Cold Fire

“By your service, you shall receive answers. Until then, you will simply obey.”

He raised his cup to his lips, gaze on me; my hand raised my cup to my lips. Without drinking, he lowered his hand; without drinking, I lowered mine. I had to; his will forced me.

“You take my point,” he said. “We have reached a turning in the path. A power stirs in the mortal world. It pours from one vessel into another, and its motion churns and heats and cools the threads that bind the worlds. The courts whisper, for they are troubled. Has a cold mage reached too far and grasped for too much? Does an unknown power rise out of the lair of the enemy? This is your task: Find that power, identify it, and lead me to it, on the coming Hallows’ Night.”

My heart constricted. Or at least, that’s what the tightening sensation in my chest felt like. I touched my chin, where Andevai had cut me with cold steel. I knew what it was to discover, too late, that you have been chosen to be the sacrifice.

“Why should I betray anyone, when I know it means you’ll kill them?” I demanded.

“On Hallows’ Night, the Wild Hunt will ride, as it does every year. We will cull the spirits of those who will die in the coming year. And we will take the blood of one mortal creature. Why should you find that power, identify it, and lead me to it? Because otherwise I will choose which mortal’s blood we take. My eyes and ears have followed you and your companions, Daughter. I know you walked into the spirit world with a servant of the enemy. She walked in these lands and released a nest. My own servants should not have allowed her to escape, but their actions serve me regardless. You will spy out a fitting sacrifice, one whose blood is rich and strong. Because if you don’t, then on Hallows’ Night the hunt will track the girl you call your cousin until we corner her.”

Dismembered and her head thrown in a well.

I felt my courage flayed off my skin, an obsidian dagger slicing away filaments of hope.

Oh, Blessed Tanit. Gracious Melqart. Noble Ba’al. The threat of mage Houses, princes, and Romans hunting her through Adurnam seemed pathetic now. The mansa had been right, hadn’t he? We should have gone with the cold mages, for then none of this would have happened.

None of this would have happened now. But the Wild Hunt would track her down eventually, if not this year, then the next. It was only a matter of time for Beatrice Hassi Barahal, who walked the dreams of dragons in the unwitting service of the courts’ enemy. No one could stand against the Wild Hunt. No one. Unless the story was true that the headmaster had snatched his assistant from the jaws of the hunt. Yet he had sent Bee into the spirit world, despite its dangers.

“Let me repeat myself, so you fully understand me.” The Master of the Wild Hunt did not need to shout. His voice pierced me to the bone and crushed my heart. “There can only be one sacrifice. And there will be one. That is the law.”

So he settled his chains on me, for there was no one to help us, and no one to trust.

I’ll do anything to save her.

Anything.

Would Bee forgive me when I did?

“Now we seal our bond with a drink, Daughter. Pick up the glass.”

He drank, and therefore I drank. The liquor tasted of bees and fate, nothing more. I hated it.

But he was satisfied.

“You serve me now. I release you to your hunt.”

The crow flapped off his arm and straight for me. As I flung up my arm to fend it off, it raked me above the left ear with its talons. Pain burned along my neck. Blood welled. The crow plunged at me again. I jerked sideways, unable to fix myself on the springy ground made by the carpets. My blood spattered, flecks spraying around me.

The owl’s eyes spun like time’s hands racing forward. The hall of ice began to blur and distort as if it were melting. The carpets dissolved as the ground gave way beneath my feet.

I cried out as a warm wave washed over me.

Then I was drowning in a wild wind-capped sea under a hot bright blue sky.

14

I had always been too frightened of water to learn how to swim. Salt water streamed into my nose and mouth, its taste foul and warm. My feet were weighed down by my winter boots, and my legs tangled in my skirts. The salty brine caressed my face.

It’s all over. Give up. Let go.

A solid object thumped into my legs. The force of its impact lifted my face above the water. I sucked for air, inhaled more water, and sank. From beneath, I was pushed up again. I breached the surface flailing while being dragged sideways by my skirts.

My hand scraped across the gray-white flank of an aquatic creature with a massive fin and dead, flat eyes. Its viciously sharp teeth were caught in my petticoats and skirt. Thrashing and mauling, it dragged me along as it tried to get its jaws out of wool and linen.