Of Ice and Shadows

by Audrey Coulthurst

  The queen chuckled. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises.”

  The stunned expressions on every other face at the table seemed to agree.

  “Lia,” Ikrie said, sounding tortured, “is there anything you need from Corovja?”

  “What?” Aela said indignantly. “You’re going to cooperate with her?”

  “Ice,” I said. “Sell it to me at half price and I’ll waive my markup on livestock for you.”

  “All right,” Ikrie said, agreeing in spite of the anger flashing in her eyes.

  I wanted to laugh. She hadn’t even tried to negotiate—she should have. I would have been willing to take a much smaller discount, but now what I’d make reselling the ice blocks at full price more than made up for the discount I was offering her.

  “But I need ice,” Tristan cut in.

  “I know you do.” I smiled. “And I’ll be glad to sell it to you at full price.”

  Tristan groaned, then laughed. “You’re evil,” he said, but I knew it was a compliment.

  By the end of the meal, Valenko was the year’s winter trade hub, and my fictional coffers were overflowing. Aela was the only holdout, and Orzai got none of the things it needed. Ikrie suffered almost as much, her only benefits coming from the deal she’d cut with me. But without the ability to sell ice at full price, her coffers suffered.

  “Well played, all of you,” the queen said, standing up after the last course was served. “You’re dismissed, and I hope you’ll reflect on the lessons you’ve learned tonight about what it takes to protect your region and obtain what it needs. We’ll play again with different assignments. Perhaps next time I will assign Lia the crown city as the winner and see how she uses that to her advantage.”

  Ikrie’s face was pinched with anger, and Aela shoved away from the table with disgust. We all curtsied and bowed our polite farewells to the queen, including Brynan and Saia, who left murmuring in hushed tones.

  “Lia, please stay back a moment,” the queen said before I could get more than a few paces away from the table.

  I stopped and turned back to face her, feeling a little jolt of nervousness.

  “Let’s retreat to my study,” she said, once more leading the way to the hidden room that had housed the harp.

  Somehow, tea service was already waiting for us when we arrived. I expected a servant to appear and serve the queen, but instead she prepared both our cups herself, pouring the hot water over the infusers with only a tiny tremble in her hands. The aromas of cinnamon and cardamom wafted over us.

  “What can I do for you, Your Majesty?” I asked. The longer I waited to find out, the more I worried it was going to be something I wouldn’t like.

  “I usually make a habit of spending some extra time with the top student in each group of elites,” the queen said.

  “But I’m not the top student.” I was confused. Yes, I’d done well in the diplomacy game, but I was far from the best in the training room. I could barely shield myself, much less use any offensive magic, which was all that Brynan and Saia seemed to care about teaching anyway.

  “Perhaps not. But I think you are something more than that.”

  “What do you mean?” I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I bobbed my tea infuser up and down a few times in my cup.

  “You have a very strong gift that you don’t use to its full extent,” she said. “You play the harp well enough that I’ve had to scold half a dozen servants for dallying in the hall outside your room at night.”

  My mouth went completely dry.

  “You just won a very difficult diplomacy game playing arguably one of the most challenging hands to be dealt.” She took her time pulling the tea infusers out of both our cups while panic climbed its way into my throat.

  “It must have been beginner’s luck,” I said, cradling my hands around my warm teacup.

  The queen smiled. “Modesty doesn’t always become you, Lia. Or shall I say . . . Your Highness?”

  Magic and terror sparked through every inch of my body, and for the next few heartbeats I was sure I was about to send the whole place up in flames. How could she know who I was? I’d been so careful not to speak of my past. Other than the harp playing, my few slipups could easily have been attributed to manners and knowledge I’d picked up as Mare’s maidservant. The queen reached across the table and laid a gentle, cool hand on mine.

  “Don’t be frightened,” she said, her voice soothing. “I’ve known who you were since the first time I saw you. Your secret will remain exactly that.”

  I swallowed hard. “Everyone thinks I’m dead.” Even though it was a statement of the obvious, here in Corovja, leagues from anyone who loved or cared about me, it rang true and deep in a way it never had before.

  “Perhaps that’s how it should remain for now.” The queen took a sip of her tea.

  “How did you know?” I sat up straighter, dropping my disguise, and immediately felt more like myself than I had in weeks.

  “Because we are of the same blood,” the queen said.

  “What?” My composure fell apart. Her statement made so little sense that I wondered if she was half-mad. I’d expected her to tell me it was because my manners were too good, or that she somehow knew I was a harpist in my old life, or that she’d seen a portrait of my family in Havemont. The Havemontian royal family had no connection to Zumorda other than through my mother. But the woman who had borne her to help out my grandparents was a commoner.

  “Hold out your hand,” the queen said, producing a small blade.

  I did as she asked, reeling with shock as I understood she intended to do something to prove her words to me.

  With a swift move, she nicked the tip of one of my fingers and squeezed a drop of blood into what I thought was a small hourglass. Then she sealed the top, flipped it over, and put a drop of her own blood into the other side. The hourglass illuminated with a soft glow, the two drops of blood suspended, one in each chamber. I was hypnotized as they defied gravity, moving toward the neck of the hourglass until they joined together at its center to make the whole thing glow bright red.

  “Before I took the throne, I had a son,” she said, her voice distant. “But in Zumorda, one cannot be a mother and a queen.”

  “What happened to him?” I asked softly.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I gave him to someone I knew in childhood—a demigod. She left Zumorda. I never thought I’d meet someone of my own bloodline, but when I heard about the star fall . . .”

  “I thought fire Affinities were common,” I said.

  “Not ones like yours.” She smiled sadly.

  “But how did you know?” I asked.

  “Your magic feels familiar to me, like an echo or a reflection of my own power,” she said. “I don’t know that I can explain it any better than that. When Laurenna sent you to me and the verium purged the last of the peaceroot, I knew right away that there was a connection between us. At first I thought it was simply our shared Affinity for fire. It took me a little longer to figure out that it was familial. My parents were killed before I took the throne. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had relatives.”

  My heart went out to her. She’d ruled longer than many people’s lifetimes and yet never had a family.

  “I miss my family,” I said. “I’m not even sure they know I’m alive.” The admission made my chest ache.

  “Perhaps you’ll see them again someday,” the queen said. “But for now I understand the usefulness of keeping your disguise. Your secret won’t leave this room.”

  I exhaled a breath of relief, and as my fears dissipated, questions flooded in to replace them. My mother had only recently told me she had Zumordan blood—did she know it was blood shared by the queen? It didn’t seem that she could know, since she said the surrogate who carried her was her mother’s maid. That implied that the queen’s son and his descendants had been raised as commoners in Havemont. And what had become of the demigod who had raised him? I hadn’t eve
n known demigods existed.

  “Are there still demigods in Zumorda?” I asked the queen.

  “No, child,” she said. “They left Zumorda when its people stopped worshipping the gods. The only people who have powers even half as strong are those with multi-Affinities, which are quite rare. In some cases, the gifts of those with multi-Affinities consume them before they can master them. Grand Vizier Zhari is the only one of my guardians who has a multi-Affinity. I was surprised that the cultist we stopped in Tilium had one, though of course his was on a much smaller scale than hers . . . or yours.”

  I nearly choked on my tea. “I thought my Affinity was for fire.”

  “There is often an element that comes most easily or appears first, but the ability to touch other kinds of magic at all is unusual. You’ve definitely used more than one kind, have you not?”

  I nodded. I knew the question was rhetorical, but the answer was also obvious. I’d often been able to use both wind and earth. It wasn’t as easy as calling on fire, but I could definitely use them to augment my fire magic, sometimes without even meaning to. And the scale of destruction was always much more vast as a result.

  “Multi-Affinities are notoriously hard to train. What works for one person won’t work for another, and most of us are used to keeping our focus narrowed to the kind of magic we possess. There are too many unknown interactions between different kinds of magic to predict the outcomes of combining them.”

  Everything made so much more sense. No wonder I’d struggled so much to keep my magic under control. No wonder half the things Brynan and Saia told me to do didn’t make sense or felt too volatile to try. But I still needed to learn. Fear crept back in. If I didn’t, my gift might consume me—the queen had said as much. But if Zhari and Sigvar were the only people with multi-Affinities the queen was aware of, that meant there was only one person in Corovja I could ask about my powers.

  “What happens when someone’s gift is stripped away? Can they still use the Sight and can you See vestiges of their magic?” I wanted to know if there was still anything useful I could get out of Sigvar—assuming I could locate him.

  The queen frowned. “Yes, the Sight remains, though it may be weaker than it was before. As for vestiges, I’ve never especially bothered to study that. I doubt they’d look the same as someone who is vakos.”

  “So someone like Sigvar, for example—he’d still be able to use his Sight but not manipulate magic on his own?” I asked tentatively.

  One side of the queen’s mouth quirked upward. “Prison doesn’t seem to be suiting him very well, so I doubt his Sight is at the forefront of his mind.”

  So, unsurprisingly, he was in prison. At least that meant I knew exactly where to find him.

  NINETEEN

  Amaranthine

  STALKING ERONIT AND VARIAN TOOK MORE EFFORT than I anticipated, though it was at least less boring than following Alek. They were elusive in public spaces. Following them to dinner got me nowhere—they often seemed to dine privately rather than attending Winter Court functions. Fortunately, the easiest place to find them was in the salle, so I made a point of timing my sessions to coincide with theirs.

  “Watch your feet!” Alek growled in disgust when Kerrick managed to trip me while I was gawking at Fadeyka and the two Sonnenbornes as they came through the door. I used the momentum to feint even farther to the left, just barely blocking the swing of Kerrick’s sword.

  Alek was right—I did need to watch my feet. Kerrick fought dirty, and I knew it. He made good use of his speed and agility to counteract what he lacked in strength and size. The muscles in my arms strained as I pushed him back, recovering just enough to get my feet back under me. I was going to hurt tomorrow, but I didn’t care. I let my concentration narrow to only my opponent and executed the defensive drill Alek was schooling us on with perfect precision. The focus was something I’d quickly come to love about sword fighting—there wasn’t time to think about anything else, especially Denna. Whenever I wasn’t in the salle, her absence tormented me through the silence of my room, the chill of my lonely bed, and the lack of wise advice and warm laughter whispered in my ear. The worst torture of all was wondering if she’d ever come back.

  “Better,” Alek said. “Do it five more times. Both of you.” Then he stalked off toward Eronit and Varian.

  The flat of Kerrick’s blade tapped me in the ribs. “Distracted much?”

  “No,” I said, and went on the offense with a quick parry.

  He barely stopped my sword in time, though the smirk didn’t vanish until I’d driven him halfway across the salle and nearly into the wall.

  “You owe me a drink for that,” he said, panting. “I’ll be at Morwen’s later if you want to come by again. Harian’s meeting me for a few.”

  “Maybe,” I said noncommittally. A drink didn’t sound bad, but first I had to make another attempt at tracking Eronit and Varian.

  I took my time leaving, wiping down a few extra sets of practice leathers until Fadeyka was done with her training as well. As usual, she noticed everything—including my odd behavior.

  “Why are you still here?” she asked, curiosity in her brown eyes.

  “Waiting for you,” I said.

  Her expression warmed, and I felt guilty. She’d undoubtedly noticed that I didn’t often seek out her company, which was because she had a tendency to attach herself to me like a burr.

  “Why’d you come in with them today?” I jerked my chin toward Eronit and Varian, who seemed to be wrapping up their session as well.

  Fadeyka shrugged, hanging her practice sword back on the wall with the others. “They had a meeting with my mother before this.”

  “What kind of meeting?” I asked, trying to sound casual. If they were talking to Laurenna, it had to be about something important.

  “Boring stuff,” Fadeyka answered. “Business licensing they need to drop off in town for their relatives later.”

  My eyes narrowed as I glanced at them again. They were chatting with Alek, who had a typically unreadable expression on his face. What kind of business licensing? I wondered if it was a cover for passing the list of magic users off to someone else. If it truly was business licensing, it might provide some insight into what larger-scale plans they might be involved in. Varian gave Alek a respectful nod at the conclusion of their conversation, and he and Eronit headed for the door. Unlike the rest of us, they didn’t have swords or armor to pack up, since they fought with staves.

  I stood up. “Thanks. I have to go,” I said to Fadeyka, and hurried toward the exit.

  “Wait a minute.” Fadeyka trotted behind me to catch up. “Why are you asking about them?”

  “Just curious about what kinds of businesses are common in Kartasha,” I said, hoping she’d lose interest. Outside the salle, I skirted the opposite side of the fountain, casting careful glances toward Eronit and Varian to make sure I didn’t lose them.

  “Then where are you going?” she asked. “I thought you said you were waiting for me.” Confusion and disappointment warred in her expression. I felt like a rat.

  “Oh, I was going to ask if you wanted to ride tomorrow,” I said.

  “Really?” She brightened.

  “Maybe before lunch?” We exited the hallway and I slowed my steps, letting Eronit and Varian get far enough ahead of us that it wouldn’t be obvious that I was trailing them. Just as Fadeyka said, they turned toward the gates to the city instead of back to the Winter Court.

  “That should work,” Fadeyka said. “I can’t wait! Will you teach me to jump?”

  “Not until you can post the trot with no stirrups,” I said wryly.

  “Where are you going now?” she asked. We were getting close to the outer gates.

  “To town,” I said. Foot traffic was thickening near the gate, and I was getting worried about losing my marks.

  “I’d better go with you,” she said, with authority belying her age.

  I snorted. “I doubt your parents would like th
at. Don’t you need to tell them where you are?”

  Fadeyka kicked a rock out of our path. “Mother won’t care. She’s in meetings with Zhari all afternoon.”

  “What about your father?” I asked. It occurred to me for the first time that I’d never heard Fadeyka speak of him.

  “My father’s dead,” Fadeyka said, her voice flat.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. Whatever her feelings were about her father, I could imagine them all too easily. I’d lost so many people before leaving Mynaria, and while I’d managed to put the pain of that aside during my waking hours, grief still haunted my dreams. I’d never been able to prove myself to my father before he died, and that knowledge cut like a sword. Somehow his death had made my mother’s memory rise up fresh, and I often lay awake remembering what it had been like to lose her. Even eight years later, I could picture the exact pattern on the edges of her blue funeral shroud. The vigil candles still burned in my mind as they had in my window for months after she died—until I realized that prayer wasn’t going to bring her back. Grief never left—it just changed shape and grew with each added loss.

  Fadeyka shrugged but for once was silent. She brushed her thumb absently over the back of her seven-pointed star pendant.

  I wanted to say something else to let her know I understood, but I didn’t know where to begin. I’d dealt with my mother’s death by becoming as unlike her as I could, and by boxing her memory into a piece of my life I barely recognized as my own anymore. I was still dealing with the loss of my father. There wasn’t anything I could offer Fadeyka.

  The city streets sloped downward, providing a staggering view of the fields beyond. Postharvest they were already cut low and brown. Dry, cold air whipped at our cloaks. The crowded streets made it hard to keep an eye on Eronit and Varian ahead, even with the slope working in my favor. What helped even less were the other Sonnenbornes I saw passing by or working at various businesses along the road. Now that we were out in the city, Eronit and Varian didn’t stand out the way they did at court. I craned my neck, trying to see over the crowd.