Snow Like Ashes(3)
On one trip to Yakim, one of the Rhythm Kingdoms, when I was twelve, a group of men cornered Sir and me in an alley, raving about the barbaric, warmongering Seasons. How they’d rather we kill each other off so their queen could swoop in and pick through the rubble of our kingdom to find what they blame the Seasons for losing: Primoria’s source of magic, the chasm atop which our four kingdoms sit.
“They really want us to kill each other?” I asked Sir after we managed to escape. I had fought one of them off myself, but as we scaled an alley wall to get away from them, my pride ebbed into confused shame.
Somewhere beneath the Season Kingdoms lies a giant, pulsing ball of magic; and somewhere in our Klaryn Mountains there was once an entrance to it. Only the four Season Kingdoms’ lands are affected by the chasm—in the extremity and consistency of their environments—but every king and queen in Primoria, Rhythm and Season, possesses a portion of that magic in their conduits and can use it to help their kingdoms. The four Rhythm Kingdoms hate us for the fact that this is all they have, magic in objects like a dagger, a necklace, a ring. They hate us for letting the entrance get lost to age and avalanches and memory, for living directly atop the magic and not tearing our kingdoms apart to dig down and get more of it.
Sir stopped and crouched to my level, then scooped up a handful of melting snow from the side of the road. “The Rhythm Kingdoms envy us,” he said to the slush. “Our kingdom stays in winter all year, in glorious snow and ice, while their kingdoms cycle through all four seasons. They have to tolerate melting snow and suffocating heat.” He winked at me and pulled up his best smile, a rare treat that made my chest cold with happiness. “We should feel bad for them.”
I crinkled my nose at the brown sludge, but I couldn’t stop myself from sharing his smile, basking in the camaraderie between us. In that moment, I felt more like a Winterian, more a part of this crusade to save our kingdom, than I ever had before.
“I’d rather have winter all the time,” I told him.
His smile faded. “Me too.”
That was only the first time I felt—knew—that Sir saw the willingness in me. But no matter how often I prove myself, I can never push beyond his restrictions—though that won’t stop me from trying. That’s what all of us do: keep trying to live, to survive, to get our kingdom back no matter what.
I find my practice sword resting in a patch of trampled grass. Muscles spasming with the effort, I pick it up and frown at Mather, who stares past me into the plains. His face is blank, his expression hidden by the veil that makes him both a perfect monarch and an infuriating friend.
“What is it?” I follow his gaze. Four shapes wobble toward us, heat shaking their silhouettes in illusions of waves. But they’re unmistakable even at this distance, and my breath catches in relief.
One, two, three, four.
They’re back. All of them. They survived.
CHAPTER 2
MATHER BLOWS PAST me through the grass. “They’re here!”
From camp, Sir’s wife, Alysson, gathers her skirts into a knot and hurries away from the food she’s been fixing, and Finn sprints out of a tent with a medical bag.
I drop the sword and follow Mather, focused on the shapes before us. Is that one Sir? Is he leaning too far forward in his saddle? Did he get hurt? Of course he did. Two of them went to the outskirts of Abril, the capital of Spring, and the other two infiltrated one of Spring’s seaside ports, Lynia. Neither is terribly deep inside Spring’s borders, but they’re still within Angra’s domain, and any mission there ends in at least some bloodshed.
Mather and I reach them first. Finn’s girth doesn’t stop him from beating Alysson, and he stumbles to a halt seconds behind us, tearing bandages and creams out of the bag.
Dendera collapses off her horse, panting on the ground. She’s in her late forties, Alysson’s age, and her white Winterian hair hangs over a face creased with the slightest wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.
She wraps one arm across her waist and turns to Greer as he climbs off his horse. “His leg,” she murmurs, pointing Finn toward the gash in Greer’s thigh.
Greer waves him back to Dendera. “She’s worse,” he says, resting his forehead against his saddle as he takes deep, even breaths. His short, ivory hair clings to his head, matted with sweat and blood. Most days it’s easy to forget he’s the oldest of our group, hiding his age behind his unwavering determination to take on any task, any mission.
Henn slides off his horse next to Dendera, wrapping one of her arms around his shoulders to keep her up. The way he cradles her makes me want to look away, like I’m watching something intimate. It shouldn’t feel any different than the way we all treat each other—a haphazard army with Sir as our commander rather than a family. But I can’t help wonder whether, if our situation was better, Dendera and Henn would want to be a true family.
All four of them bleed from various spots on their bodies, torn shirts and makeshift bandages stained brown-red with a mix of dried and fresh blood. Sir is the only one who eases off his horse and stands straight, towering and immovable and watching us detachedly. With all the time I spend with Mather, I should be better at decoding emotionless looks. But I just hover there, my body frozen with anxiety, unable to move to help Finn and Mather pass out bandages.
My eyes travel up and down each horse, each bag. Did they get the locket half?