Winter Glass

by Lexa Hillyer

  “Those hands could learn to hold a poleax in the name of Deluce.”

  He is silent for a moment. “Do you want to know why I got into this way of life, Highness? It is a faith.” He stops and she pauses beside him, surprised. “You see,” he explains, “to me, a fresh-blown pane of forest glass is like a new morning. A brief commitment to the possibility of wholeness.”

  “And do you not see that possibility of wholeness for our kingdom, Viscount?” He doesn’t respond, so she goes on. “Deluce is divided. This is not a matter of argument. The question is whether we have a shared faith in uniting once again, in defending ourselves from a much greater foe than that of our differences.”

  “Differences?” There’s a hint of amusement in Olivier’s voice. “Is that what you call them?”

  Isbe feels cold creep along her skin despite the heat of the glasshouse. “What do you mean?”

  “You must know of your reputation. Many Delucians do not support your rule. They call you the Bastard Queen, or sometimes, the Imposter.”

  Isbe tries not to flinch. Of course she knows these things, but hearing the words still hurts. “And is that what you think too?”

  “It is not my opinion that matters, but the opinion of the peasantry. They are the majority, after all.”

  “So they are, and that is why I need them to fight for Deluce. Whether they support me or not, they must understand that their safety and their way of life are at stake.”

  “You use words well, Highness. I am impressed.”

  “Does this mean you agree to help me?”

  He pauses, as if thinking. “Perhaps I might spare a few men to your cause.”

  Her chest flutters in triumph. “Our cause,” she corrects.

  “Indeed.” He takes her hand to shake it. But as she begins to pull away, he clings to her. “Highness.” Suddenly his voice sounds insistent. Alarm rings through her. “If I may . . . I would love to behold the glass slipper. I’ve heard tell of its incredible durability, and I would like to see it for myself.”

  She starts to resist. The glass slipper isn’t just the last relic of her mother. It has also become a symbol of her campaign—it is special, unusual, and unbreakable. In every town she visits, it seems that everyone, whether they support Isabelle or not, has heard about it. In her speeches, she holds up the slipper and talks about how it belonged to her mother. How she never knew her mother. How her mother was a peasant, just like them. The slipper has become, in a way, a symbol of Isabelle’s humanity. A reason the people should trust her.

  But then she thinks of William. Everything in her life has come down to numbers: How many more troops can she send his way before the week is out? One hundred? Even three hundred?

  “Fine,” she says. “You may take a look.” Her heart stutters as she removes the slipper from its velvet case and holds it out toward the viscount, noting the softness of his hands—delicate.

  One night so mild. The lullaby from her mother dreams sings quietly at the back of her mind.

  “So this is the famous item with which you have wooed so many a gullible Delucian peasant. I wonder, though. Can it really be unbreakable?” he whispers.

  “No amount of pressure seems to shatter it.” She shifts uncomfortably.

  “The clarity is remarkable, as well,” Olivier observes, almost to himself. “It reminds me of something. An old, old tale. Of the Hart Slayer, and his glass arrows.”

  The Hart Slayer. The name stirs a dim memory—she’s heard the epic poem before, but doesn’t recall anything about him having arrows made of glass. All she knows is that he was supposedly a talented hunter, famous for crossing King Henri by picking off harts in the royal forest, even though the king had made it illegal for anyone to hunt them other than himself. If Aurora were here, she’d surely know about it.

  Isabelle is about to ask Olivier more when Byrne clambers over to them, along with a stranger who smells of dust and saddle.

  “Tell them what you told me,” Byrne demands.

  “Many wounded,” the man says, breathless. He must be a messenger. “In La Faim. Troops forced to retreat.”

  Isbe’s heart catches in her throat. “William. Is the prince all right? What has happened to the prince?” Sometimes she forgets to call him “king”—her king.

  “He lives, Highness. But La Faim is the greatest loss we’ve seen so far. Too many fallen to count—”

  He continues talking, but Isbe’s ears have begun to burn with panic. “I have to see him,” she says. “Take me to William.”

  “That would not be advised at this—”

  “Or I will find my way there myself!” she says, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “Your Highness,” the viscount chimes in. He takes her hand and places the slipper back into her palm. “Before you go, I must tell you something.” His voice drops into a whisper only she can hear. “This isn’t made of forest glass at all. If I’m not mistaken, it is made of winter glass.”

  Her hands shake as she slides the slipper back into its bag and fastens it safely to her belt again. “And what is winter glass?” she snaps impatiently. William could be injured. What would this whole trip to Verrière matter then? What do more troops matter if they lose their commander? What does anything matter if she loses him?

  But Viscount Olivier seems immune to her urgency. “A misnomer,” he answers slowly. She pauses at his curious tone of voice. “Winter glass isn’t glass at all,” he explains. “It’s ice.”

  15

  Aurora

  Aurora’s blood races through her veins as one of her masked trainers takes her out into the fields. She wonders what her next challenge will be, and shakes with the horror of how much she wants it. Anticipation makes her jaw tense, her teeth tingle. She has already completed a number of challenges, like causing streams to freeze, trees to die at the root, birds to fall midflight from the sky—all by wishing it, by feeling the desire for death move through her and out.

  “This will be the true test of how far you’ve come,” her trainer says, dragging her by a leash across the misted, sloping meadows. “Prepare yourself.”

  His warning rings low in her ears, and she wonders at it. It’s unlike the Vultures to caution her. There’s something almost protective in this one’s voice—almost, almost familiar—but when she scans his masked face, his eyes are dark and impenetrable.

  At this altitude, the sun sets late—a slow, smeared fall. He pushes her into a copse of trees, the grass dappled in black splashes of shadow like a wildcat’s back. Miniature mushrooms and tiny flowers sprout everywhere in the grass, giving her the impression of a quaint picnic scene. He hands her a long sword.

  She turns as he leaves her there, watching him retreat, bright lit with the shimmering-rust sun. She has the immediate impulse to run. But surely she’d be caught, or else he wouldn’t have left her.

  She clutches the sword’s hilt. Or maybe he knows. Maybe he knows she will not run. She is tethered here. Not by her magic, but by the cage of her own need: to kill Malfleur.

  Then she hears something strange. She swivels back toward the trees, suddenly alert. She scans the shadows and light. Sniffling. A feeble cry. She pushes past the undergrowth, thwacking it back with her sword, and sees . . .

  “Wren.”

  She is tied to one of the trees. Whimpering softly.

  No. Aurora’s stomach falls, and she nearly sways. No. Not Wren.

  But it is Wren—the tumult of black hair, the trembling chin, the big eyes. The stubborn mouth that Aurora wants, even now, to touch. Pinned and afraid, Wren still somehow exudes pride. Her throat catches a chance of sunlight.

  The birds continue their ironic chatter, their song pricking Aurora’s mind like tinny darts.

  The true test.

  She is supposed to kill Wren.

  Prepare yourself.

  No. She won’t do it. She will free her, and they will both run, and—

  “Aurora,” Wren whispers. She is not looking at the lon
g sword in Aurora’s hand, but at her face, and Aurora suddenly wonders what she must look like—with some of her hair pulled out at the side, and claw marks along her cheek and neck and collarbone. Her lip still swollen, one eye still likely black-and-blue with an old bruise. Wren’s look of horror says it all. “Don’t do this,” she says, and Aurora hears it—the fear, not just of Malfleur, or of the situation, but of her.

  The birdsong above and around them grows wild, becomes a chaotic crying. In the periphery of her vision, Aurora catches movement. She turns, her body at the ready. Squints through the trees. Across the clearing, there is a spot of darkness, a tiny spark in the distance . . . coming toward them at full speed.

  It takes a moment for her to make out what it is—low to the ground and gray as a thundercloud. A wolf. Snarling, with spittle flying from the sides of its mouth. Now she understands: it is her or Wren. Even if she freed the girl, the wolf would come for them, and Aurora would not be able to defend them both.

  Her mind seems stuck for a moment as she stares at the wild animal getting closer and closer. She remembers the wolf in Sommeil and wonders if somehow Malfleur has conjured up her fears—or Belcoeur’s fears.

  But it doesn’t matter. The wolf is coming and there’s no time and the birds are now cawing frantically and fluttering about in the branches, and Wren is weeping and begging.

  Aurora looks at her again as though through warbled glass. She remembers that she might love her, but only dimly, the feeling like a blade that’s too blunt to cut.

  “I have no choice,” she hears herself saying.

  Wren shakes her head, writhing violently against her bindings. “Yes, you do, Aurora. You do have a choice. You can—” Fear seems to halt her voice, and she hazards a glance at the wolf, now not more than a few hundred yards away. “You can stop this. This is not who you are.”

  Aurora is moving slowly—too slow. Still uncertain. She can feel the dark magic leaping in her veins. She steps toward Wren, the sword slippery in her hot hand. She kneels and begins to cut one of Wren’s hands loose. Wren lets out a sob. She shakes her arm free and reaches out to touch Aurora’s cheek, singeing her with her fingertips.

  Aurora lurches back, almost falling. The touch . . . any touch, but especially this. She can’t take the intensity of it. It makes Aurora want to burn. It’s too sudden and too much, unleashing a tornado of twisting emotions she can’t possibly contain. She is terrified, suddenly—afraid of herself, of what she can do and even what she wants to do and yet doesn’t want to do. She is warring with herself on the inside and doesn’t know which side will win, and Wren’s crying and the birds’ cawing are making her unable to think. She gasps for air, tries to focus, but she’s flooded by her senses and overwhelmed and needs it to stop.

  The wolf is coming closer.

  Wren is still caught, half bound to the tree, struggling with her free hand to undo the knots around her other arm.

  Prepare yourself.

  Wren is going to escape.

  Aurora is going to fail the test. The true test.

  No.

  Aurora pulls out the sword and feels that horrible, feverish need for death surge up in her. She is hot—burning alive—and flying forward. Metal cuts the air.

  Her blade slashes the girl’s chest—striking stone.

  Aurora stares, uncomprehending, at Wren’s torn dress. There is stone, actual stone, where her breastbone should be. She looks at Wren’s horrified eyes with wonder and confusion. She feels numb.

  The wolf is close enough now that she can see the sharpness of its fangs. It is about to lunge. Without thinking, Aurora chops away the ropes that bind Wren’s second wrist, then grabs her. Wren is trembling, as though about to break in her hands. Aurora holds her tight, brings her mouth to Wren’s cheek, to her neck. Right near the spread of stone, where her throat bobs in fear, Aurora kisses her, softly, with hunger. Then she whispers, “Run.”

  Aurora spins, throws the sword—not at the wolf, but instead at the tree.

  She cannot kill anymore.

  All her anger and confusion fly with the sword into the tree itself. She feels the magic flood through her again, making her vision burn black.

  All the chirping birds go silent . . . and fall from the branches onto the grass in synchronized thumps. Dead.

  Aurora collapses to her knees, suddenly weak from the surge of power. She glances up to see the branches, now empty. Then out in the fields, where Wren is racing away—a blur. Then, at the wolf, who has torn through the underbrush into the copse and is ravaging one of the birds.

  Aurora breathes heavily. She has inadvertently saved herself. And Wren. Maybe. Nearly.

  The wolf is occupied with the feast of fallen flesh—hasn’t yet noticed, or smelled, Aurora.

  She wants to heave into the grass. She takes in a slow breath instead and rakes her hands through the grass, finding a cluster of flowers and mushrooms. Some kinds can heal, some can nourish, and others can kill. Wren had said it both of fungi and forms of love.

  Wren, who is now gone, who must now hate her even more than she did before. Wren, whom she has both saved and lost.

  Carefully, without making a sound, she plucks a handful of the mushrooms and stuffs them into a pocket. Then slowly—ever so slowly, so as not to draw the animal’s attention—Aurora steps backward and away.

  Farther and farther, carefully, quietly, with precision, until the wolf is once again a spark—a shifting darkness between the trees, still devouring the bounty of feathered treats. Dusk is coming on.

  Aurora begins to breathe.

  And then there are hands around her arms.

  She turns to face her trainer. Stares at his black mask, at his expectant eyes. And that’s when she knows what she has truly done—or almost done.

  She would have killed Wren. The girl she is fighting for in the first place. The girl she might have loved—still loves. If love is even possible anymore, and not a decaying, rotten thing in her chest, dead as one of those swallows. She struck Wren . . . with the intention to do harm.

  Everything that has just happened finally hits her. Sobs wrack her body. She leans in to her trainer’s strength, holding on to his cape and armored chest to keep herself from crumbling to the ground. What has she become?

  She would have killed Wren. Would have, had it not been for the strange enchantment of stone on her flesh—a mystery Aurora can’t explain to herself. Did she create the stone with her own magic? But it has never worked like that before—her magic has always sought to destroy, not to protect.

  She would have killed Wren, but she did not. Instead, she helped Wren escape. Yes, Wren has run free.

  But Aurora has lost herself.

  The true test.

  The trainer, Vulture, leans toward her, and his voice whispers down at her from within the mask. “All is not lost.”

  Fear and hate shudder through her.

  “You feel remorse,” he says, “which means you are not gone.” No Vulture has ever broken from his stoicism.

  She looks up into his eyes and gasps.

  She could swear she knows him.

  But he blinks, and the impression is gone.

  16

  Wren,

  Formerly a Maiden of Sommeil,

  Indentured to the Mad Queen Belcoeur

  She cannot help the others until she helps herself. She cannot help them if she is dead. That is the mantra Wren repeats in her mind as she flies from the mountains and across dew-stung forests, ravaged by the cold winds and aware only that she cannot allow heartbreak to catch up to her.

  She saw what Aurora has become, and though she didn’t understand it exactly, she sensed something terrible—something inhuman—had happened to her. It sickened and scared Wren beyond anything—even beyond the burning of Sommeil, her home, her world. In another life, she might have wanted Aurora to be her home, but in this life, she sees now, the barriers are greater than status, greater than shame, greater than the curse of a jealous faerie. A
dark magic has come between them.

  And it doesn’t matter anyway, because whether Aurora had succeeded with her sword or not, Wren was going to die. Wren is dying. She has been turning to stone, gradually but certainly. It began at her ankle and spread up along one calf. Then sprouted behind an ear, traveling downward toward her chest. Soon it will be evident where others can see it: on her face, and hands. And then in her heart and lungs, stopping their beat and breath.

  That is the secret Aurora could not know. That Wren is cursed too. But Aurora undid her curse—she woke up. And Wren has tried so hard over these past weeks to salvage hope for herself too. Maybe there’s some way to undo it.

  But she’s running out of time.

  She was very little when her aunt first told her of the stone curse. Wren recalls sitting on the floor before a warm hearth, smoke curling up beside them as she learned the tale of the curse that had supposedly been passed down in her family from generation to generation, but had never been tested or proven. It seemed more like myth to her then—a mere bedtime story meant to reassure her of her rightful place in Sommeil. It was said that her great-great-great-aunt Oshannah was Queen Belcoeur’s favorite handmaiden; she went with her everywhere, and for a time, was even granted access in and out of Sommeil when the world was first created. Belcoeur doted on Oshannah, like a sister or daughter—a companion in her desperate loneliness—and soon, Oshannah longed for freedom. The weight of Belcoeur’s need was too much.

  The queen relied on Oshannah for everything. And that was why she finally placed the faerie curse on her—not out of anger but out of love. The curse said that Wren’s great-great-great-aunt would never be able to leave her side—would never be able to leave Sommeil. That if Oshannah ever tried to fly away from the queen, ever tried to sever her blood from her home, she’d turn to stone.