Snow Like Ashes

by Sara Raasch

  Angra turns back to me as footsteps draw closer from the hall. “Winterians, always getting in the way of greater things,” he says, riled into a fantastic desperation. “You may be able to resist me, but there’s another way to get you to talk.”

  Resist.

  He didn’t hear any of it. He doesn’t know. For him, the image of Jannuari must have dissolved once I left the cottage. Hannah used the conduit magic to keep us hidden because she needed to prepare me; she took the risk to give me a fighting chance to save our kingdom.

  My chest gets cold again, a small shiver that darts down to my hands.

  Footsteps pound into the throne room, shadows falling on two figures. One is Herod, his looming shoulders recognizable anywhere. The other is smaller. Still strong, still big, but—

  Herod throws the other man into the beam of light in front of me. He collapses, clothes ripped and stained with blood, body bruised and scattered with cuts and gashes. When he looks up at me, everything else vanishes.

  It’s Theron.

  “Tell me everything,” Angra orders, stomping toward me, the black of his staff creating a cloud of shadow around his hand. “Or I’ll break every bone in your prince’s body.”

  Theron sits back on his heels. Theron is here. In Spring.

  A cut on his forehead trickles blood into his eye and half of his mouth cocks to one side in a pathetic attempt at looking happy to see me, even here. I fall to the ground in front of him, running my hands over his face, his arms, hesitating on his injuries. “How did you get here?”

  Theron’s smile falls. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  Angra’s staff cuts between us, slamming into Theron’s head and sending him sprawling onto the floor. Theron lifts up onto his elbows, draws in a calming breath, and looks back at me.

  “Don’t you want to tell her how you handed yourself over to me? Gallantly tried to sneak into Spring to save her, but ended up in the same situation.” Angra sneers at Theron, but his usual smugness is marred now, his control wavering in the face of my resistance to his magic. “Shall I show your prince how visitors are treated in Abril?”

  I surge forward as Herod rushes to me, both of us colliding an arm’s length from Theron. “No!” I shout, the word echoing around me. I don’t have time for nausea or revulsion or Herod’s slow leer as he wraps his arms around my body and grunts when I kick against him.

  “Do you know what happened to the last refugees we caught?” Herod’s voice brushes my hair, my neck, flowing over my body as he pulls me to him.

  Angra steps over Theron and lowers the staff’s orb, pressing it against Theron’s spine. But Theron doesn’t flinch, his eyes on mine, his breathing labored and quick as he gathers determination for whatever might lie ahead. He doesn’t know about Angra’s Decay—he doesn’t know Angra’s magic can affect him—

  The first rib snaps and Theron cries out, surprise shattering any chance he might have had at remaining stoic. True, unyielding fear washes away the color on his face as he gasps in the silence after the break, his eyes finding mine in a surge of unasked questions. I can’t explain anything though, not as Herod presses his face against my ear, not as the second rib cracks in Theron’s chest, an echoing pop of bone grating against bone that makes my own body ache with memory.

  “You do, don’t you?” Herod continues. “Because we let one of them go, so he could tell you what your fate would be. The one who died—R-16? She was a fighter, just like you. Determined to resist. But they always come around in the end.”

  The third rib breaks and Theron releases a strangled cry into the floor that makes my heart seize. Angra’s eyes flick to mine. He’s smiling with a child’s delight, his hand twisting around the staff as he continues to break Theron’s ribs one by one. I can stop it. I can stop it if I just tell him who I am—

  “I’ll make your prince watch,” Herod whispers.

  He made Gregg watch. He kept him chained to a wall in his room while Crystalla was kept in a cage, a doll that Angra made Herod take out and play with at his bidding. Angra showed her a Winterian’s place in Spring by having Herod torture her to death in ways a body can’t fathom.

  Theron groans from the floor as Angra finishes healing the ribs he shattered. Herod finally releases me and I fall on top of Theron like my body can shield him from Angra’s magic.

  “Stop,” I mumble into Theron’s shoulder. “Stop. He’s not a part of this. This is between us, Season and Season. This isn’t Cordell’s war!”

  Angra laughs. The sound pulls me up, my mistake ringing in my ears.

  “No, you’re quite right.” He turns to Herod. “Go get 1-2072, 1-3218, and 1-3219. I promised R-19 that you could have them once you’re done with—”

  “No!” My scream tears through the throne room so loud and so desperate I can feel the rocks tremble. All around me, the darkness of the obsidian seeps into my vision, painting everything I see and feel a startling black. Just Angra and Herod and me locked in the shadows of this world. Can I use the conduit magic to stop them, this, everything? What can my magic even do? I can only affect Winterians, give them strength or endurance or health—

  I think Theron takes me into his arms. I think he whispers something in my ear, but I’m screaming now, lashing out as soldiers come in and haul us up. I can’t hear anything beyond the roar of blood in my head, the horrifying image of Herod sneering at me as he turns, pauses, smiles again. Walks down the throne room and leaves through the two heavy doors with such controlled grace. He’s going to get Nessa and her brothers. He’s going to kill them—

  “Take them to his chamber,” Angra orders. “If she feels like talking, bring her to me instantly. No matter her state.”

  I scream again, fingers tearing at the soldiers who drag us away. I will not let Nessa or Conall or Garrigan or myself or anyone die like this.

  The soldiers don’t care. They pin my arms back and carry me up stairs, down halls, weaving through Angra’s obsidian palace. Everything is decorated with the same heart-achingly poetic spring-in-darkness motif, colorful etchings of vines and flowers dug into the black rock. The vines wrap us like the words in Nessa’s memory cave.

  Someday we will be more than words in the dark.

  Bithai had a poem. A beautiful poem like the one Theron wrote. But Winter has no poem, just those words scrawled in the dark and that one sentence, that one desperate plea that shakes through my body with a frantic need.

  The soldiers throw open a door in a second-floor hall. A room spreads out before me, a canopy bed against the back corner, wide clear windows along the southern wall, gleaming wooden floors that the soldiers drag me across until we stop by—

  A cage. Barely big enough for me to sit up in, with bars on all sides. They open the door and toss me in and lock it before I can even breathe.

  One of the soldiers slips the key onto Herod’s desk. “I told you not to get comfortable.”

  I follow his movements and my attention freezes on the one object I never expected to see again: my chakram. My original chakram, which Herod stole so long ago, sits prominently on his desk like a prized trophy. Exactly like a prized trophy, in the same way I’m a trophy too.

  So close. My weapon, so close and yet so helpless.

  I lunge against the cage, the bars groaning where they’re bolted into the floor. Nothing gives, and the soldiers laugh as they march out of the room.

  Across from me, the other men chain Theron to the wall. They punch him in the stomach before leaving, his body slamming back into the wall with a sickening crack. They leave us, shutting the door like they can forget what will happen.

  I grip the bars, blinking away a foggy veil of tears as I keep my focus on Theron, locking onto his deep brown eyes and the sparkle behind them, the light that I didn’t even realize I’d missed. He stares back at me, the tension in his face unwinding in exhaustion, anger, seeing me in a cage in Herod’s chamber, waiting for that monster to return and slowly torture me. And knowing that for all h
is training and power in Cordell, Theron has no power here. He’s just as close and just as useless as my chakram.

  “How did Angra—” Theron starts, one of his hands pressing tenderly on his healed ribs. He shakes his head, closing his eyes in a quick flicker of repulsion. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”

  I draw in a wavering breath, ready to explain, but the words fall flat and lifeless in my throat. “What happened?” is all I can manage.

  Theron drops to the floor, the chains leading from his wrists clanking against the wood. Blood trails down his face, fresh and scarlet, dripping onto the collar of his tattered military uniform, Cordell’s green and gold caked in red. “Bithai survived,” he says.

  I open my mouth. No, I meant what happened to lead us here. What happened to get us so far gone, so far from—

  “Shortly after you fell, Cordell overcame Spring’s infantry. They were forced to retreat. They couldn’t compete with our conduit; it was the only thing that saved us. But my father refused to retaliate.” Theron winces, working out a pain in his shoulder.

  I can’t process what he’s saying. I shake my head, drop my face into my hands. The colors from the hall swirl in my memory, Angra’s black and pastel-green and pink mixing with the brown and maroon of Herod’s chamber. Green vines crawl around me like words in the dark. Memories. Nessa’s memories. Herod is bringing her here. She’ll see him kill me.

  “My father refused to go after them,” Theron continues. “He refused to go after you. He said he wouldn’t risk so much for a worthless Season anymore.”

  I can’t hear him as I start rocking back and forth. Herod will kill her too. Will they make Theron watch that? How long will they keep him here before he dies too?

  Theron runs a hand down his face. “Mather nearly killed him. Drew a sword and everything. But my father still wouldn’t… He’s so proud. So selfish. I hate him.”

  I can’t use my conduit magic to get out of this cage. I can’t use it to free Theron. I don’t even know what it can be used for beyond the basic functions of kingdom life. How can it help me in this situation? What can I do?

  “I hate the prejudice. I’m tired of watching my father hoard our power when we could be working together, Rhythm and Season against the true evil in this world. I knew what would make him act. If Spring had me, my father would finally do something about Angra.” Theron laughs an empty laugh, his eyes darting around the room. “Starting to rethink my plan now.”

  That makes me stop. Makes my whirring thoughts stumble against a sudden burst of clarity, and I hear everything he said slowly, his words coming to me through my fog.

  He handed himself over to Angra. He let Spring catch him.

  I gape across the space between us. “You wanted Angra to capture you?”

  Theron’s eyes jump to mine. Connecting us, just us now. Together. “Yes.”

  A smile uncurls on my face. It feels so wrong and yet so wonderful, how much I need to smile at him.

  Something pounds in the hallway, something like—footsteps. Coming closer.

  I cling to the bars of the cage. “I’m Hannah’s daughter. I’m the queen of Winter,” I hear myself say.

  Theron frowns and leans forward, his chains rattling. “I—”

  The door to the chamber flies open and Herod’s dark mass barrels in. He hurls himself at his desk, scrambling through papers and books until he grabs the key and holds it triumphantly in a tight-fisted grip. “I’m going to destroy you,” he hisses, eyes burning into mine.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  28

  SEEING HIM HERE shatters me. He’s back too soon. Too fast, not yet, I need more time—

  Herod stomps toward me, his eyes bloodshot, his hair sticking out around the face of someone scared, frantic. I press against the back corner of the cage. He’s mad, Angra’s evil driving his need to kill.

  And Nessa, Conall, and Garrigan aren’t with him.

  “Where are they?” I shout. “What did you do to them?”

  Herod laughs and stops just above the cage, towering over me. “You just keep fighting,” he coos. “Keep pretending you can win. You don’t know what my master is. You don’t know how futile it is to contest him.”

  “Don’t touch her!” Theron’s voice booms out from the wall and he runs to the end of his chains, a tantalizing distance from where Herod stands, bending slowly to the cage’s lock.

  “Your prince brought an army with him, did he tell you that?” Herod puts the key in the lock but doesn’t turn it, waiting for my reaction. “He brought the armies of the world to save you. Bittersweet, don’t you think? All that, and he’ll still watch you die.”

  An army? Is that what Theron had been saying—

  Noam. He forced Noam to attack Spring. And if Cordell is attacking Spring … Autumn will attack with it.

  Herod unlocks the door. Theron yanks against the chains, stretches out to Herod, yanks again. I press as far back in the cage as I can, willing myself to be as small and inconsequential as possible. I’m Winter’s conduit. I should be able to get out of this, kill him, do something to survive. Winter needs me to survive.

  Herod swings the door open and reaches for me in one swift motion. His fingers grab my collar and drag me out, the bars of the cage flying past before I can find purchase and stop myself. Then I’m above the cage, soaring through the air until I smack into something soft, something covered in a quilt of silk squares on a mattress of stale feathers.

  Herod’s bed.

  I scramble back and press into the wall, trying to shove to my feet. Herod strides toward me, his face wild, a savage dog cornering his long-hunted prey. His eyes flash with power forced into him from someone else. Angra is here, doing this even more than Herod. Does Herod even exist beyond the things Angra makes him want?

  “Do you remember when I first saw you?” Herod whispers. He stops at the edge of the bed, his fingers twirling down the post that holds the canopy above my head. “Years ago. You were a child still, small and fierce.”

  I stand, grab the opposite post, and start to swing around, propel myself off the bed, but Herod dives, his hands grabbing my thighs and landing me flat out on the silk quilt. As horror shoots through me, Theron shouts from the wall, still pulling uselessly at the chains. Blood drips from his wrists now, jagged tendrils of red falling onto the floor as he pulls and looks back at me with such helplessness my heart cracks.

  I jerk to Herod, scrambling for any last bits of strength. “You didn’t have time to get them, did you? Theron’s army interrupted your master’s fun?”

  “My master has nothing to do with this. He merely makes me”—he pauses and smirks—“unstoppable.”

  Herod whirls me around so I land on my back with him on top of me, his bulk pressing me into the mattress. I want to believe it’s a lie. I want to believe he’s still human in there, somewhere, a small flicker of someone who doesn’t want the things he’s done. But when I look in his eyes, there’s nothing. A vast and horrible nothing lined by need and obedience and strength. He doesn’t exist outside of Angra’s commands. Maybe he never did.

  “I regret that this will be faster than I always imagined,” Herod whispers, his warm breath cutting my skin like knives. “But your prince has forced my hand.”

  I wiggle against him, hands slipping on the quilt. Herod rolls against my movements, pinning me more and more until he grabs one of my wrists and traps my arm above my head. My other arm twists under my back, useless without a plan.

  Herod pauses, eyes darting over my face. He wants me to fight him. He wants me to struggle. And everything in me, every part of who I am, wants to fight him too.

  This is where my most unbearable nightmare will play out. Moments before the Cordell-Autumn army can save me, Theron so close yet worlds away. A knot of terror locks my throat tight, making me wheeze as I fight do
wn desperate sobs.

  Herod shifts, his body pressing more heavily on top of me. Something jabs into my hip, something sharp—

  A medal on his jacket. Some military badge of honor that dangles lopsided off the fabric.

  A rush of cool, sweet hope turns my sobs into gasps for breath, and I wiggle my arm almost free. Herod takes my motion as more fighting and laughs, pressing my trapped right arm more firmly into the bed. His other hand tangles in my hair, tilting my head and neck into a painful arch.

  But the medal is free now, dangling over my hip.

  “Looks like I was right,” I hiss. “I will kill you before this ends.”

  Herod hesitates and I flip my arm up to rip the medal off his jacket. The fabric tears, giving me a sharp gold pin that glints in the afternoon light from the open windows. I shove it up, the medal folding into my palm as I jam the pin into Herod’s left eye.

  He screams, lurching off of me and cupping his hands over his head as I fly out from under him and roll off the bed, using the bedpost to propel myself around.

  “Meira!” Theron tugs back against his chains, his whole body angling toward the desk where my beautiful weapon sits.

  Herod bellows and rips the pin out of his eye, blood running in a morbid tear down his face. He roils with pain and fury, his one good eye locking on me.

  I can’t get to the desk without skirting between Theron and Herod. There are no other weapons near me, no chairs I can break or vases I can throw.

  Herod yanks a dagger out of his boot and lunges forward in a wave of rage. I shove off the wall, gain momentum, and drop to my knees, sliding between the wall and Theron, ducking just under his bloody chains. My tattered cotton pants glide across the wood floor until I whip my foot around, catch on the edge of the desk, and pull to my feet.

  A lump gathers in my throat. My chakram. The one Herod stole months ago, the great curving handle worn smooth from my palm. I grab it off the top of Herod’s desk and spin around, body coiled in the effortless motion of the breath before a throw. As I turn, the entire expanse of the world around us freezes, holds, caught between me with my chakram ready and Herod with his knife to Theron’s throat. The pause before a fight—