Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Her father would have been enraged.

  No. Her father would have been destroyed.

  She could not think about it. She could not think about it!

  “What do you think of that, girl?” Natayl asked her.

  She was still shaking as she blurted, “Would the same thing have happened to Borjhul?”

  “What?”

  “If Oran had not rescued him. If he had been sacrificed. Would another Kroldon baby have gotten his power?” A Kroldon baby without his vicious strength?

  Natayl stared at her. She had no idea why he seemed so shocked. But eventually he nodded, and kept nodding as he said, “Oran thinks so. In retrospect. After what happened to me.” Then he shook his head furiously. “But his dream told him he had to rescue Borjhul. He didn’t dream about my successor, my real successor, in time for me to rescue him.”

  Tabitha hugged her arms to her chest, shivering. Oran had rescued Borjhul. And as angry as Natayl was about it, he had eventually rescued her.

  She and Borjhul shared this story.

  She flushed, that same fever-heat that had come over her when Borjhul had kissed her, an urgency between her legs joined with a sick roil in her stomach. She ducked her head. Oh God. She thought she would vomit. There was so much evil here, butchered babies, murdered men, secrets—Natayl’s, Borjhul’s, her own …

  I pushed Nicolas out my window with my power.

  And the next day, Natayl had summoned her. He had felt the burst of magic from her, and he had figured out that she was the new sorceress.

  No.

  “You knew,” she whispered.

  Natayl drank.

  She looked up at him. “You knew it was me.”

  “I knew it was a baby somewhere near Betaul Town.”

  “But you knew I was born at the right time.” He could not pretend otherwise. Births in the senior lines of Thendalia’s great houses were widely announced. He would have been paying attention to any notable births occurring just after the Sorcerers Star passed. He had known about the Pravelle baby, so he had known about the Betaul baby. About her.

  “Yes, I knew it was you,” Natayl snapped. “You. Spoiled and pampered and utterly useless.”

  “You—”

  “That other baby girl that Merlie killed? She was the child of two scribes. She would have been smart and studious. The other little boy was a miner’s son. He would have known the value of hard work. The Pravelle boy, my family, he would have been raised knowing how and why to wield power.” His voice was rising. “But no. Instead I got you!”

  “Then why did you not tell us?” Tabitha shouted back, her hands in fists now, the enormity of the betrayal overwhelming her fear of him. Every inch of her skin itched, her magic ready for her, ready to tear across the distance between them. “Why did you just let my father make plans for me when you knew that none of them mattered?”

  “I could not, and I would not,” Natayl snapped back at her, wine sloshing from his goblet as he set it down hard on the worktable. “The Circle forbade my interference, and I agreed. We could not bring you here, any of you, until you’d grown up enough. The Circle learned that lesson generations ago.”

  “But it makes my entire life a lie!” Every decision she had ever made, every hope she had ever had, meant nothing, had always meant nothing. She had never had any choice at all, and Natayl had known that.

  He snorted as he picked up his wine again. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  Dramatic. She stared at him. Her breath was coming so sharp and fast it was making her head swim. Her entire life, a lie.

  If she had been told her destiny, she never would have imagined herself the wife of a prince, so she would not have been so angry when the Telgards had refused her. She never would have been afraid that romance would pass her by, so she would not have gone up to the attic to kiss Alain. She would not have been worried about being forced to marry a bore, so she would not have given herself to Nicolas. Two men would be alive now if she had known who she was going to be!

  Three. She would not have made herself a whore and a murderer again tonight, if she had never made herself a whore and a murderer back home. Oh, God, she could not breathe.

  “It could have been far worse, girl.” Natayl waved his goblet at her. “If one of those other babies had survived Merlie, you would have been nothing more than a near-sorceress. And more often than not, near-sorcerers go mad.”

  “What?” She barely had a voice. What was he saying?

  Natayl made another vague gesture. “Probably. They often go mad. Not always. And you still would have been highborn and wealthy, so that’s something.” Now his assurance dripped with sarcasm. “Locked in your luxurious chambers in Betaul Keep, you would be known as Duke Etienn’s mad daughter.”

  And he would hate me. My father would hate me.

  “He would still have been desperate for an heir, so he might have tried to find someone to marry you. Get you pregnant and hope that the insanity wasn’t congenital.” He leaned closer. “But he never would have asked Telgardia’s crown prince to stand at stud.”

  He was right. Natayl was right. She never would have married Prince Darcius. She never would have married him. No road had ever led there. She was a sorceress, or she was dead, or she was a freak. Duke Etienn’s mad daughter. Despised. Shut away. Hated.

  Tabitha’s skin itched all over, in surge after surge of prickling, stabbing pain. Her magic was a sharp, icy, perpetual sting. It always had been and it always would be.

  Because it’s not mine.

  Her power did not feel soft and warm and comforting because it was not hers.

  “Eventually,” Natayl went on nastily, “I might have corroded you for your own good. It would have silenced the voices in your head. Soothed away the uncontrollable emotions.”

  “Why not just kill me?” Tabitha whispered. Some part of her leaned into the idea. Just kill me. Just make it stop. “Would that not be better?”

  Natayl made no answer. Tabitha thought she knew why. “Or you can’t? Once the other sorcerers grow up. The almost sorcerers. They can’t die then?”

  “Oh, they can die. We can die. And you had a taste of that, girl. Remember the fox-den?”

  I should never have been in that fox-den. I should be home. I should be mad. Alain and Nicolas should still be alive You knew!

  “But no, we corrode instead of killing,” Natayl said. “That’s what the Circle does.”

  No, you kill. You killed the rogue magi. And you kill with silence. Alain and Nicolas would be alive if you’d only told my father who I was!

  “My last job, my final task in this world, is to corrode all the near-sorcerers.” He drank. “Just like Iseult did.”

  “Who are they?” Tabitha whispered. Who are my mad sisters and brothers? The ones who would have had my power, if your maga had found me and cut me apart like a pig?

  “Oh, you’ll meet them. We’ll travel around Thendalia next year. We’ll say it’s so that everyone can experience the ecstatic, majestic pleasure of meeting you.” His voice was filled with sarcasm again, overflowing with it. “But, along the way? I’ll corner and corrode the poor bastards. They’ll thank me.” He drank. “Unshielded telepathy is a curse.”

  Her headache was building to a scream in her ears, a blinding light in her eyes. Her life was a curse. Her entire childhood, her entire life, was meaningless.

  “We will need to decide what to do about the half-breed,” Natayl went on relentlessly. He would not let her go. “Maybe Pascin and I will flip a coin. That’s better than before. Iseult and Staziec couldn’t agree on who should do it. So they just left him.”

  He wanted her to ask more about the half-breed. He knew that she knew that sorcerers had to be pure-blooded. But apparently it was not true. He seemed to be saying that there was a Thendal-Adelard half-breed near-sorcerer out there somewhere. He seemed to want her to be astonished.

  She did not care. Natayl would corrode him and the others, and that would
be that.

  Or would he corrode Tabitha instead, and give one of the others her power? Someone not so stupid and useless?

  Her heart was slamming, her head was throbbing. Maybe Pascin wanted to get rid of Ferogin, too. Maybe the half-breed would get all their magic.

  “Can a half-breed be a sorcerer?” she asked, without looking at him. Her eyes were fixed to the goblet on the table in front of her, and her hands were clenched tight into the folds of her skirt. Corroded. Was it better or worse than being mad?

  “Of course,” Natayl snapped. “Every Khenroxan sorcerer is a half-breed.”

  “What?”

  “The Khenroxans are two races,” he said impatiently. “The people of the mountains and the people of the plains. Their sorcerer is always of both peoples.” As if she should have known that. Even though Khenroxans all looked the same, and they all spoke the same language. Still, he thought she should have known that.

  Natayl finished the wine in his goblet again. “Though I’m not so sure about little Lady Koren,” he said. “Too many things seem wrong.”

  Tabitha almost laughed. She could give an entire speech about what was wrong with Koren. But this was no time for speeches. She had a question to ask, that she had to ask, though she was terrified to ask it. “Could Josselin corrode Koren?” Her mouth was dry. “If she is the wrong one?”

  Natayl paused.

  She waited. Finally, he said, “Not without help.”

  Relief expelled a quick, harsh breath from her lungs, and she felt her shoulders slump. Her head hurt so much. She felt like a wrung-out rag. Limp. Used.

  “You think no one would help?” Natayl asked quietly.

  Ice shot up her spine again, and suddenly she could not look away from Natayl’s sunken eyes. He stood there, utterly still, utterly quiet. But his power grew from him, and grew, and grew, filling the room, pressing against her and wrapping around her like the fierce winds of a sandstorm. She seized the edge of the table with both hands to brace herself and to shield herself with her own power, though its prickling itch was nearly as bad. It had always been nearly as bad. Her own power hated her. It was not hers.

  “Shall I remind you?” Natayl rasped, gesturing out to the city. “Dozens of magi to lend their strength. Thousands of people to draw upon. Oceans of earth magic beneath our feet. Help is available.”

  He was going to corrode her. Tabitha could not move. His power was everywhere. He would take hers. The magi would hold her down, and he would read her mind, penetrate it, strip it away …

  No. That was not what he would do. His eyes were so dark. He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her. He was going to drive her into the floor with a burst of that horrible pain and then he was going to kill her.

  Already she was straining for breath, choking on the thick power that pushed at her from the very air. Other minds were crowding past his and into hers, so many, swarming her with blackness. Everyone served him, every Thendal in the city served him, even her closest friends. She felt them, and she tried to reach for their power, for those thorny vines and ropes that she had wrapped around her own magic back on the ship, to give her strength. But now he had them. He had them all, magi and not, willing and not, strong and weak, and he bound the threads and ropes together to smother her. Smothering with ice, thick and cold and slow and relentless pain.

  Graegor was so far away. His power would save her, but he would not. She could not find that sweet soft blanket, could not make it hers, could not pull it over herself and into herself to give her strength. It was nowhere. Natayl had her magi and she was losing.

  She was losing. She was drowning. So cold. Dead cold.

  Then came a roaring, incoherent curse, and a blinding white light, so bright it melted the ice. Tabitha’s magic tightened around her like a nest of wasps, furiously stinging. In front of her, a column of earth magic immolated Natayl. The glass blasted out of the kitchen window with a high-pitched shatter, and one, two, three violent gusts of wind blew past her head.

  Then the kitchen was silent and dark.

  Calm and still. Calm and still. Mindless words. Calm and still.

  She was alone. She was sitting on the bench, at the table, alone. The lamp and the coals had both been snuffed out.

  Natayl was gone. He had changed shape, and had flown away. Tabitha could feel her pulse throbbing in her throat.

  She had always believed that Natayl was cruel to her for her own good. As he saw it. That she disappointed him because he wanted her to do well. Because he did want her to do well.

  No. He wanted her dead.

  She clutched her hands together, but they still shook. She was sweating, streams of it down her back and legs. Strands of hot, damp hair clung to her neck.

  She had run from Borjhul because she had believed she would be protected in Natayl’s house. But she had actually been safer with Borjhul. Borjhul could not call upon his magi to strangle her.

  Yet.

  I want to go home.

  Betaul was so far away.

  I want to go home.

  To her father’s keep. To Nan’s ghosts. To Beatris and Pamela. Her entire childhood meant nothing, but still, she wanted to go home and pretend that she had never left.

  Duke Etienn’s mad daughter.

  The prince. Her prince. Her husband.

  I only wanted him. I never wanted anything else. I never wanted any of this.

  This life. This magic. This pain.

  It was so dark.

  Why had he stopped? Why had Natayl not killed her?

  Graegor. Natayl did not want to fight Graegor.

  Gasps came from the middle of her chest, strong enough to shake her. Once Natayl knew that Graegor would not protect her …

  No. The Circle would stop him.

  What did Natayl care about the Circle? They were all dying. If he decided to take her along when he died …

  If Graegor never wanted to have anything to do with her again …

  Was she in danger from him, too? Did he know? Did he know?

  If he knows, she realized, he already knows. And he has done nothing.

  After that fierce telepathic call that she had only barely withstood, he had done nothing. Nothing at all, because he would never hurt her, although he had the most reason.

  Sealed tight, she could not reach for him. She could not make her mind move now any more than she could make her body move. Their bond had not been broken, and she could feel his presence, but nothing about it. Only that he was awake. She could not tell if he was angry, or not angry, or anything. Only that he was there.

  Our bond. He was hers. He cared about her. He was the only one who did. He could not be lost to her. His magic could not be lost to her.

  The shuddering gasps were coming faster and faster. She was shocked to feel tears in her eyes, running down her hot cheeks. She was crying? She never cried. It was so messy. Scrunching up against it made her entire head ache, and she wiped her eyes furiously with her sleeves. I will not cry. Babies cry.

  If only she could be true. If only her life were true.

  Natayl had done that. Natayl hated her. He had known. And now he would …

  No. He stopped. He stopped.

  Next time, he might not stop. If he was angry enough. If she did not learn her lessons quickly. If he heard about the heretics. If he found out she was a murderous whore. An evil little cunt. Any of it might make him decide that Thendalia and the Circle were better off without her.

  Tabitha choked on her tears. Tears. She never cried. A Betaul sorceress never cried. Fields of flowers, petals closing.

  It would not work for this pain.

  Her father would be so ashamed of her. Cowering in the dark. Afraid of Natayl. Afraid of everything.

  She groaned like a trapped animal, her arms wrapped around her churning stomach, her forehead pressed to the table, her feet sliding in spasms across the wooden floor. She could not get up. She was too weak. She was cold, so cold. No warmth. No light.
<
br />   Helpless in the dark.

  Buried in the ice.

  Appendix: People

  Adlai Carhlaan – Prince of Telgardia, Raimund and Leota’s son, Darcius’s younger brother

  Agnes – Thendal seamstress in Tiaulon and on Maze Island, Tabitha’s designer

  Ahren – Telgard heretic from Orest, follower of Brandeis

  Aime – Housekeeper at Betaul Keep, Lise’s mother

  Aind Scherren (historical) – Third Lord Sorcerer of Telgardia, creator of the Eternal Flame, saint of the second millennium

  Alain – Knight at Betaul Keep

  Andre Sebastene – Nobleman from western Thendalia, vassal of the Betauls

  Angry Man (nickname) – Adelard heretic priest, follower of Wendlin

  Aric Wright – Master woodwright, Graegor’s father

  Arundel Apara Marawan – Ninth Lord Sorcerer of Aedseli

  Attarine de Jasinthe – Thendal maga, student at Maze Island Academy, Tabitha’s friend

  Audrey Wright (Torchanes) – Graegor’s younger sister

  Augustin Torchanes (historical) – Prince of Telgardia, last prince of his royal bloodline, Zacharei’s son

  Aviere – Ducal family from southern Thendalia

  Bear (nickname) – Adelard heretic priest, follower of Wendlin

  Beatris – Thendal noblewoman, Tabitha’s foster sister

  Benuen – Thendal heretic executed in Tiaulon, follower of Wendlin

  Bertram – Duke’s valet at Betaul Keep

  Betaul – Ducal family from western Thendalia

  Big Nille – Servant at Betaul Keep

  Borjhul (Borhal) sur Darshan – Ninth Lord Sorcerer of Kroldon

  Brandeis – Telgard leader of the “white heralds”/“ringless ones” heretics, imprisoned in Orest

  Breon Torchanes (historical) – King of Telgardia, Khisrathi’s cousin

  Brias (historical) – Nobleman from central Thendalia, Sorceress Iseult’s chosen king

  Brigita di’Merin – Adelard maga, student at Maze Island Academy, former rogue

  Capousine – Nobleman from central Thendalia, Tabitha’s suitor in Tiaulon