Frost Like Night

  Because in two breaths, it will be.

  I kick off a nearby stalagmite and leap over the first few funnels of Decay, curving my body in the air to avoid another. As I jump, I thrust my hand at Angra, channeling another bolt of magic that connects with the ground and propels him, faltering, to the very edge of the magic chasm’s cliff.

  I’m still airborne, pushing myself on by a final surge of magic that floods my being with ice and snow. That chill whirls out of me, latches onto the nearest weapon—the dagger that fell out of Mather’s pack—and snatches it to me.

  Through the sweat and blood that coat my face, I look down at where Angra wavers on the edge of the cliff.

  And I smile.

  The dagger’s hilt slams into my palm, magic bursting up my arm in a whirl of images and emotions. But they all fall silent in the face of my determination. There is nothing here—no distraction, no thought, only Angra and me and the end of the world.

  The dagger shimmers purple in the dimness, reflecting the magic behind Angra. That flash draws his eyes, but too late, time morphing around this moment as if all the world holds its breath to watch me leap across the cliff, raise the dagger, and land, sinking the blade into Angra’s chest.

  I send one last command at Mather. All too similar to the one his father shouted as the room crumbled around us.

  Run!

  Angra stumbles back, stunned enough for me to knock him off-balance even more. He teeters, trips, hands scrabbling fruitlessly at the air as I gain my footing on the cliff and push with every bit of strength I’ve ever possessed.

  We teeter, both of us, my momentum and Angra’s weight dragging us over the edge.

  A movement makes me look over my shoulder one last time. Mather, Theron’s arm draped around his neck, drags the half-conscious king for the exit. He doesn’t stop to look back at me, doesn’t pause to try to join me. He just obeys, tearing out of the chasm with one of his greatest adversaries leaning against him.

  My feet leave the cliff with one final shove.

  Angra screeches, dark magic streaming from him in a desperate attempt to pull himself back up. But the closer we draw to the magic source, the more electrifying fingers of it snap out and sizzle his attempts. I’m ready too—I will not let him stop me, and for every trembling grasp at salvation he unleashes, I slam into him with waves of my own magic. Light and dark, purity and decay, as the source of magic grows brighter and closer and hotter.

  There was a time in my life when I would have given anything for magic. I did give anything for magic—I threw myself headlong into a centuries-old war. But I did it also for Winter, for the people I loved, because that was what they needed to live a safe and healthy life.

  And once I got magic, once I had far, far too much of it, I hated and feared it. I couldn’t fathom how our world could be so dependent on something that had done so much bad. But there was good in it, such wondrous good that the bad was almost understandable.

  That is what I see as I plunge toward the source. The brilliance of it hurts my eyes, makes me unable to distinguish one color from the next until all I see is the most searing, perfect light. Beautiful and painful and unmarred and flawed. And while these extremes have made my world a realm of chaos and uncertainty, the answer is so simple:

  The good and the bad that the magic gives us are equally unnecessary.

  All my life, magic has been a driving force. All my life, I’ve fought and bled and wept for a future when those I love are safe and happy.

  And so I close my eyes and let the magic bring about a new world.

  38

  Mather

  MATHER TOLD HIMSELF it was Meira’s final burst of magic that made him leave the chasm. That she infused her will into him, a single command drumming at his heart until he couldn’t conceive of any other option.

  But that was a lie.

  She had told him to run with such a distinct crack of her voice that he wanted to drop Theron’s wobbling form and dash back for her. No, something more powerful made him keep the Cordellan prince—king—around his neck and sprint up the exit tunnel. Something that, once he saw it, shocked an even stronger sensation into his body: hope.

  He and Phil had carried Cordell’s conduit all around this world. From Rintiero up to Paisly and down to the Rania Plains, all the way from there to Autumn. Mather had taken it into the labyrinth because he’d expected Theron to appear in the battle above, and he didn’t want any of the Thaw to have it lest Theron somehow manage to take it from them. Mather hadn’t considered the conduit more than that, mostly due to the hatred that filled his veins whenever he even thought the word Cordell, but now he realized just how blind he’d been.

  That was the solution. Cordell’s conduit.

  Theron had surrendered it. He’d given it up in Rintiero. That was what had to happen—a conduit had to be sacrificed and returned to the chasm. Cordell’s conduit had been sacrificed, and it was now returning to the chasm—only by Meira’s hands, not its own bearer’s.

  Would that be enough to destroy all magic? Would it allow Meira to survive? It had to work. It had to.

  The only light in the exit tunnel came from the magic chasm below, so as Mather dragged Theron up, darkness swallowed them whole. He paused just inside the tunnel His ears strained for any sign of Meira behind him, racing up the exit. But all he heard was the continuing sizzle and crack of the magic electrifying the chasm—

  Then a rumble. As if the Klaryn Mountains were awakening after a long slumber, shaking their shoulders back as they rose from the depths of the earth. The tunnel vibrated so hard, rocks tumbled from the ceiling and walls, a few stones cracking on Mather’s head and arms. He staggered, Theron moaning in a half-conscious gurgle as they slammed into the wall. The vibrations didn’t let up, and in the wake of the initial rumble, an explosion ripped through the chasm and up the tunnel.

  Mather didn’t turn to see what came at them. Survival instinct overtook him, and never had he been more grateful for that numbness. Clarity only, no thoughts that would destroy him.

  Thoughts like: The magic is exploding. Because Cordell’s conduit fell into it?

  Or because of Winter’s?

  He shifted Theron over his shoulder and ran like he’d never run before, legs pumping as if his speed might make everything all right. But even that failed him, and when a flare of painfully white light illuminated the tunnel, charged heat slammed into his back. He cried out, legs giving way under the bombardment of prickling fire crawling over his body, burrowing into his muscles.

  But when he dropped, he didn’t hit the ground.

  He fell upward, carried on that wave of magic with Theron hurtling through the air ahead of him. The magic surged beneath them, like a wave relentlessly crashing for the shore. Blood roared through Mather’s head, or maybe it was the magic, or the continuing explosions beneath them—the deafening intensity of the tunnel was matched only by the brilliance of the white light. It grew the longer they flew, gleaming brighter and brighter, the magic burning hotter and hotter. . . .

  The magic relinquished his body to the surface. Drifts of snow caught him as he dropped to the ground, flipping and rolling down a sharp slope peppered with boulders and tufts of grass. He slammed into a tree trunk, shaking loose a deluge of golden leaves and ice. The tunnel had dumped them somewhere between Autumn and Winter in the Klaryns’ foothills. They had to be close to the battle.

  These details registered in Mather’s mind, but barely, a flicker of fact that vanished as he found himself staring up at the mountains beyond.

  The explosion that had ejected him and Theron from the tunnel raged on. The ground shook so hard, he had to steady himself on the tree to stand, and Theron, waking slowly, braced his hands on a rock and bowed his head to block out the rising noise. Because rise it did—the vibrations retracted, the deep breath before the war cry, and as Mather watched, golden leaves raining through the air, the mountains exploded.

  Red, orange, silver, green—tendril
s of color fanned across the clear blue sky, bursting up as if a volcano had shot a rainbow into the world. Rock cracked in earsplitting shatters; the spark and hiss of the magic evaporating lit the air like the fuses of a thousand cannons readying for battle. But no battle came on the wake of their spark—this was the battle, this great explosion that drowned out the blue of the sky in favor of streams of color and magic that made every nerve in Mather’s body swirl under his skin.

  The absence of emotion let him have one moment of watching this display unburdened. And in that moment, he almost thought it looked beautiful, the destruction of magic—

  But there it ended.

  This explosion was the magic disintegrating. The colors that swirled out of the mountain dissolved against the air, and each breath that passed brought with it less and less of that sparking sensation, the feel of the air saturated by magic. It was leaving, as Meira had wanted.

  Mather flung himself away from the tree. Stones barred the exit tunnel now, thrown there during the continuing eruption. He tugged on one, but it didn’t budge. No—she had to have gotten out. Maybe the magic threw her elsewhere, farther down. . . .

  Though the earth still shook with the aftershocks of the chaos, Mather scrambled down the incline, hurling himself from rock to tree to rock again. His palms tore against the sharp stones, but he couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, his heart vibrating right alongside the earth.

  “Meira!” he screamed. Desperation gurgled through him, the aching grief that had sprouted in his gut the moment he had watched his father die. He clung to his tiny well of hope, but even that darkened, melting like ice in his palm.

  He staggered out from behind one last cluster of trees and into the battlefield. Or what had once been the battlefield.

  Soldiers from each side stood motionless, gaping up at the continuing eruption of fading magic. Most dropped to their knees as if they had all been driven to the ground by the same life-altering revelation. A few wept, staring at their hands as if seeing them for the first time. Most simply knelt there, soaking in the emptiness that permeated the air.

  Mather felt it, too. Even those on the field who hadn’t been possessed by Angra’s magic felt it, their eyes widening and their chests heaving with the deep breath reserved for inhaling pure air after too long spent in squalor. They turned to those who knelt, and joyous cries began, just as they had in Abril, when he’d first thought all this was over and Meira had stood triumphant over Angra’s work camps.

  “MEIRA!” The agony in his own voice echoed back to him, countering the happiness of the field. It should have worked—Cordell’s dagger should have been a good enough sacrifice. . . .

  Maybe it had been, but she had been too close to the destruction.

  Maybe Angra had managed one final blow before the end.

  Mather tripped into a boulder and smacked his palm against it, beating his sorrow out on the stone. “NO!” he screamed, shoving that word into the mountain, forcing it to feel everything it had taken from him.

  A hand on his shoulder. “Mather?”

  He spun, launched away, tears blurring his sight—no, despair blurring his sight, making him blind with need so he breathed her name, “Meira,” in one quiet, hopeful plea.

  But it was Trace. And Hollis behind him, Kiefer, Eli, Feige.

  His Thaw.

  He hadn’t lost them too.

  Mather dropped to the ground, doubled over near the rocks that led up to where the chasm’s exit had once been. Trace knelt with him and said something, quiet words that Mather refused to hear. Someday, maybe, he’d be able to hear them—but now, all he could do was unravel on this field, in the midst of celebrations and relief and the victory Meira had wanted.

  She should be here. If anyone was to survive that labyrinth, it should have been her.

  Somehow Mather found himself upright, maybe urged by Trace or Hollis. Ceridwen stood behind them now, battle beaten, her brows pinched over teary eyes. She already knew—everyone who gathered did. Caspar, his generals; Rares and Oana—how had they gotten here? Dendera, her face contorted as if she had been weeping for hours—and Henn wasn’t with her.

  No. Ice above, no more loss.

  Mather studied their faces.

  “The world will need you after this.”

  It had been one of Meira’s last pleas to him, and he grabbed onto it, willing the order to consume his every emotion. Something to do past his grief, while everyone around looked to him for explanation or leadership.

  Mather shifted forward. Eyes brightened at his movement. He cleared his throat, and Ceridwen clamped her hands over her mouth, her eyes welling with tears that made her shoulders jerk forward in a sob.

  Caspar smiled. Rares laughed, no, bellowed, nearly toppling to the ground as Oana held him up and joined his laughter. Even Dendera smiled, but smiled through tears and closed her eyes to brace herself.

  Mather frowned and looked to his Thaw for explanation.

  But none of them offered any words, too shocked to speak.

  Two fingers pressed against the back of Mather’s neck.

  It had been a game when they were children. One he’d played on her, mostly, sneaking up and pressing two fingers on her neck in place of a weapon.

  “You’re dead!” he’d shout to her shrieks that it wasn’t fair, that she’d take him in a real fight, that she hadn’t been ready.

  He wasn’t ready. He was never ready, and every time he snuck up on her, her violent swirl of confidence stunned him speechless. No matter how many times he saw her fight, he was always struck dumb with wonder that someone could be so unapologetically strong.

  So he shouldn’t have been surprised at all when those fingers landed on his neck. He shouldn’t have doubted her ability to survive, not for one second.

  Everything in him heaved from grieving to numb to vibrant as a he spun around.

  Meira. Blanketed with the thick gray dust of the chasm and streaked with blood.

  But Meira.

  Alive.

  She smiled, fighting exhaustion as she wobbled forward. He didn’t hesitate, couldn’t have even if he’d wanted to—he swept in to catch her as she strung her arms around his neck. Her head bent into his chest, each warm breath from her coating his heart with the purest, most unbelievably perfect waves of joy.

  A thousand things rammed against his mouth, but all he said was “Cordell’s conduit.”

  Meira nodded. Ice, every movement from her made him want to cry out.

  “I didn’t realize what it would do until we were falling,” she said, keeping her face tucked against him as if she needed to touch him as much as he needed her. “But we hit the magic, and I watched Angra disintegrate. I expected the magic to burn me up as well—but the dagger touched it before I did. Then everything went white, and I was flying up through the mountains. I thought . . . I thought I was dead . . . but it saved me. The dagger.”

  She shook her head, unable to say more as she tightened her hold in one resilient squeeze before she pulled back, laughing. Her laugh made him light enough to float into the now-clear sky. Any remnants of magic were gone; any echoing vibrations had faded.

  It was over.

  Ceridwen dove forward to throw herself around Meira, who still had Mather’s hands on her waist. The Thaw joined next, laughing and colliding in a mess of arms and smiles and tears as Dendera, Oana, and Rares swept in too. They became nothing but a tangle of happiness, grabbing onto their victory through the loss, their triumph through the grief.

  Mather’s eyes connected with something outside their group.

  Cordellan soldiers clustered around a stand of trees not far down. Theron limped toward them, one hand wrapped around his side, his face void of . . . everything.

  He was free of Angra’s darkness now. How would he react to what he had done?

  And how much of what he had done had actually been him?

  Theron must have felt eyes on him, because he instinctively turned, then immediately winced in reg
ret. He didn’t want to face them yet—Mather couldn’t blame him.

  But the reason Mather’s arms weren’t empty right now was because of Theron. All the hatred he’d felt toward Cordell, all the anger at Noam and jealousy at Theron—it had all given him Meira back.

  So before Theron looked away, Mather bowed his head.

  Theron blinked. His jaw shifted. He closed his eyes and nodded in return.

  Meira’s mouth grazed Mather’s ear. “Thank you. For saving him.”

  Mather smiled, jostled as more people joined the celebration. He lifted a hand to cup her head, holding her face just down from his. “Thank you for saving us.”

  She grew solemn, and he saw one distinct thought cross her face: William.

  “We’re free now,” Meira said, to Mather, to herself. She turned to face part of the celebrating crowd, one hand on his chest. Brightness returned to her eyes, beautiful resilience that Mather wanted to spend the rest of his life basking in. “We are free!”

  Her cry shot out into the air, egging other shouts higher. It was hard to feel anything but joy here, an infectious wonder that every person in the valley dove into headfirst.

  Meira pivoted back to him, her grin radiant, and didn’t give him a word of warning or a chance to kiss her first—she leaped on him, pressing her lips to his. He hadn’t thought he’d ever get to do this again. Hold her, kiss her, know her lips by anything other than memory. The kiss echoed through his every nerve, tangling around the grief knotted in his gut and easing it looser.

  Mather laughed against her mouth and swept her into his arms again, lifting her so he could spin as she kissed him, surrounded by chaos and happiness and laughter, the start of their new beginning.

  39

  Meira

  Six Months Later

  AS WE PASS through the great gates that guard Bithai, I bear down so hard on my horse’s reins that I’m surprised he doesn’t bolt into the crowd.

  The streets turn in such sharp angles that I swear I can hear them snapping into place. Merchants shout from their stalls, waving their wares to attract customers under the noon sky. The curved brown tiles of the roofs still sit on foundations of gray stone; vines still scramble up walls in bursts of foliage. Flags wave high in the breeze, hunter-green backgrounds bearing Cordell’s golden maple leaf and lavender stalk.