by Elly Blake
It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I’d attended the festival in my village, though it was less than a year ago. My throat tightened when I remembered that I’d had my first kiss that night from a village boy named Clay. He’d died in front of me in the Frost King’s arena only a few weeks ago. I nodded while taking a sip of wine to cover the fact that I couldn’t speak.
“It might be fun to incorporate some of the peasants’ traditions,” Marella added, oblivious to my discomfort. “But perhaps we don’t want any bonfires in the great hall. The chandeliers are made of ice.”
If I hadn’t been upset, I might have remarked that she’d better not invite me, then.
After a few minutes, the conversation returned to the state of the kingdom.
“If Cirrus would just give us some rain,” Lady Regier complained with an aristocratic sniff, “and if those laborers would just work a little harder, we would have all the grain we need.”
“The problem isn’t lack of hard work,” Lord Manus corrected, “but lack of men and women to plant and till and harvest. My wife spoke correctly when she said the Aris Plains have been torn apart by our former kings.”
Most of Tempesia’s crops came from the swathe of land called the Aris Plains in the southern provinces. King Akur had taken land from independent farmers, awarding it to Frostblood nobles in exchange for funding and troops. The southerners hadn’t given up the land willingly. Battles over the contested fields had prevented planting two years in a row and significantly taxed the kingdom’s grain reserves, which still hadn’t recovered. After Rasmus took the throne, the Fireblood citizens in southern Tempesia were hunted and murdered during his raids. It was no wonder the remaining people who lived in the southern provinces hated the Frostblood aristocracy, even if a new king had taken the throne.
“If the southerners had just accepted their fate as serfs under Frostblood rule,” said Lord Blanding, “there would have been no fighting and no shortage of crops.” He took a swig of wine from his goblet and set it down decisively, as if the matter had been settled once and for all.
My stomach roiled with hatred for the former king and anyone who had followed him, Lord Blanding included. I suddenly found I couldn’t sit at the table a moment longer.
I stood. Arcus immediately rose, and the other men followed suit as before.
“I’m afraid I’m a little tired. Good night.” With a quick curtsy in Arcus’s direction, I turned away.
“Well, how abrupt,” said Lady Blanding as the guards opened the dining hall door for me. “But what can you expect from a peasant of the wrong blood?”
As the doors shut, it wasn’t her words that struck my heart with a painful blow but the silence that followed. Arcus hadn’t said a word to defend me.
“You’ll ruin your eyes reading in the dark,” I said testily, still fuming as I entered the castle library. Brother Thistle sat hunched over a yellowed tome lying open on a round marble table, his beard tucked into the neck of his monk’s robe to keep it out of his way.
The library was in the newer east wing, with walls of paneled wood. Bookshelves running four stories high stood sentry on either side of a wide central aisle. Spiral staircases grew like twisted trees crowned by raised walkways with intricately carved railings. No ice covered the walls. The room was kept dry and well aired, protecting the thousands of books. I could happily lose myself among the seductively infinite stacks, if only I had time to read for pleasure.
Instead, I’d been helping Brother Thistle search for information on the Minax and taking short breaks to receive his instruction on how to speak Sudesian, the language of the Fireblood islands to the south. My grandmother had spoken Sudesian to me when I was young until my mother had made her stop, not wanting me to inadvertently reveal our heritage and my powers to anyone in the village. I’d had no idea that Arcus was considering making peace with the Sudesians when I’d first asked to learn the language, but now it seemed oddly prescient.
As I neared the table, Brother Thistle lifted a hand in a distracted greeting, not bothering to raise his head. He was a scholar, historian, and expert in ancient languages, but he was also a powerful Frostblood. Normally, a coating of frost covered everything he touched, but somehow he restrained his gift around his beloved books. It still amazed me, his level of control.
“How do you do it?” I found myself asking.
“Do what?” he muttered, not looking up.
“Repress your frost.” I had learned to control my gift to some degree, but nothing like the iron-willed dominance the Frostblood master exerted over his own power. Can you repress your ability, girl? That had been one of the first things he’d asked before rescuing me from Blackcreek Prison, where I’d been held for months after the Frost King’s soldiers raided my village. I’d answered no then. My answer would be the same now.
He finally looked up. “As I have told you many times, Miss Otrera, if you wish to fit in here, you will have to learn how to dampen your heat. Have you been keeping up your mental practice?” He meant the meditation he’d taught me at Forwind Abbey, the mountain monastery where I’d lived for months while learning how to master my fire so I could destroy the throne.
“Sometimes.” In truth, it made me uncomfortable to repress my heat, and it was tiresome to continually fail. “But it hardly matters now. With Arcus on the throne, Firebloods are no longer forced to hide their heritage.”
Not that any Firebloods were left in Tempesia, aside from me. I’d hoped some had survived Rasmus’s raids, but despite Arcus’s efforts to coax them out of hiding, none had been found yet.
“You will have to be more diligent than that,” Brother Thistle admonished.
His censure always put me on the defensive. “I’ll never be a Frostblood, icily perfect with my emotions buried under mountains of restraint. Sorry to disappoint.”
“You don’t need to deny your gift. But neither do you have to remind the court of your opposing nature at every opportunity.”
The comment stung. Brother Thistle had been one of the very few people who had always accepted me. “No matter what I do, they’ll never forget what I am.”
Idly, I made twin flames sprout like wings from my open palms, then pushed my hands together, extinguishing them.
Returning his attention to his book, he asked, “What has upset you?”
Perversely, the fact that he read me so easily made me reluctant to admit to it. “Besides living in an ice castle that’s warmer than its inhabitants? Besides my very presence making it difficult for Arcus to keep his court loyal?”
He gave me a swift glance. “You are pale. Have you had another vision?”
He was too observant. “This one was… disturbing.”
I related the details and watched his brows rise in surprise as I told him that I’d recognized myself as the queen on the throne.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked with forced lightness. “Prophecy or madness?”
His fingers drummed the table. “I considered the possibility that Sage is sending you visions to warn or guide you, as we now believe she did before—when you were lost in the blizzard near Forwind Abbey, and when you needed help to fight off possession by the curse.”
“Warn me?” My voice was a little higher than I’d intended. “But I thought Sage was prevented by the gods from sharing her prophecies.”
The woman known as Sage was a healer who had nursed the goddess Cirrus back to health after she exhausted herself creating the Gate of Light and two sentinels to guard it. In thanks, Cirrus had given Sage the sun-drenched crystal used to create the Gate. The light from the crystal flowed into Sage’s veins, gifting her with a long life and the ability to see the future—knowledge she’d been forbidden by Cirrus from sharing.
Brother Thistle patted my hand, a reassuring gesture that nevertheless made me jump at the shock of his cold skin. “And that is why I dismissed the idea. I now believe your visions relate to the fact that you are the only person to throw off poss
ession by the Minax.”
I grimaced. He made it sound like I’d been fortunate. It didn’t feel like something to celebrate, especially with the Minax still out there somewhere.
“Perhaps you are open to a connection with it,” he continued, “and it can send you these images at will. Or perhaps you are seeing things it does not wish you to see: memories or dreams.”
“You think a Minax dreams?”
He opened his palms. “It is possible.”
I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t like the idea that the Minax shared human traits. “Have you found anything about how to stop the visions?”
He cleared his throat, his demeanor clouding over with the intense look he always wore when immersed in research. “Well, Vesperillius, a scholar from the Northern Pike Mountains, claimed to be tortured by visions of the Minax after touching the frost throne. After searching for years for a cure, he went on a trip to Safra and, on the advice of a local shaman, drank the venom of a tree snake. The visions stopped immediately.”
“Lovely. I’m sure I could choke down some venom.”
“Vesperillius died three days later.”
I grimaced. “Maybe not tree snake venom, then.” I finally voiced the question I’d asked myself so many times over the past weeks. “What if I’m possessed and we don’t know it?”
He reached out and took my hand, turning it palm up so my wrist, with its fat, red vein, was on display. The vein at Brother Thistle’s wrist was equally thick, only blue. The sure sign of the Fireblood or Frostblood gift.
“You show no signs of possession,” he said. “Your veins have not changed to black, nor do you display a desire for blood or chaos.”
He said it gently, aware the trauma was still fresh. In the king’s arena, the rules of the games had forced me to kill, but the Minax’s influence had made me enjoy taking lives. I remembered with ringing clarity what it felt like—the ecstasy, the lack of fear or remorse, the temptation to let the Minax inhabit me permanently. I almost hadn’t been able to resist.
“No more than usual,” I agreed drily. “Although I have fantasized about setting Lady Blanding on fire.”
He waved a hand. “Everyone has fantasized about setting Lady Blanding on fire.”
That drew an unwilling smile.
“I did, however, find one text that suggested a way to”—he picked up a book on his left, offering it to me—“destroy the Minax.”
I immediately opened the book and shoved it onto the table to read. In my haste, I knocked a round glass paperweight onto the rug.
Brother Thistle flashed me an irritated look and bent to pick up the paperweight, a momentary lapse in his self-control causing the glass to fog with a layer of frost. “One of the prophecies of Dru suggests that, aside from their creator Eurus, only a Minax can destroy another Minax.”
Excitement sparked through my veins. This was the breakthrough we needed!
“The only other Minax that hasn’t been sealed behind the Gate of Light is in the fire throne in Sudesia. So”—I paused as the pieces fit themselves together in my mind—“we have to go there.”
“It is not that easy to travel to Sudesia. The kingdom is a labyrinth of rocky islands and narrow channels that only experienced sailors could hope to navigate. We simply don’t have that knowledge after so many years without trade between our kingdoms. And the Strait of Acodens, which is the most straightforward and safest way there, is guarded by Fireblood masters.”
“Well, aren’t there maps? Nautical charts that show a less conspicuous route?”
“Perhaps. If they survived King Rasmus’s purging of Sudesian writings from his library. Which I haven’t found evidence of yet.”
Frustration ate away at my already thin patience. “You can believe in a hundred moldering prophecies, but you can’t conceive of us finding a way to sail to another kingdom? How hard could it be?”
“Will you instruct me on sea travel now, Miss Otrera?” His patience was clearly starting to wear, too. “You have never even set foot on a ship.”
“Well, we can’t just throw up our hands and do nothing. The Minax promised to come back for me, and I don’t know… I don’t know if I can fight it off a second time.”
A tense silence followed. He knew better than to offer me false reassurance. I made sure my voice was steady before speaking again. “Arcus sent an invitation to the Fire Queen. We can ask for her help.”
Brother Thistle looked up in surprise. “I am amazed he would think of mending ties with Sudesia.” He shook his head. “Sudesians are not known for their forgiving natures. Much as you won’t want to hear it, he likely sent that messenger ship to its destruction. She would never agree. It was a gesture. No more.” He fussed with the items on the table—the paperweight, a quill, a strip of linen that marked his place in a book. “Even if we could safely travel to Sudesia, what would you do? Melt the throne in order to free the fire Minax? The prophecy says that the Child of Light will melt a cursed throne, and it made sense to me that a Fireblood was necessary for that task. But… the prophecy does not mention both thrones. We do not know if you are powerful enough to melt the fire throne.”
Brother Thistle believed prophecies about a Child of Light who would stop the release of the Minax from where they were trapped underground. He was convinced I was that illustrious but unlikely person.
There was also a Child of Darkness, one who would try to release the Minax rather than prevent it. If Brother Thistle had theories about who that was, he hadn’t shared them with me.
“Another issue,” I couldn’t resist adding, “is the small fact that I’m not the Child of Light.”
He waved the protest away, as he’d heard it so many times. “The fire throne is made of lava rock. The temperature required to melt such a thing would be… inconceivable. Only a Fireblood master could hope to try, and you are far from a master.”
“Thank you,” I said, dry as Safran desert to cover the fact that the comment stung. I’d been learning to control my gift for months, but I knew I was far from a master. And I had no one to teach me any more than what Brother Thistle already had by adapting his Frostblood techniques to my fire. I longed to find out what I could achieve if given the proper training.
“But aside from that,” he continued, “it took an opposing force to destroy the frost throne. Perhaps it would take a Frostblood to destroy the fire throne.”
The solution to that seemed obvious. “Then we bring you and Arcus to Sudesia.”
“How do you think the queen would receive us after King Rasmus massacred all the Firebloods in Tempesia? As far as she is concerned, they were still her people, and we are the enemy. Furthermore, what would we do if the fire throne were destroyed?” Brother Thistle asked. “The fire Minax would be released and Sudesia would be at its mercy, just as Tempesia is at the frost Minax’s mercy.”
“Then we need to find a way to trap it and bring it here to destroy the frost Minax! Maybe there’s a way to control it.” I made the task sound simple when I was really just spinning ideas out of vague hopes. I cast a glance at the piles of books on the table and stacked nearby on the floor. “Have you found anything helpful at all?”
He made a vague gesture of denial. “Nothing, aside from what I have told you. However, there is a book that other volumes refer to as the authority on the thrones and their curses. I was certain it was here in the king’s library. Have you seen The Creation of the Thrones by Pernillius the Wise?”
I couldn’t help chuckling. “Pernillius? I think I’d remember such a ridiculous name. Ask Marella. She shares your passion for putrefied history. Or is it petrified? Perhaps both. It’s all so very, very old.”
My teasing grin earned one of his signature scathing glances. “I have asked her, of course. She has not seen it. It must have been lost. Or perhaps Rasmus had it burned.”
My hopes for a quick answer died a quick death.
“If only Sage would appear and give us instruction,” I mused. The last time
I’d seen her was the moment I’d destroyed the frost throne. She’d been frustratingly silent since. In darker moments, I worried the visions of the Minax were a sign that my connection with Sage had been severed.
“That would be very helpful,” Brother Thistle agreed. “Until then, we continue our research.”
“What should I read tonight, then?” I asked, shaking off the dismal thoughts. “Since I’ve been so cruelly denied the wisdom of Pernillius.”
He tapped a book with a red cover. “This one.”
I took the book to a table and opened it, scanning for some mention of the thrones until the words swam before my eyes. Hours later, I had found nothing of use, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about Brother Thistle’s revelation: Only a Minax could destroy another Minax.
And the other Minax was in the land of Firebloods.
THREE
FOR FIREBLOODS, AUTUMN MEANT a period of weakening and loss, when an attentive summer sun turns fickle, playing a coquettish game of hide-and-seek until winter falls over the land with all the subtlety of a blacksmith’s hammer.
Thus, when the equinox dawned cloudless and bright, I had no urge to celebrate the day, least of all by attending a ball full of highborn strangers who would sneer and whisper about me behind their hands. If Arcus hadn’t expressly asked me to go, I would have found some excuse to stay in my room reading.
“You’re brooding again, my lady,” said Doreena, laying a chemise, petticoats, corset, and silk stockings onto a chair. “You’ll give yourself frown marks.”
“Tempus forfend. What will the court say if I’m wrinkled as well as dangerous?”
She smirked. “They will say you make a very severe queen.”
“Doreena.” I gave her a narrow-eyed look. “Please stop saying things like that.”
“But it will happen. Someday.”
