Snow Like Ashes Read online

  All four of them bleed from various spots on their bodies, torn shirts and makeshift bandages stained brown-red with a mix of dried and fresh blood. Sir is the only one who eases off his horse and stands straight, towering and immovable and watching us detachedly. With all the time I spend with Mather, I should be better at decoding emotionless looks. But I just hover there, my body frozen with anxiety, unable to move to help Finn and Mather pass out bandages.

  My eyes travel up and down each horse, each bag. Did they get the locket half?

  “William!” Alysson’s shriek precedes her by a few heartbeats as she hurls herself at her husband, injuries be damned. Seeing Sir wrap his arms around her, hold her tiny body off the ground, is like watching a bear clutch a rag doll—power and might alongside fragility and smallness. They fold into each other in a rare moment of vulnerability, but it passes like a cool wind on a hot day, flowing over us and on like it never happened.

  Sir sets down his wife. “It’s in Lynia. Got there the day we left.”

  Finn lowers the handful of bandages he pressed against Greer’s leg, Mather looks up from where he holds a small water sack for Dendera as she drinks. I suck in mouthfuls of the hot, heavy air, my mind whirling through the meaning of those words.

  We’ve been searching for the locket throughout Primoria since Winter fell, but only a handful of times have we gotten leads on where one of the halves would be. Angra keeps half of it moving, bouncing from cities in Spring to remote settlements in the unclaimed areas of Primoria—the foothills of the Paisel Mountains, ports on the sea—to make it harder for us to get the two halves back.

  Now we’re close. My chest swells with the same excitement that I know everyone is feeling, or felt before they ended up here, broken and bleeding. Sir will send someone back for it. Fresh and rested people make for the best soldiers, so he won’t send anyone who just returned. Which means—

  I rush toward Sir as he looks Mather up and down, then does the same to Finn. “You two, leave now,” he says. “They’ll move it again soon, since they know we escaped.”

  I stop. “They’ll need everyone. I’ll go too.”

  Sir looks at me like he forgot I’d be here. He frowns, shakes his head. “Not now. Mather, Finn, I want you ready to leave in fifteen minutes. Go.”

  Finn scurries off, his bulk swaying around him as he hurries back to camp. Obedient without thought, like everyone always is.

  I stare up at Sir with my jaw clenched. “I can do this. I’m going.”

  Sir grabs his horse’s reins and starts walking it toward camp. Everyone falls in behind him—except Mather, who hangs back, watching us, his eyes calm.

  “I don’t have time to argue this,” Sir snaps. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Too dangerous for me but not for our future king?”

  Sir looks at me as I walk alongside him. “Did you beat Mather in sparring?”

  I grimace. Sir reads that as my answer.

  “That’s why it’s too dangerous for you. We’re too close to take any chances.”

  Prairie grass pushes against my hips, my boots tearing into the dirt with every step. “You’re wrong,” I growl. “I can help. I can be—”

  “You do help.”

  “Oh yes, that bag of rice I bought in Autumn last month saved our kingdom.”

  “You’re most helpful where you are,” he amends.

  I grab his arm to make him stop. He turns to me, his face streaked with dirt and blood through his white beard, frazzled strands of ivory hair sticking out around his face. He looks tired, hovering between taking one more step and collapsing.

  “I can do more than this,” I breathe. “I’m ready, William.”

  I called him Father once. In the wake of his stories about my real parents dying in the streets of Winter’s capital, Jannuari, as Spring overtook it, and how he scooped baby-me up and rescued me, it seemed logical to an eight-year-old that the man raising her should be called Father. But he turned such a shade of red that I feared he’d start spitting blood, and he growled at me like he’d never done before. He was not my father and I was never, ever to call him that again. I was only ever to call him by his name, or a title, or something to show respect. But not Father. Never Father.

  So from then on, I called him Sir. Yes, Sir. No, Sir. You are not my father and I will never be your daughter and I hate that you’re all I have, Sir.

  Now he ignores me, pulling his horse onward. His decisions are final, and no amount of arguing will change his mind.

  Like that’s ever stopped me. “This isn’t enough! And while I can’t fault you for caring about the most efficient ways to save our kingdom, I know I can do things for Winter too.”

  A few paces behind me, Dendera sighs, still hanging off Henn’s neck. “Meira,” she says, her voice worn. “Please, dear, you should be grateful you aren’t needed.”

  I whip to her. “Just because you’d rather be patching dresses doesn’t mean all women should want that.”

  Her mouth drops open and I pinch my eyes closed. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I sigh, forcing myself to look at her. She leans more heavily on Henn now, her eyes glistening. “I just meant that you shouldn’t be forced to fight when you don’t want to, and I shouldn’t be forced to not fight when I want to. If Sir let me go, maybe you wouldn’t have to do missions. Everyone would win.”

  Dendera doesn’t look any less hurt, but she glances at Sir, a quiver of hope hidden behind her pain. She used to be like Alysson, tending to camp, until Sir got desperate—he started needing her for missions just as he started letting me help with food scouting. She’s never argued with him, not when he makes her train or when he sends her out on missions like these. But one look in her eyes and I can see how much this life terrifies her, how badly she’d rather be back at camp. She’s as uncomfortable with weapons as I’d be in a gown.

  Mather strides over to me through the grass, and I think he might try to offer words to break the tension. But after a few paces, he crumples to the ground like the earth sucked him down and refuses to release him. I frown as he grips his ankle.

  “Oooww,” he howls.

  Sir bends down in a quick rush of panic. “What happened?”

  Mather rocks back and forth and winces as everyone else moves closer. “Meira beat me in that last fight, didn’t she tell you? Knocked me flat out. I don’t think I can go to Lynia.”

  The wrinkles in Sir’s face relax. “Didn’t I see you run out to meet us?”

  Mather doesn’t miss a beat, still rocking and wincing. “I ran through the pain.”

  I suck in a breath until Sir looks up at me, and Mather winks above a wide grin.

  “You beat him?” Sir asks, disbelieving.

  I shrug. I’m a horrible liar so I just leave it at that. Mather is helping me. A blush warms my cheeks.

  Sir has to know we’re lying, but he won’t risk sending Mather on the chance that he really did sustain an injury. He does trust him, more than anyone here. A moment passes before Sir rubs his temples and shoots a sharp breath out of his nose. “Help Mather into camp, then get your chakram.”

  I bite back my squeal of triumph but it comes anyway, a weird blubbery noise that catches in my throat and bursts out of my still-frowning mouth. Sir stands, takes his horse, and marches into camp with renewed determination, like he doesn’t want to face me now that he’s given in. Everyone trails after him, leaving me to help the invalid Mather.

  When the others are out of earshot, I fall to the ground and throw my arms around him. “You’re my favorite monarch in the history of monarchs,” I babble into his shoulder.

  His arms come around me, squeeze once, shooting rays of chill through my body as I realize … we’re hugging.

  I fly to my feet and extend my hand to him, certain my face will be permanently stained red. “We should get back.”

  Mather takes my hand but pulls down as I pull up, keeping me from leaving. “Wait.”

  He turns to fish for something i
n his pocket and I lower to my knees beside him, my eyebrows pinching slightly. When he pivots back, his face is solemn, and the ball of nervousness in my stomach expands. In the center of his palm sits a round piece of lapis lazuli, one of the rarer stones Winter mined from the Klaryns long ago.

  “I found it when we were staying in Autumn a few years back,” Mather starts, his eyes soft. “After the lesson William gave us on Winter’s economy. Our mines in the Klaryns, digging up coal and minerals and stones.” He pauses, and I can see the child he was then. We moved to Autumn eight years ago, a boy-prince pretending to be a soldier and a girl-orphan who wanted nothing more than to pretend right alongside him.

  “I liked to think it was magic,” he continues, his face severe. “After our lessons about the Seasons sitting on a chasm of magic, and our lands being directly affected by the power, and Angra breaking Winter’s conduit and taking our power in one swift crush of his fist, I wanted—needed—to believe that we could get magic somewhere else. The world may seem balanced—four kingdoms of eternal seasons, four kingdoms that cycle through all seasons; four kingdoms with female-blooded conduits, four with male-blooded. But it’s not balanced—it will always be tipped in favor of monarchs who have magic versus people who don’t, like their citizens and … other monarchs whose conduits break. And I hated being so …” His voice trails off. “Helpless,” he finishes, and my brow creases.

  “You’re far from helpless, Mather.”

  His half smile returns and he shrugs. “At the very least, this lapis lazuli was a connection to Winter. And having it helped me feel stronger, I guess.”

  I bite my lip, not missing how he brushed past what I said.

  He takes my hand and rolls the stone into my palm. “I want you to have it.”

  Giddiness floods my senses when Mather doesn’t let go of my hand, doesn’t look away from me. And the light flickering in his eyes—this is important to him. He’s passing me a part of his childhood.

  I pull the lapis lazuli closer to examine it in the dying sunlight. It’s impossibly blue, no bigger than a coin, with darker strands of azure running along its surface.

  Outside of the lost chasm, magic has only ever existed in the Royal Conduits of the eight kingdoms in Primoria, reserved for rulers to use as needed. Not in objects like this small, blue stone, sitting so inconspicuously in my palm. But I know why Mather wanted to believe the stone has magic: sometimes placing our belief in something bigger than ourselves helps us get to a point where we can be enough on our own, magic or no magic.

  “Not that I don’t think you’ll be fine,” he adds. “It just helped me sometimes, having a piece of Winter with me.”

  I squeeze the stone, warmth gathering in my chest beside the slow, dull thudding of my heart whenever Mather smiles. “Thank you.” I nod to his ankle. “For everything. You didn’t—”

  He shakes his head. “Yes, I did. You deserve to fight for your home as much as the rest of us do.”

  I swallow. We’re still alone outside of camp, with only the faint breeze pushing through the grass and a few scraggy trees nearby. “I should pack.”

  Mather nods, his face blank again with that maddening, impenetrable nothingness. He fakes a limp into camp, my shoulder under one of his arms to help the charade. I keep a hand around his waist, the other clutching the lapis lazuli. I’m barely able to draw in full breaths, I’m so aware of his body against mine, of how when I look at him, I see the life Sir says we’re fighting for. Something simple and happy, just Mather and me in a cozy cottage in Winter.

  But he’s not just Mather—he is Winter. He will always be Winter first and foremost, and there is a palace in his future, not a cottage.

  So I help him over to the fire and hurry to pack what I’ll need for the trip, moving and doing in silence because silence is infinitely easier than talking. And now, finally, I’m moving and doing what I’ve always wanted—to help my kingdom.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  3

  WHEN I WAS eight, we moved our camp once again to make it harder for Angra to track us—this time, to Autumn. Until then, my life had been no bigger than the perimeters of our sad little camps throughout the Eldridge Forest. We passed through Autumn’s capital, Oktuber, on our way to their southern forests, filling our carts and loading our horses with supplies.

  Autumn was as similar to the foliage-heavy Eldridge as a snowflake is to a flame. The dense humidity of the Eldridge was nonexistent in Autumn’s dry coolness, its yellow-and-red forests sleepy and crunchy and colored with warmth. Oktuber was a maze of rickety barns and tents in maroon, azure, and sunshine orange, with the crystalline blue sky gleaming above, a sharp and beautiful contrast to this kingdom’s earth tones. But it was the Autumnians themselves who left me gaping—they were beautiful.

  Their hair hung in tendrils as dark as the night sky, swaying in the dust kicked up from the roads that wove through Autumn’s tent cities. Their skin glistened the same coppery brown as the leaves on some of their trees, only where the leaves were crinkled and dry, the Autumnians’ faces were perfectly creamy.

  I touched my own skin, as pale as the clouds drifting over us, and ran my fingers across the cap covering my blindingly white hair. My entire life, I had been surrounded only by the other Winterian escapees. It had never occurred to me that anyone might look different, but as I gazed at black eyes set in lush brown skin, I wished for my skin to be that pretty shade, and for my blue eyes to be a dark mystery too.

  I told my wish to Alysson, who was tasked with keeping Mather and me out of trouble while everyone else gathered supplies. Her brow pinched in the wake of my admission. “The world is full of lovely people, Meira. I bet somewhere there is an Autumnian girl wanting to have hair the color of snow just as you want skin the color of earth.”

  My gaze flicked around, but I didn’t see anyone watching us, at least not with the same yearning with which I watched them. I tugged at my cap. “Then why do we have to hide?”

  Alysson’s hand went to her own hair, wrapped up in a blue length of fabric. In retrospect, hiding our white hair didn’t do much to keep people from realizing who we were—if anything, it only made them look at us twice, noting first our hats or fabric-wrapped heads, then our pale skin and blue eyes and how wholly out of place we were. But Sir never backed down in his insistence that we needed to at least try to disguise ourselves, lest Angra get word of our location.

  After a deep inhale, Alysson touched my cheek, her fingers cool. “You won’t have to hide forever, sweetheart. Someday our features will blend in, not stand out.”

  I doubt she meant blending into Spring.

  I shove my hands into the pockets beneath my heavy black cloak, the dense wool swaying around the weapons strapped to my back and legs. The cloak’s hood encases my head, hiding me in shadows as I stroll casually down the dirt road, the darkness of midnight falling on me from the half-moon sky. Every few seconds I peek up through the hood, noting the walls of Lynia just ahead, the gate at the end of this road flanked by flickering torches and a handful of Spring guards.

  A shiver pulls down my spine, but I keep my posture tall and confident, adding a cocky sway to my step the closer I get to Lynia’s north gate. The Feni River gurgles off to my left, marking the northern border of Spring before it flows out to the Destas Sea. A bridge connects to the gate up ahead, linking Lynia to the Rania Plains over the river in a wide swoop of stone and wood. My eyes dart over it, to the darkened field beyond, before swinging back ahead. An escape route to keep in mind.

  The Kingdom of Spring stretches to my right, drastically different from the barren, grassy prairie lands of the Rania Plains. In the daytime, rolling hills of lush greenery peak all around, forests of cherry blossom trees, fields of wildflowers in a rainbow of colors. In the nighttime, Spring looks far more like what it really is—cloaked in shadows, everythin
g drenched in black.

  It didn’t take long to travel to Lynia, what with the breakneck pace Finn demanded. A little more than two days after we set out, we reached the port city. We hid our horses in an abandoned barn and waited until night, then split up to approach Lynia from the north and the south. Getting into Lynia is the easy part—getting out will be the fun part.

  One other traveler strides down the road in front of me, a man slumped on his horse. He reaches the guards first, mumbles something about finding work at Lynia’s docks the next day, and after a few moments of quiet muttering, they let him pass unmolested. I swallow. Based on the recon work Finn and I did, the patrol in Lynia has been increased along the wall and gates, making it impossible to sneak in unnoticed. But it is possible to pass as a Spring citizen, and waltz into Lynia with the guards’ blessing. I keep my pace steady as I approach.

  “Halt,” one guard orders, flinging out a hand to block my way.

  I step back, careful to keep my face out of the direct light of the sconces on my right and left. “On my way to the Dancing Flower Inn,” I recite, the cover Finn and I came up with. My voice rumbles out low and deep to make myself as gender-neutral as possible. “Meeting a man for work.”

  Which isn’t entirely a lie. Well, the Dancing Flower Inn is a lie—Sir told us about it and a handful of other landmarks in Lynia. Our real mark is the Keep, Lynia’s seat of government and, according to Sir, the location of the locket half. My eyes flick past the guards—all five of them—to the great circular tower that looms above the other buildings in Lynia. It’s in the center of the city, at least a half-hour trip. Finn will have the same from his end of the city.

  I swing my gaze back to the guards. Two study me, the rest lean lazily against the wall, their breastplates gleaming in the flickering torchlight—silver armor with a black sun on their chests. Angra’s sun. I’m not sure how much tighter I can ball my fists; my nails are already digging into my palms.