Mistress of Winter Read online

  Ossamyr’s hand lay frozen on the curled piece of yellow paper. A bottle of Siren’s Blood pinned the edge of the note to the table, the swirling colors casting little rainbows on the paper, on her skin. The bottle had drawn her curiosity, but the page had captured her. Her fingers covered the words that revealed what she truly was, exposed her to the only person she could claim to have loved since Brophy sacrificed himself.

  Ossamyr had stepped into Shara’s room for just a moment, to borrow a book. It was something she had done a dozen times before. She noticed the bottle on a dusty shelf with other unwanted gifts from Shara’s flatterers and admirers. It was unopened, but there was a slight tear in the parchment, and she noticed a strange glow coming from inside. Curious, Ossamyr unwrapped the bottle and was amazed to find an exquisite bottle of the Silver Islander’s spirit wine. The extravagant gift of Siren’s Blood had surprised her, but the message that accompanied it left her unable to speak, unable to move.

  She tore her gaze from the message and looked out the window, trying to guess who could have sent such a venomous warning.

  The mighty Ohndarien battlements glowed like the edge of a sword. The sun was setting beyond the Windmill Wall, throwing orange and red across the waters of the bay, painting the blue-white walls of the buildings with a golden glow. Nearby rooftop gardens fluttered in the early-spring breeze. Children shrieked in the streets below, pretending to be Zelani and Lightning Swords. Merchants in the Long Market rushed to pack up their wares before the lanterns in the Night Market were lit, twinkling with the sultry promise of pleasures to come.

  In the center of it all, the Hall of Windows shone like a dome of jewels. A single torch burned atop that magnificent building. Its feeble light was lost amid the grandeur of the setting sun, but the mere thought of that flame burned right through her. That light stood as testament to the freedom one boy had bought for everyone and as a reminder of the prison that Ohndarien had become.

  Ohndarien was no longer the Free City, no longer the jewel of the known world. Her citizens now called her the Fortress of Light, all because of that one torch and the boy who lay beneath it.

  Ohndarien’s days of thriving as the crossroads of the world had ended shortly after the Nightmare Battle. Merchants still paid dearly for the right to ferry their ships through her locks, but few stayed to trade in the city’s famous Long Market. Only the stoutest of heart lingered within Ohndarien’s blue-white marble walls any longer than they had to.

  They had won the Nightmare Battle, but the war against the Legacy of Efften continued. The black emmeria called to its own, and the boy who had been the beacon of Ohndarien’s salvation was now a beacon for the corrupted. All that was vile in the world had come south. As the profane creatures once sought the baby and the music box, now they sought the boy. Those transformed by the foul magic of Efften scratched and clawed at Ohndarien’s walls, desperate to get in, yearning to set loose the shadows that everlasting torch held at bay.

  Those few Ohndariens who stayed within the cursed city fought for their lives beside their fellow merchants, sailors, cobblers, and butchers. The battlements were filled with Lightning Swords, Zelanis, and former Physendrian queens.

  Ossamyr closed her eyes. The mysterious message felt hot under her fingertips and that word came again, unbidden, to her mind. Queen…

  “You are a queen among queens, my love,” Phandir had said, kneeling at her feet. Her former husband was flush with victory, drunk on the adulation of the crowd and reveling in his power over her. His hand slid beneath her dress and up her thigh as he looked up at her with mock reverence as brutal as his smile. He knew she had tasted real love, and that she had murdered it for him.

  “You’re just like me,” he continued, squeezing her to him, his eyes glistening with triumph. “My perfect queen.” He beamed at her, clenching her soul between those perfect white teeth.

  And he did have her. She might as well have been in the Wet Cells for all the control she had over her life. She marched with him, all the way to the walled city. She curled her lips in a smile for him, spread her legs for him, whispered how powerful he was. She played the perfect queen, marching into the conquered city by his side until the black emmeria swept across them like a blizzard of despair.

  And then she tore his throat out with her own claws.

  She would never forget that feeling, the exultation, the freedom, as that black ooze surged through her limbs, filling her with more power than she had ever dreamed of.

  She tore her husband limb from limb until no two bones still clung together. She could still feel the flesh parting between her claws; could still feel her grinning teeth awash with hot blood.

  The black emmeria knew who she was, it called her home, and she had spun into that dark abyss, lost and elated. She had killed Phandir, and she would have continued killing, rending, tearing.

  Then he came along and saved her. He came along and saved them all.

  Him.

  The boy.

  Brophy.

  He sacrificed himself, drew all of that evil into his heart and locked it within his dreams. He was only sixteen, just a child, but he knew more about love than Ossamyr ever would. He gave her that first taste back in Physendria, and she had ripped out his heart for it, betrayed him when he needed her the most. It seemed to be her fate with those she claimed to love. As soon as they were sure she was theirs, she tore them to pieces.

  Her fingernails dug through the paper into the desk below, making five tiny holes. Her arm vibrated. The colors in the bottle of Siren’s Blood seemed to swirl faster, as if sensing her anger. The words on the page were burned on her mind.

  You must not wake the Sleeping Warden. You must not let the child take him from the city.

  Drink this. Drink it all, and the truth will be revealed to you.

  And beware the former Queen of Physendria. She longs for your death and will soon betray you.

  Ossamyr swallowed hard. She longs for your death, it said. Whoever wrote those words had stuck a dagger in Ossamyr’s soul. She had worked tirelessly to save the boy, but there was no escaping the truth. In some small way, she did long for Shara’s death, or rather for her place at his side.

  Shara was probably atop the Hall right now. Sitting by his side, sharing his dreams. Ossamyr could see it all too clearly. His arms around Shara’s back. Her hands running through his blond curls, the love shining in his deep green eyes.

  Ossamyr tried to draw a calming breath, tried to use her training, tried to be a better person than she was.

  Could a person truly change? Could a scorpion withhold its stinger before it poisoned all those who came close, lover or husband, friend or rival? Could a serpent ever become a falcon? A lion? A phoenix?

  Ossamyr should have been executed for her role in the Nightmare Battle. She had walked into Ohndarien at the head of an invading army, but Shara and Baelandra had accepted her as one of their own. They’d shown her nothing but respect and compassion.

  But someone knew that Ossamyr was still the “perfect queen” in her acid heart, where betrayal came as easily as breathing. All this time she had told herself that she had changed, that the boy had changed her, that Zelani had changed her, that Shara had changed her. But she was just pretending, masquerading as something she barely understood: a decent person.

  “When the moment came to choose between love and hate, you chose love,” Baelandra had once told her, explaining how she freed herself from the black emmeria. “Always remember that you chose love at the moment when it mattered most.”

  The former Physendrian queen smiled tightly, drawing her fingernails out of the paper and meticulously rolling it back up. Had Baelandra herself written it? Or the Physendrian rebels who constantly asked her to return to Physen and lead them against their enemies? It could have been anyone.

  Ossamyr stared at the single torch glittering atop the Hall of Windows. The sun had just dipped behind the walls, and the boy’s torch seemed to grow brighter and bri
ghter as the world grew dark.

  That torch was why she was here. Freeing the boy was all that mattered, no matter the cost. Her new boat was ready, sitting at anchor just beyond the Windmill Wall. She would find her storm and sail into the teeth of oblivion if she had to. And damn the rest of them. Damn herself and who she had been.

  A sudden tap on the door jerked her out of her thoughts. Fear spiked her heart, and she stuffed the note into her pocket. Snatching the Siren’s Blood off the windowsill, she looked around desperately for a place to hide it.

  The door opened just as she thrust the bottle behind Shara’s wardrobe. She swiveled as she rose, holding her hands in front of the pocket containing the damning message.

  Caleb stood in the doorway, calm and alert. The slender man with the boyish face and close-cropped sandy hair simply looked at her, saying nothing.

  Twin rushes of relief and fear flooded through her. He wasn’t here because of the note. He was here because of—

  “The corrupted,” she breathed.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  Ossamyr stepped forward. She took a deep breath, and Caleb matched her. He reached out his hand, and she took it. A jolt of energy shot between them as they touched.

  Tingles ran up her arm, through her body, as energy cycled between them. Their fingers entwined, hot with energy. Ossamyr channeled her churning emotions into the spell, transforming them into a flood of raw sexual power.

  Within moments they were full to bursting. “Ready?” Caleb asked her.

  Ossamyr nodded, using her scant Floani training to shift the energy into her legs, eyes, and ears. Caleb squeezed her hand, and they began to run. The hallway flashed by. They took the stairs together five at a time, stepping in perfect timing.

  “Reports have them close to the quarry ridge,” he rasped, the energy threatening to boil over.

  He shuddered, stumbled. She calmed his desire, held him upright even though her body ached, desperate for him to throw her against the wall, surge between her legs and inside of her. But they ran. They kept running, hand in hand. There was no time. There was never enough time.

  They raced across the courtyard. The gardens were a blur. Many of the other Zelani were already ahead of them, rushing through the school’s open gates.

  “Has Shara been told?” Ossamyr shouted, barely able to contain the energy coursing through her as they surged through the gate and into the Ohndarien streets.

  A warning bell had already begun to toll atop the Quarry Wall. A frightened woman held her door open as her children rushed inside. She watched Ossamyr run past with a pained expression trapped somewhere between gratitude and pity.

  “She’s with Brophy,” Caleb yelled back.

  Good, Ossamyr thought, tossing the parchment behind her into an open storm drain. She kept her legs pumping, practically dragging Caleb along with her. She belongs by his side.

  And I belong at the wall.

  CHAPTER 2

  Brophy’s feather fluttered in the breeze, bound to his neck by a leather thong. Shara stood behind him, just out of sight, watching the silky black feather twist and twirl amid his golden curls. He needed a haircut. He always needed a haircut.

  He stood atop the Hall of Windows, leaning against the torch still burning for the lost Brother of Autumn and soaking in the view of Ohndarien in all her splendor. He was only ten feet away. And impossibly far out of reach.

  The faint sound of singing hovered around them like mist, coming and going with the wind. Shara wore one of Brophy’s long, loose shirts from the Kherish ship. It fluttered in the breeze, rippling against her thighs. She smoothed it, like she always did. Fingertips brushed bare skin, like they always did.

  Her eyes traveled the length of his naked body. Broad shoulders, muscled back and legs. The sun made his bare skin glow. Her jaw trembled, seeing him this way again. Again, again, and again. How could a heart overflow with joy and twist in pain at the same time? How could she still feel this much, after all this time?

  The words caught in her throat. She knew exactly what words she would say, knew exactly what would happen next. And what wouldn’t happen. But she said the words again. There were no other words to say.

  “She is worth fighting for,” Shara whispered, walking up beside him on silent feet. “Worth dying for.”

  Brophy turned and saw her next to him. And he smiled. Oh, how she knew that smile, how she lived for it. He looked down at his arms, his hands. “What is this?”

  “A dream, my love. Your dream.”

  The same dream.

  She turned and stepped backward onto the air, reaching out for him, touching his hands.

  Brophy laughed, and she tried not to wince. There was so much love in his eyes. So much wonder, so much joy.

  She tugged his hands, pulling him beyond the sloping edge of the Hall. “Shara!”

  “Come. Let’s fly,” she whispered, every part of her aching for him.

  Tentatively, he took a step into thin air. Such faith. It lifted her up and cut her to the quick.

  Shara held tight to Brophy’s hands and floated backward, leading him farther out. The Wheel passed below them. “How are you doing this?” he asked, his face alive with green-eyed wonder.

  “Magic.” She winked, willing herself to forget. Willing herself to fall into the moment.

  “Wait.” He grinned. “Why are you wearing clothes and I’m not?”

  She forced a smile. “It’s your dream.”

  He touched her shirt, and it dissolved in a shimmer of sparkles. Shara took a deep breath and let it go, let it all go, sinking into the joy of the moment, this shining moment.

  She spun away from him and dived toward the bay, feeling the salty air whip through her hair. He chased her, reaching to grab a toe but never quite getting there. She pulled up at the last moment and streaked along the tips of the waves. He caught her and drew her toward him. Their bodies entwined, his hands on her back, his hips sliding between her thighs. They flew upward again, spinning, kissing, her body enveloped in his. The Spire whipped past them.

  “I never want to wake up,” he murmured, tasting her neck, her ear. Shara’s chest seized, and tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She buried her hands in his floating hair.

  “Then sleep, Brophy.” Somehow she kept the quaver from her voice. “Sleep and love me. We will take what eternity we can find in your dreams.”

  The familiar words wrenched her heart as she spoke them, just as they had every day and every night for the last eighteen years.

  He kissed her. Hungry lips turning desperate. Strong arms crushing. Trembling legs spread wider as he slid inside her, and they flew together on and on and on.

  CHAPTER 3

  Ossamyr and Caleb kept the energy racing between them, holding hands as they flew northward through the city’s twisting and winding streets. The streets were packed, as Ohndariens fled home to their families to find what little protection they could behind locked doors.

  The frantic crowd parted for the two Zelani. A few Lightning Swords were seen amid the throng, easily spotted in their blue tunics with the golden slash across the front. One of them rushed through his front door, barely pausing to kiss his wife and daughter good-bye before raising shield and spear and joining their mad dash for the wall.

  Ossamyr heard Faedellin’s deep voice before they rounded the final corner to the wide street leading to the Quarry Gate.

  “Form ranks! Form ranks!” the captain of the Lightning Swords thundered. “The Quarry Rim has been breached! Two large corrupted are headed this way.”

  Baelandra’s husband was a slender man with a long nose and thin face. He was neither tall nor powerfully built, but his voice carried like rolling thunder. The former steward was the heart and soul of the Lightning Swords, Ohndarien’s citizen soldiers who took their name from the legendary mercenary army of J’Qulin the Sly.

  Ohndarien was once defended by a professional army of fore
ign swordsmen. The few of those soldiers who had survived the Nightmare Battle had watched, mesmerized, when the first few corrupted came south and flung themselves against the wall, frantic for a way in. Those soldiers kept to their ramparts, secure in the knowledge that the city’s celebrated wall would stop the vile beasts.

  It didn’t.

  The boy was almost lost that first attack, the black emmeria almost freed. A lone corrupted nightcat swam under the Sunset Gate, climbed the sheer walls of the Wheel, and attacked the Hall of Windows. It sliced its way through a pair of guards and the two novice Zelani as they sang to the boy before Shara managed to slay it with the Sword of Winter. Her forearm still bore the scars from the creature’s teeth.

  The next day, Faedellin called the blood of J’Qulin together and reformed the Lightning Swords. The hired soldiers left for easier money and the ’Swords had manned the walls ever since, joining their dedication with the power of Shara’s Zelani.

  Faedellin’s men arrived from every direction, quickly forming orderly rows. The golden lightning bolts on their shields glimmered in the torchlight. A ragged pack of Zelani stood behind the orderly Lightning Swords, their tight, wispy clothing a stark contrast to the bronze and leather armor of the soldiers. The Zelani kept to themselves, each staring into the eyes of a partner, building up the energy they would need for the battle. There were barely sixty of them altogether, and Ossamyr couldn’t help wondering how many would die tonight.

  “Control is the key,” Faedellin reminded them. “We establish control before anyone moves in.” The words were ingrained in the minds of every Lightning Sword, every Zelani, but Faedellin repeated them before each skirmish. The Lightning Swords kept their swords sheathed and carried long, pronged spears designed to pin their enemies from a safe distance. Once the monsters were restrained, someone with a gemsword did the actual killing.