Soul of Cinder

by Bree Barton

  “Who would want to rebuild that hellshole?”

  “My mother and Freyja, I guess. I think the queen really is trying to set things right.” Mia shook her head. “Listen to me, defending the woman who stole my mother.”

  “Maybe your mother needed to be stole.”

  Mia coughed. Said something under her breath.

  “What was that?” Pilar said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s really nothing.”

  “If you don’t—”

  “It’s stolen. Not stole. Stolen is the past participle of steal.”

  Pilar groaned. Rose really was impossible.

  “Quin did that too. Corrected my speech with his princely grammar.”

  “Yes.” Mia smiled sadly. “I teased him about that myself.”

  They were both quiet. Quin was uncharted terrain.

  “Do you ever think about him?” Pilar asked.

  Mia shifted on the sofa. “All the time. I think about things he said or his clever little turns of phrase. He could be quite funny. Don’t you think about him?”

  “No,” she lied.

  “You spent more time with him than I did. You . . .” Rose blushed bright red. “You did a lot more things with him than I did.”

  How could Pilar make Mia understand? Sure, she and Quin had been intimate. And she wouldn’t lie: it had felt terrific. But now when she thought of their time together, she realized she hadn’t really known him. She’d been so busy mooning over him she hadn’t seen him at all.

  “Neither you or me knew him all that long,” she said. “Or that well.”

  “He was a victim of Angelyne, just like we all were.”

  Pilar frowned. “You forget that he did try to kill us.”

  “Are you going to keep being angry with him? Even though he’s dead?” Mia let out a long, frustrated sigh. “You’re stubborn, Pil. So am I. But there’s a difference between stubborn and recalcitrant. My father used to say that when a donkey—”

  “He’s my father, too.”

  Mia stared at her, surprised. But not as surprised as Pilar. The words had appeared on her tongue with no warning. My father. Almost wistful. As if she’d ever want a father like that.

  Griffin Rose, the Snow Wolf. Assassin of Dujia.

  “So.” Mia rearranged the pillow behind her. “What do you think of Nell’s father?”

  An obvious segue to a safer topic. Pilar shrugged.

  “He’s nice.”

  Stone had dragged her to the family sfeera on her second day, thrilled to introduce them. Lord Shadowess was the spitting image of Stone, just older. Pilar had never seen a family look so much alike.

  In her periphery, she studied Mia’s curly red hair, freckled white skin, gray eyes. Thought of her own straight black hair, olive skin, brown eyes. No one would believe they were half sisters.

  “Lord Shadowess is a gentle man,” Mia said. “I’ve been getting to know him in the Curatorium. He treats every creature with kindness. He says when he’s entrusted with the care of another living soul, they all become his children.”

  Pilar folded her arms over her chest. “I heard plenty about fathers on Refúj. Girls either hated them because they were violent, or missed them because they were kind.”

  She picked at the scabs on her knuckles. They were still healing from when she’d beaten the sandbag to a bloody pulp. Once she got back to the Gymnasia, she’d rewrap them.

  “Either way, fathers did more harm than good. I survived just fine without one.”

  She could feel Mia staring. Judging. Probably not believing.

  “The thing about my father,” Mia said slowly, “our father, was that he set impossibly high standards. He’d get cross when I was slow to absorb a concept. Once during a history lesson, he said, ‘You’re smarter than this, Mia.’ Not ‘little rose.’ He called me Mia when I disappointed him. I still remember how fiercely my heart palpitated. ‘You’re smarter than this, Mia.’”

  “You?” Pilar shuddered. “Slow to absorb a concept?”

  “I’m trying to be vulnerable, you know, and you’re not making it any easier.”

  Pilar squirmed. Why was it so much easier to jeer than to sit quietly and listen?

  She uncrossed her arms.

  “You’re right,” she muttered. “Sorry, Rose.”

  “What I was going to say is that Father could also be tender in unexpected ways. I know you never knew him, but on our birthdays he would slip chocolate sparrows beneath our pillows. Once he surprised Mother with a picnic. He told Angie and me stories from his most recent trip to Fojo, a real treat. He so rarely talked about his travels.”

  Because he was off killing Dujia, Pilar wanted to say. Off murdering women like me.

  “When I saw my mother in the snow palace,” Mia went on, “she told me Father was racked with guilt over what he did. That he’d been trying to make reparations for years.”

  “He said as much to me on the Snow Queen’s ship.”

  “You’re so lucky you got to see him.” Mia smiled sadly. “I like to imagine he’s sailing the four kingdoms at this very moment, helping the people he used to hurt. And that someday, the three of us will meet again.”

  Pilar said nothing. For all her posturing, she wanted to believe it, too.

  But she only shrugged. Such a handy reflex. A shrug said, Whatever you are telling me can’t hurt me. I refuse to let it in.

  “And now my mother wants to make reparations. She invited me to come back to the snow kingdom. Said I had a home with her and Freyja. A family.”

  “Why didn’t you say yes?”

  Mia smiled. “Because I’m making a new family. Right here.”

  Hope rose in Pilar’s chest. What would it be like to have a sister? A real sister, bound by blood, not magic. She used to dream about it. Even before Orry came, she’d never fit with the other girls on Refúj. She’d been lonely. So lonely. After she started picking fights with different Dujia in the merqad, they went out of their way to avoid her.

  Maybe that was why none of her sisters had stood by her after Morígna lied. Maybe if Pilar hadn’t been so prickly, so hard to love, they would have believed her.

  You didn’t deserve what happened. It wasn’t your fault.

  “I’m learning so much here,” Mia said, glowing. “The sort of work we’re doing in the Curatorium? It’s magical. But not just magical. That’s the thing. The Curateurs integrate science and magic. And the Shadowess is teaching me how to use breath to calm my mind, which helps control my magic. I healed Quin twice in the forest. But his sister . . .” She swallowed. “I tried to heal Karri. But I didn’t know enough about my own magic. It left me susceptible to . . .”

  “My mother,” Pilar finished. “It’s all right. You can say it.”

  Mia nodded. “Zaga was able to twist my ability to heal into an ability to kill. Just like Angelyne twisted the healing magic in the moonstone. They turned something beautiful into something ugly. I want to turn it back.”

  “Where are you going with all of this, Rose?” Pilar asked, suspicious.

  “Remember how Nell told us the House was built on an ancient power source with all the natural elements in perfect balance? That’s why magic works differently here. It sort of . . . levels things out. It makes it harder to hurt people. Of course it also makes it harder to heal people, which is why we use stones. Magic essentially becomes a system of checks and balances. That way no one abuses their power.”

  “People like Celeste abuse their power.”

  Mia sighed. “Celeste isn’t so bad once you get to know her.”

  “I don’t want to get to know her. I’ve known women like that.”

  “I wish you’d stop thinking every place is like Refúj,” Mia said, an edge to her words. “You’re not on the island anymore. Move past it.”

  Pilar went completely still. Rose clearly didn’t want to wade yet again through Pilar’s troubled past. As if she weren’t sick of
wading there herself.

  “Pilar, you’re bleeding!” Mia said, aghast. “What did you do to your knuckles?”

  Pilar looked down. She’d been picking her scabs again.

  “I used them to punch things.”

  “That blood is fresh. It looks painful. Hold on.” Mia fumbled something from her satchel. “I’m going to make it better.”

  When she opened her fingers, a pearly white orb sat in the center of her palm.

  Pilar jumped off the sofa. Palms sweating. Heart racing. All she could see was Quin’s pouch with Angelyne’s moonstone inside.

  “Where did you get that?” she hissed.

  “From the Curatorium,” Mia said. “It’s lloira. We use it to heal—”

  “I know what it is. I’ve obviously seen a moonstone before.”

  “It’s all right, Pilar. I’m not Angie. Look.”

  Mia stood. With her free hand, she probed at the moonstone—and it changed shape. It wasn’t stone at all. A cone of white cream clung to Rose’s fingertip.

  “It’s ointment,” she explained. “It can stop bleeding almost instantly. We grind the lloira down to a fine powder and blend it with two other elixirs.”

  Mia reached for her bleeding hand.

  Pilar reeled back.

  “If I wanted to heal my knuckles,” she spat, “I’d heal them. If I wanted to use magic, I’d use magic. You don’t get to tell me all the ways I’m broken.”

  “I wouldn’t have to,” Mia shot back, “if you’d admit it yourself.”

  “Look at that,” said a voice behind them. “Two sisters, studying quietly together in the library. Who’d have thought?”

  Nelladine stood in the doorway. From the look on her face, she’d heard everything.

  “I came in here looking for you, Nell,” said Mia, and Pilar felt her twist the blade. “I know your hands get dry and cracked from throwing clay all day. So I’ve been blending lloira powder with various tinctures, and your favorite fragrances, until I finally got it right.”

  She held out her palm. Gray eyes dewy. Full of hope.

  Pilar kicked herself. Mia’s “new family” had nothing to do with her. Rose didn’t want to be a sister. She wanted to be in love.

  Nell paused a second longer than Pilar expected.

  “That’s very sweet, Mia, that’s lovely. Thank you for thinking of me.” Nell reached out tentatively and dipped a finger into the ointment. Brought it to her nose. “It does smell nice. I was actually on my way to the Creation Studio, maybe later we could—”

  “I’ll join you!” Mia cried.

  Nell hesitated, then turned to Pilar.

  “Would you like to come, too?”

  Rose laughed. “Have you met Pilar d’Aqila? She doesn’t want to come to the Creation Studio! She’d rather go punch things.”

  “Even clay needs a strong, steady hand. How about it, Pil?”

  There was a note of desperation in Nell’s voice. Pilar had no idea why.

  Frankly, she didn’t care.

  “No thanks.” She wiped the blood off her knuckles. “Better go find something to punch.”

  Chapter 23

  The Pretending Arts

  THE KAER SEEMED SOMEHOW emptier with Tobin by his side. Quin couldn’t explain it. Perhaps it was the knowledge of how freely their banter had once flowed, so different from the heavy silence enrobing the space between them.

  He slowed his pace. Through the loop windows he could see the grove of snow plum trees, silvered by the first frost. He wondered if, when the late Luumi queen bequeathed a thousand trees to King Ronan, she had ever imagined he would plant them above the crypt to “grow fat on the flesh of the dead.”

  Quin grimaced. Even his father’s gardening was predicated on subjugation.

  You’ll come to me, under the snow plum tree.

  He glanced at Tobin. The memory chafed.

  The day it all ended had started like any other day. He’d walked into the library for his morning music lesson to find Tobin already at the upright piano, a slice of sunlight glinting off his unruly mop of hair. He was so beautiful it made Quin ache.

  “Do you remember,” Tobin said, hearing him approach, “the first song I taught you?”

  “As if I could forget.”

  “Play it for me.”

  For weeks the air between them had crackled with tension. Quin knew Toby felt it, too. In the past he had often entered the library to find his music teacher pacing, fingers drumming a soft rhythm against his thighs. Tobin’s sharp silver eyes always shone a little brighter when he was composing a new song, teetering on the cusp of some fresh, sweet melody—and now they shone the same way when Quin walked into a room. It made his knees go soft.

  “Remind me of the chords?” he asked innocently.

  “You’ve played them a hundred times!” Toby teased.

  “I suspect I might need a hundred more until they stick.”

  “Then come.” Tobin patted the bench. “I’ll show you.”

  They always had to be so careful, so painfully careful, not to touch each other. But at the piano they had a reason to be skin to skin.

  Quin eased himself down on the bench, their arms pressed close. He forced himself to breathe. Toby slid his left hand over Quin’s right.

  “Like this. Remember?”

  The gooseflesh pricked from wrist to shoulder, a symphony of tiny bumps sweeping over his nape. Tobin leaned in, his mouth an inch from Quin’s ear.

  “You’ll come to me,” he whispered, pressing both their fingers into the keys as the chord thrummed beneath them. “Under the snow plum tree.”

  Every part of Quin’s body sprang to life.

  Abruptly, Tobin withdrew his hand.

  “Keep practicing,” he said quickly. “I have no doubt you’ll find your way.”

  He rose from the bench and hurried out of the library.

  Quin was trembling. He knew, instinctively, that this was more than a song.

  It was an invitation.

  Three years later, Quin and Tobin entered the library side by side. In the eastern alcove, the upright stood like a quiet sentinel, its satiny black veneer bathed in silver moonlight. Quin had avoided the library since his return to the Kaer—had avoided this whole wing, in fact. But the sight of the piano comforted him.

  “It was remarkably dusty,” Tobin said, “and regrettably out of tune. It’s been a while since you played.”

  Quin heard the note of reproach in his former teacher’s voice.

  “I’ve been fairly preoccupied. Nearly dying, being enthralled, discovering a band of insurgents in my castle—that sort of thing.”

  “Any musician who lets his instrument go out of tune—”

  “Loves his own vanity more than his music. Yes, I know.”

  Tobin walked toward the piano. He brushed off the bench before easing himself onto it. Dust motes spun into a shaft of starlight.

  “Sit,” he instructed. “Like old times.”

  Quin’s heart was pounding. He couldn’t tell if he was frightened or aroused.

  “You and I both know the old times are over, Toby.”

  “In some ways, yes. In others, no.”

  Tobin lifted the fall board, the hinges squeaking, and propped it up gently. His right hand hovered over the keys. Three fingers where there had once been five. It hurt to see the damage Ronan had wrought. He had stripped Toby of his greatest gift—and Quin had let him. He had watched his father mutilate the boy he loved as he cowered, craven, behind a tomb.

  A deep, rich E-flat reverberated through the library.

  Quin did not expect what came next.

  Tobin’s hand burst into fluid motion. His three fingers stretched over the keys, crossing over one another in a wild and elegant dance. Swiftly, confidently, he wove the notes into a triple arpeggio that flourished into a cadenza, a solo so virtuosic it rivaled a sonata. The melody echoed through the dark, neglected room, swirling life into the dust motes. Out of tune, the notes made for an e
erie, atonal melody. As if a sanguine love ballad had been transposed to a minor key.

  Quin remembered how he’d felt the first time he watched Tobin play, not coincidentally the first time he suspected the expression falling in love might be more than just a turn of phrase. It struck him as a movement more than a feeling, the sensation of falling from a hard place into something softer.

  A conversation with his favorite cook came back to him. “Careful,” she’d told him, when as a boy he’d pined for yet another servant girl. “You’ve a tender heart, love, but don’t offer it so freely. Every time someone breaks that sweet heart of yours, they’ll take a piece with them.”

  How right she’d been. Quin fell in love with everyone, and each time hurt worse than the time before. They always left him in the end. And yet he learned nothing.

  Even now, standing beside the piano, his hope mingled with the rising notes. Would he ever stop wanting someone to love him?

  The cadenza ended on the note where it began. As E-flat slowly faded, Toby’s hand came to rest in his lap.

  “Does it surprise you?” he said. “That I can still play?”

  Quin hesitated. It did surprise him. After what his father had done, he’d assumed Tobin would only ever be able to plunk out a few meager notes—or, devastated by the butchery, would never play again.

  “I’ve never needed pity, Quin. Not yours or anyone’s. When someone takes something from you, you adapt. That’s the only way to take it back.”

  Quin thought of the Twisted Sisters and all they had taken from him. He had adapted, too. Not just the magic in his body, but the fury in his heart.

  He sank onto the bench beside Tobin. It was muscle memory more than anything. Or so he told himself. He left a healthy space between them, careful their arms did not touch.

  “I’m sorry, Toby.”

  “Sympathy is a worthless fuel.”

  “On that we’re agreed. No king has ever built a kingdom on sympathy. There are times violence must meet violence if justice is to prevail.”

  “Are you ready to stand by that, son of Clan Killian? Because I know what you’ve been playing at. You’ve been observing us, gathering information, ingratiating yourself with the Embers. You’re pretending, just like you always have.”