Tears of Frost

by Bree Barton

  “I want to prepare you, Your Grace. It’s a bit of a shock at first. I ask only that you suspend your initial judgment. As they say, Progress is two horses gained, one horse lost.”

  “More wisdom from an old Luumi mystic?”

  “An old Luumi horse trader, I imagine.”

  “You don’t need to lecture me, Lord Dove. I know as well as anyone the ends justify the means.”

  He nodded. “Then you’re ready to meet the conduits.”

  Six figures stood in a circle, staring into plates of glittering black ice.

  Each individual plate was cut into a hexagon snaking into larger hexagons. From above they might resemble a giant serpent—not that anyone would ever garner such a view. The cave ceiling was opaque. The rocks glinted, as if glistening with sweat.

  Not sweat, Angelyne realized. Veins. She looked down to see red tributaries beneath her feet like blood, thickening as they bifurcated and trifurcated, then clawed up the walls, blooming overhead in a vermillion lightning storm. The veins fed into glass pipes shunting crimson vapor through the rock ceiling, presumably to the rest of the palace and, by extension, to all of Luumia.

  Angelyne’s eyes fell once again to the human figures below. The ones powering the kingdom, like small flickering flames.

  Three black-haired girls. One willowy redhead. A boy with dark freckles, and a small blond girl. All perfectly still. Eyes fixed on the ice before them, gray and black shapes shifting over the surface. Shadows cast with no light.

  “These are children,” Angelyne said.

  “Yes,” said Lord Dove. “They tend to be most efficient.”

  She faced him. “Efficient?”

  “Children have an immense capacity for suffering. Adults do too, of course, but we have more defense mechanisms at play.”

  She frowned. “You said magic was a reservoir. Surely our reservoirs grow deeper over time.”

  “You listened well, Your Grace. And you are correct. Magic is most potent when it has had time to simmer. But a child’s suffering is pure, unencumbered. It produces a special kind of fuel.”

  Angelyne turned back to the children. She saw clear glass pipes rising from each partition, scarlet vapor churning inside. If the vapor was the fuel, then it was being shunted through the pipes that pierced the cave ceiling, where she assumed it was funneled straight into the laboratory above.

  This was even more promising than she’d hoped.

  “What are they watching?”

  “Their own Reflections. The moments in their life that have caused them the most pain. See that boy?”

  He pointed to the boy with tawny amber skin and freckles. The boy stood so close to the ice his nose almost touched the surface.

  “I found him a month ago,” Lord Dove said, “in an Addi village just north of the Glasddiran border. The week before, his mother had frozen to death trying to track down a missing reinsdyr. When I found him, his father was dead in his arms, sick from the pox. This poor child has known more suffering than most.”

  When Dove beckoned, Angelyne peered into the boy’s Reflections. She saw a man shivering and retching, then growing still in his son’s arms.

  “He had a twin,” Dove said softly. “A gifted violinist. We tested him to be a conduit, too, but the initial process . . . suffice it to say not everyone is strong enough to revisit their deepest wounds.”

  “So you syphon their suffering,” Angelyne said, “to mine their magic.”

  “We have saved hundreds of thousands of lives with a mere handful of conduits: a remarkably low cost.”

  “Are you aware that in the old language, conduit means ‘safe passage’? The irony is poignant. And yet this seems to bring you joy.”

  “Not at all. I’m not a monster.”

  He reached out a hand and laid it affectionately on the boy’s head. “I feed them. I make sure they are bathed and clothed and cleaned. In a way, these are my children.”

  Angelyne had stopped listening. Instead she began to walk the perimeter of the circle. At each plate of ice, she noted a white bone frostflower swinging from a thin cord.

  “How many don’t have parents?” she said quietly.

  “The suffering of orphans tends to be more pronounced.”

  “I expected only girls. But there are boys, too.”

  “You can be as loud as you like. They can’t hear you. The conduits see and hear only the scenes playing before them.” He strode forward. “And yes. Men are not immune to suffering. Especially the Addi, who carry a long history of suffering inside them.” He paused. “You said you are familiar with our Jyöltide myths?”

  She reached out and touched the closest plate of ice, watching as the images curled and twisted over her fingers. “I’m familiar with the Addi myths, yes. The ones you stole.”

  “Thievery is the height of flattery! I’m sure you know the true ending of the story? What really happened to Græÿa’s children?”

  Angelyne folded her arms. “I know the littlest sister made the others immortal. She wrote the stories as we know them today.”

  Dove chuckled. “Good Græÿa, no. The witches weren’t saved by pretty words! In the end, they were saved by man’s greed. The villagers did come for the little monsters—but not to kill them. They realized that magic, like a good cask of ale, could be tapped. So they found ways to channel the children’s power. Their bodies were used for magic, among other things. The magic was preserved in the bloodline. Each of Græÿa’s children had children of their own.”

  “Yes,” Angelyne said darkly. “Whether they wanted to or not.”

  “The entire foundation of this great kingdom was built on the sacrifice of those six little souls. Isn’t that true power? To give your life to spawn thousands more?”

  His chest puffed with pride. “And this is the gift I have given the snow kingdom. I have spent years of my life following the bloodlines. Painstaking work, tracing it back over so many generations.”

  “What you’re saying,” Angelyne said, piecing it together, “is that these children descended from Græÿa?”

  “Six of them did. The seventh came from an unexpected place. The missing ingredient I didn’t know I needed.”

  Angelyne raised a brow. “The seventh?”

  Dove rubbed his hands together.

  “The six children you see before you are the living descendants of the Renderer, the Flesh Thief, the Silver Sorcerer, and the Three Sisters. The extraction process I have perfected—over many years, with much trial and error—hearkens back to a much older time, when men revered the sacred power of witches.”

  “Seems to me the men were the monsters.”

  “Only in our stories can we be both monster and hero.”

  “So you stole their power and their myths.”

  “Their power was in their myths. Don’t you see?” He brandished a hand around the cavern. “These are the orphans, the castoffs, the forgotten. These seven conduits provide an invaluable service. They have saved the snow kingdom from darkness—and will now save the river kingdom from the same fate.”

  Angelyne looked at him with something akin to pity. What a senile fool. Did he really think she’d come to Luumia to make a trade? To broker peace between their two kingdoms?

  “You keep saying there are seven,” Angelyne said. “But I only see six.”

  “At first I was determined to only find conduits who were direct descendants. I’ll admit I was being myopic—a bit of a purist, perhaps.” He nodded toward the cave’s farthest corner. “Sometimes true inspiration comes from the places we never expect.”

  Angelyne’s eyes focused on the seventh of the “forgotten,” shrouded in partial shadow. Hair cut sharply at the chin, hands balled into fists as she watched her own nightmares.

  Angelyne stepped closer, drawn to the images on the frosted ice. A ceiling crisscrossed with rafters. A man. A violin.

  Only then did she realize who the girl was.

  Pilar Zorastín d’Aqila.

  Cha
pter 48

  Cell

  You will always see the rafters. Those thick wood beams. You stare up at them, imagining a game of kurkits. Yes. This is all a game.

  Tiny rocks on the rough dirt floor. On an island of volqanic sand, you never minded gravel. Not till it bites holes in the soft skin of your back.

  The bow is broken. The horsehair snaps in two. Wet, like tendons in a neck.

  Wood

  Rough

  Broken

  You have magic, but you don’t use it.

  You have fists, but you don’t use them.

  You have words, but they don’t come.

  Daggers. Arrows. Blades. You don’t reach for them.

  You’ve forgotten how.

  Wood

  beams

  Rough

  dirt

  Broken

  horsehair

  Your hair is black.

  Your eyes are brown.

  You have a scar on your right knuckle, second from the thumb.

  You tell yourself these things so you remember.

  So you don’t disappear.

  Wood

  beams

  casting

  shadows

  like

  Rough

  dirt

  floor

  Broken

  horsehair

  bow

  You are there, on the floor, and he is there, on top of you, and she is there, on top of you both.

  No one sees you at all.

  wood

  bow

  rough

  beams

  broken

  dirt

  wood

  dirt

  rough

  bow

  broken

  beams

  wood

  cell

  rough

  hair

  broken

  shadows

  You have been

  here

  You will always be

  here

  wood beams

  casting shadows like a

  broken cell

  broken bow

  broken neck

  You will always be

  broken.

  Chapter 49

  Sweetest Sister

  MIA SAW PILAR.

  She was unmistakable, even in the shadowy cave: strong jaw, clenched fists, thirsty brown eyes. In the eerie light her black hair glinted with an almost purple sheen. Her cheeks were silver, wet with tears.

  And fluttering over the smooth ice, in soulless blacks and grays, Mia saw Pilar’s story.

  She saw the cottage by the lake.

  As Mia crouched behind the coarse rock, shoulder to shoulder with Quin, his breathing quickened. In her periphery she saw the horror on his face. No matter how well he thought he knew Pilar, she hadn’t told him this.

  Which meant she had been completely, achingly alone.

  For months Mia had held Pilar d’Aqila up as the example of what not to be. Prone to brash behavior. Stubborn for no good reason. Manipulated by her mother—and naive enough to never question it. Yet, when Mia did the math, wasn’t she guilty of all the same things? Brash. Stubborn. Daughter to a lying mother, yet still refusing to accept the truth.

  Pilar wasn’t the enemy. She was Mia’s counterpart. Her counterbalance. Currently out of balance, perhaps, but not opposed.

  And now, Pilar was suffering.

  Her whole body trembled, face twisted in agony as she relived her worst nightmares. Mia wanted to reach out and wipe the images from the ice, wipe them from Pilar’s mind. She wanted to tell her, “This was not your fault.”

  But she couldn’t do any of these things. Angelyne was there.

  Angie stood inches away from Pilar, watching the story unfold. For a moment Mia thought she caught a softness in her sister’s eyes. Sadness? Compassion? Grief?

  No. The glimmer in Angie’s ice-blue eyes wasn’t grief.

  It was delight.

  Mia’s heart broke for her sister—and not the sister she’d thought.

  Angelyne turned to Kristoffin.

  “I thought you said a child’s suffering was most pure. Pilar is not a child.”

  “Ah, you know Pilar d’Aqila? I didn’t expect you two would ever cross paths. Pilar is an interesting case. After all, she isn’t Addi; she did not descend from the Six Souls. But the girl is a canyon of suffering, a veritable quarry of untapped potential. Our bodies store up unused magic, and hers has languished inside her, growing to unhealthy extremes.”

  When he placed his hand on top of Pilar’s head, Mia winced.

  “She’s got no family,” Kristoffin said. “There’s no one to miss her.”

  Quin flinched, the tiniest sound escaping his mouth.

  “I thought the pain was only in her mind,” Angelyne pressed. “Why is she sweating and shivering?”

  “Sometimes the conduits break out in cold sweats. They may scream or seize or faint.” He hesitated. “I do coax them back into their bodies from time to time. Though only for a little while, lest they start pining for a future that is no longer theirs.”

  Angelyne flicked her hand toward Pilar. “Bring her out of it.”

  He frowned. “Pilar is the seventh conduit. She’s the most powerful. If I coax her back before the Illuminations—”

  “To hells with the Illuminations. There are bigger things at stake.”

  Dove blinked at her. When he saw she wasn’t going to waver, he muttered, “As you wish, Your Grace.”

  He crouched, grumbling as he fiddled with the copper pipes at the base of the ice. Mia felt Quin shift beside her, his muscles tense. He was about to charge forward.

  She grabbed the back of his shirt, shaking her head fiercely. A plan was forming in her brain, but if it had even the slimmest chance of working, she couldn’t do it alone.

  Get Zai, she mouthed to Quin.

  He looked confused. Who?

  She thrust her hand into her trouser pocket and her fingers hit hard metal. She’d forgotten she still had Jouma’s Brew, the tin of paste Nell had left behind on the boat.

  That wasn’t what she wanted. Mia pushed the Brew aside and extracted one of Angelyne’s letters. Silently she snapped a piece of rock off the cave floor, scraping it across the parchment like black chalk.

  Zai. Northern balcony. He’s going to draw us a way out.

  Quin took the paper. She wanted him to meet her gaze, just for a moment.

  But he was gone. Mia watched him crawl quietly along the cavern wall, her heart heavy. He made it to the mouth of the cave before disappearing down the corridor.

  Mia turned back to see Pilar’s black sheet of ice was clear.

  “Good Jyöl,” Kristoffin cooed, nauseatingly gentle. “Someone’s here to see you.”

  Mia saw Pilar stumble forward, arms shielding her eyes. She doubled over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. When she looked up, her eyes locked onto Angie.

  “You,” she whispered.

  “Sweetest sister,” Angelyne said, but she choked on the last syllable as Pilar’s fist connected with her throat.

  Chapter 50

  A Space Between

  PILAR’S HANDS WEREN’T WORKING right. Nothing was working right. Her legs felt like water bound up in pigskin. The throat punch had failed to fully connect, though Angelyne did fall to the ground. So not a total failure.

  When Pilar staggered back, she almost fell herself. In her mind she could still see the smudged images from her Reflections.

  On the fifth, twelfth, hundredth viewing of the cottage by the lake, Pilar had left her body. Her soul lifted to the cave ceiling. She saw Mia crouched in the corner, wedged skin to skin with Quin. Of course they’d found each other. They always would.

  Quin with his sweet mouth and green eyes. Watching the one story she’d never told him.

  Not that he was overflowing with honesty. Stab him in the side and he’d bleed lies.

  Pilar wanted to murder someone. Kristoffin
Dove: top choice. But when she woke from her nightmare, Angelyne was standing there instead. Pilar could’ve sworn Angie licked her lips.

  “Do you want me to subdue her?” said a man’s voice. Only then did Pilar see Dove cowering to one side.

  Pilar summoned all the strength she had left. Palm strike. Blood choke. Anything.

  “Don’t touch her,” Angelyne commanded.

  As she brought herself to her feet, her eyes settled on Pilar. “You are entitled to your anger. I won’t take it from you. It’s a potent fuel.”

  Angelyne turned to face the old bastard. “Lord Dove, I want to thank you. What you’ve done here is remarkable. You have found a way to leverage these children’s pain. The more they suffer, the more powerful you become.”

  Pilar gaped at the other children. She hadn’t seen them when she and Dove first stepped into the cave: he’d asked for her bone carving, and like a fool she’d given it to him. By then it was too late. Seconds later she was trapped in her own Reflections.

  The children were young. Too young. Overhead, glass pipes shot red fog through the cave ceiling. No wonder fyre ice was purple. Blue ice mixed with red suffering. The children’s pain was a lifeblood, powering all of Luumia.

  Pilar refocused on Angelyne. She couldn’t believe she’d always wanted a sister. Sibling bonds were a heap of reinsdyr shit.

  “I’m impressed,” Angelyne was telling Dove, “that with so few children, you have accomplished so much! Luumia is a beacon for us all.”

  He beamed. “The quantity is one of the selling points, of course. Sacrifices must be made, but I’m sure you would agree that the fewer, the better.”

  “Would I?” Angelyne frowned. “Perhaps I’d agree that quantity is, in fact, one of the selling points. But we seem to disagree on logistics. You have chosen a small number of conduits, but you have focused on the innocent. I will focus on the guilty—and I can choose as many as I like.”

  An object flashed in Angelyne’s hand. Pilar bristled. The moonstone.

  Only, this gem wasn’t white or pearly, but shiny black.

  “Before I build my army,” Angelyne said, “I’m going to free yours.”

  She held the stone high, then hurled it against the closest plate of ice. It sparked and erupted into black flames.

  A wall of crushing heat rocked the cave, so forceful Pilar stumbled back. Fire licked the frost off every piece of ice. The gas pipes overhead began to melt, bright red smoke spilling into the air.