The Ruin of Snow

by Lacy Sheridan

  The absolute nothingness in Wesley’s eyes—the pain so raw and deep it got cut out before it could root itself.

  “I tried,” I whispered. Kye watched, dutifully staying by my side, and Aurynn was listening. “I should have killed her sooner. I had the chance and I didn’t, and then she—Tamsin tried to stop her, but Sarafine was so fast…”

  Kye brushed a thumb along my wrist, chasing away some the ice running through me. “You did what you could,” they murmured.

  “It didn’t save her. And he loves her. He’ll never believe that.”

  Aurynn’s blue eyes were fierce. “We believe it. It’ll be alright.”

  Twenty-Three

  Nobody spoke as Rayick and Kye shoveled snow and dirt into the shallow hole. The silvery sheen of winter was dulled by the churned-up earth, stark black in the night. I stared at the way it cut through the snow and tried not to think about what was beneath it.

  Tried not to think about the way she’d rolled across the ground, rippling back to her human body despite the sunlight.

  I failed.

  “Let me help,” I managed, stepping forward. My voice scraped, too quiet, too hoarse, but shattered the silence like glass. I didn’t want to go any closer to her grave, but it would be better than standing there. Anything would be better.

  Kye paused, studying me, while Rayick looked between us. Wesley was the one to answer, his voice flat. “No.”

  Everybody exchanged looks, silently discussing how to handle him. None of us knew, and I was no exception. I’d seen people grieving: the families of those I’d killed, those of what tragedies in the noble squares I hadn’t been responsible for. I knew it took on strange and difficult forms. But I’d never bothered to give anything but rehearsed condolences.

  Never, through all those things I’d done in Acalta, had I felt guilt like this. It gnawed at my stomach, my bones, strangling me from the inside. It stopped me from taking the shovel Kye had half-offered and dragged my gaze to the frosty dirt piled at my feet.

  “Wesley,” Aurynn sighed.

  I looked up, feeling eyes on me, and found Wesley watching me like he was waiting for an attack. Not with the fear or caution I’d seen when they saw witches who’d been caught; there was pure distrust in his eyes, and something else. The simmering anger, yes, but also something I didn’t want to call hatred, but I thought might be.

  Wesley had never looked at me like that. None of them had. Even when I’d first met them—even Tamsin, with his petrifying fear of magic, or Aurynn, with her past. Idris put a hand on his shoulder, but he stayed tense. “Don’t make this worse,” he murmured.

  Wesley shrugged his hand off. “You don’t get to help,” he said.

  “She wasn’t the one who killed her,” Kye growled. I put a hand on their arm before they took more than half a step toward Wesley.

  Aurynn spoke. “Calm down. We don’t need a fight.”

  “I’m not fighting anyone,” Wesley snapped.

  Rayick dropped his shovel and straightened, voice lower and smoother than usual. Careful. “It’s hard on all of us. It’s easy to say and do things you don’t mean. Take a breath.”

  I stepped toward Wesley, ignoring the fresh stab of pain through my leg and forcing myself to look him in the eye. Everybody froze. His blue eyes were like ice—like the thick sheets of ice that covered the ponds in the gardens of my family’s estate in the winter. Too thick to crack through. He didn’t move. The freezing night air kept me steady.

  “I’m sorry,” I pleaded. “I’ve said it already, and I will keep saying it, because I am. I never wanted her to be hurt. I’ll take responsibility for not acting quick enough. I hesitated, and it cost Enaelle her life. That’s my fault, and I think it will weigh on me for the rest of my life. But she didn’t have to follow me. I told her to stay where it was safe. She was brave and wanted to help. It was my sister who killed her, not me. And believe me, she will not get to die as fast as Enaelle did.” His throat bobbed. “If it’s revenge that you’re after, I’ll leave the kill to you if you want.”

  The silence threatened to crush me. He murmured, “I don’t want the kill. Lady, only a witch would think that way.”

  “You loved her, and now she’s dead. I understand. I loved my brother, and he’s dead. I loved my family, in my own way, and they may not be dead yet, but I don’t see another way to end this. We’ve all lost family, Wesley. You don’t get to act like you’re the only one who did.” I passed him and started the long, slow walk home.

  He didn’t speak. His attention didn’t follow me.

  I made it a few yards, gritting my teeth with every limping step, when footsteps caught up to me. “Neyva,” Kye said. I stopped walking, trying to breathe.

  I’d told Nalcai, or Mother, or myself, or whoever it was that liked to get into my head that I’d rather die feeling than live with the numb cold witches maybe deserved. But now, with my heart aching, my fingers itching to wrap around Kye’s, my eyes stinging with unshed tears, all I could think about was what I’d give anything to feel nothing. To know only cruel logic and merciless numbers. No love or trust. They just hurt.

  The sight of Enaelle falling limp on the ground wouldn’t stop replaying itself. Sarafine’s voice wouldn’t stop sounding in my ears.

  “Go back to your people, Kye,” I said. “Stop pretending I’m one of you. I never have been.”

  Nobody followed me again. I didn’t want them to.

  I shook off the thought of how warm Kye would be. How they’d keep quiet until I wanted to talk, and they’d listen no matter what came out.

  No, Kye would be the worst one to follow me.

  I didn’t go to the tunnels. I wandered through the snow, the night nipping at my face and fingers. The wind had returned and swept under my cloak. I pulled it tighter and ducked my head, watching the gleam of starlight on the snow and trying not to think of pixie crowns or fleeting smiles or broken screams or anything. Nothing. That was what I wanted. For the cold winter wind to sweep away everything. The pain and the guilt and the joy. All of it.

  I found myself near the unnatural ring where the snow had melted, the ground charred. The blackened trees stretched like gruesome towers into the sky. I stopped at the edge, toeing the perfect line, the barrier of the chaos I’d brought. Then I stepped over it and the sound of my boots cracking charred twigs was like treading on bones. The wind carried the scent of ash and death and stirred dead embers into the air. I walked to the spot she’d died.

  Idris and Rayick had taken Enaelle, hair singed, dress blackened, face smeared with soot, but recognizable. They’d said they’d seen no sign of another body, but I had to look for myself. I had to know. If she’d burned here, I wanted to see what was left.

  There was nothing to find. I searched the area, wider and wider circles, going over collapsed branches and through burnt remains of underbrush. Sarafine was out there somewhere, plotting her next move, but I couldn’t find the energy to plot mine.

  The cold failed to numb the writhing, piercing pain in me, and my magic uncoiled itself and fed, as it had fed on my desperation and fury when Sarafine had held me captive. It fell on my grief and guilt like a starved beast on a fresh kill. Tearing through me. The burnt trees crackled and snapped in a horrible chorus. Branches fell and shattered on the ground.

  More.

  More.

  I was caught in a storm of collapsing trees, dust and ash churning the air and choking me. I clenched my jaw, stiffened my joints, and watched the ruined patch of forest come down around me.

  When it was done, when there was no sign of what had happened beneath the piles of crumbling wood and the ash was settling, I slid to the ground and let go of the tears I’d held for hours.

  “Neyva,” somebody said behind me when I was breathless, arms wrapped around myself. I didn’t have the energy to jump at the sudden voice or to look behind me. Footsteps crossed to me.

  I wiped at my cheeks but only succeeded in smearing the grime. “What do yo
u want, Rayick?”

  He sat beside me, staring at what I’d done. “Are you alright?” I looked at him and he laughed, short and grim. “That was a dumb question. You just knocked down a dozen trees.”

  “What do you want?” I asked again.

  “You were rough on Kye.”

  I knew that. “I don’t want to talk about Kye.”

  “Or Wesley?” he guessed, casting me a sidelong glance. I stayed quiet. “You weren’t the only one who knew how he felt about…Enaelle.” He flinched. “He was no good at hiding it, except from her. It’s going to take him time. He’s not really mad at you, just at all of it.”

  “I don’t care what a bastard jewel thief thinks of what I did,” I snapped.

  It wasn’t fair. I knew it wasn’t fair. But I couldn’t stop myself. If this continued, if I kept walking the path I had been these last weeks, it would spell trouble for all of us. I should have cut it off earlier.

  We sat in silence before Rayick asked, “What are your sisters’ names?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Once this is over I’d be happy for their names to be forgotten.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He sighed. “What was your brother’s name, then?”

  I flinched. I stared at my boots, coated in dirt and frost. “Alaric,” I whispered.

  “What happened to him?”

  “The plague. It took my brother and father both.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head, glaring at the pile of branches. In the night they looked like some strange, misshapen monster lying in wait. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said. “I’m not a good person to try to spend time with.”

  “I wanted to make sure you would get back alright.”

  “I will. You don’t have to look out for me.”

  “I’m going to, anyway.” With that, he stood and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Come back before you get frostbite, kid.”

  I said nothing, but I pulled my knees to my chest, rested my chin on them, and listened to him walk away and there was silence once again.

  By the time I went back to the tunnels, the moon was on its way toward the horizon, and I’d made a choice.

  I tightened my cloak as I rounded the last corner to the entrance on silent feet. My heart pounded in my throat. No turning back now; I’d made my decision, and it was the right one. It had to be.

  A shadow waited for me, profile lit by the single flickering lantern that shook in my hand. Kye didn’t look at me.

  I’d hoped they’d never notice, and I’d hoped they’d catch me. I’d hoped what I’d last said to them would be enough, that they’d stop caring, or at least think twice about it. I should have known better.

  “You’re leaving.” Not a question.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “It’s better.”

  “Better than what?”

  There were a thousand things I could have said, “The sooner I go, the closer to the nearest inn I’ll be by next sunset.”

  They stopped inches short of catching my arm as I passed, but their heat was enough to freeze me in my tracks. “Don’t.”

  “Kye,” I started, but I couldn’t find anything else to say.

  “Better than what?” they asked again.

  I forced myself not to look. To gaze into the darkness and think of Enaelle lying on the ground. Tamsin being thrown through the trees. The agony in Wesley’s eyes. “Better than putting you in danger again.”

  “We can handle ourselves.”

  “Enaelle couldn’t.”

  They flinched. “We agreed to help you. I agreed. We understood the risks.”

  “You couldn’t have understood. I didn’t understand when I came here.” I gripped my bag and let myself face them. “I might not have walked away from Sarafine alive. Tamsin could have been killed, too. Next time he might be, or Aurynn, or Rayick, or—any of you.” Or you, my mind finished.

  “I said I’d help you. I don’t go back on my word.”

  “I’m not asking you to. I’m going back on my mine.”

  They searched my face, cautious, and my heart shuddered. “Stay tonight. Leave in the daylight, when it’s safer.”

  “It will never be safe.” It wouldn’t be safe to leave, and it wouldn’t be safe to stay. Not when Kye could look at me like that and make my willpower dissolve like dew in the sun.

  “Never safe to leave, or to stay?” they asked, as if they knew my thoughts.

  My chest tensed. “You’re dangerous, Kye Emris.”

  “So are you.” They shifted forward and I shifted in turn, but my back reached the wall. Kye braced both forearms against the carved stone, so close I imagined their dark ink running along my skin. “I know your secrets, Neyva Morningspell.” It was lower than a whisper, making the hairs on the back of my neck rise, and filled with a challenge that caught my breath.

  The game was over, but I didn’t know which one of us had won. Maybe we’d both lost.

  “What are you going to do about them?” I asked.

  “What should I do about them?”

  My throat constricted. “Forget. Let me walk away, and forget. Both of us.”

  “I don’t want to forget.”

  I didn’t, either. The thought of it hurt, a physical ache in my chest. A kind of ache I’d never felt before and didn’t know what to do about. “You’re my weakness, Kye, and I’m yours. People like us can’t have weaknesses.”

  A weakness would get us both killed. My sisters would sniff mine out and use it, one way or another. Kye knew it; it was written across their face. “Stay,” they said again. “Stay tonight, and let me make sure you get to the edge of the forest alright in the morning.”

  I pressed my lips together and stopped my joints from trembling. “And what do you propose we do tonight if I did?”

  Those honey eyes raked down me and back up, sending a shiver of anticipation along my spine. “Whatever we want.”

  It was a terrible idea, to court that fantasy. I needed to get out, for everybody’s sakes. I didn’t know what possible future I’d have if I let Kye melt my resolve. I didn’t know what possible future I’d have if I left. Maybe the lightning that crackled between us would mean nothing in the long run. Maybe I would retreat to my world and they to theirs and our paths would never cross again.

  Maybe those eyes would haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Every point we touched was a tiny flame, and it spread from my skin to my bones, blazing through my belly and my chest and my veins. My fingers itched to brush away those stubborn strands of hair.

  I settled for tracing the smooth line of their collarbone, and my heart sped again at the fine shudder it brought. “Where did you get that scar?” I whispered.

  “Just another of my misadventures.”

  “Which one?”

  “I’ll tell you about my scars if you tell me about yours.”

  “None of my scars are on my skin.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  We knew more about each other’s scars than we should have. A fatal amount. Letting Kye see any more of who I was, what I’d done, was a bad, bad idea. Yet the offer didn’t scare me.

  I licked my dry lips and edged closer. Our noses brushed. “They’re dark and bloody.”

  “Most are.”

  “Kye.” It took a breath to get the words out, but they needed to be said. “I don’t know what you did to me, but I feel when I’m with you. Really feel, not just pretend to, not just play the part I’m supposed to. It’s like I’m awake. And I’d rather live without that and know you’re out there somewhere than…than have you and lose you. You’re not safe with me.”

  They ran their hand along the length of my arm, twining our fingers together. “I can decide what’s safe for myself,” they said.

  I pulled my gaze from our hands to Kye’s face, and they looked up to me, too. So close. We shared breath, I would hardly have to move to kiss them. I murmured, “
You’re going to get yourself killed thinking that.”

  Closer. “Then I get myself killed.”

  I thought my heart might give out. My breath was stuck in my throat. I couldn’t speak, and I didn’t know what I’d say if I could. I edged forward despite my brain screaming not to. Kye’s lips burned, no hesitance, no testing of what was to come. Just…sure. My fingers twisted through silken hair and the velvet of those golden feathers at the nape of their neck, and the pleased moan under their breath echoed to the pit of my stomach.

  The cold wind stirred through the mouth of the tunnels and I shivered. Kye tugged me closer, but I stepped back. Pulled them with me, away from the cold. They broke the kiss to search my face, something warring in their eyes as much as it was warring in me.

  “I don’t know what I did to you, either, and I don’t know what you did to me,” they said. “But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering.”

  I traced the line of their jaw and confessed, “I think you killed Neyva Morningspell.”

  “Who are you now, then?”

  “Help me find out.”

  A smile flickered across Kye’s lips before they kissed me again. “Happily.”

  One night, I vowed. One night of this, and then I’d have to ruin it.

  Just one night.

  Twenty-Four

  “It’s almost dawn,” Kye murmured against my hair.

  I didn’t want to open my eyes and let reality crash down on me. “How do you know?”

  “I spent enough time training myself to wake up at dawn before I could be caught sleeping in.”

  A twinge went through my chest and I tightened my arm around them, nestling closer. Laying like this, I could feel their heartbeat, their breath, and I wanted nothing more than to stay here. But it was dawn. My one night was over.

  Better, I told myself for the thousandth time.

  It was difficult to believe that when I was warm and safe in Kye’s arms instead of out there in the wild on my own again. Idris was right; the best way to get through this was to kill my sisters before they could kill me. They would find me wherever I ran, wherever I hid. But Kye and the others didn’t need to be a part of it. They didn’t need to sacrifice themselves.