The Fragile Threads of Power, page 8
She jumped, held her breath on instinct, expecting the ice to shatter when she landed on it, expecting to feel the bone-jarring cold of the water closing over her head. But her boots hit the ice with a slap, and the world beneath didn’t so much as shiver.
Lila squinted into the distance, but it was like staring into an empty scrying glass. Her good eye played tricks, tried to conjure something in the absence—a port, a dock, another ship—but the images all dissolved back into the fog.
She circled the ship, hoping to find a path of water in its wake, but in the short time they’d been stuck, the ice had somehow already frozen around the hull. Lila rolled her neck and cracked her knuckles, the cold wind latching on to her bare hands. She rubbed them together.
“Put wind in the sails,” she called up, her voice echoing across the vast expanse of ice.
Moments later, Tav had the canvas drawn taut and Vasry conjured a gust of air. The whole ship groaned in protest, and Lila thrust both hands out in front of her, taking hold of the surrounding ice, wrapping her will over it like fingers as she ordered the mass to melt.
The scene before her shone, and shimmered. The ice seemed to thin in places, but beyond that, it did not heed. Annoyance bloomed into anger, and anger was powerful. She tightened her grip, forced her will into the surrounding ice, told it to be water.
The sound of it rushed in her ears, along with the crack of the topmost layers of ice.
The world tipped, but it wasn’t the frozen mass giving way. It was her sight. Lila’s good eye blurred, her head suddenly heavy, and Alucard’s voice echoed a warning in her ears, from those first days when he began to teach her magic. The larger the element, he’d said, the harder it was to wield. A magician could only manipulate what they could hold. A current from the air, a few inches from the soil, a wave from the sea.
No one can stretch their mind around an ocean.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she muttered now, as something warm and wet grazed her lip. She touched her hand to it, and it came away red. Lila rubbed the blood between her fingers.
Perhaps she couldn’t wrap her will around the ice. But there were other ways to break it. She was Antari, after all.
“Hey Captain,” called Vasry, “maybe we should—”
She didn’t hear him after that. She pressed both hands to the ice, hissing at the brutal cold. Her teeth chattered as she said the words.
“As Staro.”
Break.
As soon as the sound left her lips, a deep vibration rang through the ice. A deafening clap, and cracks ran out to every side. And beneath her feet. Lila braced herself, balanced on the bobbing floe as her ship swayed, the wind in the sails dragging it free. One pace, then two.
And then, to her horror, the ice re-formed, not at a natural rate, but as if her magic had been a spool of yarn, unwound, and now another hand was drawing it just as swiftly back. In seconds, her work was undone.
“Son of a bitch,” she hissed, bowing her head.
Boots thudded onto the ice nearby, and the next thing she knew Kell was there beside her, wrapped in the hooded grey coat that had appeared like a warning the night before.
“Lila, stop,” he said, holding out a gloved hand to steady her. “It isn’t working.”
She knocked the hand away. “It will. With enough force.”
Kell studied the ship, and she could see the shadow cross his face, the way it did sometimes when he stared down at his own hands, studying them as if they were useless now, as if they couldn’t still hold a rope, or wield a sword. As if magic was the only thing that mattered.
He cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s been long enough.”
Lila grimaced, but said nothing. It had been three months since they left London. Three months since the battle with Osaron had shattered Kell’s magic. Three months in which he had not reached for his power, convinced it simply needed time to heal. As if it were a broken limb.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe—but she doubted it. She knew what it was like, to have a piece of yourself torn away without your accord. Remembered well still those first few weeks after she’d lost her eye, the impotence, the denial, the rage. It hadn’t come for Kell yet, but it would.
Until then, she resolved to give him space.
“Don’t bother,” she said, brushing off her hands. “It’s stuck.”
She shoved her numb fingers in her pockets and looked around. The sun should have broken free by now, but it still hung in the same way, just beneath the horizon. As if they were trapped inside a snow globe, stuck in time as well as ice.
“Have you noticed—” she started, then stopped. Kell’s attention had cut past her. His eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
He frowned, voice dropping to a whisper. “Someone’s coming.”
Lila started to point out how ridiculous that was, the idea of a stranger finding them out here, in the middle of a frozen sea. But then she turned, and saw that he was right. A figure was indeed shuffling toward them. At first, she thought it might be a bear. It was massive, and shaggy, its clawed steps cracking heavily against the ice. But then it drew near, and the shape resolved into a large man wearing a hooded coat. He had no claws, but boots with spikes that gripped the frozen surface.
Lila’s cold fingers drifted to her nearest knife. The man was smiling at them as he approached, but that meant nothing. Plenty of pirates and murderers smiled before they struck.
Stross, Vasry, and Tav stood watching from the bow above, and she didn’t have to see the glint of steel to know that they were armed. She tipped her head to one side, a silent order to hold.
“Skalsa!” the man called out in a musical voice, in a language she didn’t know. He was even bigger up close, his hair and beard pitch black beneath the fur-lined hood, his skin so pale it looked the same shade as the ice in the eerie light. His gaze was a startling blue, and as it swept over them, Lila was grateful she’d worn her brown glass eye to bed, grateful that Kell’s hood was up, his black eye hidden in the thin predawn light.
The man was still talking in a fluid stream, the sounds little more than highs and lows in her ears. It sounded like a speech, something formal and rehearsed. When he reached the end, he stopped, and stared, clearly waiting for their answer.
Lila looked from the man to Kell and back again, was about to explain that she had absolutely no idea what he was saying, when Vasry leaned over the side of the ship and said, “Is he speaking Fresan? I was with a Fresan girl once. Great fun. Cold hands, but—”
“Is there a point to this?” muttered Kell.
“The point,” said Vasry, descending the ladder, “is that I learned a bit. Maybe I can help.” He dropped onto the ice beside them, slipped, steadied himself. “Skalsa!” he said, addressing the man in that same musical tone. The man nodded, and started his speech again.
Within seconds, Vasry waved his hands, urging him to slow down. He stammered his way through a few phrases. The man frowned. And then drew out a large knife.
“What did you say to him?” demanded Lila.
Vasry was fumbling through an answer, but she was no longer listening. Instead, she watched as the man knelt, turning the blade in his hand and using the hilt to scratch something into the ice. A few moments later, he straightened, and said something under his breath. The marks on the ice began to twist and coil, then rose into the air, rippling between them like a curtain. This time, when he spoke, his voice crossed the line of the spell, and became Arnesian. He seemed surprised to hear it. She wondered how often sailors from Arnes ventured this far south.
“I heard the ice break,” he said, the words echoing as the spell translated. “Is something wrong?”
Lila gestured to the ice gripping the hull, surprised the problem needed words. “Our ship is stuck.”
The man shook his head. “Not stuck. No. Spelled.”
Well, thought Lila, that explained the strange nature of the ice, the way it kept closing like a hand around her ship.
“Well then,” she said, “if you wouldn’t mind un-spelling it—”
“Ah,” he cut in, “I’m afraid only the dock master can unlock a ship once it has entered port.”
Lila looked around at the surrounding ice, as if to point out that there was nothing resembling a port. Seeing her confusion, the man swept a mittened hand over the scene.
“This is an ice port,” he explained. “You crossed the wharf line some ways back. If you wish to leave, you will have to wait for the dock master.”
“And you are not the dock master?” asked Kell, sounding vaguely amused.
The man shook his head and chuckled. “No, no, I am just looking after the ships, while she is at the fair. But don’t worry, she should be back by the end of the day.”
At the mention of day, Lila found her gaze returning to the line of dull light still hugging the horizon. “When does the sun come up?”
The man laughed. “Ah, that depends! Certain months, it never sets. Other times, it never rises. We are at the end of the lightless season now, so it should break through sometime in the next few days. I’ve never been good at keeping track, but I don’t mind. It makes the day of light a nice surprise. Come, you can wait in the port house, if you like.”
He turned, and began to walk away, boots biting into the ice. Kell and Lila exchanged a glance, and then followed, Vasry at their heels. She turned and signaled to Stross and Tav to stay and wait with the ship. She would have felt bad about that, but Stross could rarely be parted from the vessel, and Tav had a nasty habit of getting drunk in foreign ports and picking fights he couldn’t always win.
As they walked, the mist clinging to the cold air began to ripple and thin, revealing dozens of other ships scattered across the frozen port, dipping in and out of sight like ghosts in the weak light. The farther they traveled into port, the more of them she saw. Lila glimpsed figures here and there, but for the most part, the vessels all looked empty.
The language spell, luckily, had followed their guide, which was helpful since he kept up a steady stream of conversation.
“You are very far from home,” he said. “What is the purpose of your trip?”
Lila met Kell’s eye. “We’re mapmakers,” she said after a moment. That was the story they’d agreed on when they set out months ago. It was a gamble. Most places saw mapmakers as artists, creating an independent survey. A few thought they were spies, charting foreign coasts for conquer.
But the port man seemed pleased by the answer.
“Excellent. It’s about time the northern empires grasped that the world goes on beyond their borders. Plenty to appreciate down here. Take the lightless fair. Started as a way to pass the darkest days, but good things have a way of growing. Now people come from all around. These days, we look forward to the dark! Here we are.…”
They’d reached the edge of the port. Lila expected the ice to give way to land, but it didn’t. Instead, it simply sloped up, first into a set of steps, and then, into a shelter. She had expected to find something rough-hewn, but this was large, the ice as smooth and thick as polished stone. The man clapped his mittens together, shedding frost as he led them into a magnificent room. Tapestries hung from the frozen walls, and a fire roared in an icy hearth without melting it, and a long table ran through the center of the room, its benches draped with wool and fur.
Vasry let out a contented sigh and crossed to the hearth as their guide vanished into another room. He returned moments later, carrying three mugs of something sweet and steaming.
“So you run the port house, then,” said Vasry, taking a cup.
“No, no,” said the man. “I’m just looking after it, while the clerk is at the fair.”
He gestured to the long table. Like everything in the room, she realized, it was made of ice, several skeins of thick cloth draped over the top. As they took their seats, Lila looked around the hall. The whole place reminded her of a fairy tale: quaint, and welcoming, and too good to be true.
The man drifted off to tend the fire. Lila watched him go, and felt Kell watching her.
“What?” she said, without meeting his eye.
“Not everything is a trap.” The words made something tug behind her ribs. At being watched, but more so, at being seen.
“Am I that easy to read?”
“No,” he said simply. “But I like to think I’m learning.”
Lila forced herself to relax and take up the drink. The cup was warm against her bare hands, the wine—if that’s what it was—hot and sweet. She downed it in a few short gulps, and rapped her fingers on the table, rising to her feet.
The light outside had not changed. She didn’t know what time it was, or how long it would be until the dock master returned.
But she did know one thing: she had not sailed to the edge of the world just to stop there.
She made her way to the fire, and the man now tending it.
“Well then,” she said. “Which way to the lightless fair?”
IV
NOW
“Land!”
Stross bellowed again as Lila vaulted out of the hold, still holding the broken bottle of summer wine. Kell followed, frowning, in her wake.
Dusk was falling over the coastline. Back in the capital, he mused, the setting sun would have cast everything in red and gold, infusing the city with a warm and constant glow. But here, the light landed with a tinny glare, glinting off the serrated sprawl of buildings that spilled down from the rocks and into the bay below.
So this was Verose.
He tried not to think too often about London, or what his brother and family might be doing at this moment (he’d followed Lila to the end of the world and back, and it had been worth it). Seven years with the Grey Barron, and most days, he felt at ease on the ship, if not among the crew.
But places like Verose were a reminder of how far he was from home. Even at a distance, the city looked sharp enough to cut their sails.
The crew assembled now, all hands on deck.
There was Stross, the first mate of the Barron, stocky and sober, scratching at a black beard that had started to show grey, his temporary cheer settling back into sterner stuff as they approached their destination.
And Vasry, standing beneath the sails and looking, as he always did, like he was posing for a portrait, his chin up and his blond hair pulled back as he put his meager wind skills to good use and guided them to port.
Then there was Tav, small and scrappy, and currently heaving his guts up over the side of the ship after having a little too much fun this afternoon, even for a ship pretending to be a pleasure vessel staffed with rowdy pirates.
And last of all, Raya, dropping like a sparrow to the deck, black braids fluttering behind her.
Raya, who’d come aboard the ship after the lightless fair, and never disembarked, despite Lila’s vocal aversion to new blood.
“I think I’m in love,” Vasry had said the next morning, and at the time, none of them had paid it much attention, because, frankly, Vasry fell in love the way other people fell down after too much wine, so Lila probably assumed it would sort itself, and they’d put the girl ashore at the next port. But then Raya turned out to be a decent water worker and an even better cook, and Vasry surprised everyone by staying smitten, and Lila grudgingly let the girl stay.
Nearly seven years on, she still didn’t speak a word of Arnesian, seemed to take pride in the fact, but she had as many expressions as Kell had frowns, and was good at saying everything that needed saying with a look.
And on top of it all, she could fight, a fact they’d discovered when the Barron ran into trouble with a raiding ship, and the girl had swiftly conjured a pair of swords out of ice and driven one through the nearest pirate as he tried to come aboard.
Lila liked her more after that.
And Kell liked not being the newest person on the crew.
Now, as the Grey Barron pulled into Verose, he scanned the line of ships already there, and found the one they wanted mooring three vessels out from the leftmost side of the dock. A Veskan craft with bloodred flags and wings scorched into the pale hull. Eh Craen, it was called.
The Crow.
If Alucard Emery’s intelligence was good, then this ship was on its way south, ready to pass cargo off to an Arnesian smuggler bound for London. Alucard wanted to know what it was carrying.
And Kell wanted what he always did these days.
To prove that even now, without the power that had once defined his life, marked him as Antari and made him the strongest magician in the world, he was still worth something to the Grey Barron, and Lila Bard, to the palace and the empire, and himself.
V
THE SOUTHERN POINT OF FRESA
SEVEN YEARS AGO
Kell Maresh had never been this cold.
For years, if he felt so much as a chill, he could conjure flame into his hands, or warm the air against his skin, the gesture as natural as breathing. Effortless. Simple.
But nothing was simple anymore.
The wine’s welcoming warmth had dwindled as the crew made their way down the port house path, as instructed, which led not into a town, but a massive tunnel carved straight into the glacier. A vicious wind whistled through it, singing against the ice, and sinking its teeth into every inch of skin.
And yet, for all the discomfort, there was something extraordinary about this place.
He had seen ice before, but the word did no justice to the scale.
He had stood in the king’s map room when he was young, and studied the empire modeled on the table, the drawings on the wall, wondered how a map could have edges when the world went on beyond it. Where is the rest? he’d asked, and the king had told him, This is the part that matters.
But Maxim Maresh was wrong.
Kell shook himself, not wanting to think about the man who’d raised him, and yet had never seen him as a son. The king who’d fallen, along with so many, at Osaron’s hands, and forced Rhy, too soon, onto the throne.
Ahead, Lila ran her bare fingers along the tunnel wall, and began to hum a sea shanty, the melody ricocheting around them, a song carrying its own chorus. Their footsteps echoed.
