Dipping his fingers into the dark orange cream, he thickly painted the salve on the burn on the top of my right breast. As soon as the salve touched the wound, its throb numbed, and the redness disappeared before my very eyes. I didn’t even mind the coldness of Lethe’s fingers. Next, his fingertips trailed across my face, moistening the scratches. And then, he infiltrated my torn slip and painted the salve over my side. At this, my eyes popped open and I shuddered. His eyes flicked to mine and for a moment we stood, eyes linked; then my eyes drifted from his, down to his chest. There—there!—winking at me in the folds of his tunic was a shard of milky crystal. Was it—could it have been?—the other shard of the magical mirror, belonging to the Aena dynasty?
Was it possible that contact with Theon was again within my grasp?
Lethe withdrew his touch, smearing the remainder of the salve on his own damaged fingers and sealing the disc beneath a pewter cap. He deposited the balm into his pocket.
“You must be terribly bored,” he said, clearing his throat. “There are books, you know. Dozens of books. You should educate yourself on our ways, on the history of our land, whilst you are here.”
I wanted to mention that he could easily undo my circumstances, but I did not. He knew. He simply refused.
“What did your father say?” I asked, advancing after him.
At this question, Lethe hung his head.
“You should learn the ways of the ice dragons,” he went on, as if I had not spoken. He stepped to the bookcase and slid a thick tome from its utmost shelf. “Here. A History of War. It is not as conclusive as we would have hoped—but the ice people were never in charge of The Hearthland’s presses.” He turned with pursed lips, but his eyes remained glued to the cover of the book. It was as green as the grasses which no longer grew here, and its leather binding was etched in filigree. “This explains our history, and delves briefly into our customs.” His eyes rose to mine and I was surprised to see that they were not the ice I had come to expect. In fleeting moments, there was warmth there, as if I had seen through a tiny window, a chink in metallic armor. “There are not many books in existence which honor my people,” he went on, extending the tome toward me.
I swallowed, uncertain, but took the book. I didn’t want to be rude. In spite of kidnapping me, and those occasional flares of rudeness, he’d been oddly kind.
I traced my fingers over the filigree. “Does it mention you in here?” I asked.
Another hesitation. “Yes, actually. I was just a boy at the time of its publication. My people had already lost their foothold on the castle.”
I flipped the book open, and he darted forward, clapping it shut again. He almost caught my fingers.
“Don’t—don’t read it whilst I am here. Just… read it later, when you are alone; I have greatly treasured the company of books in my lifetime. Haven’t you?”
I offered a small smile. “Me, too,” I said. Something about him made me sad. “Why don’t you want me to read this in your presence?”
“This is our country too, you know.” He was constantly changing the subject. So evasive. So… afraid? “We were relegated to our sliver at its tip. But we are another people on the same land. We deserve more. The Hearthlands are not the inherited right of the fire dragons.” His jaw tensed. “My people have struggled to coexist here. And I have been promised this opportunity. Why must Theon receive it as his birthright?” His voice rose and sharpened. “What has he done that is so noble?”
“Theon is a good man,” I said.
“I am a good man,” Lethe replied, his voice as low as mine. “Do I deserve to burn in the sun, Lady O’Hara?” His hand rose to my cheek and cupped my face. I hissed at the iciness of his flesh. “Do I deserve the abuse of a family which blames its children for its failures?”
“No,” I promised him. And I meant it. I shuddered as his thumb stroked my sore cheekbone. “Of course not, Lethe.”
His hard eyes softened. “You’re cold. Come. Let us sit by the fire.”
I settled in front of the hearth and peered up, hesitating with surprise as he sat next to me, so near to the crackling fire. “Does this hurt you?” I asked.
At this, Lethe offered a self-effacing smile. “I’m no stranger to pain,” he replied. “What has been your impression of my home country, so far?”
Well, Prince Lethe, it’s freaking freezing. But he needed a gentle touch. He was only beginning to crack open, and the slightest misstep could cause him to snap shut again. “It is beautiful, as Theon told me it would be.” I did not want him to forget—nor did I wish to forget—that I belonged to Theon.
Lethe’s brow knitted. “Theon promised a country you have not yet seen,” he deduced. “The former prince had not yet seen what he would surely have construed as its devastation.”
“There is a secret beauty in everything, for those willing to see it,” I told Lethe, reaching forward and boldly placing my hand over his own frigid one. In the light of the fire, he had begun to flush. “I do love the snow.” And it was true, even if I also loved the sun which refused to shine here now.
Lethe stared at my hand on his, and then raised his eyes to meet mine. They had changed, darkening to a more soulful blue—like a deep lake.
Who was Prince Lethe Eraeus, truly?
My eyes fell to the spines and swirls of the book’s cover.
Theon
Just as I had promised Michelle, the watchtowers, barely visible through the screen of driving snow, came into view. We trudged on through snow which hardened under our feet as the sun lowered into the horizon. This meant that somewhere nearby—
“Halt!” I called, throwing my hand out and catching Michelle on the shoulder. Having everything bleached into tones of white, gray, or blue made differentiation of the landscape very difficult. “It’s our moat.” Snow fluttered across the river of ice. I could only assume that the alligators were dead.
Naturally, the drawbridge was up. Not that it mattered now that the water and animals were frozen solid.
I extended my arm for Michelle to take. In those high-heeled boots, she would fall and hurt herself. Crossing the moat arm in arm with Michelle, I found my moccasins skated easily, and I remembered the carefree evening Penelope had all but forced me to have at Goose Pond. A wistful, bittersweet smile turned up one corner of my lip.
The gatehouse was deserted. There was no purpose to posting a man at its window, for the weather would certainly debilitate us. We were standing, but we could not fight. The snow stung our flesh and made us stiff and slow. By contrast, ice dragons thrived in frozen temperatures. It gave them vigor and stamina. They were doubtlessly certain that they would never again lose control of The Hearthlands—if they could maintain this witchcraft over the island.
If we could transform into fire dragons, the castle could have been retaken. But not only would we be dangerously conspicuous in our dragon forms in this environment, we could not bear to be nude. It would be crippling. For the first time in our lives, transforming into fire dragons would not help.
Each entry point along the gate was sealed with the criss-crossing bars which lowered from slats in the stone. I grimaced at the sight.
“If they’ve retaken the guard and locked even the exterior gates,” I murmured, “we have no hope of entry. They hold the keys.”
“Oh, please,” Michelle scoffed. “How complicated are your locks?”
She pulled a silver pin from the depths of her curls and marched to the nearest gate. I frowned after her. Was she about to—help someone? I decided not to get excited about it, just in case she used it as leverage for a favor later.
“I used to always pick the lock on my dad’s liquor cabinet, and it… Oh, this is primitive,” she muttered, glaring through its wide hole. “I’ve never seen a lock this big before.” She thrust her silver pin inside and fished around, face screwed to one side, then sighed. “Tumblers are frozen into place,” she informed us, rearing onto one leg and using the other to kick the lock with
the spike of her heel. Its guts busted and sprayed, but the gate didn’t budge. “Well, dammit,” she muttered, settling with a pout.
“Not so fast,” I warned her, stepping forward and heaving at the gate. It reluctantly wheezed and crunched into the stone slats overhead, ice chips showering into my hair as it went. I turned back to Michelle and offered her a reassuring smile. “You did it. Thank you.”
Michelle shrugged. “I’m sure one of you was about to think of that.” She flounced past me and through the exterior gate as if we were back at the Emporium at Shoreside, returning unwanted Christmas robots, or whatever it was that the people of Earth purchased in droves during their holiday season.
I gazed after her in wonder, then lunged forward and gripped her arm. “By the mercy of the gods, woman,” I hissed, “keep to the wall!”
Theon
The town seemed completely deserted. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through frosty windows. Inside were dark quarters, kitchens, libraries, offices, all void of life.
And the sun had set.
Shuddering, I relinquished my dream of reconnaissance today. Our time had been spent in travel, and as the temperatures plummeted further still, it was a matter of urgency to find shelter.
Einhen paused midstride. “Did anyone else hear that?”
In unison, we each went still.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Someone was approaching in the snowy street.
I tried three doors and let myself in through the first to give way. Michelle, Einhen, and Khem followed in after me, and the door closed behind them.
Warped wooden floors. A long bar along one wall. Instruments dangling.
“Gordon’s Instruments,” Einhen informed us, nudging a storefront sign which had been dragged inside and left askew near the empty fireplace. “That sign would make excellent kindling.”
“Yes, yes,” I said. “Tonight—when it is too dark to see smoke against the sky—we will light a fire to get us through the coldest hours. But leave the sign to bar the door. There is other kindling we can use.”
“Woohoo!” Michelle sprang up from behind the bar along the far wall. Clasped in her hands was a bottle of dark drink, labeled with a skull.
“Shhh,” I hissed at her. Khem and I set to quickly hoisting the sign along the slats next to the door, where the lock would conventionally go.
“Does anyone want a drink?” Michelle set to work on the cork.
“Um… gods, yes, I’ll have some,” Khem said, smiling for the first time since this journey had begun. He ambled toward the bar while I glared out the window, searching for the source of the footfalls. It was getting too dark, however, and the layer of frost on the window made it impossible to see in or out.
Wandering toward the ashes of the fireplace, I supposed it was good. We would be vulnerable to, but also protected by, the lack of visibility. I filled the pit with the small store of kindling alongside the hearth. We would be safe throughout the night, save for a random raid. No. The fire people overwhelmed in numbers those of ice—at least, we had in years past—and even occupying the city, the ice dragons would be unable to fill every house. After preparing the fire, I would check the entire shop and determine any unsecured points, potential exits, or hidden entrances.
“I’ll have a drink as well,” Einhen muttered, lifting a hand and stepping forward. “And then let us build the fire.”
“It is already done,” I informed him, exhaling a spray of orange sparks into the pit. In a matter of seconds, a fire sprang up before me. “Now…” I stood and sighed, peering overhead, at all the dangling instruments. I plucked a lute from one panel of the wall. “I will be securing the perimeter, and then taking first shift at the window, if anyone needs me.”
At first, I played the lute softly and gazed out at the street, while forcing the others to maintain silence. But, as the night deepened around us and none roamed the street, the reins were loosened, and I allowed the other three to carry on as if nothing was at stake. Even Einhen, carried away on the tide of drink, fell victim to fits of giggles and embarrassing revelations. Naturally, I’d never witnessed Michelle more in her element than while in the company of adoring, drunken men.
Meanwhile, I continued to play the lute, and I wondered where Penelope was. I had removed the magical mirror from my satchel just in case she might contact me, but it was a fool’s hope. The mirror rested against the bar, dark and void of all its former power, just like The Hearthlands. I wondered if my brother, Altair, was alive. I wondered if they were torturing my father, Erisard. Was everyone all right out there?
I was pulled from my own thoughts as the lute was slid from my hands. Michelle simpered down at me, the lute now dangling at her side. “Come sit with me. The other two are passed out, and I’m bored.”
“I’m not your entertainment for the evening.” I took the lute back from her before turning away. I wouldn’t engage in her pettiness.
“Theon.” Michelle looked down at her shoes. “I’m… lonely.”
I was being rude to her. It was not Michelle’s fault that the Oracle had prophesied what she had—that Michelle, not Nell, was my intended mate—nor that the Oracle had insisted I test my denial of her prophecy by bringing Michelle to my home country as a companion.
“And they told me how much the cold bothers you guys,” she added softly.
I grimaced. It was true. My bones were aching and creaking as if I were an ancient skeleton. “All right,” I muttered, standing. Michelle beamed and moved toward the fire, where Einhen and Khem were strewn together, asleep in the glow of the flames.
“Will you share a drink with me?” Michelle asked. I shook my head. She surprised me by accepting this rejection, and we took our places by the fire. “So, Theon,” she addressed me, curling her body toward mine. “Tell me something, will you? Because I just can’t figure it out. Why the hell did you bring me here?”
I’d been suspicious at her confession of loneliness, but now her candor confirmed it. She, too, was drunk. She just handled her liquor better than Einhen and Khem. I had already answered this question and told her that the oracle had forced me to bring her.
“Well, as I said before, Lady Ballinger,” I said, reaching forward and taking the dark bottle from her grip, “I was forced by a third party.”
Michelle’s eyebrows popped up into her hair. “Really? Who would ever care so much?”
I sighed.
“An agent of destiny, or so she claimed. However, I hold fast to doubt. Her name was Pythia—she lived in the caves—and she prophesied that the mate I had found and sworn to love was grasped blindly, and wrongly.”
“Reeeally.” Michelle settled back to survey me with an impish realization. “You’re talking about Nell, aren’t you? She said Nell was wrong for you.”
I grimaced and met her eyes. “She claimed that Penelope was not the universe’s selection of my mate.”
“So, as, like, punishment, you had to bring me?” For a moment, Michelle just scoffed. But then the expression lifted away from her face, and wonderment transformed her into a real beauty. “She said it was me,” she breathed. “She said I was the one you were meant to be with.”
“With whom I was meant to be,” I corrected.
Michelle’s grin widened, and she leaned into me. She had obviously had too much to drink. I lifted a hand to steady her, and was surprised when she took the hand and slid it against her waist, slinging one thigh over my lap and straddling me. I leaned away, but she hovered over me.
“Admit it,” she dared, running one hand over my chest and burying the other into the hair at the nape of my neck. Her eyes met mine, glowing with the light of the fire. “You feel it too.” She leaned so close to me that her lips brushed mine when she spoke again. “I make you… hot.”
Nell
Night had fallen outside of the castle. I remained sequestered in my royal chambers, but Lethe did not abandon me again. As we’d spoken, I had flipped open A Hist
ory of War, and strangely, this time he did not try to stop me from reading it in his presence. Since then, I’d been letting my eyes trail over the splashes of calligraphy, plucking snippets of information from each page.
The last third of the book was devoted solely to Emperor Bram.
“My grandfather,” Lethe had told me, when I’d recognized the name. Where I might have expected his voice to be swollen with pride, it was deflated.
“He was… decapitated, wasn’t he?” I ventured, wary of stepping too far onto sacred ground.
But Lethe nodded tiredly, as if this was a story he had been hearing for his entire life. “Yes, when he was my age. He led a massive rebellion of our people, who had been subjugated by the fire dragons for too long, and it almost ended in the capitulation of the Aena dynasty… but we were weakened by the elements, and Grandfather Bram was taken from within these castle walls. My father was only a baby then. Grandfather Bram was assassinated publicly, on the gallows, and my father was spared for his innocence in the matter.” Lethe’s lip quirked. “Though I am sure the soft-bellied fire dragons regret that decision now.”
“You talk like you never show a person kindness.” I flipped another brittle page in the book. I had read into the final chapters, where Lethe’s childhood was supposedly mentioned. “But you rescued me from those guards, and you didn’t have to.” I glanced over at him, the curtain of my hair between us. “And you brought me soup, but you didn’t have to. You—”
“I threw you into the fireplace,” Lethe reminded me nastily.
I dropped my eyes, and a blush burned my cheeks. “Yes. You did do that.”
To avoid his gaze, suddenly hot with anger for some reason, I scanned the words splayed before me—and there caught his name, ensnared in a long paragraph: Lethe Eraeus, grandson of Emperor Bram, who had ruled for approximately three weeks. Bram had been ruthless, from what I had seen. One picture portrayed a slaughterhouse—filled with young women.