Of Ice and Shadows

by Audrey Coulthurst

  “Three what?” I pressed.

  “Three I was given for safekeeping,” he said. “Three from the south.”

  “And one of them was the boy from Duvey?” I asked, trying to get him to make some sense. “How did he get to you? Were you working with the Sonnenbornes?”

  “I am no betrayer!” He pounded on the bars of his cell, making me jump back. “I was the one who was betrayed.”

  “By the boy from Duvey?” I was confused.

  “He was just like the others,” Sigvar said. “They were all there to be neutralized. No one was supposed to know we were in Tilium. She promised me. She promised!”

  “Who promised?” I asked. “Who betrayed you?”

  “I was supposed to keep the people calm, take them from Kartasha. Protect them until the Sonnenbornes come.” He raked his hands through his hair in agitation.

  “What do you mean? When are the Sonnenbornes coming?” I asked, frightened. Mare had said the Sonnenbornes were plotting something. Was it possible Sigvar had been working for them and knew what it was?

  “They’ll ride for Kartasha at Midwinter,” he said. “All the pieces are in place. Even without me, there’s no way to stop them now.”

  Alarm made my throat dry, and I swallowed hard. Midwinter wasn’t that far away, and I had no way to reach Mare to warn her. I shouldn’t have cut off our conversation the other day without finding out how to reconnect.

  “What pieces are in place?” I asked.

  “There is no magic left.” Sigvar hung his head in his hands, muttering to himself. He ran his nails over his face over and over again until one of the gashes tore open and started to bleed. Drops of blood splattered onto his blanket, the red spreading to join the brown stains already there.

  Bile rose in my throat, and guilt twisted in my stomach. Even though I hadn’t intended it, I felt like I was contributing to his torture. “I’m sorry for what you lost.” Although he’d been doing something that was objectively wrong, I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to have had my magic stripped away and be trapped in this dark hole.

  “You have to get me out.” He lunged forward suddenly, pressing his face to the bars.

  I yelped and jumped back.

  “I have to stop her. She doesn’t know the cost of what she’s trying to do.” He wailed, a sound that made Evie turn to me in alarm from her place at the far end of the cell block.

  “Who? A Sonnenborne?” I asked, leaning forward. If I could get a name, that was something I could take to the queen. Unfortunately, his answer was random and unhelpful.

  “I thought she loved me,” he said, his voice fading into petulance. “I would have done anything for her.”

  “The queen?” I hazarded.

  He shook his head until I thought it was going to fall off.

  “What can you tell me about how to use a multi-Affinity?” I switched topics, hoping it would help him regain some clarity. Anything he could tell me about multi-Affinities might be useful.

  He slid down the bars and rocked back and forth on the ground. “We are channels, we are convergents,” he muttered.

  “What does that mean?” I felt like he was right at the edge of telling me something important.

  “The magic comes from different sources, and you are where it is channeled and then released. You can do one at a time, or you can do both. One or both, one or both, one or both . . .” He devolved into nonsense again.

  “I think I understand,” I said. The times I’d used more than one kind of magic at once, I’d pulled in each element separately and then combined them into something greater. The problem was that I hadn’t really been thinking about what I was creating. I was just opening myself to the powers and hoping that something would happen. I’d called on fire, earth, and air when I’d summoned the star fall, and I’d managed to absorb Evie’s earth magic into my fiery shield on my ill-fated first day of training.

  “One gift at a time,” he said. “Just one. Use one. But the power that isn’t yours is also yours if you reach for it. Be the convergent.” He laughed again, that same weird, strangled sound.

  “Someone’s coming!” Evie raced to my side at the same time I heard voices echoing in the stairwell.

  “Sig’s talking to himself again,” one of the prison guards said in a bored tone.

  “Give him the poppy juice. It’ll shut him up till morning,” another said. Their footsteps echoed down the stairwell.

  I swore. With all the nonsense Sigvar was talking, I hadn’t been able to get nearly as much information out of him as I wanted to, but we needed to escape. Causing a scene wasn’t something we’d been counting on.

  “Quick!” Tristan said, extending his hand.

  I took it, and the three of us were plunged into darkness again. When we came out of the shadowlands, I clutched my stomach as my vision cleared, confused when I wasn’t assaulted by the icy wind that had been sweeping through the Grand Temple when we’d left.

  “Six Hells,” Tristan said.

  We hadn’t landed in the Grand Temple at all. We were in the queen’s study, and she sat at her desk across from us, wearing a furious expression.

  “I seem to recall giving explicit instructions that none of you were to leave the castle grounds,” she said, her voice even colder than the winter air outside.

  “It was my idea,” I said quickly, hoping I could protect Tristan and Evie. My chest tightened with guilt. What was she going to do to us?

  “I don’t especially care whose idea it was.” She stood up and came closer to us, stopping in front of Tristan. “Your gift isn’t a ticket to go wherever you please.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” he said, but in spite of his repentant tone, the muscles in his jaw stayed tight.

  “And you might be better off taking your brother’s approach to climbing the ranks here,” the queen said to Evie. “If your magic isn’t powerful enough to serve you, you have to make the best of your other skills.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Evie’s voice was barely more than a whisper, and she looked like she was about to cry.

  “As punishment, neither of you will be allowed to compete in the Midwinter Revel. You will have last choice of apprenticeships.”

  Evie’s tears spilled over.

  “Please don’t punish them for something that was my idea—” I started.

  “You and I will discuss what led to this misadventure,” the queen interrupted me. “You two are dismissed.” She waved the others out of the room. I could barely stand to see the crushed expressions on their faces as they walked away. Evie glanced back at me with resentment breaking through the sadness. I had a feeling that as soon as she was done crying, I’d be the one to bear the brunt of her anger. Worse, I deserved it. I never should have let them help me—I should have tried to do everything on my own, even if it was more dangerous.

  “Sit,” the queen commanded, sweeping back to her side of the desk and taking her place.

  I sat down gingerly across from her, feeling more like I was about to go to the guillotine than have a conversation.

  “Why did you seek out Sigvar?” she asked.

  “I thought he might know something about how to control my powers,” I said. “Training has still been difficult, and I don’t—”

  “The only thing making training difficult is your reluctance to hurt anyone,” the queen snapped. “It is the other trainees’ responsibility to defend themselves. Your only job is to use your powers to the best of your abilities, and instead you’re holding yourself back. Sigvar can’t help you with that. No one can. You’ve spent your whole life with other people telling you what to do, and now you’re waiting for permission to own what already belongs to you.”

  Her words cut deeply. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but there was a grain of truth to her words. My life had not been filled with choices about my future. My studies had always been dictated by the plans my parents had mapped out for me. Choosing Mare was the first decision I’d made complet
ely on my own, and since then I’d felt like I was spinning in circles with no idea which way to go. Still, Sigvar had told me much more than the few pieces of information about my Affinity.

  “Sigvar said some things you should know about,” I said, gathering all the training I’d ever had to keep my voice steady.

  “Tell me,” the queen ordered.

  “The Sonnenbornes must have been giving him some kind of incentive to neutralize magic users in the south,” I said. “There was a boy in his cult I recognized as one of those abducted from Duvey. I’m not sure how the boy got from Duvey to Tilium, but I do know it was through Kartasha and someone Sigvar was working with there. He said he was betrayed.”

  “He does love to rant about Kartasha from time to time,” she said. “The torture he’s endured has probably muddled his memories. He visited there when he was apprenticed to Zhari, but that was years ago.”

  “Training there for even a season would have given him enough time to make contacts,” I said. “But more important, he says that Kartasha is going to be attacked by Sonnenbornes at Midwinter,” I said.

  The queen leaned back and sighed. “That’s impossible. He’s too unstable to be a reliable source of information.”

  “But isn’t that still significant enough to warrant investigation?” I asked.

  “It would be, except that I just spoke to Laurenna today,” she said. “They caught a band of Sonnenbornes responsible for human trafficking and imprisoned them in Kartasha. Now that they’ve caught them, it’s only a matter of time before the rest are rooted out. Laurenna and Zhari have the situation well under control.”

  “Oh,” I said. In the end, the information I’d found out hadn’t even mattered. I’d barely gotten anything useful out of Sigvar about the multi-Affinities. I felt doubly bad about Tristan and Evie’s punishment. If they knew it had all been for nothing, they’d be twice as upset with me.

  “I suggest you stay focused on the Revel,” the queen said. “You have very little time left to prepare.”

  “You’re still going to let me compete?” I stared at her in shock. After how Evie and Tristan had been punished, I figured whatever she had planned for me would be far worse. “Why?”

  “I can’t let my descendant be disqualified from the most important magical competition in Zumorda,” she said, her tone filled with derision. “I’d also like to give you a gift that may help.” She slipped a necklace off over her head. Instead of a pendant, it bore a small vial that glowed with silvery light.

  “What kind of gift?” I didn’t understand why she was helping me instead of punishing me, and it filled me with guilt and anxiety.

  “A gift that will strengthen our familial bond and help you see more ways to use your powers,” she said.

  “Is that Sigvar’s Affinity?” I asked, gesturing to the vial. I remembered when she had taken his powers in Tilium.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “It’s an essence that will temporarily impart some of his abilities.”

  “I don’t think I need any more magic,” I said. I could barely manage what I already had. And perhaps demurring would assuage some of my guilt.

  The queen laughed softly. “Don’t worry, little bird. I wouldn’t want to give you any more of those kinds of gifts. But if you’ll accept it, I’d like to give you a blessing of sorts.”

  “A blessing?” I wasn’t familiar with how that would work if not connected to the gods in some way. Back home, I’d only ever heard of clerics giving blessings.

  “You’ll take a vow to knowledge, and the blessing will help you see more ways to use your gift,” the queen said. “Trust me, you’ll find it very helpful. Think of it as a way of augmenting your magic rather than receiving something new. It’s quite safe.”

  “I suppose I can take a vow to knowledge,” I said. It sounded harmless enough, and my whole life had been dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge anyway.

  “Good.” She uncorked the vial on her necklace and drank the contents. Silvery light spread over her entire body until she glowed like the moon. She crossed the few paces between us and touched a cool hand to my forehead. “Now repeat after me: I am the learner.”

  “I am the learner,” I said.

  “I accept the gift of knowledge so that it may serve my kingdom.”

  I echoed her again, even as a strange tingling overtook my body.

  “I will be with you and you with me so that we will know more, together.”

  I didn’t want to speak the words this time, but my mouth moved against my will. “I will be with you and you with me so that we will know more, together.”

  The queen withdrew her hand, but my head still buzzed as though it were filled with bees.

  “Call a flame to your palm,” she said.

  I did as she asked, opening my hand and summoning a flame. As usual, it flickered and leaped erratically, but then a sweet calm came over me and steadied the magic.

  “Beautiful,” the queen said. “Now put up a shield of fire.”

  I’d practiced the move enough that it came easily to me as I covertly sketched the symbol of the fire god under my cloak. But instead of feeling unstable, as my shields usually did, a gentle guiding hand inside my mind helped feed the flames until the wall grew thick and impenetrable, as if it were made of rock. Not once in training had I been able to create something so perfect.

  I released the magic, breathless with the excitement of having gotten something right.

  Only later, in my rooms, did the true cost of the queen’s gift and my transgression sink in. Evie and Tristan would never forgive me once they found out my punishment had been so light in comparison with theirs. And by letting me compete, the queen had ensured that their resentment would only deepen. I was more powerful than ever—and more alone.

  Without friends or distractions, I suddenly had a lot more time to study and practice, so I did just that over the days leading up to the Midwinter Revel. The queen shared occasional updates with me about Kartasha. Her reassurances kept me focused on training, knowing that Mare was all right. In spite of the cold, I took to wearing a white cloak that would disguise me out in the snow and practiced my magic at the Grand Temple ruins. The space kept my magic more measured and even, and prayers to each of the gods whose magic I called on helped me summon my powers. The irony did not escape me that my prayers were as heretical in Zumorda as practicing magic had been in Mynaria. No matter where I went, it seemed I would never be completely on the right side of my kingdom.

  With all my practice and the queen’s gift, I got hurt less often in training, but it was Sigvar’s words that ultimately changed everything. Be the convergent, he’d said, and I’d thought of the words often but didn’t understand their meaning until I put them to work in training.

  I stood across from Ikrie, whose pale blue eyes were filled with hate. We’d moved from training exercises to true combat, and every time I stood across from an opponent, I still felt like an imposter. Ikrie terrified me the most. Her ruthlessness wasn’t even the worst thing—it was the way she toyed with her opponents until they were practically begging her to stop.

  “And . . . go!” Brynan said.

  My shield was only half up when Ikrie went on the offense. She smashed through my shield with a single blow, scattering my fire with her wind. I scurried to the side, narrowly avoiding a gust of air that would have knocked me off my feet. Next she skipped some of the showier spells she often favored, instead choosing to draw the air out of my lungs in the same way I’d seen Karina do to Sigvar in Tilium. But it was one of Ikrie’s favorite moves for a quick takedown, and I knew it was coming. I activated my Sight. Threads of magic connected her to me as she beckoned the air from my body. For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe I could use them.

  I let Ikrie’s magic continue to draw on me even as my shield went up—a shimmering wall of flame that flickered through the air a few feet away from me. I made it weak on purpose, hoping to give her plenty of confidence that she co
uld take me down without a fight.

  “Nice shield,” she said, her tone biting.

  I smiled. “Nice spell,” I choked out, and let the little tongues of flame wind themselves around the threads of magic connecting us. Then I drew her power into me. She’d expected me to try to snap the connection between us, but instead I channeled her magic into my own. The pressure on my lungs immediately eased, and my shield grew brighter.

  “What are you doing?” she snarled, cutting off her spell.

  Giddy with power, I held my shield steady and waited for her next move. I didn’t have to go on the offense to defeat her, and I knew it. She threw up her hands and pulled a gust of wind out of nowhere, hurling compacted air at me like a blade. Instead of trying to block it, I let it fuel the flames of my shield and then shoved it back in her direction with a flick of my wrist. She ducked, but the firebomb singed the end of her braid.

  I finally understood what convergent meant. It meant that any of the elements I could touch, I could channel. There was almost nothing Ikrie could do to me that I couldn’t repurpose into my own powers or use to strengthen myself. Each attack was a gift that I could use. All I had to do was stay collected and calm.

  Five minutes later, Ikrie was lying on the floor, and the other trainees were staring at me, openmouthed.

  “Aela and Evie, you’re up next,” Brynan said.

  The two moved to the center of the room as Ikrie and I moved aside.

  “I don’t know how you did that, but I will find out and it will hurt next time you try,” Ikrie said to me.

  I let her words roll off me like rain. For the first time, I didn’t believe there was anything she could do to hurt me.

  I was no longer afraid.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Amaranthine

  AFTER TALKING TO DENNA, I FELT LIKE I HAD NOTHING left to lose, so I took my new blade to the salle with the notion that I might just have to confront Alek about his involvement with the Sonnenbornes myself. I scanned the room, looking for him, surprised to discover that for once he wasn’t there. On top of that, everyone else looked far too advanced for me to spar with. Perhaps it was for the best—I wasn’t accustomed to my new weapon yet, and it wouldn’t hurt to run through some basic exercises to get the feel of it while I waited for Alek to show up. It had to be only a matter of time. I found an empty corner of the room and practiced basic lunges until the sword felt as familiar as my usual practice weapon. I didn’t even notice Alek’s approach until he blocked my lunge with his sword.