His brows rise in surprise at my defiant tone, but then he gives me a sorrowful, apologetic smile. “I shouldn’t have presumed.” He bows and moves aside.
My stomach clenches. The Valtia writhes on her bed, her naked body covered in a thin, gauzy sheet. All her adornments have been removed—her crown, her dress, the cuff of Astia—probably taken back to the catacombs. Blood-dotted bandages cling to the crook of each arm. Her white face paint has washed or chipped away, revealing only horror beneath. My heart crumbles as I hear the pained hiss of her breaths. Her beautiful face is marred by black and red patches of blistered skin, but as I move closer, mounting the steps up to the platform where her mattress sits, I see that other parts of her are gray-blue and fissured. Bloodless and frozen. Two of the fingers of her left hand have cracked and fallen away. They lie like chipped stones in the folds of the sheets, ice crystals melting and leaving a wet pink stain. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her head thrown back as agony consumes her.
“My Valtia,” I whisper, my bottom lip trembling.
As soon as she hears my voice, her eyes open. Once a majestic icy blue, now they’re crimson. “Elli,” she wheezes. “I’m sorry.” A blood-tinged tear slides down her cheek.
As I reach for her right hand, Kauko strokes my arm. “You must be careful, Saadella. Her touch could burn or freeze you in a moment. She can’t control it now.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I say, a sob choking off my words. She needs to be touched and to know she isn’t alone. I kneel at her bedside and caress her fingers. They’re stiff, covered in a layer of ice, but when she feels my palm on hers, the cold melts away. “You did it, didn’t you?” I say. “You sent them to the bottom of the Motherlake.”
“I did it too well.” She moans from between gritted teeth. “All it took was a moment of distraction to lose the balance.”
Something Kauko had been trying to prevent. Ice and fire are unpredictable, especially when they collide. A little too much of one or the other and things must have spiraled. “And yet you contained the storm. If you hadn’t, all our ships wouldn’t have returned.”
She looks up at me. “A Valtia protects her people. That is your first duty. Remember.”
I will my tears away, but they’re stubborn. “Please stay, Valtia. Don’t go.”
It is the prayer of a child, not a woman. My head is full of memories, of the first time I was carried into her presence, of the kindness in her eyes as she took me into her arms. I was so scared, but as soon as I felt her warmth, the fear melted. You are precious, she said. Your home is with me now. Her eyes had been filled with tender sadness, but also with love.
“I belong with you,” I whisper. “You told me that, my Valtia.”
“Sofia,” she says as ice crystals prick my palm. For a moment it’s so cold around us that I can see our breaths, but it fades quickly. “That’s the name I had before.”
A name she shed the day she became the Valtia. That she’s reclaiming it now is a knife in my heart. But her eyes are pleading, and I cannot deny her. “Sofia.”
“You’re ready, darling,” she rasps. “You’re going to be the strongest Valtia there ever was. The stars have foretold all of it. The world has never seen such power.”
My mouth goes dry. “You knew about the prophecy?”
She cries out as blistered patches rise on both her legs. Her injuries are coming from the inside out. So much magic, out of balance, tearing its vessel apart. “Can’t you do something?” I ask Kauko, forcing myself not to scream. “Help her restore the balance!”
He shakes his head, his fleshy lips pressed together. “It’s too late, my Saadella. And too much for a humble priest. Only a Valtia could do such a thing.”
What I need to be to save her, she must die for me to become.
“This isn’t fair.” I lower my head to kiss the frozen skin of her wrist. “If I had the magic now, I would use all of it to make you well.”
She squeezes my hand, but her fingers are so hot that they’re burning me. I clench my teeth and smile at her, tears streaking down my face. Her hair is haloed around her head, sections of it singed to a blackened crisp, others covered over with ice. It crunches softly as she moves. “I know the bind of it,” she says in a halting voice. “I remember the day my own Valtia died. But you will go on, Elli. I’ll always be with you, and so will all the Valtias before me. You’ll carry our magic inside you. You will never be alone.”
I bow my head. I don’t want this. Not yet. But to deny my duty would be to fail her—and all of Kupari. “I will honor you.”