I didn’t want to hurt Lethe or anyone in his family—even his atrocious father—or any other ice dragon people around me, no matter how sour their faces. But it was the only way I could imagine tipping the scales in the fire dragons’ favor.
The foyer was dark and hushed. I doubted that everyone had slipped off to bed so much as slipped off to maintain their own individual dramas. Little did they know how much intrigue I was brewing…
I thought of Lethe with a pang as I traveled into the western tower. He would be heartbroken. Betrayed. I had been, after all, the one and only splash of sunshine in an otherwise cold and lonely life, or so it seemed. No one had even smiled at me since I’d been here, except for him. I wondered how he had managed it. Why did he have a sensitive underbelly, when all the other people of ice heritage seemed so callous and detached? Why did he want love, and acceptance, and appreciation, when he had been trained to lust for power, and control, and dominance?
When I reached the room with the astrolabe, I glanced to and fro through the corridor before ducking through. And then I was alone with it.
Its dull golden shine filled the entire room, and I stepped toward it with the kind of awe I was certain was quite natural.
Now that no one was there to snatch my hand away, I dared skate a fingertip over its interlocking rings, signifying the spheres of land and space in this world. The stars had names I did not recognize, as did the planets. Where the hell was I?
Swallowing, I closed my eyes and gripped its rim.
I wondered if dislodging the mystical astrolabe would send this entire world plummeting through space like a ball without its tether.
But, as I took it from the top of the pedestal and held my breath, nothing at all happened.
I peered down at the disc, strangely light in my arms, although it ran the length from my wrist to my elbow.
I held their entire sky in my arms.
And what had Lethe said?
And the gods?
I blanketed the astrolabe with my ermine coat, and the room darkened. I trod from the room as hushed as a whisper, scanning the shadows.
As I passed the depository of furs and boots, I paused and thought better of my thin satin slippers. I would need something much heavier to combat the frigid weather.
A moment later, I spilled back out into the hall with heavy snow boots strapped around my legs and clambered down the corridor, much louder now. I wondered if I should bring some food, but the stress and the adrenaline combined kept my appetite at bay. And I imagined that once I was out in that wasteland, the last thing on my mind would be eating. The only thing on my mind would be escape. Escape with the astrolabe. I would need to find a fire dragon to help me reset its structures to their original placement.
And if I couldn’t find Theon, I would leave a message for him, and I would go home. I would get the friendly fire dragon I kept imagining myself encountering to give me a lift to the nearest Earth portal, and I’d thank him or her, and they would have me spat out somewhere in the Bahamas, hopefully.
If I didn’t freeze to death before finding this imaginary savior.
Maybe Theon would still have the means to reach me with those mysterious letters. Even if I was back in DC. Augh.
Back in DC. Back at The Shenandoah Institute. Back being Penelope O’Hara, college freshman, single virgin. And Theon would still be here… somewhere… with Michelle.
My expression twisted further as I thought on this, reaching the foyer with an echo from the boots that I could not control.
I should have known that this would happen, really. Michelle always won. Even if it seemed like she had lost—she would win. She would make sure of it. And even Theon… who had seemed so strong, so pure, so noble… even Theon had fallen. Of course.
The main gates were always guarded, but there were more inlets and outlets running between the castle and the kingdom. It wasn’t hard to find one which was unmanned. It was, naturally, locked from the inside… but I was already inside. This door was meant to keep outsiders out, but not to keep insiders in.
I wrenched the bolt to one side and pulled the door open. A gust of snow filled the carpet at my feet, and I swallowed, hesitating.
But I had no choice.
I couldn’t stay here.
I couldn’t wear some ice crown with a man who I did not love, no matter how much he thought he loved me; he was my abductor. He was holding me hostage. I could never forget that. And I couldn’t allow him to pump me full of ice dragon babies, which was clearly the next bullet on their list, as if I was some breeding mare and not a human being. And I couldn’t let an entire genocide take place beneath my eyes and do nothing to stop it, particularly knowing they would concentrate on finding Theon first and foremost. They would torture him. They would execute him publicly. It would be a message to both the people of ice and those of fire.