hope that wearing the six-petaled bloom would bring her closer to her mother.

  Another ill-begotten night inked by ill-begotten dreams.

  “Don’t you get seasick?” she asked Zai. The boat was in the harbor, not the open sea, but still it dipped and listed.

  “I have a strong stomach.”

  Her eyes trailed to see that, yes, it looked quite strong.

  “And how are you feeling this morning?” Zai asked.

  “I’ve always hated that question. It’s judgment dressed up as sympathy. I don’t feel sick, if that’s what you’re asking.” Mia cleared her throat. “You said my carving was a compass?”

  “Yes. Or part of one. I’ll be honest with you: I can’t answer all your questions about the frostflower. But my friend Ville is an ingineer. He’s very good at explaining the mechanics of how things work. He’ll be here soon. You can ask him anything you like.”