by Tom Hansen
She hesitated, realizing that water dripped off her brow. She wiped it off and stared at it dumbly for a half-second.
Am I sweating?
She didn’t know if she should be bewildered or terrified. She hadn’t sweat like this in so long.
Her heart continued to pound in her chest as another spike crashed into the ball. This one worked its way through the weaker parts of the ball, breaking through and pelting her side with chunks of ice. The sharpened point stopped less than an inch from her stomach. She broke it off with her hand to allow her to breathe again.
Too close, now go!
She threw herself forward once more, aiming high at the wall to try to deflect off it and land in the middle. If this worked, she would only have to throw herself one final time to escape this fight.
Her sphere hit the wall, but instead of the solid thunk she expected from the thick ice, what she heard was a dull thud. A third of her sphere split off where she hit the wall, crumpling into chunks and removing most of the momentum from her protective sphere.
Imryll bounced, but not enough, landing directly behind the final pillar before she could escape.
She was so close, but would never make it in her damaged ice sphere. A few feet in either direction and she would have had a straight shot to the exit, but here, directly behind the pillar, she was too exposed.
For a second, she thought about making a run for it on foot, but she knew she wouldn’t last. She’d poured too much energy into her sphere, and it had failed her.
Imryll let out a sigh. Sometimes it was better to just give yourself over to the mercy of the enemy.
She stuck her hands out of the broken sphere in defeat. “I give up! I give up!”
The hum of magic snapped all around her, that sharp crackle and biting cold she knew so well. A dozen thin ice spears hovered in the air, ready to strike.
Giving herself up was the only correct move here, she knew that now. It was daring, for sure, but the timid didn’t change the world.
She poked her head out of her broken ice ball. “I’m coming out now. I’m done fighting.”
Meki’s bright red hair was the first thing she saw. The little girl panted from exertion, but Imryll knew Meki barely touched her reserves of magic to do this amount of destruction.
“You bested me, little one.” She glanced around their arena. Four pillars lay crumbled on the marble floor and six more had huge cracks in them. She would have to have Khatar get those fixed by her stone mages before tomorrow.
Meki smiled and took a small bow. “I told you I would get better.” At once, all her ice spikes dropped to the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.
Imryll let down her hands and walked up to Meki. The little thing barely learned she even had magic a few weeks before, and was already the most powerful frost mage Imryll’d seen in all her years. It was simply incredible watching Meki learn to harness her powers in such a short amount of time. Kids learned so fast, and took to new ideas and methods better than adults.
“That is the third time I’ve beaten you!” Meki stated, her little fists on her hips.
Imryll counted out on her hands. “I think it’s twice.”
“Twice? No way! There was the time I hit you with the pillar, and the other time where I reflected back your spear and got your leg, then this time.”
Imryll chuckled, squatting down and grabbing the girl for a hug. “You got one of those wrong, my dear.”
Meki scrunched up her face. “What do you mean?”
Imryll frowned. “You didn’t win this time.”
Using up the last of her magic reserves, Imryll unleashed a blast of frost, blowing Meki back toward the center of the arena, and propelling the Frost Queen directly at the door. Imryll’s head hit the stone floor with a crack, and pain shot through her skull, but she slid across the line and stopped when she touched the door.
“Hey!” Meki shouted from the center of the arena. “That wasn’t fair!”
“War isn’t fair, my child.” Imryll winced at the pain in her head as she stood. “That is the one lesson you must understand above all else. We are at war, and the enemy will never rest until you are dead. You can always change a situation for yourself, lull the enemy into a false sense of security, or divert their attention to something while you steal their power. As long as you are alive, you can still fight.”
Imryll put her hands on her hips. “As long as you win, it was worth the gamble. If you die, you won’t be around to worry about the mistakes you might have made.”
Chapter One
Ynya Oblique ground her teeth as Synol said her goodbyes for the ninth time.
“You shouldn’t do that. You can’t regenerate your teeth like I can.” Finny said in her matter-of-fact manner.
Ynya rolled her eyes. “I’m well aware that I shouldn’t do it, I just don’t care. I want Synol to hurry up.”
“Then why don’t you just tell her that?”
Ynya looked over at her sister. In the four weeks they’d been traveling together, Ynya still had a hard time knowing if Finny was making a joke or not.
Finny had always been a very literal girl, and it was cute when she was younger. But whatever torture they did to her as part of the Enlightenments back at Reyoarfjell had changed her into something Ynya wasn’t quite sure how to handle.
Finny’s mind wasn’t the same one that had entered that facility weeks ago. Sometimes she was caring and warm, other times she was cold and literal to a fault. Others, she was brimming with rage and pain and refused to talk to anyone.
The last one was the one Ynya worried about most. She knew the rage, she had spent her whole life bathed in its fiery heat, but she had changed in the last few months. She was at war, and war changed you. Sometimes you had to make tough choices in order to squeak by. Loss and anguish followed her everywhere she went now. No matter what choice she made, someone ended up getting hurt, and Ynya wasn’t sure she could live with the consequences of her decisions.
When she had first found her parents slaughtered, she had made a choice of who of her sisters to rescue first. Ultimately, she had rescued Synol, and Ynya wondered if she shouldn’t have just continued her pursuit after the two younger ones instead. Yes, Synol needed saving from her horrible husband, but the cost to Finny’s mind and body had been great.
She hoped it hadn’t been too much.
Ynya looked at her sister. Despite being four years younger, Finny was now as tall as Synol, but lacking the mature features you normally got with age. Ynya wondered if Finny would continue to grow as she aged. It was something Finny had decided to do when she transformed from the beast on the table back to her human form.
Ynya pursed her lips and nodded at Synol. “It’s the polite thing to do, to allow her to say goodbye in the manner she prefers. Besides, these people risked their lives just giving us shelter.
“But she is frustrating you and you should tell her so she stops.”
“If I just grabbed her and pulled her away, then she and I would have an argument.” Ynya grabbed the bridge of her nose and squeezed. It was an action she’d seen her mother do a thousand times growing up, as she tried to keep her own anger down and not yell at her petulant little fire-headed daughters.
“Any frustration I feel is my own, it’s all in my head. Just because she might be doing something that bothers me doesn’t mean it’s her fault. Does that make sense? I’m the one choosing to be irritated. Synol isn’t doing it on purpose, and if I drag her into my own problems, then I have just spread my own frustration to others. That’s not fair to her.”
Ynya paused, realizing she sounded just like her mother. Ugh!
In fact she was pretty sure that was an exact Talia Oblique quote.
“The point is, she’s not being irritating, I’m the one getting irritated. It’s my problem and not worth a fight with Synol.” A little smirk crossed her lips as she pulled a small vial from her belt. “Though that won’t stop me from dumping some fire ants i
nto her bedroll tonight.”
Finny looked at the vial for a second before a broad smile crossed her lips. She let out a loud guffaw. “Oh that will be so funny watching her crying from all the bites on her legs!”
Ynya put the vial away as Synol turned in their direction. “Well, I can’t do it now, because you just gave it away.”
Finny stopped laughing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how loud I was just now.”
Ynya patted her sister’s arm. “It’s fine, but I think that gave us our exit finally.”
Synol joined them a few seconds later. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I had kept gossiping so long. What was that about bites on legs?”
Ynya glanced at Finny, whose eyes were bright with pleading mischief. Ynya shook her head slightly. “Oh, nothing. So how are they?”
Synol frowned. “They are more worried than they let on. It’s dangerous for them to put us up for so long this close to the Frost Queen’s lair. Her family would have serious ramifications if word got out.”
“We kept our hair covered the whole time we were here. I don’t think anyone noticed.”
Synol frowned again. “I’m not sure that is enough. Three women traveling by themselves this close to Fellsstrond Castle is enough to raise a few eyebrows, let alone the fact that there is basically no one in the Skarfanes that isn’t wearing a uniform.”
Rather than replying, Ynya kept marching.
Finally, Synol stopped them and pulled Ynya into a big bear hug. “Thank you for waiting patiently, I just had such a hard time leaving them knowing that I probably sentenced them to death for their hospitality. I know you wanted to be there by now, but I just–”
Ynya hugged back. “Take the time that you need, Synol. I know how much it means to you. We will get there when we get there. Besides, it’s not like hugging the people who gave us a warm bed is the only thing keeping us from getting there.”
Ynya, despite her trepidation at how long it was taking to cross the Skarfanes, knew this was going to take time. They had been in enemy territory for weeks now, and their every step had to be planned carefully.
Too much rode on their caution, and balancing that with speed was just one of the many things that kept her up at night.
Who knew what the Frost Queen was doing to her sister at this very moment. After seeing the atrocities they did to the prisoners in Reyoarfjell, Ynya had a terrifying new understanding of human nature.
And she wasn’t sure she liked being part of the populace anymore.
How one person could do those things to another was beyond her. Killing, she understood. Sometimes it was needed, sometimes there was no other choice. If one is forced to kill, at least do it humanely, quickly. End their life with the least amount of suffering to protect your own.
But torture, and the dastardly games the Warden did to his victims, that was just suffering for suffering’s sake.
No amount of suffering validates the end result. You can’t justify violence against someone unless you are saving your life or the life of someone else.
You just can’t.
“Ynya?” Synol frowned at her. “You okay?”
Ynya nodded. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m just tired is all.”
While that statement was true, it wasn’t the only reason she had been in her head so much lately. The reality of why Ynya hadn’t been getting after Synol to hurry up and get Meki back was that Ynya was terrified of what she would have to do once she got there.
So far, they had avoided most of the patrols, and only had to take out the occasional soldier who discovered them.
But Synol or Finny had done all those killings.
Ynya had allowed them.
She didn’t know if she could kill again. She didn’t know if she could justify it in the name of her safety.
Ynya shuddered with the thought. Reyoarfjell had clearly changed her outlook on life.
She had changed more than she thought in the last couple months, and it terrified her to realize it.
She reached into the pocket containing the magic-preventing earrings she had saved from being buried with Reyoarfjell when it was torn down.
Part of her knew they might come in handy.
Chapter Two
“Hold!” Finny put out her hand to stop her sister’s hiking. Finny crouched down to the snow, dropping to all fours as she peered out into the miasma of gently falling snow.
It had been two more days of trudging through the cold. Ynya may not have understood everything about her younger sister sometimes, but she had learned to stop when Finny insisted.
Despite all the damage they had done to her mind, Finny’s senses had been significantly enhanced.
While Finny hadn’t told them specifics of what had gone on in that chamber, the one thing Ynya could never stop thinking about was the way Finny’s body looked while strapped to the table.
Watching Finny sniff the air, down on all fours like a dog, brought those memories back with a vengeance.
Ynya couldn’t shake the image. Gods Above, she had tried.
At times, even in her human form, Finny seemed almost feral, like now when she sniffed the air.
What was she sniffing? What could she possibly smell in this blinding snow?
Finny retreated, still on all fours.
Ynya couldn’t help but notice that Finny’s hands had changed. Instead of the milky white skin and delicate fingers of her twelve-year-old sister, Finny’s hands had elongated to twice their length, turned black as pitch, and talons replaced her fingers.
Ynya swallowed, trying to push down the terror that built at the bottom of her skull.
She is still Finny, your younger sister, no matter what she looks like.
Only she wasn’t. Finny had changed. They all had, Finny with the most physical changes. Ynya slowly raised her hand to feel the scabbed-over part of her ear where she had forcibly removed the earring to get her magic back.
“What is it?” Synol finally asked in a whisper, her voice barely audible over the howl of the wind.
“An army,” Finny said, not taking her gaze off the snow in the distance.
“Army?” Ynya asked, squatting down. She squinted through the haze. “I don’t see anything.”
Finny tapped her nose, her hands having already regained their human skin and pallor. “Smell. There are a lot of them in the valley ahead of us.”
The two older sisters shard a glance.
“How many?”
Finny turned and took a couple more careful steps through the snow toward the edge of the cliff on which they stood. She sniffed the air again, then came back. “Many hundreds, maybe a thousand or more.”
“We must be close,” Synol said.
Ynya shook her head, trying to decipher this new revelation. “We knew we were, but why is an army outside of Fellsstrond Castle?”
Frustration flashed across Synol’s face as she turned to Ynya. “Why wouldn’t it be? She’s the Frost Queen of the North, wouldn’t you want an army to protect you?”
Ynya pursed her lips. “I didn’t mean it like that. Why is the army right outside her doorstep? Keeping a small contingent of guards I get, but a thousand, all just outside? That’s not just protection, that’s amassing for something.”
Synol huffed. “We’ll take them all down if we have to.”
Finny smiled. “Of course we will. Right, Ynya?”
Ynya nodded, but she hadn’t really paid attention to the words her sisters said. She was entranced by the pointed teeth in Finny’s mouth.
***
Finny disappeared soon after, running off into the freezing cold once the sun had gone down. Ynya used her heat to carve out a safe spot for them to sleep while Synol prepared something to eat.
Ynya couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Do you not worry about her?”
Synol paused and looked over. “Finny?”
Ynya nodded. “What did they do to her in that room?”
Synol pursed her lips. “If she’s not g
oing to talk about it, then I’m not going to bother her to give me details about something I barely want to know.”
“But she’s our sister, don’t you think we should at least bring it up to see if there is anything we can do to help her?”
Synol looked at Ynya with a curious expression. “You sound more and more like Mother every day, you know that?”
Ynya frowned. “I always thought that was you, you look so much like her, you know. It’s almost–”
“Almost scary?”
Ynya huffed. “Sometimes in the middle of the night I see you sleeping and I can’t help but remember Mama frozen in the snow.”
A silence permeated the camp after Ynya’s last confession. She felt bad for comparing Synol to her Mama, but the similarities were too obvious to ignore.
Ynya opened her mouth to apologize when Synol spoke up.
“Have you figured out what her magic is yet?”
Ynya shook her head. The honest truth was that she had been avoiding trying. Ever since Reyoarfjell she questioned her own magic so much that she wondered if she should even attempt to figure out her own mother’s magic. What was the point of having access to more magic if people were just going to use it to hurt others?
Ynya focused on the magic in her heart. Her mother’s crisp, stoic magic still sat right next to her innate heat after all these weeks. Immovable and unchanging, it strummed along to her heartbeat in perfect time.
Ynya wondered if the magic controlled her heart more than her heart controlled it.
She tried touching it, but recoiled as she made the connection. It was so incredibly powerful that it shocked her every time she did so. It was like touching lightning in a bottle. The thought that her mother had spent her entire life with this powerful and mysterious magic terrified Ynya to her core.
It wasn’t the only question Ynya had swirling around in her head, either. Ever since the Warden had shown her the book with her mother’s name in it, Ynya couldn’t shake the notion that her mother was much, much older than she had seemed.
Ynya looked at Synol again, shocked by just how much her mother looked like her daughter. “Mama looked like you, Synol.”
