Snow Like Ashes(100)

“Stop,” I mumble into Theron’s shoulder. “Stop. He’s not a part of this. This is between us, Season and Season. This isn’t Cordell’s war!”

Angra laughs. The sound pulls me up, my mistake ringing in my ears.

“No, you’re quite right.” He turns to Herod. “Go get 1-2072, 1-3218, and 1-3219. I promised R-19 that you could have them once you’re done with—”

“No!” My scream tears through the throne room so loud and so desperate I can feel the rocks tremble. All around me, the darkness of the obsidian seeps into my vision, painting everything I see and feel a startling black. Just Angra and Herod and me locked in the shadows of this world. Can I use the conduit magic to stop them, this, everything? What can my magic even do? I can only affect Winterians, give them strength or endurance or health—

I think Theron takes me into his arms. I think he whispers something in my ear, but I’m screaming now, lashing out as soldiers come in and haul us up. I can’t hear anything beyond the roar of blood in my head, the horrifying image of Herod sneering at me as he turns, pauses, smiles again. Walks down the throne room and leaves through the two heavy doors with such controlled grace. He’s going to get Nessa and her brothers. He’s going to kill them—

“Take them to his chamber,” Angra orders. “If she feels like talking, bring her to me instantly. No matter her state.”

I scream again, fingers tearing at the soldiers who drag us away. I will not let Nessa or Conall or Garrigan or myself or anyone die like this.

The soldiers don’t care. They pin my arms back and carry me up stairs, down halls, weaving through Angra’s obsidian palace. Everything is decorated with the same heart-achingly poetic spring-in-darkness motif, colorful etchings of vines and flowers dug into the black rock. The vines wrap us like the words in Nessa’s memory cave.

Someday we will be more than words in the dark.

Bithai had a poem. A beautiful poem like the one Theron wrote. But Winter has no poem, just those words scrawled in the dark and that one sentence, that one desperate plea that shakes through my body with a frantic need.

The soldiers throw open a door in a second-floor hall. A room spreads out before me, a canopy bed against the back corner, wide clear windows along the southern wall, gleaming wooden floors that the soldiers drag me across until we stop by—

A cage. Barely big enough for me to sit up in, with bars on all sides. They open the door and toss me in and lock it before I can even breathe.

One of the soldiers slips the key onto Herod’s desk. “I told you not to get comfortable.”

I follow his movements and my attention freezes on the one object I never expected to see again: my chakram. My original chakram, which Herod stole so long ago, sits prominently on his desk like a prized trophy. Exactly like a prized trophy, in the same way I’m a trophy too.

So close. My weapon, so close and yet so helpless.

I lunge against the cage, the bars groaning where they’re bolted into the floor. Nothing gives, and the soldiers laugh as they march out of the room.

Across from me, the other men chain Theron to the wall. They punch him in the stomach before leaving, his body slamming back into the wall with a sickening crack. They leave us, shutting the door like they can forget what will happen.

I grip the bars, blinking away a foggy veil of tears as I keep my focus on Theron, locking onto his deep brown eyes and the sparkle behind them, the light that I didn’t even realize I’d missed. He stares back at me, the tension in his face unwinding in exhaustion, anger, seeing me in a cage in Herod’s chamber, waiting for that monster to return and slowly torture me. And knowing that for all his training and power in Cordell, Theron has no power here. He’s just as close and just as useless as my chakram.

“How did Angra—” Theron starts, one of his hands pressing tenderly on his healed ribs. He shakes his head, closing his eyes in a quick flicker of repulsion. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know.”

I draw in a wavering breath, ready to explain, but the words fall flat and lifeless in my throat. “What happened?” is all I can manage.

Theron drops to the floor, the chains leading from his wrists clanking against the wood. Blood trails down his face, fresh and scarlet, dripping onto the collar of his tattered military uniform, Cordell’s green and gold caked in red. “Bithai survived,” he says.

I open my mouth. No, I meant what happened to lead us here. What happened to get us so far gone, so far from—

“Shortly after you fell, Cordell overcame Spring’s infantry. They were forced to retreat. They couldn’t compete with our conduit; it was the only thing that saved us. But my father refused to retaliate.” Theron winces, working out a pain in his shoulder.