A flicker of Angra’s smugness returns. His power is in me now, pushing around my mind, nestling inside me like ink in books.
You will tell me everything, I feel him say. The words are my own thoughts, greedy and deep, and I grab my ears as if I could pull him out of my head. Or I will let Herod have you first, then those slaves you were with, then every Winterian I own. I will make him kill them all.
No, he won’t. I’ll stop Herod; I’ll kill Angra before he ever does that to anyone else.
Faces and images from my past swirl through my mind as Angra sorts through my head—Mather and Sir, the Rania Plains, Theron holding me as we danced in Cordell. Snow falling, gentle white flakes dusting Jannuari’s cobblestone streets …
Cold sweeps over me, wondrous cold. I’m standing in Jannuari, bare toes digging into the mortar between the cobblestones as flakes stick to my eyelashes, making the world glitter. Why am I here? It’s so cold, every nerve in my body tingling with the wondrously numb iciness.
I know how to break you, comes Angra’s voice. I know how to break all of you who long so badly for what you cannot have. You show your weakness in your desperation.
No, I’m in Abril, not in Jannuari. I’m in Angra’s palace and the Winterians need me and Nessa will die if I don’t stay conscious. I’m not magic; I’m not anything special. I’m just Meira.
No, not just Meira. I’m—I’m something—
It’s so cold. I love the cold.
Tell me what you want most in life, Meira. I will use your weaknesses. I will warp your mind until you shatter in my hands. I control you, Winter, everything.
Angra reaches one hand up with agonizing slowness and rests it against my forehead. More snow, falling and falling, peaceful flakes lulling me into Jannuari where it’s quiet and calm and I’ve never felt so safe in my life.
The locket. Angra still wears half of the locket around his throat, the white snowflake on the silver heart. We’ve been looking for the conduit for so long.
I will break you now with what you want most. Your perfect world.
26
ANGRA’S THRONE ROOM fades, the blackness disintegrating into a city. No, not just any city—the Jannuari from my patched-together memories.
AND IT’S SNOWING.
I turn, the cobblestones slick with ice, and the cold that shoots through my bare feet infuses me with euphoria. The earthy aroma of coal and refining minerals coats the air, turning everything a hazy gray. I belong here, in Jannuari. How could I have ever been anywhere else?
The skirt of my pale gray dress is tattered, stained with use and poverty. The thin cotton lets more cold rays shoot through and wrap around my body as I stand in the street, smiling at a figure running toward me through the snow. Nessa.
“Meira, supper’s ready! Your mother sent me to fetch you.”
My mother. Something pushes at my mind…. I don’t think I have a mother.
No, of course I do. I’ve always had a mother.
“Meira, come on!” Nessa grabs my hand and pulls me up the street. She’s so happy, so healthy, filled with a life of love and safety, her eyes gleaming as snowflakes stick in her hair.
I lift my skirt in one hand and together we run up the street, passing Winterians tidying up displays in shop windows or Winterians banging out horseshoes in a blacksmith’s shop. Jobs they should be doing, not like—
They’re wrong too. Wrong like my mother. Nessa is even a little wrong, and this city is wrong, though I know it exists.
“He’s coming to dinner tonight,” Nessa whispers, her tone seasoned with joy and gossip.
“Who?”
Nessa laughs, the sound making the air glitter even more. She pulls me up a path to a small two-story cottage and throws open the door, warm firelight falling out into the snow-filled path. Yellow mixes with the gray of Jannuari, warmth meeting snow. It’s not a bad warmth though—it’s perfect.
“There she is!” a voice cries as I step across the threshold. The fire pit on the left holds a bowl of orange coals that heat a cauldron of stew. Conall sits at a wooden table with a small bundle cooing from his arms, a woman behind him resting her hands on his shoulders—his wife? She must be. Garrigan crouches in front of his wife too, along with two little boys who stare in awe while he relates some story that involves mock-stabbing an enemy.
Behind the table, a small, graceful woman emerges from a backroom, locks of white hair curling around a face smudged with flour. “Meira, come! He’s almost here,” she says. Alysson.
Nessa falls into a chair at the table. “Your mother’s been cooking all day.”
My mother. Alysson is my …
“Hurry, everyone! His carriage is pulling up.”