Snow Like Ashes(71)

Sir’s dead. And I’ve been captured by Herod.

I fall to my knees, gasping on snowflakes. “No …”

Hannah steps closer. “Once you arrive in Spring, Angra will use his dark magic to watch you like he’s been watching Mather since Winter fell.” Her face softens. “I’m sorry I can’t explain what I’m about to show you, but I don’t have time for more than this now.”

She puts her hand on my forehead. I moan in protest, but the moment her skin touches mine, scenes fill my head, images and pictures of … the past. Hannah is showing me the past. I don’t know how I know that, but the truth zings through me as certainly as the images, and I draw in ragged breaths to keep myself from descending into panic.

Dozens of people stand on a dark lane, holding stones and pendants and sticks in unrelenting fists. The objects glow faintly, gentle pulses of light under the deep black sky. The people turn as a different group approaches, also holding glowing objects. The two groups don’t hesitate—with a scream and a bellow they attack. Fists split bones as if they’re no more than brittle pieces of wood; bodies fly through the air, thrown like fistfuls of straw.

Normal people shouldn’t be able to fight like this. But these aren’t just normal people—those objects are conduits. People once had their own conduits? But only the Royal Conduits were created before the chasm disappeared….

Or was that wrong?

A shadow rises from the fight, drifting out of each thrown punch, each snarl of hatred. The larger it grows, the angrier the crowd gets, like each feeds the other. Anger for more anger, evil for stronger evil—

From the light, there came a great Decay.

More black clouds of Decay appear, rising out of towns, villages, all from people who use conduits to do terrible things. A murder, a theft, a woman cowering as her husband beats her. Each time someone uses a conduit for corrupt ends, the Decay grows; and each time the Decay grows, it finds people, seeps inside of them, and makes them do even more corrupt things.

And woe was it unto those who had no light.

Eight people stand before me on the edge of a cliff in a great underground cavern. A brilliant ball of light all but blinds me from the endless depth beyond, and as I realize what this is, everything I’ve ever felt evaporates, leaving only gentle awe.

The lost chasm of magic.

They did beg, thus the lights were formed.

The eight people stack stones and pendants and sticks on the edge of the chasm. Conduits, still glowing softly. On the very top of each pile, every person places an object that does not glow. A locket, a dagger, a crown, a staff, an ax, a shield, a ring, a cuff. I run my eyes over the eight people again. Four male, four female.

The four did create the lights; and the four did create the lights.

Snapping fingers of energy strike the eight piles one at a time, unstoppable waves of power drawn to the new conduits like lightning to metal. Magic fills up the Royal Conduits, connecting with their rulers, their bloodlines, their genders.

The scene changes again, flashing by me. The clouds of Decay dissipate now, waning under the power of the Royal Conduits as the rulers chase the Decay from their lands. People rejoice as the Decay’s fog leaves them.

Then I see something I recognize all too well—Spring. Cherry blossom trees stretch in a sea of pink and white around a man with curly blond hair, nearly translucent green eyes, and pale skin. He stands at the entrance to his city, holding a staff. And around him hovers the last black cloud in Primoria, pulsing weakly.

“You are true strength,” the man tells the cloud, and opens his arms to it.

I scream, needing someone to hear me, needing someone else to see that they didn’t destroy all of it. The Decay still exists—and it’s in the ruler of Spring.

“Tell me how to save them.”

The scene changes. Centuries pass. I’m in a bedroom in Hannah’s palace, Jannuari visible beyond open balcony doors. The Decay has faded to a distant, forgotten legend, and the only thing anyone in Winter fears now is Spring. Hannah crouches at the foot of a canopy bed, tears streaking down her face.

“Tell me how to save my people from him,” she begs. Who is she talking to?

Then I see it. The small white glow in her hand where her fist sits against her chest. She’s holding the locket, begging it to tell her what to do. Has any other monarch done that before? Used their conduit as more than just a source of power, but as a source of authority? I hadn’t thought so … but maybe that was wrong too, just like believing there weren’t any conduits made before the eight that exist now.

Hannah’s locket responds to her pleading, a radiant white chill that ripples out of her hand. The magic pours into her, and through that pouring comes … this. All of this knowledge. The past, why the Royal Conduits were really created, what Winter is truly facing in Spring.