Coldmaker(92)

‘“You have offended me by not coming to my Manor and offering to paint my likeness. Normally I would have a painter killed for this slight, but I’ll make you a deal,” the king said. “If you can paint something so beautiful that it makes everyone in Yelish weep, then I will let you live. I’ll be back in one year.”

‘Alex bowed, accepting the challenge. As someone who knew how to use his eyes properly, he was able to see right through Sun’s disguise, and knew there was no way around the deal. So he locked himself away, and for a year, he poured everything he had into his work. Every stroke was a memory; every smear was a piece of his heart. He grew thin and frail as he lost himself on the canvas, not leaving his room, only concentrating on making something utterly beautiful. One year later Sun returned disguised as the king, gathering everyone in Yelish into the town square, setting them to face the wall of the Cry Temple where Alex was to display his masterpiece.

‘“Jadans of Yelish,” the Sun King bellowed, “I give you, your renowned Painter.”

‘Alex came around the Temple on wobbly legs, his canvas in hand. He looked thirty years older and fifty pounds skinnier. When he got to the wall, his bony arms flipped the painting to set it on the easel, but just as he was putting it in place Sun took away the light that the Painting needed if it was to be seen. When the Jadans of Yelish looked, all they could see was shadow, dark and ugly. Any angle they moved to revealed the same thing.

‘Nothing.

‘The Sun King laughed his wicked laugh, sharpening his blade for Alex’s throat, but then he realized something.

‘Every Jadan in Yelish was weeping, the ground stained with hundreds of tears.

‘“Why are you weeping?” the Sun King asked, both astonished and angry. “There’s no painting. There’s nothing to cry over.”

‘The town elder came up to the Sun King, tears at the corners of his eyes. “We have all known his work. The whole town has been shaped by his touch. It doesn’t matter if there’s a masterpiece or not. Look at the deathly state of him. We weep not for any painting. We weep for Alex.”’

There was a moment of silence as Abb and I wandered through the sky.

‘I’ll have to tell this story to Shilah one day,’ I said.

Abb bent over and kissed the top of my head, rubbing his knuckles across my hair. ‘I love you, son. You have made me so proud. And I know you’re about to change everything. I must be on my way now. I’ll say hello to Matty for you.’

And then my father was stolen from me, falling with the rest of the Cold, his body plummeting towards the sands.

I awoke with a start, my hands shooting out in front of me, finding only empty air. I blinked a few times, remembering where I was, and then the dread filtered in.

Leroi’s self-spinning hourglasses on the wall told me I’d been asleep for hours. I knew it was only a dream – how could it be otherwise? – but the feeling of happiness I’d felt at seeing Abb, and the following shock and pain at watching him fall had been real, and my heart was tightly knotted up. I felt an immeasurable sense of loss. Abb’s words still rang in my ears. I couldn’t fight the voice in my mind that kept whispering to me that this was the last time I’d see my father.

But it was only a dream.

I wiped a hand across my face, ridding myself of the tears that had gathered on my cheeks, and trying to keep my sniffing quiet so as not to wake Shilah. I felt as if my heart had fallen out of my chest.

‘I think that’s enough,’ I said quietly to the giant Cold. ‘As you were.’

But when I reached out to take the Frost off the hammock, wrapping my hands around the beautiful sphere, my whole world shook. An intense sensation swept through my fingertips. I tasted Cold, and my mind was washed blank. It all happened too suddenly for me to fully comprehend, but a river of energy jolted me awake and a wave of Cold air rushed across my back, sweeping my robes inwards. And all around the workshop the buckets of Cold on the shelves crashed to the ground, the clangs of metal so loud that Shilah awoke and fell out of her chair into a defensive crouch, her hands scrambling for a weapon. The Frost lit with the same golden hue I remembered from my vision with the Crier, the three-line symbol on its belly bursting with light.

I ripped my hands away from the Frost, holding them in front of my face to try to make sense of what was happening. My fingertips were still sizzling with energy, and for a moment my skin had borrowed the golden colour of the Frost, although it faded quickly. I looked around me. Hundreds of pieces of Cold were now eerily rolling along the floor towards me.

‘What’s happening?’ Shilah frantically looked around. She stepped up onto her chair to get a better look at the tinkershop, the panic making her posture straighter than ever. ‘Taskmasters? The Vicaress?’

‘I—’ I looked from my hands to the Cold, coming to a standstill on the ground, then back to the Frost. ‘No. I don’t know. I touched the Frost and—’

And then it all clicked, the World Cried suddenly making sense.

‘Tears,’ I said, gasping from the revelation. ‘Jadan tears.’

Shilah wrapped a gentle hand around my wrist, scrutinizing the tips of my fingers. ‘What do you mean, tears?’

It was hard to get my mouth to work, as my bottom jaw felt so slack I worried it might just drop off. ‘Crier. Tears. Jadan Tears.’