And Kell wanted what he always did these days.
To prove that even now, without the power that had once defined his life, marked him as Antari and made him the strongest magician in the world, he was still worth something to the Grey Barron, and Lila Bard, to the palace and the empire, and himself.
V
THE SOUTHERN POINT OF FRESA
SEVEN YEARS AGO
Kell Maresh had never been this cold.
For years, if he felt so much as a chill, he could conjure flame into his hands, or warm the air against his skin, the gesture as natural as breathing. Effortless. Simple.
But nothing was simple anymore.
The wine’s welcoming warmth had dwindled as the crew made their way down the port house path, as instructed, which led not into a town, but a massive tunnel carved straight into the glacier. A vicious wind whistled through it, singing against the ice, and sinking its teeth into every inch of skin.
And yet, for all the discomfort, there was something extraordinary about this place.
He had seen ice before, but the word did no justice to the scale.
He had stood in the king’s map room when he was young, and studied the empire modeled on the table, the drawings on the wall, wondered how a map could have edges when the world went on beyond it. Where is the rest? he’d asked, and the king had told him, This is the part that matters.
But Maxim Maresh was wrong.
Kell shook himself, not wanting to think about the man who’d raised him, and yet had never seen him as a son. The king who’d fallen, along with so many, at Osaron’s hands, and forced Rhy, too soon, onto the throne.
Ahead, Lila ran her bare fingers along the tunnel wall, and began to hum a sea shanty, the melody ricocheting around them, a song carrying its own chorus. Their footsteps echoed.
Without the eerie dawn haze, the tunnel should have been pitch black. But it wasn’t. In fact, the ice to every side seemed to glow with its own internal light, a pale blue Kell swore was growing brighter as they walked. He slowed, approaching the tunnel wall, a warped reflection taking shape in the ice. A long, pale face. Red hair parted by a single line of silver. The only outward mark of the battle that had changed his life.
He rested one gloved hand against the surface of the ice. And felt it. There was an energy to the ice, like a current in a stream. The water had frozen, but something inside it was undeniably alive.
He realized then what it must be. A source.
Kell knew, of course, that the Isle river back in London was not the only one, that sources of magic were scattered all over the world. But it was still a strange and wonderful thing to find another. To stand inside it. To bathe in the glow as if it were a healing thing. Perhaps, he thought—and hoped—it was.
He closed his eyes, imagined the light curling over him. Stitching back the parts that had torn.
A tremor ran through the tunnel, and Kell recoiled, half expecting to see cracks lacing the wall around his fingers. Vasry turned in a circle, and a knife had appeared in Lila’s hand, and for a single, horrible moment, Kell thought he’d done something to damage the source. But then the crash came again, and this time, he could tell, it wasn’t coming from behind or around them, but just ahead. It was followed by another sound, a tide of voices. Cheers.
They quickened their pace, rounded a bend, and reached the mouth of the tunnel. It yawned open to reveal a city carved in and out of ice.
And in the center stood the lightless fair.
Of course, it was not really lightless. The source’s blue shine met the twilight haze, giving everything a frosted glow. A dreamy, dusk-like illumination.
A hundred stalls rose straight out of the frozen ground, every ice-made shop draped in long, bright lengths of silk, adorned with lanterns and flags. A hundred patrons shuffled through, bundled in their coats, as merchants called out in Fresan, their voices reduced to music in his ears as they offered meat and tea, games and magic. There was laughter, and music, and more people than Kell had seen in months.
They passed through an ornate archway, icicles rising from its top like crown points, moon-like spheres balanced on each. A crowd had gathered just beyond, forming a wide circle around a pale woman in a silver coat.
She stood in the center of a small platform, bare hands raised before her as if holding puppet strings. For a long moment, she stood still, and then, as they watched, her arms began to move, fingers dancing through the air.
And the ice around her grew.
It rose, and drew together, delicately shaping itself into the curved bones of a ship. It spread like frost across the air, around her body, over her head, until the sculptor vanished inside her work.
The ship grew until it was the size of a house, details fashioned down to the bolts and the sails. And that would have been marvel enough, but then, it began to move. Rolling slightly as if caught on the waves. It went still again, but this time, there was a kind of menace to that stillness. An eerie calm. A child gasped, and soon Kell saw why. A single, icy tendril had appeared, curling itself around the ship. And then another. And another. The crowd held its breath as the limbs of a sea beast wrapped themselves around the hull, and the mast, and the sails, and began to squeeze.
The ship groaned, as if it were wood. It began to crack beneath the force.
Kell watched, awestruck.
It was one thing to sculpt an object from an element. It was another thing entirely to give it movement, to put wind into ice-made sails and tension into ice-made limbs. It was a feat of magic, a craft unlike anything he’d ever seen. To re-create the world in such detail, and then—
All at once, the ship shattered with a sound that shook the fair.
The whole scene burst apart, the ice dissolving into glittering flakes that drifted down over the spectators, dusting their shoulders and hoods with snow. The woman stood at the center of her platform, alone again.
The crowd erupted in applause.
Vasry whooped, and Kell clapped, and beside him, Lila’s face lit up, the way it had that first day in Red London, when everything was new. She took it all in, not with a wicked glee, but a hungry kind of wonder. And then she looked at him, and smiled, and started to walk on, but Kell caught her bare hand, and pulled her back to him, and kissed her.
Heat poured through him, and he didn’t know if it was her magic sparking on the air or his own body flushing, but either way it was welcome.
Lila pulled back, just enough to meet his gaze, her breath a plume of white between their lips. “What was that for?” she asked.
“For warmth,” he said, and they both smiled at the words, the memory drawn like thread between them, between now and that first night when she had done the same to him, and claimed it was for luck. She kissed him again, deeper, hands sliding beneath his coat. Kell leaned in. He loved her. It scared him, but frankly, so did Lila. She always had.
Delilah Bard wasn’t a soft bed on a summer morning. She was a blade in the dark, dazzling, and dangerous, and sharp. Even now, he half expected to feel her teeth against his lip, the bright prick of pain, the taste of his own blood.
But all Kell felt was her.
Nearby, Vasry cleared his throat. “I think I’ll find my own warmth,” he said, slipping away into the fair.
And then Lila was pulling away, too, drawn to the many stalls and their offerings. She looked back only once, lips twitching in a grin.
And then she was gone.
Kell was about to follow when a small weight collided with his side and bounced off. He turned to see a child stumbling back, landing hard on the ice. A girl, so bundled up against the cold that he could only see the tops of her flushed cheeks, and her blazing blue eyes.