Chapter 6 #2
She frowned, closing her hand, and the ice palace turned to water between her fingers, splashing onto the tree stump.
“What should I call you?” I asked.
She opened her mouth, and I saw her lips move, but the sound that emerged was a dragon roar. “That is the name my mother intended to give me.”
I blinked at her. “I don’t suppose there’s a convenient word in Northern I could use. That sounded a bit like the translation was I’m ready to eat you for dinner.”
The dragon shook her head. “Call me what you want.”
“Well, I’ll have to give you an appropriate name, then.” I considered her. She looked nothing like my sister. Eona? had golden hair and blue eyes, while the ice dragon was all pale moonlight and eyes like opals.
But Eona? had given me the egg with hope. And despite everything, the dragon reminded me of what my twin might have been like if she had not had her youth stolen by the knowledge that she had been engaged to our greatest enemy before either of us had been born.
“Na?.” I reached out, and despite the fact that she could probably eat my entire arm whole, I patted her head. Because I was a fool, and I fell in love with dangerous people like Tallu.
“Na?,” she repeated and nodded once. “We run out of time. Whatever was done to your head when you were injured by the general left room for this magic.”
“Losing my animal speak means I can wield ice magic?” I asked.
“It left room to learn magic. Hold out your hand.” When I hesitated, she grabbed my palm and stretched out my fingers, facing upward. “Think of the cold not as the enemy, not as a danger, but as a person. One you call on when you need help. One whose call you answer when they need the same.”
“A friend.” I frowned down at my hand, trying to imagine something so constant as cold as anything more than an inevitability.
“A friend like any of those you’ve made here in the Imperium. A friend who you cannot trust and do not know the true motives of, but upon whom you must rely,” she said, annoyed at my disbelief. “You know cold, Prince of the Northern Kingdom. Call to it.”
And how often, in the balmy southern springtime, had I wished for the cold of the north? I let that yearning take hold, wishing desperately for cold. I called to it, the way my heart called to Eona?.
A single snowflake formed in the center of my palm, then more, a spiral of them appearing, curling up to my fingers.
“What is this?” I lifted my other hand, pressing into the gathered snow, and it melted under my touch.
Na? smiled. “It is a start. Now, we must return.”
She stood, leading the way back through the forest. I followed the moonlit fall of her hair, still staring at my palm, until there wasn’t a single snowflake left.
When we passed the frozen owl, I hesitated. If I could learn ice magic, could I relearn animal speak?
Na? grabbed hold of my hand, pulling me back to the campsite, shoving me between Asahi and Sagam’s frozen forms and back into my tent.
I stared down at Tallu, feeling the impossibility of what we needed to do, needing desperately to tell him what I had just done.
Tallu drew in a breath, the arm that had been wrapped around me pulling close against him.
He blinked his eyes open, a frown already forming on his face until he looked up and saw me.
His mouth formed my name, but he didn’t give voice. We would have to wait. I toed off my shoes, crawling back onto the cot with him, and let him draw me close.
He didn’t even whisper a question about the chill on my skin, and I looked over to see Na? back in her dragon form, curled on her pillow, eyes already closed.
Squeezing Tallu’s hand, I let myself begin to hope.
The next few days were much the same. The forest was thick, and now I knew why all the trees were the same height, why their uniformity was so tragic. Topi refused to talk about who had sent her, why they’d done so, and what her goal was.
The first morning meal, she’d sat apart from everyone, raising her chin, and refusing the tacit offer of a seat near us, only taking food when the Kennelmaster crouched, placing a plate of gruel in front of her.
“That’ll be the last dish I bring you, my lady,” the Kennelmaster said. “Only the Dragon Chosen Emperor gets his food served to him. Is that clear?”
Topi grabbed at the food as soon as his back was turned, fisting the spoon and eating the gruel so fast that I could practically see the stretch of hungry days in her past. She watched the Dogs with the sort of fear bred from living so long in court.
In the palace, they were shadows, but now they were walking in broad daylight, and it only made them more terrifying.
The Kennelmaster kept us at a quick pace. It was two weeks from the Mountainside Palace to the Lakeshore Palace, and the Kennelmaster clearly intended to shave a few days off the journey. We stayed at remote cabins and in abandoned logging housing.
Despite the lack of masks, the Dogs were no louder than they were in the palace, and in the endless stretch of forest, it was even stranger, as though we were traveling with living ghosts in addition to the literal ones only Tallu and I could see.
Topi seemed to feel it as well, her body tensing whenever she felt a Dog near her.
“You know, you don’t have to be afraid,” I said as the cart swayed and Tallu sat with his shoulders back and his eyes closed.
Without the flock of servants to ready him each morning, something about him was untouchable.
After so many days on the road, he should have looked as haggard as the rest of us, but he looked pristine.
I took some credit, grateful that Eona? had badgered me into helping her get dressed enough times that I recognized how to put on most imperial clothes.
For a moment, Topi looked at me as though I were particularly stupid.
“I don’t have to be afraid of you?” She turned her head, and her profile was illuminated by the bright afternoon light.
She shook her head. “No. Of course I don’t have to be afraid of some northern barbarian—” She broke off.
Tallu’s eyes were wide open, and the expression on his face was murderous.
“I am not afraid of the northern prince. I don’t have to be.
I have more than enough fear of his husband. ”
“Don’t let her goad you,” Lerolian said. He was lying on top of one of the boxes, his leg propped up, his eyes closed. “She’s trying to get under your skin, and she’s being very successful at it.”
“I don’t believe you are afraid of me,” Tallu said, his voice low.
“I don’t believe you’re afraid of me because you are too afraid of what he will do to your sister if you fail.
Which”—Tallu leaned back, and he wasn’t wearing his golden rings or his golden crown, but there it was, a ghost of an echo on his forehead—“you already have.”
“No.” Topi shook her head. She had gone pale, her lips tight.
“She’s terrified,” Lerolian said conversationally. “She spends every night crying herself to sleep.”
“We could help you,” I suggested. “Who else is going to? You’re stuck with us. And I’m pretty sure there’s a wonderful dungeon in store for you at the Lakeshore Palace. You aren’t escaping from us. Why don’t you try and make the best of it?”
Topi bared her teeth. “And let another person use me for their end goals? I believe I’ll pass, Your Highness.”
“Suit yourself. Bemishu must be grateful for such a loyal daughter.” I took a stab at who might have her loyalty.
She looked at me sharply, but from the slight smile on her face, I knew she could tell I was only guessing.
I thought the forest would go on forever, but suddenly, we were out of it, free. An empty span of logged trees spread out in front of us, acres of stumps only broken up by a town in the distance.
After so many days on the road, the idea of staying somewhere with baths and food that hadn’t been cooked over a campfire was so appealing that I worried the town itself might be a mirage.
But the Dog serving as our driver directed the horses toward the buildings, unerringly finding an inn just off the road.
It was a long, flat building, the outside decorated with wooden pillars and well-manicured plants. A small stream wound its way next to the inn, a few waterfowl flying off as our horses approached.
I wondered if we would be able to stay the night.
Na? had been keeping me up almost every night practicing the meager skills I had learned.
So far, I was able to make a handful of snow, but unless I intended to take down any of our numerous enemies with a single snowball, that was of very little use to me.
As the driver spoke with a stable hand, I reached into my bag, past the sleeping Na?, to find the jar of powder Homisu had given me. I dusted my face, hoping it was enough.
Topi sucked her teeth, then said, “Here.”
She held out her hand, and I handed over the small container of powder.
Quickly, she covered my face in the stuff, then brushed a finger over both of my eyebrows.
Snapping the container closed, she handed it back to me, but she wasn’t looking at me.
Instead, her eyes dropped away from where Tallu glared at her fiercely.
Tallu grabbed the back of my hood, pulling it over my head, then drew his own up, and I tried to hide the smile I knew bloomed on my face. Tallu’s jealousy shouldn’t be amusing, but I couldn’t help being warmed by it.
“What do you think?” I asked in a low voice, my words for Tallu alone. “Do you think we’ll find one of our other enemies strung up here, waiting for rescue? How about General Maki, since he’s the one we want the most?”
“He may not look it, but Maki has heft to him,” Tallu answered, his lips pulling back into a smile. “They would be hard-pressed to find a branch strong enough to carry his weight.”