“Mama?” she asked the quiet room, but one look was all it took for her to know her mother wasn't there. Though someone had been. The house was in shambles. They didn't have much, and what they did have was always kept meticulously clean and organized by her mother. But now, jars had been shattered and food congealed on the walls and floors. Clothes were thrown haphazardly across the table by the hearth. The hearth fire had gone out, and the kettle that hung over it was empty. Her mother would have started dinner. She wouldn't have left, not with a storm coming. The woman hated storms.
Sibba's eyes fell on the loom that took up most of the back wall. The sail that her mother had been working on was slashed down the middle, half of the dark fabric brushing the floor while loose threads dangled from the top piece. Around it, and in fact in all corners of the house, the rushes had been flung aside, the hard-packed dirt disturbed as if someone had been searching for something.
I want your crown. Was that it? Sibba braced her arms on the table, suddenly dizzy with fury. He had just been looking for their hoard, for treasure? Bits of gold and silver to line his pockets? Had she nearly died because of a man's greed? And her mother—gods. Where was she?
That morning, her mother had told her not to leave, had told her that they had enough food stores to get them through the snows, but Sibba had been stubborn and single-minded as always. She had insisted: one more deer, one more excursion before the snow barricaded her in the cabin until the planting season.
“Be home before the storm breaks,” her mother had said. Usually, she would follow this missive up with an ominous declaration of, “I don't trust the rain,” but the white snow clouds hung too heavy to leave any room for doubt that what was coming was not rain, but its white, frozen counterpart. Though to be fair, Darcey didn't like snow any better.
“I will, mama. I always am.” Sibba had donned her cloak and headed out the door without glancing back, but she could see her mother in her mind. Small and slight, with a soft, round face and a gentle smile, yellow hair reaching down to her waist in waves. Not like Sibba, who was all hard angles and long, severe lines.
Pushing herself off of the table, she took another survey of the room and then moved back to the door, pulling it open and coming face to face with a world of white. The first snow of the season was going to be a big one, already coating the ground in a matter of minutes. Night had fallen but it was hard to tell, the sky still light with clouds. The tide, visible from the front door, was retreating. She thought of Gabel's body and the bloody water.
Aeris screamed. No matter how many times Sibba heard the sound, it still sent chills down her spine. She stumbled out into the cold. Gerd nickered from the outbuilding—Sibba barely registered the mare's plea for food. Following Aeris's call, she rounded the house to the clearing between the rear of the house and the trees, where Darcey kept her garden. Here, her mother coaxed plants out of the stubborn dirt, using manure to nourish the soil and sheer force of will to make them grow.
It seemed to make sense that she would be there now, face down in the sandy soil that she had fought against for all these years. Her mother's feet were bare and her dress bunched up around her knees. Hair fanned out around her head, golden-white like Sibba's except where it was soaked in blood around her neck. Still gripped in her fingertips was the dagger that Sibba made her wear, the one with the curved blade like Aeris's beak. The warm blood on the steel melted the snow around it, but otherwise, the body was blanketed in white powder.
Sibba took one step forward before her legs gave out and she landed on her knees in the sand. Dropping her head, she wrapped her arms around her waist and squeezed her eyes shut.
This couldn't be real.
But it was. Sibba felt her mother's death as if it had been a physical blow. Some outside force squeezed her until she couldn't breathe. It was no different than having Gabel's hands around her throat. The grip tightened until the pain was so intense she thought she might break in half. That was when the first sob escaped her lips, a terrible, hollow sound from somewhere deep inside. Her body did not belong to her anymore but to the grief. She was just a shell, a vessel for it. It ripped out of her, leaving her battered and numb.
It didn't help her to think that she had killed the man responsible. She played what she imagined to be her mother's last moments over and over in her head—the terror that she must have felt. At least she had fought back, had made Gabel bleed before he took her life.
Forcing herself to look up, she opened her eyes. Aeris stood beside her mother's body, her head erect, her golden wings spread protectively, shielding the body from predators. When their eyes met, the bird let out another cry, and Sibba imagined she heard the grief in it this time. They were both in mourning.
Sibba crawled forward; her limbs were completely numb, and the tracks her tears had made were frozen on her cheeks. She welcomed the cold—if only it could dampen the pain that was eating away at her insides. Aeris hopped away, tucking her wings back to her sides. When Sibba rolled her mother's body, her hair fell away, revealing the arrow protruding from the side of her neck. Blood had long-since stopped flowing, but the wound was deep and the wooden shaft was stained dark red, the iron tip buried deep beneath the ragged flesh. Darcey's head lolled backward as Sibba dragged her closer. Pressing her face into her mother's belly, Sibba screamed, half-expecting to feel Darcey’s small hands in her hair, to hear her quiet voice murmuring soothing words. But she remained lifeless, and Sibba wept as the body grew colder, her mother's blood soaking the ground beneath them.
CHAPTER THREE
Rayne
Rayne had not been within spitting distance of a palace for five years. The royal palace in Iblia was just a part-time residence, a place for Hail's rulers to escape the heat of the southern dry season that did not always reach so far north. But that made it no less opulent. The curved towers were made from stone the color of sand, and the roofs—dusted lightly with snow—tapered to a point, nearly touching the clouds. Each of the narrow rectangular windows shone with a single candle in celebration of the first snow, casting a dim light on the crowd below.
A shoulder bumped against hers and Rayne drew her cloak tighter, tipping the hood down to hide her face behind the fur lining as she pressed herself closer to Merek, who walked just in front of her. Ahead of him were the others—Giles, Rolf, Emma, and Imeyna—Shadderns, Knights, rebels, infiltrators. Children. The Shadderns trained their Knights young. Except for Imeyna, who was in her late-twenties, the others were all teenagers, seventeen or eighteen, young and full of bravado, which was, in Rayne's case anyway, at least half-faked.