Mistress of Winter Read online

  Lightning flashed, throwing harsh shadows between the buildings. Krellis leapt out of the bushes behind him, tackling him and driving him to his knees.

  “You’ll never make it, boy,” the corrupted said, its weight crushing Brophy to the roof. It ground forearms against the back of Brophy’s neck, forcing his head downward. “No point in trying.”

  Brophy rammed his elbow into Krellis’s face, knocking the creature back. He flipped around and smashed his fists into it over and over. The beast’s claws raked Brophy’s flesh until it finally lay still.

  Come to me, little brother. Come and face me. Show me what you can do.

  Searing pain spread through Brophy’s guts, but his body sang with the agony, and it made him stronger. He would kill and kill and kill until the Fiend’s heart lay beating in his hand.

  Brophy scrambled to the edge of the roof. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the street below. It was so packed with corrupted he couldn’t see the ground. They swarmed like worms in a bucket. The plants behind him rustled as the pursuing creatures closed in. He turned and leapt across another alley, landing hard on a peaked roof one story down. The red tiles cracked under him. He clung there for a moment, breathing furiously. His panting was loud in his ears, and howling voices rushed upon the wind.

  He could see the Fiend just below—one more jump, and Brophy would be there. His enemy’s white face was a ghostly light in the darkness, framed by curly black hair that blended with the night. Robes like black oil flowed from his shoulders to the ground. It waited for him with a mocking smile.

  What are you waiting for? Let’s finish this. Finish it now.

  Something behind Brophy howled, and he spun around to meet it. He slashed with all his might as Baelandra barreled into him from the adjacent building. Brophy’s blow struck true, but the creature’s momentum knocked him flat.

  Roof tiles broke, and they slid. Brophy grabbed a handhold, but his aunt clung to his leg. He kicked her in the face, and a thrill ran through him. He kicked her again, and she let go.

  Laughing, he ran across the roof and leapt off the edge. He landed in the midst of the writhing corrupted just a few feet from his foe. He knocked a swath of them to the ground as their bodies broke his fall.

  Brophy scrambled over the fallen creatures, drawing back his sword to land the killing blow.

  Claws pierced his flesh. Barbed tentacles wrapped around his arms. Fangs sank to the bone. He screamed as a wave of enemies swept him away from the pasty face of his foe. They twisted his arms behind his back, pinned his legs together. He screamed and tried to head-butt those around him. Their slimy fingers grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. Powerful hands gripped the blade of the sword, trying to rip it out of his grasp. Needlelike claws ripped at his fingers.

  “No!” Brophy howled, jerking his arm free. He swung the blade, slaying anything within reach. His sword arm was free, but the rest of him was held fast, his feet off the ground, his head in a vise grip.

  The Fiend strolled slowly toward him. He pulled a bone-white hand from the depths of his robe and motioned the corrupted aside. The horde parted for him, making a precise aisle. His oily black robes left a trail of slime, and he stopped just beyond the reach of Brophy’s sword.

  Have you come so close, only to fail again?

  Brophy swung his blade wildly, missing his enemy’s powdered face by inches. He felt the power surge within him. He could throw the blade. He couldn’t miss at this range. One thrust, and it would all be over.

  Is that the best you can do? Victory is in your reach.

  Brophy drew his arm back to throw.

  The Fiend watched him with its glittering black eyes.

  No. He couldn’t. Not the sword.

  Brophy’s arm went limp. He let out a wail that echoed across the square. He started sobbing, and collapsed in the arms of his foes.

  The Fiend sneered, then his face relaxed into a patient smile. His hand descended slowly to his side, and the oily robe enveloped the white skin once again.

  Very well then, little brother. We shall try this once again. One way or the other, you will be mine.

  He nodded to the beasts holding Brophy.

  “Take his sword,” the Fiend commanded.

  The corrupted wrenched at the Sword of Autumn. They plunged their hands into his belly, ripped out his entrails, and clawed his eyes from their sockets.

  Brophy held on to the sword with all his might. He wouldn’t let go. He would never let go.

  “Wake up, my love. It’s time to go home.”

  Brophy slowly opened his eyes and smiled to see Shara leaning over him. The setting sun painted her face with a golden glow. A small comb held her hair back behind her ear, and the golden feather attached to it fluttered in the slight breeze.

  “I must have fallen asleep,” he said, reaching up to touch her cheek.

  “You’ve been asleep for a very long time.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Ossamyr spat salt water from her mouth and tightened her grip on the tiller. The wind shifted, and the boom whipped about as if to strike her down. She ducked it and blinked away the spray, peering into the sheets of rain as her little craft rode up the next mountainous wave. This storm was what Ohndarien sailors called a splinter storm, one that shivered your ship to splinters. Every wave was her death, and every time she bested it she cheated that death. But her arms ached with the strain. Her back burned with her exertions, and she didn’t know how much longer she could fight the tiller to guide her lumbering ship. Each new wave was a desperate battle.

  Just a few more, she thought. I’m so close.

  Efften was within her reach, and with it the containment stones and the boy’s salvation.

  The little ship started up the next wave. Her arms wavered, and she missed her mark.

  Stupid! she thought, even as she braced herself. Stupid stupid stupid!

  The water hammered into the side of her boat. The ship rocked dangerously to port, and Ossamyr slipped, going down to one knee. A deluge of salt water rushed over her, but the rope around her waist held her tight in place. She cried out, hanging on and finding her feet again. The heavy ship leaned dangerously but did not capsize. Ossamyr gasped, wrenched at the tiller, and pointed herself into the worst of it. The little craft fought its way up and over, breaking the crest of the wave. She started down the far side. An endless series of watery black hills stretched out in front of her, throwing white froth into the air.

  One more, she thought. Just one more.

  As she started up the far side, she thanked the Seasons, all nine Physendrian gods, and the surly shipwright who had built this heavy, sturdy ship. She remembered the conversation with longing as she threw her back into angling the ship toward the next crest. She wished she were back in Ohndarien, haggling with the city’s finest shipwright.

  He had scoffed at her, looking at her designs.

  “This keel is half-again as long as the ship,” the shipwright said.

  “I know. And I want it bound in sheets of lead.”

  “Lead? You’re crazy, that’s what you are. Who builds a ship with lead? She’d be a wallowing pig.”

  “Just as long as she doesn’t tip over.”

  He frowned at her, smacked the back of his fingers against her drawing. “It’s a waste of wood, m’lady. This mast and those sails are too small. It would take a typhoon to get her out of the harbor.”

  “Exactly.”

  The shipwright spat on the ground and walked away from her, but he came back the next day, took her silver, and started building her ship, scowling every step of the way.

  This was her fourth attempt to reach Efften. The first two times she and Shara had tried to sneak to Efften in the dark of night. Each time they were forced to flee when warships appeared out of the darkness, headed straight for them. The third time they brought a crew of Zelani, and together they cast a glamour over the entire vessel. It didn’t matter. The Islanders still found them, crushing their littl
e craft without warning or mercy.

  No one knew why the Silver Islanders guarded Efften with such fanatical devotion. They rammed and burned every ship that came close to the island ruins. To sail the waters of Efften was to die at their hands.

  But Ossamyr had solved that problem. Even those bloody-minded pirates wouldn’t sail in this storm. This horrible, blessed storm that was Ossamyr’s only hope. It would take her to Efften, or it would take her life. Either way, her debt was paid. The ship was built to weather a storm like this, but it would never sail under calm skies. If this storm failed before she reached Efften, she would be left stranded, bobbing helpless in the sea waiting to see if her supplies ran out before the Islanders ran her down.

  Again she rode up to the top of the wave. Again, her aim was imperfect and the ship rocked dangerously.

  I am slipping, she thought. I am flagging.

  Her memory flew back to the conversation she had with Baelandra and Shara on the docks. That was only days ago. It seemed like years.

  And now it looked like Baelandra was right. She would die here. She couldn’t feel her hands anymore. Her arms had gone numb. She rode the next wave, fighting for every inch. Somehow she made it and started down the far side. She slipped and fell to her knees.

  She struggled to her feet, looked up. Through the rain she glimpsed something gray and solid in the distance. Land!

  Ossamyr yelled as her boat skimmed down the backside of the wave, and the horizon disappeared. With renewed strength, she brought the ship about, pointing it toward her salvation. She crested the next wave, and they were directly in front of her. Broken, shadowy minarets. Water crashing on rocks. Lightning lanced to the waterline just off Efften’s coast, revealing the ruined city in sharp, white relief—

  —and glinting off the silver prow of an Islander warship to port.

  “Pig-fucking bastards!” Ossamyr shouted into the wind.

  The sleek warship disappeared behind a swell for a moment, and Ossamyr turned her craft as fast as she could. But the warship reappeared moments later, closer, slicing through the water like a dagger.

  The storm had been her only protection, and the crazy pirates had braved it.

  The warship’s steel prow appeared over the next wave, huge and ominous as a falling axe. It skimmed down the wave far too fast to escape. Bulky, tattooed warriors armed with bows lined the rail, grim and ready. Ossamyr barely had time to turn away before the ships collided, slamming her against the deck.

  The steel ram crashed through the side of her boat. Wood shattered. Decking planks splayed as her ship was torn in half. Desperately, Ossamyr cut free from her line. Two arrows thunked into the deck next to her chest. She rolled over, launched awkwardly over the edge of her dying boat, and splashed into the black waters.

  Arrows fell with the rain, seeking her flesh. One grazed the back of her thigh, and she cried out, precious bubbles of air escaping. Twisting, she swam with the last of her strength, deeper, down where their arrows could not reach her.

  Keeping tight control on her breath, Ossamyr calmed herself, stroked steadily toward Efften, stroked and stroked until her lungs felt like they would burst. Only then did she rise to the stormy surface and gasp for air. The choppy waves tried to drown her, but she fought them and looked for the warship. It cruised on the swells, the wind carrying it swiftly away. The wreckage of her tiny boat was visible for one scant moment, then it dropped beneath the waves.

  Ossamyr swam drunkenly for the dark shore. She threw herself against the incessant waves for an eternity. The towers of Efften appeared and disappeared as the waves crested over her. She gasped for air. She was so close, but her arms could barely move. Her legs were as leaden as the keel of her ship, dragging her down.

  Brophy, she thought as she foundered. I tried. I tried so hard.

  CHAPTER 10

  The sky was blue, and the clouds had cleared away to the east. The four-day storm had finally passed. Tree limbs littered the side streets and alleys of Ohndarien, and pockets of water lingered in every dip and basin, but the walkways were already clear and dry.

  Astor hiked the bundle of wood up and swung it over his shoulder. He hoped that Brophy’s torch had managed to stay lit. He’d hate for it to have gone out.

  Quinn, the Sister of Summer, had quietly hinted to Astor that hauling wood to the top of the Hall of Windows was no longer proper etiquette for his station, especially since he’d officially been initiated into the Lightning Swords. But these days, a young man grew up quickly in Ohndarien, especially a Child of the Seasons. Astor had long since developed his own ideas on proper etiquette.

  He turned and looked back. His younger sister Baedellin straggled behind him, running her hand along the edge of the Wheel as they approached the top of the steps.

  “You’re slower than a turtle,” he told her. She was nine years old, but this morning she had chosen to walk like a two-year-old.

  She leaned her head one way, then the other, looking up at the early-morning sky as though she hadn’t heard him.

  Astor shook his head with a smile. She was such a brat.

  “You need to get to your history lesson,” he said. “You know how Vallia gets when she’s cross.”

  “I don’t want to listen to Vallia talk for five hundred thousand hours.”

  Astor ignored that and kept on toward the steps. “Come on,” he said.

  “I know where the Palace of Winter is,” she said. “I don’t need you to show me.”

  “And yet you always seem to get ‘lost’ every time you go to your lessons alone.”

  “Says who?”

  Astor reached out and ruffled her bright red hair. She hated that. “Says Mother.”

  She swiped at his arm. “She did not!” she said, trying to smooth out the mess he’d made.

  He jumped up the steps, and she pursued. “Yes, she told me this morning, ‘Astor, take care of your little sister. She is short and funny-looking, and no one will ever love her.’”

  “She did not!” Baedellin caught him and punched him in the arm.

  Astor threw himself against the wall as if he’d been socked by a giant. The wood he was carrying clacked on the steps as he collapsed.

  “Did too,” he said, rubbing his arm as if it hurt. “And Father warned me to keep you away from the other children because red hair attracts fleas.”

  “Does not!” She punched him again.

  “And you can’t go swimming because your feet stink, and all the fish will die.”

  Baedellin leapt at him. Astor laughed and protected himself from the rain of tiny blows.

  “Careful, careful, I’m wounded.” He kept her wild blows away from his black eye and the bandage over his temple where his head had cracked the quarry floor.

  “Not wounded enough,” she said, hitting him even harder.

  “All right, all right, I take it back! I take it back!” he laughed. “You’re tall and gorgeous, with feet that smell like roses!”

  “And red hair is the best. Just like Mother’s,” she said, sitting back on her heels.

  “And red hair is best. Just ask the fleas.”

  Baedellin squealed and struck at him again, but he slipped to the side, grabbed the bundle of wood, and sprinted up the stairs. She chased him until he almost reached the top. He ran slower and slower, then slumped to the stairs, feigning exhaustion.

  She jumped on him, straddling his stomach and pinning his arms under her bony knees. She thumped him on the chest with her finger.

  “Ha!” she said. “I win.”

  “You win.”

  “I always win.”

  “You always win.”

  She eyed him suspiciously while he maintained his look of innocence. Finally, she stood and held out her hand. He took it, and she helped him up.

  “Do I really have to go to the lesson?” she asked.

  “What do you think?”

  Ignoring his little sister’s pout, he turned and continued up the stairs. A pair of swal
lows zipped past their heads, chasing each other around the Wheel.

  As they reached the top, the sculpture of the Kher came into view. It was carved from the red granite of the man’s homeland, a larger-than-life depiction of Ohndarien’s ultimate defender. No one knew where the man came from, or what his real name was, but he was there when the Fortress of Light needed him the most. The foreign warrior crouched to the left, a curved sword in his right hand that dipped so low it almost touched the ground. Flowers decorated the base. Wreaths hung from his arms, some from around his neck. Little candles, tiny wicker boxes, and bowls filled with seashells dotted the ground around the statue.

  The Kher looked as though he was about to pounce on whoever ascended the stair. Thick eyebrows over deep-set eyes gave him a look of implacable intensity. He stared down the stairs as though death was coming for him, and he was ready, even eager to meet it. Astor was always struck by it. He wondered if he could face a man like that, so intent, so dizzyingly fast. No wonder the Physendrians had balked, if this was the sight they faced. Astor couldn’t imagine being able to stop his foes with a glance.

  Quinn told her students that the Heartstone had called the Kher all the way from his homeland, the only warrior who could hold off an entire army, giving Brother Brophy the moments he needed to contain the black emmeria.

  But Astor knew differently. Mother knew the man, knew his real name, though she never talked about it. The taciturn Sister Vallia had mentioned him once, then went silent at a glance from Mother, but Ossamyr-lani didn’t care what anyone else thought and could occasionally be badgered into telling her stories. She had known him when she was queen of Physendria, and he went by the name of Scythe.

  She said that the man had single-handedly kept the Physendrian army at bay during the Nightmare Battle, slowly retreating up the steps to the Wheel, killing scores of Physendrians before they overcame him at the top. But he hadn’t been alone. Mother had been with him every step of the way, holding a shield to protect them from Physendrian archers.