She finds the notion just as preposterous as I do. “Not in that cursed place you call home,” she sneers, turning away. Her shoulders rise with tension, bony and sharp beneath her gown. “Not the way you are, without pride or honor or even your name. Living so openly. Where is your shame?”
I’ve lost count of how many times my mother has mourned my flaw. The person I was born as, the inclinations I cannot change and will never deny again. Still, hearing her disappointment never gets easier. To know she sees what I am as a failure—it is so difficult to bear.
I swallow around the lump in my throat, unable to speak for fear of crying. I won’t do that in front of her. She doesn’t deserve my tears or my pity or my love, small as it may be.
Larentia raises her head, her back still turned. Her body shudders as she heaves a delicate breath. “This is the last time you will ever see me.” Never have I heard a voice so empty. “I wash my hands of you both. My children are dead.”
In my hand, my bracelet twists and trembles, running lazy ripples over my pale skin. The distraction helps me think straight. “Then stop chasing ghosts,” I murmur. And turn away.
I don’t sleep again until I’m home, in the mountains, in Montfort, with Elane’s arms around me and the red light of sunset washing over my face. Thoughts of war and of our future drift and pass me by. They can wait. We’ll tackle them together, Elane and I. Find the middle ground and compromise.
For now I can rest, and heal my iron heart.
FIRE LIGHT
ONE
Mare
I had my pick of days, but in the end, the snow made the decision for me.
All the better. The choice was out of my hands. How long to stay, when to return to the Montfort capital—those questions disappeared when the weather turned. It was only six inches, barely a dusting for a place like the Paradise Valley, but more would follow. I’d been told the winters here were much harsher than those I was used to, worse even than the one we weathered at the Notch. Here the snowdrifts pile up ten feet deep; rivers freeze solid; blizzards last for days on end. Too perilous for transports or dropjets. Of course, we could stay for the season if we wanted. Davidson made it clear in his last communication that the cabin outpost was at our disposal as long as we needed, but I didn’t even broach the subject with the rest of my family. None of us, myself included, have any desire to spend the winter buried in snow with only the geysers and the bison for company.
Outside the cabin, Bree makes a show of digging out the front door while our father supervises, leaning on his shovel. They spent all morning clearing a path through the snow to the dropjet landing field, and their faces are red beneath their scarves and hats. Tramy helps Mom pack for the flight south, following her from room to room. She tosses clothes and he catches, folding them on the run. Gisa and I watch from the stone-walled kitchen, our things already packed away. We wear matching knobbly sweaters and curl around hot mugs for warmth. Gisa’s cup has cocoa thick as pudding and just as sweet. Though it smells divine, I stick to tea and honey. I’m getting over a cold, and I don’t want to return to Montfort with a scratchy throat.
Certainly I’ll have to make the rounds of speech and conversation once we arrive. While I’m happy to go back to Ascendant, the capital, it means returning in time for the growing chaos of a gala with the alliance. And I’d rather do it at full strength.
Especially if Cal is there, I think, taking another boiling sip. The heat makes me shiver down to my toes.
Gisa watches me shrewdly over her mug and stirs the cocoa with a spoon. Her lips curve into a smirk. “Counting down the seconds?” she asks, her voice low enough to not be overheard by the whirlwind in the next room.
“Yes,” I reply bluntly. “I’m already mourning the loss of some peace and quiet.”
She licks the spoon clean and somehow gets a fleck of cocoa over her eyebrow. “Oh please, you’re going insane up here. Don’t think I didn’t notice the little bit of lightning swirling around with the snowstorm yesterday.”
Insane. I wince. I’ve known very few people to whom that word could be properly applied, and one in particular still unsettles me to my core. The tea seems to freeze in my stomach.
When we first came here, I told myself it was so we could heal and mourn together. And so I could forget. Put aside all the things Maven did to me and I did to him. Instead, barely a day goes by without me agonizing over him and his fate. Whether he deserved it or not. If I made the right choice. If he could have been saved.
I still remember the small dagger in his hand, the pressure of him holding me down. It was you or him, I tell myself for the thousandth time this morning. No matter what, it always feels like a lie. You or him.
My sister reads my silence with a keen eye. She’s good at deciphering my emotions, as much as I try to keep them hidden. She knows when to push me on them. And when to let me be. Today must be the latter.
“Are you finished?” she says, gesturing to my mug.
I nod and drain the rest of the liquid. It scalds its way down my throat. “Thanks.”
She bustles to the deep sink and sets to scrubbing the last of our dishes. After a second, I follow, putting away the dried plates from breakfast. I wonder if anyone else will come up here in the next few months, or if we’re the last faces the cabin will see until spring. It must be lovely up here in winter, albeit difficult to get to. And difficult to leave.
“Has anyone seen my socks?” Bree howls from the sitting room, ignoring the chorus of protest from Mom and Tramy. He must be trailing snow all over the floor.
Gisa giggles into the soapy sink. “I burned them!” she yells back. “For the good of mankind!”
My laughter is silent these days, little more than a gasp of air and a tight smile that pulls at my scars. Still, my stomach tenses as I laugh quietly, almost doubling over with good ache. We were right to come here. To rebuild ourselves, to figure out who we are now, in spite of our missing pieces.
Shade might be buried a thousand miles away, but I feel him here with us. And for once, it doesn’t make me entirely sad.
There wasn’t much to pack. The furnishings, rations, everything down to the soap in the bathrooms, stays at the cabin. We only have our clothes and other personal items to worry about. Gisa easily has the most stuff. Her art supplies and sewing kit are probably the heaviest thing loaded into the dropjet waiting at the edge of the clearing. She worries over them like a nervous mother, keeping a close watch as the Montfort pilot tucks them in with the rest of our baggage. I’m surprised she didn’t insist they travel in her lap. Mom and the boys are already inside, strapping themselves in away from the cold.
Dad stands back a little from the craft with me. He scrutinizes the frosty ground beneath us. I think he half expects a geyser to explode beneath our feet and blow the jet sky-high. It isn’t an entirely ridiculous notion. Many of the clearings and basins throughout the Paradise Valley are pocked with geysers and hot springs, steaming even beneath the snow.
Our breath clouds in the air, a testament to the cold. I wonder if Ascendant will feel this frozen already. It’s only October.
“Are you ready?” Dad says, his voice a low rumble barely audible over the jet engines as they spool up. On top of the drop, massive propellers whirl around at a quickening pace.