Winter Glass

by Lexa Hillyer

  If she has power she never had before, she must use it.

  And this isn’t just an attack. This is vengeance. Shortly after she and Gilbert fled Blackthorn, Malfleur’s forces began to march, trailing them like a dark tide. Now Aurora has brought the danger back to Deluce’s palace, and everyone must prepare for siege.

  Someone grabs her arm. She swings around, hoping to come face-to-face with Isbe, who has been missing from the palace for some time. According to William, she has gone north to try and secure support from the Ice King. But it’s not her sister. It’s one of the soldiers, his thick beard crusted with spit and sweat.

  “Inta the keep for ya. You ’eard the general!”

  Aurora cries out—or tries to, silently. She yanks her arm out of the man’s grip and runs, shoving into several other people.

  Never mind finding the prince. She dashes past a cart full of unclaimed armor and manages to pull a breastplate and helmet from the stack. She doesn’t slow down to think long about where this armor came from—it is not fresh. It was, perhaps, worn by another soldier, now dead.

  Hastily, she stows away into her rooms to prepare—tucking her hair beneath the helmet and adding padding beneath the armor to better secure it, testing to make sure she can still move with ease.

  A horn sounds from somewhere beyond the wall, and then another. Fear trills through her—and something else, something she doesn’t want to name. She thinks of Malfleur, wiping blood from her mouth.

  She grabs a sword.

  Then she heaves a deep breath, swings open her door, and takes the stairs two at a time, flying downward in a swirl of angry metal and the burning need for action. This is the effect of Malfleur’s dark magic still in her veins, she knows. She cannot help but need to move, to do something. Her blood is like a fire ravaging a field of dry weeds.

  But before she reaches the next landing, a hooded figure slips from the shadows and reaches out to grip Aurora’s wrist, startling her into losing her balance. The sword slips from her hand. The intruder quickly and expertly twists Aurora’s arm, causing her to stumble to her knees. In the unlit stairwell she cannot see the person’s face—a teen, not much older than her, judging by the figure’s build, and he moves awkwardly, as though inexperienced in a fight. Whoever her attacker is, he has underestimated the princess’s strength.

  Anger laced with magic surges up in her blood, and Aurora manages to flip her opponent onto his stomach on the stairs. The figure pushes upward and back, bucking her off, and Aurora grabs one of his legs so that he cannot kick, then stiffens her other hand to swing at his neck. But he rears his covered head, causing both of them to lose their balance on the stairs and tumble, over and over each other, down to the next landing. Aurora fumbles for the extra blade hidden in her boot, but the figure—not very heavy at all, perhaps only a child?—is lying on top of her. She can feel his weight, feel bruises forming from the fall.

  As she wriggles free, she yanks the hood off the figure.

  Not a child. A woman.

  Wren.

  Aurora gasps, scrambling backward to the wall. “No,” she murmurs. Then, realizing her voice is back, it comes more confidently. “No, Wren. I won’t fight with you. Not again. I can’t.”

  She sees now that Wren is heaving ragged breaths. Their tussle wore her out, and in the darkness, Aurora thinks she can see how flushed Wren’s cheeks are from the exertion.

  Her pulse leaps, no longer roused to defend herself but because of Wren’s nearness, the heat of her body where it clashed with hers. She can feel everything now. The pain in her back and knees. The tension in her shoulders, the twisting apprehension in her gut. The prickling along her skin. Wren’s eyes look shocked and scared, but suddenly a smile tears across her face, in a flash of white teeth. “I’m not here to fight with you. I’m here to stop you from fighting.”

  “What?” Excitement, relief, and confusion battle for space in Aurora’s head. “Why?”

  “The kingdom needs you, Princess.”

  Aurora huffs. “Deluce needs every bit of muscle and blade it can get.”

  She doesn’t know what Wren is doing here, how she made it back, or why the change of heart. She longs to reconnect with her, and even seeing her has caused some of that sinister magic pulsing within her to subside, and soften. But as the clamor outside only grows, Aurora’s more certain than ever that she is needed, not here with Wren, but out there, where flaming arrows have begun to breech the parapets, where the foot soldiers have gathered behind the drawbridge, at the ready.

  She stands up and attempts to push past Wren.

  But Wren places her hands on Aurora’s shoulders to stop her.

  “You can’t keep me from helping.”

  “Yes, I can,” she says, with that quiet confidence Aurora has always found unnerving—and thrilling.

  “I’m stronger than you are.” The statement comes out like a dare. The return of her voice has gone to her head, and quickly.

  “That may be so, but I know something you don’t know. You may be the only person who can stop Malfleur.”

  Aurora stares at her, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”

  Wren swallows, and for the first time since accosting her in the stairwell, looks nervous. “I believe . . . I believe it is very possible that Queen Amélie was the Hart Slayer, and I have discovered that the Hart Slayer was a descendant of Belcoeur. If these things are true, it would mean that you are now the last living descendant of Belcoeur. As such, it must be your hand that deals the fatal blow to Malfleur. We have to protect you for that act, and that act alone. And besides . . .” She hesitates. “There are others who would see you dead before then. You must be careful.”

  “But . . .” Aurora squints at her, trying to take in this information. A shaft of light from a high window on the landing cuts across Wren’s face, and Aurora can see the urgency written there. “But I already tried to kill her. I failed.”

  “I have a lot to tell you,” Wren says simply.

  “Does this mean . . .” Aurora’s voice catches in her throat, and she struggles for a moment to speak. “Does this mean that you forgive me?”

  Wren looks at her silently for a moment, studies her. Aurora feels pinned to the spot by Wren’s dark eyes, which seem suddenly like portals into a dream Aurora can never know. For the first time in a long time, Aurora is afraid. Afraid that Wren cannot love her—not after all that she has done. How she tried to kill Wren, allowing the evil that had been gathering within her to take over, all in the desire to win, to hurt, to conquer. How she has failed her in almost every way.

  Finally Wren lets out a breath and looks away, shaking her head. “I can’t blame you for what you could not help.”

  It is not the outpouring of forgiveness Aurora had hoped for; nor is it the fear and hatred she might have expected. Aurora nods. “Tell me everything. I will listen.”

  She brings Wren back to her room, and as they settle onto her bed—not like old friends, exactly, but like how she imagines two soldiers must feel after they’ve fought side by side—she feels a zing of shock at how different this is from the last time the girl came to her room, stormy and cold, blaming her for the fall of Sommeil. Perhaps rightly.

  Wren is usually right. That is one of the things Aurora has, in just a short time, grown to love about her. The word “love,” just the thought of the word, sends warmth radiating through her.

  But when Wren has finished her story, Aurora swallows hard, her joy at reconnecting suddenly plunged into ice water. “The curse . . . the stone . . .”

  Wren nods. “Yes. It is you. It must be. You’re the descendant of Belcoeur. You’re the reason I’m dying.”

  Aurora gasps, still unwilling to believe it. “No. You can’t be dying. We’ve only just been reunited.”

  Suddenly she wants—needs—to touch her. To feel the stone, to understand. To feel the life behind and within it. Could she really be the cause of such a curse? It’s too terrible to comprehend—the idea of Wre
n’s life ending when it feels like everything is only just at the point of beginning.

  There is so much still to share with Wren—so many stories, so many memories. She wants to tell it all with her mouth and her breath and when those are tired and wasted, she will tell it with her skin against Wren’s.

  But they may be out of time.

  So instead, Aurora simply takes Wren’s hand. There is a whole world between her palm and Wren’s, she realizes—a world that feels bigger, full of more promise, than the real world and Sommeil put together.

  She looks into Wren’s eyes. “Let me fight, then. I can give my life to save yours.” The words grate against her throat and she swallows hard, blinking down a sudden rise of emotion.

  Wren lets go of her hand—a whoosh of coldness—mended, then, when her hand moves instead to Aurora’s cheek. Aurora could swear she feels a flush of the dark magic given to her by Malfleur seeping out of her at that touch. Wren’s breathing has become louder, labored, and Aurora suddenly wonders if it is because the stone has, already, begun to take over her lungs. Her lips are parted, just slightly. “Aurora,” she whispers.

  And though there is so much to say and everything feels impossible, and though the castle is even now being bombarded from the outside, vibrations loudly thrumming through the walls, Aurora can think of nothing beyond this moment, beyond Wren’s eyes, the seriousness in them, and something else too—something that matches what Aurora is feeling.

  She meets Wren’s lips with her own, sucks in a breath at the sudden rise of heat and pressure as Wren moves up against her, kissing her back. Aurora’s hands become lost in Wren’s hair, as though her hands are themselves two lovers running off into the woods.

  When they pull apart, Wren carefully removes Aurora’s armor, and Aurora shivers. An explosion ricochets outside the tower walls, and she feels it echo within her as Wren touches her bare skin. All the stories until now have failed her. She doesn’t know what love is, or whether it is possible that it is anything other than the aching combination of touch and loss—but for the first time, she’s convinced that she doesn’t have to understand it.

  They lie tangled together, the moment melting and seeping into a blur of moments, all of them urgent, until Aurora sits up with a rush of knowing.

  She recalls the glass fox Malfleur commanded her to break. It was impossible—but why did Malfleur want to break it, and why couldn’t she? Aurora had been so focused on her need to kill the evil queen that she hadn’t thought much about it. But now the memory makes her think of the Hart Slayer, who was said to have possessed magical glass objects. Arrowheads, if she’s not mistaken.

  “What is it?” Wren murmurs. There are tears at the corners of her eyes. Outside, the battle has still only just begun. It feels as though hours have passed when it can only have been minutes.

  “The Hart Slayer may have been a woman, but she was not my mother,” Aurora says. “I know it. Queen Amélie was many things, but she was not brave.” An image comes back to her, of the queen in her dying days, lying in her bed, so cold and remote—how she failed to be everything Aurora hoped she’d be. “She had a weak constitution,” Aurora says, “and preferred never to be outdoors.”

  Aurora knows the myth of the Hart Slayer. And by now she’s heard too of the rumors of Isabelle’s glass slipper.

  “No, it was not my mother who was the Hart Slayer,” Aurora repeats with more confidence. She begins to dress herself, putting her armor back on, knowing there is much to be done before they can consider giving up. “I’m not the descendant Deluce needs.” Wren blinks at her in confusion, but for once, Aurora feels the strange kind of calm that comes with certainty. “But I think I know who is.”

  27

  Gilbert

  The castle yards are a swamp of mud that clings to the boots and weighs down soldiers already burdened under layers of steel and chain mail.

  There is no need for cavalry, not in such close quarters. Malfleur’s men have arrived at the walls, as Gilbert knew they would, on foot. As they thundered ever closer, archers have been picking apart their numbers. A wagon of supplies caught fire and spread among the opposition, stalling a large portion of the troops while the Delucian side scrambled to position and light the cannons. But the Vultures are fast. Even now, a faction have scaled the southernmost wall, and the sounds of high-pitched screaming, of metal meeting metal and flesh splitting, have grown only louder as the skirmish spreads.

  Gilbert follows a small cohort in the direction of the breech, Prince William’s battle cry ringing in his ears. We do not go down without a fight. The castle village is a maze of people running ammunition and supplies in zigzags, dodging flaming arrows, and sliding in the thick mud. This is not a war of men, but a war of minds. Already, aid workers are dragging the injured to safety, while fresh fighters launch out to meet their fate at the wall.

  And Gilbert is one of these.

  We fight not just for our land and our homes but for the freedom of our hearts and the liberty of our children.

  The ground rattles with the release of another cannon—the blast resounding in Gilbert’s ears, a black cloud of powder choking him, trapped and lingering in the humid air.

  We fight because we believe in something better than this. Because the essence of good is to resist evil, or to die, over and over and over again, in the trying.

  Gilbert coughs and stutters in the smoke and rain, wiping a smear of sweat from his eyes, trying to pick clear a path toward the violence. A wailing woman crashes into him, falling backward into the rain-soaked grass beside the forge. He helps her up and keeps running.

  We die so that we may live.

  He continues to dodge the onslaught of people moving in conflicting directions—those fleeing to safety, those flying toward the many-limbed mass of fighters on the ground, those racing to help support the men behind the barricades, the rain blurring all of it together. The palace has changed: there are more carts of weapons than trunks of silk, more soldiers than entertainers, no feast tables to crawl beneath but stores of precious rations stacked high inside the keep alongside a frantic gaggle of women and children.

  Order governs among the trained soldiers, but only for a time. Untrained fighters join the fray, and everything becomes a weapon. Gilbert watches in mute horror as a red-faced baker, with a rolling pin in hand, races at a Vulture who has breached the wall. As the man swings, the Vulture—nearly a foot taller and, in his black mask, like the image of some unearthly demon—parries easily and, without a blink, takes off the baker’s head with his broadsword. Blood sprays in all directions, like a firework.

  Now that Gilbert is closer, he can see that part of the outer wall has actually crumbled and more Vultures are flowing over it like black tar. But before he can ponder the disaster, he is in it—bodies bashing into him, friend and foe alike. Shield lifted, he pushes through the combat to find a stance, easily taking down a Vulture with a kick to the knee and driving his blade at an angle just above the boot. One advantage to having been a Vulture is knowing all the strengths and weaknesses of their armor.

  He swings backward into another Vulture and delivers an elbow to the neck, vulnerable just at the base of the mask, then uses his left-handed dagger to stab the man in the shoulder. A wasted move, as the soldier grimaces but launches himself on top of Gilbert.

  Gil fights back, dirty, with his bare hands, which has always been his preferred style. He finds his way on top of the Vulture and rips off the man’s mask. His startled face splatters with fresh pellets of rain as Gil’s fist meets cheekbone, nose, the bloody mass that was once an eye—over and over, hunched and sweating and drenched, deaf to the noise and movement around him, blind to everything but disgust at what he once was, and sees now in this man. A puppet. A mask. A soulless vessel for anger, for revenge.

  He strikes the man for every time he delighted in Aurora’s imprisonment. He strikes him again for every time he coveted the praise of Malfleur. And then, though the man has stopped breat
hing, he pulls the knife from the man’s shoulder, with effort, and plunges it straight into the heart. That time was just for him, for the pain of everything he cannot even think, let alone say. For everything he has lost—and for everything he has not lost.

  This is not his first kill. But it’s his first as Gilbert, not a Vulture. And it leaves him aching all over, his ears ringing.

  Someone grabs him by the arm and rips him off the dead, blood-soaked Vulture.

  He turns, sword at the ready, full of righteous self-defense, only to realize that the person who lifted him up is none other than the prince of Aubin.

  Defiance courses in Gil’s veins, and all the hairs on his neck rise. This is the man who won Isbe’s hand. Didn’t he just lose the battle in La Faim? Didn’t his cannon design backfire? If Deluce falls to Malfleur, it is Prince William who will be to blame, at least in the eyes of history.

  But William is still holding him by the collar, and when their eyes meet, Gil sees something desperate and burning in them. William looks every bit the prince, with his impressive height and build, the proud cheekbones and thrust jaw, the gleaming dark skin and even blacker eyes. What is he doing here, on the ground? The prince should be keeping watch, somewhere safe. That is what royalty do, while it is the common folk who give all they have—their own bodies, their own sweat—to the fight. And a foreign prince, at that. He could be sitting on a cushy throne in Aubin if he wanted, far from the violence—but he is here, in the castle village, helping to stave off the most brutal and deadly attack in decades.

  He is here to defend Deluce.

  They both are.

  Just then, another Vulture lunges at William from behind.

  From the widening fear in Gil’s eyes, William must sense the soldier’s approach. He turns just in time, but the Vulture has slashed at the backs of his legs, and midspin, William falls to the mud.

  Without thinking, Gil leaps over the prince in defense, staving off the Vulture’s next blow while William gets to his knees.