Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes, #1)(22)

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 is 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 once we broke free of Jannuari. 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, 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.”





CHAPTER 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. 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 sparked 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 decision, 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?”