Snow Like Ashes

  With him leading us, how did we ever lose to Angra?

  “Meira.”

  I flinch. Mather’s beside me now, my focus so fixed on Sir that I didn’t hear him approach. Mather smiles when I flinch, but it’s marred by the sweat streaked across his forehead, by the panic around us.

  “You let me sneak up on you?” he guesses, trying for lightness.

  I shrug. “I have to let you think you’re good at something.”

  He nods, lips relaxing as he watches me with a calm, solemn stare. Like we’ve never had to abandon camp or had to run off into the night in divided groups until we all reconvene somewhere safe. We’ve done this at least a dozen times since we were small enough to remember, but he’s looking at me now like he’s never had to leave me before.

  “Mather?” It comes out as a question.

  He swings toward me, stops, pulls back, dancing around like he can’t gather up the courage to do something. My throat closes, shock choking me, not letting me dare hope that he’s going to do what I think—

  Finally he sweeps in and lifts me against him. A tight, whole-body hug as his arms come around my back, holding me to his chest with my feet dangling in the air, his face in my neck.

  “I’ll find a way to fix this,” he tells me, his words vibrating across my skin, tremors that shake my very foundation.

  Slowly, carefully, I relax into him, my arms going around his neck. “I know,” I whisper. When he starts to put me down I cling more tightly, keeping my mouth to his ear. I have to say these words, but I can’t bring myself to look at him as they spill from my lips. “We all know, Mather. You’ll do everything you can for Winter. No one has ever thought less of you, and I think—I know—that Hannah would be proud that you’re her son.”

  He doesn’t respond, just holds me there, panting into the space between us. I want to push my face down to his; I want to stay like this, lingering just beyond kissing, forever. The conflicting desires make my pulse accelerate until I’m sure he can feel its rhythm beating on his chest. I can feel his, the fast thump of his heart galloping against my stomach.

  In a quick burst of motion he sets me down, slides one hand around the back of my neck, and plants a kiss on my jaw, his lips lingering on my skin, leaving permanent trails of lightning in my veins. His chest deflates, the tension on his face unwinding as he pulls back from me. I catch a glimmer in his eyes, the finest sheen of tears. He doesn’t say anything or agree with me or do more than give my fingers one final squeeze.

  Then he’s gone. Hurrying into camp to pack or saddle his horse or whatever Sir ordered him to do.

  I stand in the middle of the horse pen, one hand on my jaw. My eyes flick up, searching for Mather amidst the chaos.

  What was that?

  But I know what it was. Or at least, I know what I want it to be—what I’ve always wanted it to be. What I constantly have to tell myself can never, ever be. But why now, in the midst of leaving, when I can’t corner him and make him explain or figure out some way to ignore that it even happened? Because it did happen. My jaw feels like it’s been branded by his mouth, and no matter how many times I repeat, “He’s our future king” to myself, I can’t get the impression of Mather’s lips out of my skin.

  I don’t want to get their impression out of my skin.

  Sir slides in front of me, dragging two horses already saddled. “Pack your things.”

  I yank my hand down. Mather’s words and his lips and his arms around me fade to the back of my mind, and I hold them there, anchors in the face of all this uncertainty.

  “No,” I growl at Sir. No, we can’t just leave. We have to stay; we have to plan something better than running. “I can’t let them—”

  In one swift motion, Sir grabs my arm and flings me onto the nearest saddled horse. He leaps onto his own and takes both my reins and his, shooting me a glare that tells me not to argue.

  His glares have never stopped me before. “We can’t let them destroy this home too!”

  Alysson and Dendera swing onto their own mounts as we trot out of the horse pen. We ease to a brief stop in front of the meeting tent, long enough for Finn, Greer, and Henn to throw passing nods at Sir that yes, everything will be destroyed before we leave. Sir flicks the reins and as we continue I catch the faintest crackle of fire from inside the tent, the pop of flames devouring anything of importance, maps and documents. They probably used the fire pit. We won’t be able to bring it with us. Angra will find it, the only part of our past we have, filled to the brim with ashes.

  As I fumble with the pommel for something to hold on to other than a weapon, Sir’s fist around my reins falls, his hand unfolding just enough to cup mine. It’s so subtle I can’t tell if he’s trying to comfort me or making sure I don’t rip control of the horse away.

  “It’s not your fault,” he grunts. “It’s no one’s fault.”

  My throat closes and I just sit there, numb and small. It is my fault; I led the scouts here. And I know that staying is pointless—Angra will send far more than five men now, and with only eight of us, the odds are laughable. A death sentence. But I can’t just do nothing—doing nothing will kill me faster than facing Angra’s whole army on my own.

  Sir pulls our horses to a stop when we reach the plains on the north side of camp. A heartbeat later we’re joined by every horse, every person, everything they were able to grab in the time Sir allowed. As for our livestock, I hope Angra will treat them better than he treats our people.

  “Split up, two riders each. Once it’s safe, we convene in Cordell,” Sir announces. He points at Dendera, who sits on a horse beside Mather on his own mount. “Keep. Him. Alive.”

  Dendera bows her head and stays that way until Sir jerks on his horse’s reins. It rears with a mighty whinny, filling all the horses with adrenaline. Over the roll of noise Sir eyes me and nods, beckoning me to follow. When he heaves out into the now-dark northwestern plains like one of Angra’s cannonballs, I trail a breath behind.

  Everyone else follows, a brief stampede before we split off. I look back as Alysson gallops north with Finn, Greer and Henn head east, and Dendera and Mather go northeast.

  Mather looks at me, his eyes grabbing mine with the same intensity as before. He urges his horse on as Dendera scans the air, then they’re gone, barreling into the night.

  Sir pulls his horse back alongside me. The wind whips against my cheeks, drying the tears as they fall.

  Not my fault. Sir said so, and Sir only tells the truth.

  After an hour of all-out galloping, we slow. Sporadic groups of trees and shrubs are all we see, their dried, dead silhouettes splayed against the night. We keep going, riding until the sun rises. Until it sets again. Until the horses simply can’t go on any longer. Then we dismount, make sure they have a little water nearby, and leave them. Sir takes all their gear off first—the saddle, the reins, the blankets and small plated armor. He hides the useless parts in dried-up bushes, keeps what remains in his sack, and with a final pat on their flanks, we continue west for two days on foot, stopping only to sleep and scan the horizon for Angra’s men.

  Sir keeps his supply of food rationed just enough to drive me mad with hunger. Small streams of muddy water run every so often, edible plants are even scarcer, and shade is nonexistent. There’s just sun, sky, yellowed grass, and dead, scraggy shrubs for hours.

  I hate heat. I hate the sweat that drips between my shoulder blades, the way the sun’s rays bake every bare area of skin raw. But I hate silence more, and Sir won’t talk. Not just his usual quiet—he’s downright mute. He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t acknowledge me, for hours upon hours of endless walking.

  Just when I think I’ll have to tackle him, he drops to his knees next to something in the grass. A stream, little more than an arm’s length wide. It’s the clearest water we’ve seen since we started, and the fog of heat lifts in a burst of relief when I sigh at the small spattering of half-alive green plants clustered around the banks. Tough vegetation that get
s roasted in the sun, but it’s more edible than most of the Rania Plains’ delicacies, like crow.

  Sir glances at me as he takes the pack from his shoulders. “We camp here tonight and head for Cordell tomorrow. No one’s following us. The sooner we get to safety, the better.”

  Though the temptation of clean water sits a few paces away, I stay frozen. He’s talking to me. “Why are we going to a Rhythm Kingdom? I thought you hated King Noam?”

  Sir turns to the water, his shoulders slumping a little, but he doesn’t respond.

  “I can’t help until I know the plan. And like it or not, my help is all you have now.”

  The bite in my voice startles me and I drop my arms. I move forward, hesitate, unsure what reaction will come. But when I step up next to him, all I see are the trails of dried blood that swirl off of his hands and into the water. He’s had Spring blood on him for days. Of course he has—when would he have been able to wash it off?

  The face of the soldier I killed flashes through my mind. My fault. All the men who died at camp were my fault too.

  Sir nods to his left. “Upstream,” he says, ignoring my snap.

  I shrug out of my chakram’s holster and drop it in the grass before marching to the left, kicking my way through bits of undergrowth. Every part of me feels bloodied, dirty, like I’m coated head to toe in the guts of Angra’s soldiers. I drop to my knees and dunk my head into the water up to my shoulders. The coolness washes away a bit of the heat, flowing over me and chasing off my panic. My regrets.

  I’ve killed before. I’ve seen Sir kill before. I’ve seen everyone at camp, even Mather, speckled with blood and limping from battle. I shouldn’t care that a few Spring soldiers have died; they’ve killed thousands of our people.

  My lungs start to burn but I stay down, keep my breath trapped inside until the painful need for air is the only thing I feel. Nothing else. I don’t have room for anything else.

  Fingers wrap around my arm. Before I can shake myself awake enough to realize who it is, I inhale. Water flows into my lungs, icy hot panic rushing into my chest along with the unwanted water, and I yank free of the stream, sputtering and heaving. Sir drags me into the grass, slamming his fist into my back in a few punches to get the rest of the water to pour out of my nose, a rush of earthy grime.

  As soon as my lungs clear I launch to my feet, shaking dirt and water out of my eyes. “I’m—I’m fine. You startled me. I’m fine.”

  But Sir doesn’t look convinced.

  “None of this was your fault. And you’ve killed before,” he says. His creepily perceptive general senses finally work in my favor for once. “You’ll kill again. The trick is not to let it incapacitate you.”

  “I don’t.” I curl my hand into a fist, dirt gritting between my fingers. The rest of me is calm, careful, forcing every bit of anger out in my clenched hand. “I don’t want it to get easy. Not even if it’s Angra himself. I want to feel it, always, so I’m never as awful as him.”

  Or you. I don’t want to end up as hard as you.

  I twitch at the thought, more guilt heaping atop the rest. He wasn’t always this way, I remind myself. Alysson told Mather and me about the night Jannuari fell to Angra’s men. The night twenty-five of us escaped, cloaked in a snowstorm created by Hannah’s last pull of magic before Angra broke her locket in half and killed her.

  “William was the only reason we made it,” Alysson told us as we huddled near the fire one night, waiting for Sir to get back from a mission. “We could see the flashes of cannon fire and clouds of smoke over the city, and we wanted to race back to save our countrymen, but William kept us moving until we crossed the border, until we got away.” She paused then, stroking one hand down Mather’s cheek. “He was the one who carried you on his chest the whole ride out of Winter. Every time one of us begged him to go back and help save our kingdom, he’d put his hand on your little head and say, ‘Hannah entrusted us with the continuation of her line. This is how we will save Winter now.’ Even though a war raged behind us, even though we were caught in a chaotic blizzard to hide our escape, even though we wouldn’t reach safety for days, William was so gentle with you. A warrior with a tender heart.”

  Sir had never told us that story himself, and after Alysson told it to us once, we never heard it again. But I’d watch Sir after that, looking for the tenderness that Alysson mentioned. Occasionally I could catch a flicker—a twinge around his eyes when Mather faltered in sparring, a twitch of his lips when I begged to learn how to fight. But that was all I ever saw of the general who once carried a baby for days to safety. Like all of his actual tenderness was gone, but every so often his muscles convulsed from the memory of it.

  That’s how we all are, too hard for what we should be. We should be a family, not soldiers. But all that really connects us is stories, and memories, and spasms of what should be.

  Sir nods. He’s clean now, every speck of blood gone except the stains on his clothes. Like it never happened. “Not wanting to forget how horrible it is to kill someone is part of what makes you a good soldier.”

  “Did you just—” My fist relaxes. “You just called me a soldier. A good soldier.”

  Sir’s lips shudder in his version of a smile. “Don’t let that incapacitate you either.”

  The sun dries the water on my cheeks and starts to singe my skin again. This is a weirdly peaceful moment for Sir and me. I fight down the giddiness that threatens to ruin it.

  “Should we hug or something?”

  Sir rolls his eyes. “Get your weapon. We head for Cordell.”

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  8

  WHY SIR PICKED Cordell as our meet-up spot is still a mystery. Granted, it is the closest able-bodied kingdom to our former camp, which might have been the only reason. But I remember the rants Sir’s gone on about Cordell. King Noam’s a coward, hiding behind his wealth, hoarding his conduit’s power like all the other Rhythms, and on and on.

  So when we aim our course northeast the next day, I have to ask. Even though I’ve already done so half a dozen times and gotten no response. But Sir and I did have a rather anger-free interlude, and he called me a soldier, so that has to be worth something.

  “Why are we going to a Rhythm for help?”

  Sir glances at me, his face half amused, half annoyed.

  “Persistence can get you killed.”

  “When accompanied by torture, it can also get answers.”

  Sir snorts. “Rhythm or not, Cordell is closest. And we’re in a hurry now.”

  And also desperate, if Sir expects us to get help in Cordell. Nothing is ever that simple, and if I can guess the reason for Sir’s decisions, something is definitely wrong.

  “What’s our next move?”

  Sir focuses on the horizon, the endless cream-colored waves of prairie grass and the beating sun. “Rally support,” he whispers. “Get an army. Free Winter.”

  He says it like it should be easy. Just what we’ve been working toward for sixteen years.

  And now, because we have half of Hannah’s conduit, it’s finally within reach. My whole life has been focused on getting the first locket half—I never really saw or questioned beyond that.

  “Wait—we don’t have a whole conduit yet. Why would Noam agree to help us? And where is the other locket half, anyway?”

  Sir glances at me but keeps his lips in a thin line. “It’s a risk we have to take, because of the location of the other half.” His voice is flat, and I can tell there’s something he’s not saying, but he presses on to my other question. “If you wanted to make a thing hidden, safe from the world, so you always knew where it was, where would you keep it?”

  “With me, I suppose—” I flash to him. “No.”

  He shrugs.

  “Angra has the other half with himself? On his person?”

  Sir doesn’t respond,
letting me piece it together. His puzzles are a little annoying.

  “So Angra kept one half constantly moving around the world so we’d have a horrific time getting it back while he had the other half around his neck all along?” I shake my head. “And here I thought getting the first half was an accomplishment.”

  “It is,” Sir corrects.

  One corner of my mouth quirks up and I revel in those words. It is.

  “Why didn’t you go with Mather?”

  The question pops out before I realize I’ve been thinking it. Not that Dendera isn’t capable of fighting alongside Mather too; despite the fact that she’d rather not be a soldier, she’s our second-best close-range fighter. But Sir is still the best, and the best should be with Mather.

  “We can’t be caught together.” Sir swings his pack around and tugs it open. “Both of us are too valuable to the cause.”

  He hands me a strip of jerky. I look at him, waiting for more explanation, but he sticks a square of cheese in his mouth and settles back into silence just as easily as he left it.

  That’s it. Not because he cares about me, not because he wants to protect me. It has nothing to do with me. It never has.

  I force down the dried beef, my hand flipping the little blue stone in my pocket. The carved surface is gritty against my fingers, and I imagine rivers of strength and fearlessness flowing from it, up my arm, and into my heart. I imagine it really is a conduit, my own source of inhuman strength tucked into my palm—both a symbol of power and a reminder of Winter.

  I yank my hand out of my pocket. I don’t need made-up strength. I’m strong enough on my own—me, Meira, no magic or conduit or anything.

  But … it would be nice. For once, to not be so weak. To not look at all we’ve done and know we still have so very far to go before we can be safe.

  To be powerful.

  We stop to make camp when the sun sets. By that point, the heat together with my lingering self-doubts about Sir loving me have turned me into a twitchy ball of anxiety. So when he takes the first watch, I force sleep to cleanse my thoughts. Shockingly it comes easier and more quickly than any sleep I’ve had in a long time, as if the way Sir talked to me today caused some small amount of stress to lift.