Snow Like Ashes (4 page)

Without hesitation I fling myself from the last roof to a horizontal pole protruding from the side of the tower, Spring’s flag rippling below me, a black sun against a yellow background. Random things, these flagpoles—almost as though the architects included them in the design should enemy soldiers need a quick way to get inside. When we rebuild Winter, there won’t be flagpoles on buildings. Anywhere. Period.

Windowsill, balcony, windowsill, pole—I leap in this pattern until I reach the highest balcony. The warm, orange glow of firelight pours through a gap in the center of thick curtains, and Finn is already there, perched on the balcony ledge, grinning at me.

I swing up across from him and mouth,
I hate you.

He grins more widely.

We hold for a moment, listening for any signs of life within. According to Sir, this room is the city master’s office. No noise echoes back to us except for the steady crackle of a fire and the gentle whooshing of the curtains dusting the stone floor in the breeze. I glance over my shoulder, surveying the night below us. From the balcony, it’s a straight drop to the street with a few windowsills along the way. Another escape route to keep in mind—from the Keep, at least.

We ease onto the balcony floor and scoot toward the curtains. Finn peeks through a gap, his eyes flickering in the golden glow, before he nods to me. The room is empty.

Adrenaline makes me twitchy with excitement as I grab one of the curtains, pull it back, and slip inside the office.

The fireplace in the back corner roars, stoked high with logs—the city master must plan on returning soon. High-backed chairs stand in a circle on a lush scarlet rug before the fire, and a desk stands against one wall. Above the desk hangs an old yellowed map that shows the kingdoms of Primoria surrounded by the Destas Sea to the east, the endless Rania Plains sweeping between the kingdoms and out to the west, and impassable mountains to the north and south. A few sconces hang on the walls, but that’s it—simple and straightforward. I make for the desk while Finn, still on the balcony, keeps an eye on the closed office door.

Most of the drawers are unlocked, cluttered with quills and ink jars and blank pieces of parchment. My fingers fly through the odds and ends, sorting and searching as noiselessly as I can. The information Sir gave us just before we left flies across my mind and helps calm my racing heart:
We were able to steal a map of the Keep; we think they’re hiding it somewhere underneath it, in a cellar, maybe. Wherever it is, it’ll be locked, so find the key first, most likely in the city master’s office.

I repeat those words in my head as I fly through drawers, look under papers, shuffle ink jars. Nothing.

Finn hisses as voices waft toward me from beyond the door—someone’s coming.

Panic leaps through me, dizzying surges that make it difficult to sort through everything carefully. I slide the last drawer shut, the voices outside close enough that I can make out a few words—“So honored to have you”; “Welcome, Herod.”

I stumble into the desk, body convulsing with dread as I meet Finn’s eyes across the room. My mouth forms the question:
Herod?

Finn beckons me to hurry. Nothing about his demeanor changes, his forty-two years making him slightly more adept than I am at controlling emotions. But it isn’t just emotions that swell inside me at the name. Memories slam through my head, one after another, gore and horror and fear all stemming from General Herod Montego.

I push away the images of our soldiers stumbling back into camp with bones protruding from their chests, delirious with pain, and I grab onto Sir’s advice:
Focus on the goal. Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t let fear take hold of you—fear is a seed that, once planted, never stops growing.

No fear—not now, not here. I scan the desktop once more in desperation, the sound of laughter coming from just beyond the door. They’re right outside—

A letter, tucked under a heavy iron paperweight in the shape of a wildflower. I grab the letter without pausing to consider what it says and dive for the balcony, boots swishing across the stone floor. One breath after I’m outside, after the curtain flutters back into place, one breath after they would’ve seen my shadow flicker on the stone floor, the door opens, and voices barrel toward us.

Finn peers through the slit between the curtains, holding up his hand, flashing fingers to tell me how many he sees. Five soldiers. Two servants. Four nobles.

He drops his eyes to the paper in my hand and nods me along, half his focus on the conversation behind the curtain.

I shift in my crouch across from him and take deep, calming breaths before staring at the paper. My hands stop shaking enough that I can hold it in the slit of firelight.

             
Report: To All Spring Officials

             
Work Camp Population Statistics

             
Abril Camp: 469

             
Bikendi Camp: 141

             
Zoreon Camp: 564

             
Edurne Camp: 476

The document goes on to describe how many deaths, how many births, what things were built by what camps. But my hands are shaking again, and I can’t focus on the words.

These are the Winterian statistics in Spring’s work camps. The numbers are . . . people.

I touch the numbers, my fingers trembling. Such small totals. Did we know it was this bad? I suspected it was—Sir’s lessons on the fall of Winter were graphic. The way he described how Angra planned the attack, as if he knew Winter would fall on
that day
, how he stationed every soldier he had throughout Winter, moving them in secret until everything exploded in one unavoidable sweep of destruction. There was nowhere to run—Angra blocked off any retreat into Autumn, or the Klaryns, or the northern Feni River. He barricaded us in our own kingdom, and when he broke the locket, when our soldiers had no magic-given strength to help them stand against him, we fell. Only twenty-five of us managed to escape.

I feel the weight of that now. Seeing the statistics proved what Sir has been saying for years—every day, we’re teetering on the edge of Winterians becoming nothing more than memories.

“I trust my king, I do,” a voice booms within the room. I snap my head up, all the adrenaline and fear warping into anger. Finn tightens his lips in warning, and I thrust the paper at him in response.

“And I know it was scheduled to be here longer,” the voice continues. “But I want it out of my city.
Tonight.
Before any more Winterian scum descends upon us.”

The city master. I exhale. The locket half is still here—we haven’t lost it yet. My relief is short lived when Finn scans the paper, looks back up at me, and the expression he gives isn’t fear or shock—it’s just pain. Regret.

My eyes widen.
Did you know how bad it is?
I mouth.

He tucks the paper into his belt and bobs his head once. Yes, he knew. Everyone in camp probably knows. It’s just one of the things they don’t talk about, one of the too painful parts of our past. And I knew too—I just didn’t have exact numbers in my head to fuel my rage.

Herod laughs, and my nerves flare higher. Killing him is going to feel so good.

“Calm yourself. It will be gone within the hour.”

“It’s safe here.” A different voice. Probably one of Lynia’s councilmen. “I don’t care if the Winterians know it’s here. Lynia can keep it protected far better than any other city—”

“Silence!” the city master shouts.

But Herod chuckles. “Ambitious, your man.”

“Not ambitious,” the councilman corrects. I hear a rustling as someone walks across the room. My heart ricochets around my ribs—they’re going to the desk. Will they notice that the paper is gone? “Certain. The safe we built for it—it’s perfect. The Keep above—”

Excellent: the location of the locket half. Sir was right—it’s under the Keep.

A harsh movement from within is followed by the crack of the councilman’s face meeting Herod’s fist. Bodies move, chairs fall, and amidst the ruckus Herod’s voice rises.

“Do not speak of its location! That was our arrangement—you hide it and never utter a word of the location. It isn’t safe so long as that boy breathes.”

I bristle.
Mather will keep breathing so long as I am breathing, you murderer.

But the councilman doesn’t react. Something shuffles, and I realize it’s papers on the desktop, the
thunk
of a paperweight. I widen my eyes at Finn, who grimaces before the councilman even speaks.

“The—” the councilman starts, clearly confused. “Something’s missing.”

A pause, then a growl resonates in the stillness. I can taste Herod’s fury on the air as his growl morphs into three words that make my heart plummet.

“We aren’t alone.”

CHAPTER 4

BOOTS POUND ACROSS
the room. The curtain flashes open as Finn and I leap, dropping face-first off the balcony and into the cool night.

“Winterians!” Herod screams. “Lock it down
now
!”

In the seconds of free falling before I hit the ground, I find myself faced with two options. Continue my fall, drop into a roll on the street, and make all haste out of Lynia in the hope that we can get back in later, or cling to the building and find a way inside. Key or not, we’re so close to the locket half that something as small as a jagged piece of metal shouldn’t stop us. But the plan was that if either of us ran into trouble, Finn and I were to regroup outside the city. If we leave now, though, getting back in will be impossible. They’ll move the locket half without hesitation, and we’ll be back where we started.

My body makes the decision before I do. The rock wall shreds my fingers as I scramble against it, and two windowsills fly past before I find purchase on one, body jerking to a halt, wrists screaming at having to support my weight so abruptly. I flail, arrows barely grazing my kicking legs and straining arms as I scramble against the rock, searching for footholds, and use a few chipped pieces of mortar to pull myself up and over the windowsill.

The window pops inward and I tumble inside, blinking in the darkness until my vision adjusts.
Please don’t let this room be anything with soldiers inside.
Maybe a kitchen, or a nice cozy bedchamber, or—I look around wildly—a storage room. It’s a storage room, empty but for stacks of shadowed crates in the narrow, lightless space. Perfect.

Outside, Herod’s voice carries, screaming about Lynia’s failures. I peek over the windowsill and spot Finn’s plump shadow skirting into an alley. He pauses, face caught in a ray of moonlight as he scans the area. He doesn’t see me, and I don’t want to draw any Spring attention by waving. He’ll go back to camp now, I know—another of our protocols. If one of us goes missing, the other is to leave immediately.

Before I realize the full extent of what I’ve done, how alone I am now, Finn’s gone. He’ll tell Sir I vanished in the chaos, and Sir will growl something about how he never should have let me go in the first place.

I have to prove him wrong.

My arms are too rubbery from my windowsill grab to throw my chakram, so I settle for the curved knives hidden in my boots. One in each hand, I creep across the narrow storage room. The door opens easily enough and I fly out, knives ready, heart racing.

But the hall is empty, lit only by a few widely spaced sconces on the walls. The floor slopes up to the right and down to the left. I run left, the sounds of chaotic anger closing in on me from above. No doubt Herod’s rushing down the Keep, shouting to the men below that I’m coming. Too bad I’ll beat him there.

A few stories later, I stumble out of the hall into the center receiving room, a grand affair draped in gray stone and heavy green curtains. The late night works in my favor—there are no men here. They’re all with the city master.

Herod’s shouts echo from up the hall, closer and closer. I scan the room, my pounding pulse choking any air from my lungs, leaving me gasping as I survey each corner. A door nearly three stories tall shoots into the air on my left—the exit, most likely. I do a quick count—four other doors lead out of the room, two closed, two open. Through the two open ones I see a long dining room and a small, dark kitchen. That leaves the two closed doors.

I ease one of my knives into my sleeve and attack the first door. It opens without a fight and I stumble into . . . somewhere really, really bad.

To my left and right stretch two long rows of cots, most filled with the lumpy bulks of sleeping soldiers. A barracks for the Keep’s guards. Terror makes sweat slick down my back, candlelight pouring in behind me from the chandelier that hangs over the center receiving room, and I chirp in surprise, then immediately smack my hand over my mouth. No one moves for a moment, and just when I think I might get by, Herod’s shout barrels into me, only a story or two above.

“To arms!” he cries, and that’s enough to send every sleeping soldier into instant readiness, whipping to their feet and scrambling for weapons.

I grab the door, yank it closed, and sprint for the other closed door. This is close,
too
close, and by the time the soldiers in the barracks open their door, I’m shaking the last closed door—locked—and spitting every curse I’ve ever heard.

“Snow and ice and frost above.” Luckily Sir likes to test Mather and me with inane challenges like
Pick the lock on this chest, your supper’s inside.
His tests and the finger-length hook-pick I keep in my hair finally prove useful, though I certainly don’t plan on telling him that. I tuck the other knife under my arm and busy myself with the lock.

The soldiers stumble out of their room. Herod draws closer. The lock doesn’t budge, whether because I’m too twitchy or my hands are slick with sweat or I just need to practice more lock picking. My chances of making it out of the Keep shrink with each breath I take, each strangled sputter of my heart filling my body.

“Who needs a key?” I growl as a I rear back and hurl all of my weight into kicking through the lock. It breaks open, sending the door thudding against the wall. A set of stairs curls downward with light lifting up from below, a flutter of yellow.