Frost Like Night

  He set the book aside and rose from his cot. Melania groaned.

  “No, you have to finish it!” she begged. “Nessa didn’t finish it either.”

  Jesse batted a hand at her and looked up at Ceridwen. “What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know about the battle. He was here, reading to his children.

  A single laugh slipped free of Ceridwen’s throat, but it dissolved on her tongue, and tears came with it, spilling down her face. Jesse rushed to her, and she knotted around his neck, heaving against him as she tried to keep from sobbing too loudly, if only so his children didn’t worry.

  “It’s started,” Ceridwen whispered to him. She felt him coil under her touch, his grip on her spasming. He hesitated, pressed a kiss to her cheek, and turned back to Melania, Geneva, and Cornelius.

  “I need you to go play with Amelie,” he told them. He looked at Ceridwen for confirmation that this was safe, and she nodded. From here, the Summerian section of the camp wasn’t in the path of the battle, which had ended by now anyway.

  Then Jesse turned to Ceridwen, and she put out her hand, needing to hold on to him. A part of her ached as though she were still outside this tent, waiting to separate the flaps, unsure of what lay within.

  That was how every moment would be from now on, she realized.

  Uncertain.

  25

  Meira

  “THE CORDELLANS WERE defeated by our forces.”

  “. . . only half a battalion. Phil led a small group from those stationed in Oktuber.”

  “They were unprepared, as though they came in a hurry.”

  “Thankfully we only had minor losses—”

  Minor losses.

  My fingers tighten in the sleeve of Nessa’s dress, her dried blood breaking across my skin. The voices around me stop, halted by my sharp twinge where I haven’t moved in hours. Days, maybe, just here on the ground with her body in my arms.

  “Meira.”

  I peel my eyes away from the gore-covered clearing that once hosted Ceridwen and Jesse’s wedding celebration. Is that stain there blood, or wine someone spilled?

  “Meira,” Sir says again, crouching before me. He reaches for Nessa. “We have to—”

  “No!” I snarl. Sir flinches.

  I can’t blame him. I want to cower from myself, too.

  Ceridwen is standing behind Sir. And beyond him, Autumnians, Summerians, and Yakimians alike work to clean up the carnage of the area. Caspar watches me, and Nikoletta, and Dendera—they all stand nearby with looks of sympathy.

  A few steps away, Mather crouches over a body on the ground. The Thaw, Henn, and the remaining refugees got here sometime during the fight, so Hollis, Kiefer, Eli, Feige, and Trace surround Mather now. Some of them weep, some of them sit silent and ashen-faced around Phil’s body.

  My grip on Nessa tightens.

  Someone else drops to his knees next to me. Conall. When did he leave?

  He bends over Nessa, and I don’t fight him off when he runs a hand down her gray face. His fingers shift over her arm, and he lifts it, slides something between it and her chest.

  A book.

  “I’ve been . . .” His voice cracks. “I’ve been writing down the engravings from the memory cave.” He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, his gaze shifts to me. “It was supposed to be a gift for her. So she could carry Winter with her wherever she went. I wanted her to have a piece of our kingdom with her. I wanted her to . . .”

  But he doesn’t finish the thought. His blue eyes, mottled with tears, dart over my face, and the unhidden grief he shows destroys me.

  “I’m so sorry, Conall,” I hear myself say. It sounds weak, the blubbering apology of someone who failed. “I should have used my magic sooner. I should have stopped Phil, whatever the cost. I should have—I’m so sorry—”

  Conall wobbles forward and yanks me to him, his forehead to mine. “Meira, don’t.”

  That shocks me into silence more than anything he could have said.

  He didn’t call me my queen.

  “They’ll burn her,” I whisper.

  He swallows, nodding. “I know.”

  But it will be an Autumnian ceremony. For Nessa, the girl with the book of Winterian memories in her arms, the girl who should have gone on adventures all over the world and gathered pieces of herself from every kingdom in Primoria . . . it’s fitting.

  Conall eases his hands down, rocking his sister’s body from my arms to his, and I let him take her. He stands, careful to keep the book on her chest. His eyes hook onto mine in one last look of understanding. Of pain—aching, disintegrating pain.

  The moment he steps away, Sir pulls me to my feet. My legs crack from being huddled on the ground for so long, but he keeps me up, supporting me under one arm.

  Weakly, I try to pull away. “You should be with your son.”

  He says nothing, just holds me up as I stare at Mather, kneeling over the body of one of his best friends.

  The hand I used to push away Sir sits on his chest, and my fingers bend, clawing into his shirt. I push him again, or maybe hold him here, my throat so swollen with grief that I gag and sway, pushing and pulling Sir. He catches my other arm, pinning me to the ground, and I am pushing him now, beating on his chest.

  “Let me go,” I say, but it doesn’t match the ferocity with which I hit him.

  I still, open hands settling on his arms.

  “Let me go,” I repeat, a broken plea that I send to the dirt. “We could. We could go. We could leave, right now, before we lose anyone else. . . .”

  The words bubble out of me, jagged wishes that shred my heart even as I utter them.

  Sir’s fingers tighten on my elbows. He’ll yell at me now. He’ll reprimand me for this kind of talk.

  I clamp my eyes shut, bracing for the onslaught of guilt from him. A queen should be strong and resilient. A queen should face tragedy with hope.

  But I have Nessa’s blood on my body. I have the image of her death in my head. I have Mather’s scream in my ears, when he saw Phil die. And we haven’t even gotten close to defeating Angra yet.

  How much worse will it get?

  “You could leave,” Sir says, his low voice rumbling up my arms. I flinch, then hear him. What? “But you won’t, because you’re stronger than even the worst thing that could happen, and that makes you undefeatable.”

  Panting, I look up at him, my eyes shifting over his features like I haven’t seen him in months. Maybe I haven’t—all the time I spent being angry with him never let me see how much this has changed him, too. Impossibly, the Sir I see now looks . . . soft. Comforting. And his words soothe the fire in my heart, one cold burst of air in the inferno of my grief.

  He releases his hold on my arms as if to prove his point, that I can stand on my own. He steps to the side, clearing the way to Mather.

  I swallow a shuddering breath. Nikoletta is helping Conall place Nessa’s body with the others who died, while some of the Thaw now lift and carry Phil’s body there too. Mather stays on the ground, hands over his face, back hunched. The whole area hums with sorrow, shock that can’t be soothed.

  Before today, this war was in our control. Some small part of it, at least. Now the looks on everyone’s faces—they’re afraid.

  Angra found us. Whatever safety we thought we had is a lie.

  I drop to my knees beside Mather and curl around him, my face in his neck, my arms pulling him into me. He surrenders willingly. I think he apologizes, but I don’t say anything.

  This is the future I will have, if I keep moving forward. Nothing but tears and blood and pain, with the eventual hope of happiness—for everyone else. Is it worth it?

  The question is covered in the blood I’ve seen, broken beneath the pain I feel. But I ask it nonetheless, my eyes squishing shut on fresh tears as Mather adjusts his arms on me.

  My magic responds.

  Yes.

  In Autumn, the kingdom of endless trees and dry leaves, t
hey have to take the bodies to a clearing wide and empty enough so as not to spread the flames beyond the dead. Which means properly burning all the bodies would take at least a day of travel that the army doesn’t have.

  So we leave Nessa’s body with the eight others who fell during the attack. Nikoletta promises me she will be given an honorable funeral, one fit for Autumnian royalty.

  And I will give her an honorable future, I think. Her memory will live on in a world free from Angra.

  Hours later, we leave.

  Those who won’t join us at the final battle site gather on the eastern edge of camp to see us off. Nikoletta and Shazi; Jesse and his children; Kaleo and Amelie; all the Autumnians, Winterians, Summerians, and Yakimians who can’t fight along with a small cluster of soldiers who will remain to protect them.

  But since Phil revealed this location to the Cordellans stationed in Oktuber, the camp will move too, for a new, safer location—only after we have gone. We’ve seen now, more than ever, the ruthlessness of Angra’s magic. Should any of us fall to the Decay and have knowledge of the camp’s new position . . . It’s better we don’t know where they are. We’ll find them when it’s over.

  I wince at my own thought.

  Caspar will find them when it’s over. And Ceridwen. And Mather, and Sir, and everyone else who will survive this.

  That’s the only part of our plan that has changed now. The rest—march to the valley, reveal our location to Angra, and wait for the final battle to begin—stays the same.

  It doesn’t feel like it should, though. Nessa’s death, Phil’s betrayal, the shattering of our sense of security—it all feels like our lives should be irrevocably rocked by this.

  I turn in my horse’s saddle where I sit at the edge of camp. The space before me can’t exactly be called a clearing, but the trees are thin enough to allow our army to gather in a mostly cohesive formation. The edge of the camp is lined with those bidding farewell, weeping families who cling to soldiers and whisper words of encouragement.

  Conall stands in that group not far from me, his hands folded behind his back. He’s still staying here, whether to fulfill my final order or because, unlike me, he cannot bear to not say farewell to his sister. He didn’t get to mourn Garrigan either.

  He’s the only one left.

  He meets my eyes as if he can sense what I’m thinking, or maybe he’s thinking the same thing—it shouldn’t be me.

  I pull away from him, unable to hold his gaze without tears rushing back in. But when I look ahead, at the departing soldiers who fan out into the forest as they say their good-byes, I see the same emotion. Regret capped by mourning for the fate we’re marching toward.

  My eyes flit of their own volition to Sir. He sits on a horse beside Henn and Dendera, embodying the presence I knew so well growing up—a general marching to war.

  Fear is a seed that, once planted, never stops growing.

  Before, we knew the danger Angra presented to the world, but we still thought, foolishly, that we would be safe until we chose to march into it. Now I see, we all see, the truth of this war, how it will find us no matter where we hide or how safe we think we are.

  And that is how Nessa’s death and Phil’s betrayal have changed our lives, I realize: we’re afraid now. If we go into battle with such emotions that the Decay can latch onto . . .

  We’ve already lost.

  I kick my horse forward, pressing for the best vantage point between the departing soldiers and the remaining camp. Eyes shift to me as I slow my horse to a steady walk, pushing down the line of faces that hold the same fear that chokes the strength from me.

  They don’t expect to survive this. One of my own soldiers led Angra’s men right to us—what other betrayals await us still? Who will be infected? Will they die not by an enemy blade, but at the hands of their own brothers or sisters?

  I lift my hands over my head, mouth open to call for attention. But how do I address them? It isn’t one kingdom I can call for.

  That’s just it, though.

  “Angra seeks to unite the world,” I start, my voice ringing out over the murmured farewells. Attention turns to me in a steady wave as I rise tall in my saddle, heart hammering. “We have seen the lengths he will go to in order to spread his control. But I see before me something much greater: true unity. I see an army of Autumn, Summer, Yakim, Ventralli, and Winter. I see Rhythm and Season side by side, marching together in defense of a collective dream. A world we have never known, but wish to build—one without threat of magic. One where each of us is free to live and love and be on our own.

  “We have all lost something. Homes, loved ones, freedom—and that is why we march into battle at all. But today we suffered an equally great loss—a loss of innocence. You understand how the fight will go, that Angra will attack not only with weapons and soldiers, but with memories and regrets. The moment we meet him in battle, every pain you harbor, every fear that camps within you, will be used against you. And it would be easy to give in to his attacks.”

  My voice catches.

  “But we are not here because we seek what is easy. We are here because we know we will achieve victory when we march to that battlefield. Angra wants to darken our world.” I shake my head, grinning so wide that I begin to think I’ve gone insane. “But we cannot be extinguished, and our light will blind him.”

  The moment I finish, the crowd roars.

  Fists rise into the air. Heads tip back. Shouts and cheers and whoops explode around me, each soldier casting off their fear in favor of this protective coat of belief. They feel it as much as I do—how much better it is to cling to words of hope than tremors of fear.

  Not far from where I sit, Mather applauds alongside his Thaw, the smile on his face one of healing, one of hope. All I need is this. Mather, smiling. The soldiers, their mourning forgotten for a moment.

  Everyone ready for war. Everyone ready for victory.

  I pull my horse around, plunging into the gathered ranks of our armies to find Caspar and Ceridwen at the front lines. I pass by Dendera and Henn, who applaud with the crowd, Dendera’s eyes glassy and her lips lifted in a proud smile. I tip my head at her, and my eyes flick to the side, pinning on Sir.

  He sits straight up in his saddle, nearly a perfect mimic of Dendera, down to the glassy eyes and the quirk to his lips. That he’s applauding would have been enough—but he’s actually showing emotion. To me. Smiling. At me.

  I exhale a shuddering breath, refusing to cry again.

  I will face this war, we will all face this war, with the only weapons that truly matter: us, our strengths and weaknesses. Good or bad, awful or wonderful, these things have sculpted me, and I will use them to be the person the world needs me to be. The person Rares and Oana need me to be; the person Conall, Mather, Sir, and all the Winterians need me to be.

  The person Nessa made me.

  I will be Meira.

  26

  Mather

  MEIRA’S SPEECH HAD taken the pain caused by the attack and smothered it like snow kicked over a fire. At least, the pain in the soldiers around Mather—even as he applauded, each clap of his hands thumped against the black grief in his heart.

  He took stock of the Thaw without meaning to. Each of them was outfitted with weapons and dressed for fast travel. And each was solemn, applauding only because the energy of the crowd compelled them to ignore their grief for one sweet moment of clarity. But the moment would pass, and reality would crush them again, just as Mather knew it would crush him.

  The look on Phil’s face when Conall had stabbed him hadn’t been regret or sorrow, nothing Mather had expected. It had been only anger.

  Angra’s magic had done that. Taken loyal, happy Phil and made him . . . feral.

  Mather should have seen it happening. He knew Phil had been hurting after the torture in Rintiero, but he had never thought . . . he hadn’t even considered . . .

  But he was the leader of the Thaw. It was his job to see such things.

&n
bsp; He had failed Phil. He had failed them all.

  Mather swallowed as Meira’s speech ended. She pressed past them, heading toward the front lines, and they, as her guards, should follow. But Mather watched William, Dendera, and Henn fall in behind her, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he had a moment to speak with his Thaw before duty swept in.

  Only one moment. War never allowed for more than that.

  Mather turned to the Thaw, who pressed tightly together as the soldiers moved around them, the cheering tapering off into murmured farewells.

  “You have a choice,” Mather started, his mouth dry. “I won’t force any of you to go to war. Staying to protect the camp will be just as worthy—”

  “Save it.” It was Kiefer who cut him off, and Mather paused, meeting his eyes with a stern glare. If Kiefer had some objection to their plans that would leave him stomping off in a huff, Mather didn’t have the energy to deal with it now.

  But Kiefer’s face was soft, almost. “We’re going with you,” he stated.

  And that was all. No mention of how their trip to escort the refugees had led to Phil’s death, and how Mather hadn’t been with them for it—no mention of the other times they had been split apart, and the dire consequences of each.

  Just unity, now. Unity and obedience, from Kiefer, no less.

  “I’m sorry,” Mather heard himself say. Two words that he hadn’t meant to utter, though they had been in his mind ever since he’d seen Phil lead the soldiers into camp. Was it a sign of weakness to apologize to the Thaw like this? William had never once apologized for anything. Whatever it was, those two words rippled in the air, and he closed his eyes.

  Silence didn’t stay long before someone slapped him in the face. Hard.

  Mather blinked down at Feige, her cheeks flame red and her lips pursed.

  “No,” she growled. “None of this is our fault. This is Angra’s fault. All of it.”

  Her anger raged up into her eyes, and Mather felt that warning from when he’d first sparred with her. This wasn’t just anger from Phil’s betrayal. This was anger from every moment of living in Angra’s work camp, from all the terrors she had endured under his reign. Phil’s betrayal was sadly, horribly, one more nightmare in a long line of nightmares, all stemming from Angra.