Ice Like Fire Page 15

  “I’m pretty sure we have drastically different ideas of what counts as fun,” I manage, glancing at the door back into the palace. Empty and dark.

  The men hoot laughter.

  “She’s got a tongue on her, this one!”

  “What else can you do with that tongue of yours, eh?”

  My legs shake and I step back from the edge, closer to the peak in the roof. The cold ball of conduit magic wiggles against my fear, clashing against their words and making me gag.

  The empty stable yard waits, dark and ominous around me. Angra’s face flashes through my mind, on how this area is so like Abril—vacant and eager. Horrible things don’t happen in crowded places; they happen in the hollows of the world, where it’s just a victim and an attacker and no one to hear any screams.

  “Hang on there, sweetheart—we just want to talk! Come on down.”

  I rub my forehead, skin coated with grime, and draw in stifling mouthfuls of hot air. The sticky wetness of sweat on my hands grows thicker, a layer of moist heat that feels just like . . . blood. Blood like in Abril, when I killed Herod.

  Herod looked at me like those men look at me.

  The conduit magic flashes ice through me and I rub my hands furiously against my pants, wheezing on air that refuses to go into my lungs. What I wouldn’t give for ice right now—

  No, I’m fine—I’m fine.

  A shadow moves on the other side of the barn’s roof and I whirl, nearly losing my footing on the shingles as I rip the dagger out of my sleeve. Terror courses through me, lightning bolts of dread as the shadow moves forward. I lunge, but my vision blurs—the deep black sky, the distant flicker of a rooftop fire pit. My knees crack against the roof, the knife skittering down the incline, and the impact jolts a whimper from me along with—

  Coldness.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Meira

  BLISSFUL, WONDROUS COLD floods my veins, filling me from top to bottom. I cry out, so grateful for the sensation that everything else disappears for one frigid moment.

  A face comes into my line of sight. It’s not Angra, not Herod—Ceridwen.

  She grabs my shoulders. “Meira,” she calls to me, her voice distant. “Calm down!”

  Blood roars in my ears, and my lungs squeeze like they’re getting trampled beneath a herd of horses, deflating and barely refilling only to deflate again. The coldness retracts, my vision unable to process what I see. Ceridwen, yes, but also—snow?

  Flakes of puffy white drift through the air between us.

  We’re in Summer—it shouldn’t . . . it doesn’t . . .

  Ceridwen crouches, her face stricken. “What did you do?”

  Her question comes jagged and harsh, and I just sit there, my hands in the mushy snow that gathers on the roof, my body shuddering with coldness and horror.

  Snow. In Juli.

  I made it snow in another kingdom.

  Conduit magic is linked to each land like it is to each ruler—it only affects its designated kingdom or people. I shouldn’t have been able to call snow in Summer, but here I sit in piles of it, watching the flakes evaporate in the relentless heat.

  “I—” I start, lifting a handful. “I don’t—”

  “My queen?”

  I shove to my feet and fly up the incline of the roof. Garrigan lifts his hand to catch me if I fall, steady where he stands on the crates below. Sweat and dirt streak his face and he looks over his shoulder at the yard. The stable hands have left, nothing but their empty wine bottles remaining in the flickering torchlight.

  “They’re . . . gone,” I pant. “They didn’t see? Did you see—”

  I motion to the snow, but it already looks like nothing more than a puddle on the roof.

  Garrigan levels a masked look at me. “If they did see anything, I think they’re drunk enough that it will be forgotten. But, my queen”—he pauses, exhales, and just when I think I might unravel if I have to explain it to him, he sighs—“are you all right?”

  Thank you. “Yes,” I say before I even know the answer. Am I?

  I rub at my chest, prodding the magic gently. No, I’m not all right.

  Ceridwen narrows her eyes at Garrigan before glancing back toward the palace. “I’m happy to see you didn’t last long at my brother’s party,” she notes, and shifts to her feet, hands on her hips. “Though what, exactly, were you doing?”

  Her eyes drop to the puddle at our feet, but she doesn’t say anything more about it. Her silence feels like a challenge, daring me to bring it up, or maybe just logging the information for later use against me. Whatever her reason, I am in no mood for a challenge.

  I roll my shoulders back. “I was following you. You seem like the only sane person in this kingdom, and I wanted to find out if anyone in Summer is worthy of Winter’s friendship.”

  Ask me about my magic. I dare you.

  Ceridwen barks before surging closer to me, her glare heavy. “And why would you pursue me instead of my brother? He is the ruler of this kingdom, the one with the power.”

  She spits the last word, still not addressing my magic, at least not outright. I recoil. I am so done with politics, with saying things without saying anything. I’m tired, and dried sweat makes my body stiff, and all I want is to run back to Winter and bury myself in a pile of snow.

  But wishing for such things brought potentially disastrous results just moments ago, so I shove the wish away.

  “I need help,” I start, voice weak. “And not from your brother. Even though you’re not the conduit-wielder, you still help your kingdom—”

  I jerk to a halt.

  She helps her people, though she isn’t a conduit-wielder. She helps them without magic.

  That’s what I want, a wish I didn’t even know I fostered—to rule Winter without needing magic at all. To be queen, to be myself, without having to depend on the unpredictable, frighteningly powerful magic that camps in my chest.

  We spent so long fighting to get Winter’s magic back that I never considered whether that would be best for our kingdom—but now that I have it, now that I’ve seen what it can do . . .

  I’d rather we were enough as we are, just people, nothing more.

  Ceridwen’s eyes fall to the locket around my throat. When they leap back up to me, my body hardens, preparing for an attack.

  “Even though I’m not a conduit-wielder?” she echoes, her attention falling to the street beyond the wall. Annoyed recognition flickers over her and I follow her gaze.

  The slave Ceridwen left with darts out of the shadows of an alley. He nods once, holds up three fingers, and vanishes, all so fast that I would have missed it if Ceridwen’s attention hadn’t landed on him.

  I turn back to her and squeak in surprise. She’s close to me now, nose to nose, and glares with those endless brown eyes.

  “Fine, Winter queen—you want to know what I do? That man is arranging to help a Yakimian family of three escape. But you’ve noticed the lovely souvenir Summer gives their property? The branded S? It means they can’t return to their home—Yakim would send them right back here. The rest of their lives will be spent in a refugee camp away from civilization, and we can only help so many a month before Simon gets suspicious. Even then, he suspects me, but I have to keep helping because I’m not a conduit-wielder.”

  My pulse rises into my ears. “But would you use magic, if you could?”

  Ceridwen squints at me and opens her mouth like she’s certain of her response, but she pauses, jaw hard. “Why are you asking me this?”

  I should’ve expected that. “I’m just trying to figure out where you stand, Princess. If you’re someone . . .” Who holds the same ideals as myself; who believes in the same freedoms; who would support my intention to keep the magic chasm closed.

  “If you’re someone I can trust,” I finish.

  “How do I know yo
u’re someone I can trust?”

  “Fair point.” I cross my arms. “You don’t.”

  Her wonder intensifies, but it’s more curious, less affronted. She glances back at the now-empty street below. On a long, slow exhale, she rubs the skin between her eyes.

  “My brother uses his conduit to make it sunny on cloudy days,” she whispers.

  I hold, letting her have the silence. She uses it to look at me, showing her true exhaustion in the way her shoulders dip forward.

  “Which is . . . beautiful. I guess. But he also uses it to prevent any unwanted pregnancies in his brothels—unwanted by him, mind you, not necessarily unwanted by the slaves. He gets to pick and choose such things, and I used to think I’d kill for that kind of power. But . . . no.” She shrugs, brow pinched. “I wouldn’t change who I am. I’m trying so hard to clean up my brother’s magic that I wouldn’t want to be magic myself. Fighting fire with fire. Which, trust me, doesn’t work.”

  Ceridwen blinks, breaking out of her admission with a swift lurch toward me. “And so help me, if any word of this gets to Simon—”

  “No!” I cut in. “I won’t. I . . .”

  She doesn’t want magic. Of course, she says that now, when she doesn’t think such a thing would even be possible. But I need to trust her. I need help in this.

  But Noam’s fear plays in my head. If someone familiar with the Order of the Lustrate hears us mention its name, it won’t be difficult to piece together that we found the magic chasm. Not that I care about Noam’s reason for keeping it hidden—I have my own reasons to want the rest of the world to stay ignorant.

  My goal is more aligned with Noam’s vision than Theron’s.

  I’ve reached a whole new level of political revulsion.

  “I’m searching for something,” I start. “Something that could prevent . . .” The end of the world. “. . . Cordell from growing powerful beyond control. I think it may be here, in Summer.”

  “Summer has never had dealings with Cordell. Nothing of theirs would be here.”

  “No, not something belonging to them—something they’re searching for too. It’s imperative that I find it first.”

  The expression on Ceridwen’s face is pure bewilderment. Eyes narrow, lips parted.

  I groan and tap my fist against my forehead, eyes closed. “I don’t even know what I’m searching for, honestly.”

  A key? The Order itself? Anything, really, but I have no idea where to start.

  “That’s the reason you came here?” Ceridwen guesses. “Not to ally with Summer.”

  I peer up at her. “I can’t say the same of Cordell, but I’d rather stand naked in a sandstorm than ally with your brother.”

  She laughs. “I’d help you if I could, Winter queen.” Her eyes shift to the puddles at our feet, but she stays quiet.

  Yes, she’s definitely holding my use of magic as something to keep me in check should I betray her. Neither of us is comfortable with each other yet—but this conversation is a start.

  I’ll take whatever I can get.

  Garrigan brushes my elbow. “We should get inside, my queen.”

  That pulls my attention to how empty the yard is. Garrigan reads my questioning look.

  “Henn stayed at the palace in case you returned. Conall went to search the east yard.”

  “You shouldn’t have split up—” I start, but the reprimand flops lifeless at my feet. I’m the one who ran out on my own.

  The look Garrigan gives me is cockeyed and exasperated.

  “I know,” I sigh. I move to the edge of the roof and drop to the crate beside him. We ease to the dusty ground, and the muffled silence of the distant parties gives me enough of a break to relive the night in clarifying details.

  I have no idea what effect my departure had on Simon. I could have been killed or worse if Ceridwen and Garrigan hadn’t found me. And when I panicked and lost control of my magic, I’m lucky I only made it snow. But how did I do that? It’s impossible—or should be. Each Royal Conduit can only affect its respective kingdom.

  I need answers desperately. I need to find the Order of the Lustrate.

  The guilt in my gut feels all too similar to the guilt that overtook me when I led Angra’s men back to our camp in the Rania Plains. After Sir didn’t want to send me on that mission, after I assured him and everyone that I could do it, I failed anyway, and we had to abandon our home yet again.

  Someone could have been hurt by my recklessness tonight. That’s what recklessness does—it hurts the people I care about.

  I thought I’d learned that by now.

  But as Ceridwen joins us on the ground, I alleviate my regret with the knowledge that I have aid, should I need it. Should I figure out what I’m even searching for.

  I wipe away the sweat from my forehead and start across the yard, angling back toward the door. Something clinks against my boot, and when I glance down, one of the stable hands’ empty wine bottles glistens in the nearby torchlight.

  I frown and bend down to it. Finn had a few bottles of Summerian wine back when I was younger. I might have convinced Mather to help me steal one at some point. Tipsiness blurred most of the details after that, but I do remember the bottle: the glass a translucent maroon hue; the label peeling in tattered strips; grime caked so thick I had to scrub off a layer to get at the cork.

  “They better enjoy that buzz,” Finn had grunted at Sir once Mather and I were discovered, nearly comatose yet giggling uncontrollably. “They just drank fifty years of aged Summerian tawny port.”

  To be fair, we didn’t drink all of it—we only managed a few sips before the taste became unbearable. And Sir had seemed more angered by the fact that Finn had the wine at all than by our drunkenness, as he proceeded to smash the bottle to bits and growl at Finn for buying goods from such a corrupt kingdom.

  “They just drank fifty years . . .”

  An idea surges to life in my head.

  “How long do you age wine?” I ask Ceridwen.

  She sees the bottle at my feet and dismisses it. I’d imagine thousands of them litter Summer. “Depends on the wine. Why?”

  “What’s the oldest bottle in Summer?”

  “We have a few bottles and casks kept as tokens of the first batches. Centuries old, at least by now. I didn’t take you for a wine enthusiast.”

  Centuries old. So . . . old enough to have existed when the Order hid the keys?

  I bite my lip and stand, hands beating a rhythm against my thighs. How much should I tell her? “I think . . . they could help me.”

  “I’d imagine so. Alcohol has been known to have its uses.”

  I mock-laugh. “Not to drink. Where are they?”

  Ceridwen relents, waving a hand dismissively. “Follow me.”

  I start after her but freeze. “Wait—they’re here? Not at a vineyard?”

  “Of course they’re here.” Ceridwen glances back. “The best wine in the kingdom has been kept in my family’s private reserve for as long as Summer has been hot.”

  I hadn’t expected it to be so simple, but Ceridwen starts walking again, and I follow dumbly.

  She leads us back into the palace. We pause just long enough for Garrigan to run a message to Henn and Conall that I’m safe. Thankfully Ceridwen avoids the celebration, dipping us down a few dark halls and around the hubbub of the party to a stairwell that leads us deep beneath the palace. The air lifts degree by degree as we descend, each layer of coolness easing relief into my muscles. Maybe my Winterians and I can stay underground for the rest of our time in Summer—it’d certainly be far more enjoyable.

  By the time the staircase deposits us into a wide space, my body buzzes with adrenaline, eyes snapping to every detail as if the Order of the Lustrate itself might be standing down here, waiting just for me. But darkness clings to the stones so all I know is the reverberating echo of our footsteps hitting walls many paces off.

  Ceridwen lifts a lantern and flicks it to life, the gold flames shooting light over a
wine cellar.

  Or a wine warehouse more like. Rows and rows of wooden shelves stretch in every direction, with more beyond the lantern’s reach. Every shelf holds bottles swathed in dust or casks stacked in neat rows. The pungent tang of oak swirls around the musky stench of time, confirming that this place has withstood generations of turmoil and war, struggle and hardship. A place untouched for decades—or hopefully centuries.

  “Welcome to the Preben reserve,” Ceridwen says, her tone dry, and nods us on as she ducks down a row, her lantern’s light swaying off the dust-covered bottles. Garrigan and I follow in silence, every step dredging up dust.

  Left, left, right, left—Ceridwen makes so many turns I know I won’t be able to find the way out on my own. This cellar has to stretch at least the whole width of the palace, if not more—maybe the whole area of the palace compound. The farther in we go, the thicker the layers of dust, the heavier the stench of age and mustiness on the air.

  Finally Ceridwen stops and waves at a shelf that, to me, seems like every other wine-coated shelf we’ve passed. The top few rows hold bottles, neck out, while the bottom few hold small casks stacked horizontally.

  “The oldest wine in existence,” Ceridwen announces, clearly unimpressed with her own kingdom’s possessions. “It’s a point of pride for every king to leave them aging here.”

  I start to reach for one but stop, eyeing her over the flickering lantern light. For all my anticipation, I didn’t process the fact that these are important to someone. Not things I can open and sift through. But do I even need to open them? Maybe the outsides will have a marking.

  My hesitation makes Ceridwen’s lip curl. She grabs a bottle and thrusts it into my hands, dust billowing off in a small cloud. “Do whatever you need with it. My brother has pride in a wine reserve, but caring for his people? I have just as much love for his priorities as he does for mine.”

  I snake my fingers around the neck. “He doesn’t know where you stand?”

  Ceridwen chuckles bitterly. “I’m pretty sure he knows, but he’s never sober long enough to do more than idly wonder why I’m such a grouch. So what are you searching for, exactly?”