Of Ice and Shadows

by Audrey Coulthurst

  She turned around and rushed to my side. “You’re awake,” she said, her voice cracking. She put a tentative hand on my shoulder, and I reached up to clasp it as tears stung the corners of my eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” I croaked. “For everything I ever did or said that drove you away. I—”

  “Shh,” she said, brushing hair off my forehead. “I know you are.”

  “But how did you get to Kartasha?” I asked. What I really wanted to know was why she’d come. I wanted to believe it was because she was worried about me, but felt guilty for the desire for that to be the truth. Denna had always been someone who put the welfare of her kingdom above her own, and if this was her kingdom now, that could just as easily have been the reason.

  “The queen told me about the riot,” she said, helping me up onto one of the cots and seating herself across from me. Then she quietly told me the story of how she’d traveled from Corovja to the refugee camp and how her new friends had helped her. “Only to end up here, with a crazed demigod planning to drain my powers to fuel her revenge on the queen.”

  “And there’s no way out of here?” I asked.

  “Not that I’ve been able to discover since I’ve been awake,” she said. “Laurenna and Faye are in the cell on our left, and Alek is across the aisle. Fadeyka is still unconscious—I’m not sure exactly what Zhari did to her. I don’t know who’s on our other side.” She pointed to the high, barred windows between cells that she must have climbed onto her cot to look through. “I can use my magic inside here to some extent, but it’s useless to try to use it on the walls or the bars. There’s some kind of shield.”

  Now that I knew she was there, I could hear Laurenna softly singing a lullaby to Faye, her voice trembling with what must have been fatigue and worry. Somewhere else in the windowless dungeon, water dripped from a pipe in a slow, rhythmic accompaniment to Laurenna’s song.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. Despair and sorrow welled up, making my throat tighten. “If I hadn’t driven you away with my foolish worries . . . if I had figured out what was going on sooner and that Zhari was the one we needed to worry about . . . I’ve failed you in so many ways.” It felt like it was entirely my fault that we’d ended up where we had.

  She took a deep breath. “You haven’t failed me. And maybe your worries have been justified all along. After all, we’re here. This hasn’t ended well . . . other than getting to see your face again.”

  Joy bubbled up but dissipated just as quickly. “No, I did fail you,” I said. “Because I should have listened more to what you wanted instead of the fears living in my own head. You deserve the life you want, regardless of whether it’s a life I can give you.” I could barely keep speaking the words. We’d come to Zumorda for a chance to be together, and somehow all the kingdom had done was drive us apart. The few strides between us in the tiny prison cell felt like an impossible distance to cross, but all I wanted was to feel her in my arms again.

  “But I’ve always wanted the life you can give me.” Her sea-green eyes shone. “My life as a princess was planned out almost from the beginning. Lessons. Marriage. Children. Ruling. There was no room for error or deviation. I had to be perfect, and it didn’t matter what I wanted or if I fit into the box I was required to. I chose you for a reason. I chose you because in choosing you I was also choosing myself for the first time.” She stood up and came closer, extending her hands to me.

  My eyes stung as I took them. “And then we came here to get you help, but instead of supporting you, I stood in your way. I thought that keeping you safe was a way to support you. But it was just a different version of putting you in a box you didn’t want to be in.”

  “That was what it felt like. But I still shouldn’t have left you without warning,” she admitted. “That was wrong, and it was foolish of me not to talk things through with you, to try to understand your perspective or help you understand mine. To at least kiss you good-bye, because not a single day has passed when I haven’t missed your touch.”

  My heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest. “I just want to know that there might be a time when I get to wake up next to you again.”

  The cot creaked ominously as she sat down next to me. Her eyes flicked over my face, and she brushed away a tear with her finger. I wanted to grab her and never let go, but instead I held still, waiting for what she had to say.

  “Now you’re a swordswoman,” she said.

  “I’m learning,” I said. “And you have your gift under control.”

  “I’m working on it,” she said.

  “I want to do better,” I said softly. “I want to support you, not hold you back. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, but I’ll try.”

  “I can’t promise perfection, either,” Denna said. “But I want you.”

  Those were the only words I needed to hear. I slipped my hands under her cloak and balled the fabric of her shirt in my hands. The heat of her body flooded me with warmth and a sigh escaped my lips as the dreadful tension of our months apart finally fell away. I pulled her close in one fierce gesture, stopping just shy of a kiss, waiting to make sure it was what she wanted. Denna lifted a finger to my cheek and traced it over my lower lip.

  “I love you so much,” she whispered.

  Her words filled all the places in me that had been empty since she disappeared.

  “I don’t ever want to be without you again,” I said. “I love you, too.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me until the horror of our situation faded away, until all I could feel was the fire of her lips and the comfort of her arms.

  “Fiddleshits,” a male voice muttered from another cell.

  I pulled away slightly from Denna, my eyes wide. There was only one place I’d heard that word before Fadeyka started using it indiscriminately. “That sounds like Hornblatt.”

  “Who?” Denna looked confused.

  “The Farspeaker who helped me get in touch with you,” I explained.

  We stood up and walked to the front of the cell, pressing ourselves against the bars. Indignant muttering came from the cell to our right.

  “Hornblatt, is that you?” I asked.

  The voice stopped its self-involved rambling. “Who wants to know?”

  “Mare,” I said. “Your favorite honeyshine supplier.”

  A pair of hands gripped the bars of the cell adjacent to ours.

  “The Sonnenbornes got you too, eh?” he asked, though it was more of a statement than a question. “They dragged me out of my house before I could catch my damn cat.” He devolved into a rant on porridge and whether the Sonnenbornes who’d taken over the city were going to feed his cat.

  “I don’t suppose your magic works in here?” I asked.

  “It might, if there was someone I could contact who had any hope of getting me out,” he grumbled.

  “What about your friend?” I asked Denna, feeling a sudden surge of hope. “The one who can walk in the shadows or whatever it’s called?”

  “Tristan?” she asked, the spark of hope lighting in her eyes, too. “He might be able to get us out, provided he’s had enough rest.”

  “I don’t do anything for free,” Hornblatt said, his tone haughty.

  “You’re in prison,” I said, exasperated. “We’re all in prison. Do you want out or don’t you?”

  A door opened and shut at the end of the hall, accompanied by the sound of squeaking wheels.

  “Get back,” Hornblatt said, and vanished into the depths of his cell.

  A guard walked by with a tray cart covered in small bowls filled with watery gruel that smelled about as appetizing as wet, shredded paper. He slid one for each cell occupant under the doors of the cells, not caring whether half the gruel sloshed out and ended up on the floor.

  Before the guard had made it to the far end of the prison hall, slurps echoed from the cell beside us. Apparently Hornblatt wasn’t very discerning about his food. Denna and I exchanged grimaces. A few minutes later, we were r
egaled with the sound of urine being emptied into a chamber pot. I sat back down on the cot, fidgeting impatiently until the guard vanished back the way he’d come.

  “You don’t happen to have any extra food, do you?” Hornblatt asked from the front of his cell.

  “You can’t possibly tell me you want it,” I said.

  “I mean, if you’re not going to eat it, why let it go to waste?” He sniffed.

  “Because it is waste,” I muttered.

  “No, wait,” Denna said. “You can have both our bowls if you use your powers to contact Tristan. And if he can help get us out, we’ll get you out as well.”

  “I don’t have anything reflective to enchant,” Hornblatt said, growing impatient.

  I glanced over at the chamber pot and winced. “Sure you do. There’s a chamber pot in your cell, isn’t there?”

  “Well, unless you have something of your friend’s, it won’t matter.”

  Denna plucked what appeared to be some black cat hairs off her cloak and held them between the front bars of our cell closest to the wall separating our cell from Hornblatt’s. She stretched her arm as far as she could in his direction. “Will these do? They’re from his manifest.”

  Hornblatt stretched between the bars of his own cell to pluck the hairs from Denna’s fingers. “Your friend’s manifest is a cat?” He seemed to perk up at this. “Good people, cats. I’ll do it.”

  I shook my head. The man barely made sense on a good day, much less when we were all sarded up a wall.

  I heard a scraping sound and an alarming sloshing as he dragged the chamber pot closer to the cell’s door.

  A few minutes later, Hornblatt managed to contact Tristan and get through a somewhat confused message about our location and what had happened.

  “Tell him I can give him more power if he can get here,” Denna said. “I can help us get out.”

  “The short one says she can power you out,” Hornblatt said to Tristan.

  Fortunately, Tristan seemed to get enough of the gist, and moments later, he appeared outside our cell, his face drawn with exhaustion.

  “Tristan!” Denna raced to the front of the cell.

  “How many do we need to get out?” he asked.

  “Six,” Denna said. “Come closer.” She reached between the bars of the cell and gripped his arm at the wrist. He linked his hand with her wrist, and they stood there in silence for a few heartbeats. As I looked on, some color slowly returned to his cheeks until he finally let go.

  “That’s enough—don’t drain yourself too much,” he told Denna. “Thank you.”

  Using magic I couldn’t begin to understand, Tristan somehow disappeared and reappeared inside each cell, coming for us last.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “As ready as I ever am,” Denna said. “This might make you feel sick,” she told me.

  Tristan held out his hands to both of us, and I stepped up to take one, the prison immediately vanishing into darkness.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Dennaleia

  WE DROPPED OUT OF THE SHADOWLANDS RIGHT ON the doorstep of the homestead, all of us retching except for Tristan. The full force of my exhaustion hit me as soon as I knew we were safe, and it took all my remaining energy to stay upright. The trip had awakened Fadeyka, who clung to her mother as they both tried to get control of their heaving stomachs. The cold night air was refreshing after the reek of the prison, and I took deep gulps of it to try to settle my own nausea. As soon as Mare stopped gagging, she rushed from my side to Fadeyka’s.

  “You’re all right!” Mare cried.

  Fadeyka clumsily embraced Mare, sagging into her arms. “I don’t think I want to train with Zhari,” she mumbled.

  Mare shook her head. “Only you would be thinking about training at a time like this.”

  The commotion we’d created outside brought Kerrick and Evie out of the homestead. Evie had a restorative tea at Tristan’s lips before he so much as had time to speak, and Kerrick strode over to Mare with purpose.

  “Thank the queen you’re back,” Kerrick said to Mare. “We’ve received word that the cavalry will arrive tomorrow morning. They sent a bird ahead—they’ve got an auxiliary of Wymund’s riding with them from Duvey.”

  “We have no time to waste,” Mare said. “Everything is so much worse than we thought. Zhari is a demigod and was the one behind the Sonnenbornes’ takeover of Kartasha. Her magic is incredibly powerful—we were lucky to escape her. Luck won’t favor us like that again.”

  “A demigod?” Kerrick stared.

  “I didn’t think there had been any in Zumorda for centuries.” Evie looked equally shocked. “And honestly, I always thought the stories about them might have been made up.”

  I glanced at Tristan, but his expression didn’t give anything away. He must not have told Evie about his parents, and I was touched that he’d trusted me with knowledge of them.

  The whole group of us entered the decrepit house, taking seats on the floor or wherever we could cram in close to the lantern.

  “How long do you think we have before Zhari figures out we escaped?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if she already knew,” Alek said, absently touching a bruise near his temple.

  “Let me help you with that,” Evie said. “May I?”

  To my surprise, Alek agreed, and at a brush of Evie’s fingers the bruise faded to a half-healed yellow.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You should all let me look at you,” Evie said, her expression concerned. “If we don’t have much time, we can’t have anyone going into battle weak.”

  “What about the dogs?” I asked. “Did you have any luck getting rid of them?”

  “She did,” Kerrick said. “I checked on Harian at his post earlier, and he said it was the quietest sentry shift he’s had since we left Kartasha.”

  Relief flooded through me. At least that meant we’d be able to get some sleep.

  Evie made her rounds with all of us, and then we decided to rest until morning and save our strategizing for when the cavalry arrived. But as I curled up next to Mare on a tattered blanket on the floor, I knew I still had one task remaining.

  I cautiously dropped my mental shields.

  Hello, little one. I was wondering when you’d need me again.

  You need to turn back to Corovja. I tried to convey as much danger as I could in the feelings I sent across our connection. Zhari has betrayed you. She was behind the riot in Kartasha and is responsible for the Sonnenbornes attempting to move into Zumorda.

  All the more reason to come. I don’t turn my back on my people, and I don’t let traitors go unpunished. There was a strange note of excitement in her voice, as though she looked forward to the battle.

  You don’t understand. Zhari is a demigod. The daughter of some god I’ve never heard of—the god of confluence. I shifted restlessly in bed, agitated that she wasn’t listening to me. She nearly killed us.

  She hurt you? The queen’s mental tone took on a sharper edge.

  We tried to attack her, but it was completely pointless. She turned Alek’s and my powers back on us as easily as breathing.

  I will kill her. The savageness in her voice frightened me.

  Please turn back. You have to keep yourself safe to keep the kingdom safe. Let us try once more to defeat her. Even if we fail, perhaps we will at least weaken her.

  It’s far too late for that, little bird. Far too late.

  The next morning dawned clear, dry, and ice cold, but inside the homestead shack it wasn’t the sun that woke us. Outside, voices began shouting to the point that I scrambled out of bed, sure we were under attack. Mare and I hurried out of the small building, squinting into the morning sun, and it was then that I knew why the queen had said my message was far too late.

  Queen Invasya flew overhead as a white dragon, sweeping through the pale blue sky with timeless grace. All around us the people cheered, seeing her as the first sign of hope after th
e terrible ordeal they’d been through. I didn’t find the same comfort at the sight of her—just a growing sense of unease. I wanted to go back to trusting her as I had in the earlier days of our training, or thinking of her almost as family as I’d started to before the Revel, but I didn’t know if I could.

  The dragon circled the camp a few times as if to soak up the applause greeting her, finally banking sharply alongside the peak behind us and releasing a burst of flames from her jaws. While everyone else celebrated, I despaired. She’d walked right into Zhari’s trap. Mare saw the expression on my face and put her arm around me. I wanted to cling to her, but I forced myself to stand up straight. I couldn’t let the queen see any weakness in me.

  She landed in a clear area not far from us and swiftly took her human form. She walked in our direction and my mind raced with what to say, but before she got within speaking distance, she turned to a random swordsman and followed him away from the gathered crowd. A little stab of unexpected disappointment lodged in my stomach, and I hated myself for it. What she’d done still disgusted me—I didn’t want her in my head. But part of me had expected her to come to me first, and I felt lost and confused when she didn’t.

  She didn’t show up at the homestead even when Wymund’s foot soldiers and Thandi’s cavalry arrived. Seeing the soldiers ride and march in with shining new armor and strong horses made the refugees raise their own weapons in salute, and while it wasn’t quite the clamor there had been over the queen, the air of excitement was palpable in the camp. The time had come to take back their city. The head rider and lead soldier came up to the homestead, where I stood waiting with Alek and Mare. Fadeyka hung behind us curiously, though she hadn’t strayed too far from Laurenna since they’d been imprisoned.

  Wymund himself was the general, his boots as mud-stained as anyone else’s.

  “Hate to see you again under these circumstances, Mare,” he said to her. “But it looks like you’ve got yourself a fine weapon. I’d like to pledge mine to yours. The cavalry you called in is a fine band of warriors.”

  “Then pledge your sword to Alek as well,” she said. “I couldn’t do this without him—he’s the one with the experience and the head for strategy. Honestly, we could use some of your wisdom, too.”