Snow Like Ashes (35 page)

“Do you remember when I first saw you?” Herod whispers. He stops at the edge of the bed, his fingers twirling down the post that holds the canopy above my head. “Years ago. You were a child still, small and fierce.”

I stand, grab the opposite post, and start to swing around, propel myself off the bed, but Herod dives, his hands grabbing my thighs and landing me flat out on the silk quilt. As horror shoots through me, Theron shouts from the wall, still pulling uselessly at the chains. Blood drips from his wrists now, jagged tendrils of red falling onto the floor as he pulls and looks at me with such helplessness my heart cracks.

I jerk to Herod, scrambling for any last bits of strength. “You didn’t have time to get them, did you? Theron’s army interrupted your master’s fun?”

“My master has nothing to do with this. He merely makes me”—he pauses and smirks—“unstoppable.”

Herod whirls me around so I land on my back with him on top of me, his bulk pressing me into the mattress. I want to believe it’s a lie. I want to believe he’s still human in there, somewhere, a small flicker of someone who doesn’t want to have done the things he’s done. But when I look into his eyes, there’s nothing. A vast and horrible nothing lined by need and obedience and strength.

He doesn’t exist outside of Angra’s commands. Maybe he never did.

“I regret that this will be faster than I always imagined,” Herod whispers, his warm breath cutting my skin like a knife. “But your prince has forced my hand.”

I wiggle against him, hands slipping on the quilt. Herod rolls against my movements, pinning me more and more until he grabs one of my wrists and traps my arm above my head. My other arm twists under my back, useless without a plan.

Herod pauses, eyes darting over my face. He wants me to fight him. He wants me to struggle. And everything in me, every part of who I am, wants to fight him too.

This is where my most unbearable nightmare will play out. Moments before the Cordell-Autumn army can save me, Theron so close yet worlds away. A knot of terror locks my throat tight, making me wheeze as I fight down desperate sobs.

Herod shifts, his body pressing more heavily on top of me. Something jabs into my hip, something sharp—

A medal on his jacket. Some military badge of honor that dangles lopsided off the fabric.

A rush of cool, sweet hope turns my sobs into gasps for breath, and I wiggle my arm almost free. Herod takes my motion as more fighting and laughs, pressing my trapped right arm more firmly into the bed. His other hand tangles in my hair, tilting my head and neck into a painful arch.

But the medal is free now, dangling over my hip.

“Looks like I was right,” I hiss. “I
will
kill you before this ends.”

Herod hesitates and I flip my arm up to rip the medal off his jacket. The fabric tears, giving me a sharp gold pin that glints in the afternoon light from the open windows. I shove it up, the medal folding into my palm as I jam the pin into Herod’s left eye.

He screams, lurching off me and cupping his hands over his eye as I fly out from under him and roll off the bed, using the bedpost to propel myself around.

“Meira!” Theron tugs back against his chains, his whole body angling toward the desk where my beautiful weapon sits.

Herod bellows and rips the pin out of his eye, blood running in a morbid tear down his face. He roils with pain and fury, his one good eye locking on me.

I can’t get to the desk without diving between Theron and Herod. There are no other weapons near me, no chairs I can break or vases I can throw.

Herod yanks a dagger out of his boot and lunges forward in a wave of rage. I shove off the bed, gain momentum, and drop to my knees, sliding between the wall and Theron, ducking just under his bloody chains. My tattered cotton pants glide across the wood floor until I whip my foot around, catch the edge of the desk, and pull to my feet.

A lump gathers in my throat. My chakram. The one Herod stole months ago, the great curving handle worn smooth from my palm. I grab it off the top of Herod’s desk and spin around, body coiled in the effortless motion of the breath before a throw. As I turn, the entire expanse of the world around us freezes, holds, caught between me with my chakram ready and Herod with his knife to Theron’s throat. The pause before a fight—

A close-range fight. I choke on a sob at the sudden memory of Mather sparring with me, of Sir refusing to let me go on missions until I got better at it, and now here I am—my life, and Theron’s, depends on me killing Herod at close range.

“Drop it,” Herod hisses. His left pupil lies sightlessly in a mess of purple and red, his right eye fierce and fuming.

Theron doesn’t flinch, just keeps his dark eyes fixed on me. His lip curls and his eyes shine with panic, mouth moving in four small words.
Don’t listen to him.

I keep my chakram up, my body prepared for attack. The fingers of my other hand grope over Herod’s desktop. Something else, please, something else to distract him so I can get a clear shot—

At that exact, perfect moment, a siren echoes over Abril, a panicked screech calling all soldiers to their stations and all generals to their posts. Herod’s face spasms at the noise but he doesn’t move. The siren wails again and he growls, a low bubble telling me his focus isn’t entirely here. It’s on his king, who is probably using his dark magic to tell his highest-ranking general to get to his post, to leave his toy for later and obey his ruler.

My fingers close over something. An ink jar. Perfect.

I flick my arm out when Herod’s attention jerks to the door for one perfect, distracted second, the jar twirling through the air like a black shooting star. Ink trails around it, painting the air between us until it pops against Herod’s jaw. He jerks back enough that Theron is able to duck against the wall and rip the knife out of his hand. Herod claws at the air but Theron drops to the ground, darts out of the way, giving me a clear shot at Herod’s neck.

The chakram leaves my hand. As it flies I follow it, closing the space between Herod and me until it licks through his neck, the force of my throw making it rebound into my hands as I leap off the floor. The chakram hitting Herod shocks him backward and I’m already soaring toward him, weapon rising above my head. Herod’s one good eye blinks up at me, ink dripping down his cheek.

The two of us fall onto the floor, my knees slamming into his stomach. My chakram’s worn wooden handle cradles in my palms like it never left as I slide the blade into Herod’s skull, the vibration ringing up my arm. It rises, blood trailing the metal. And down again, bone rending.

You are weak, Herod. You don’t exist beyond the things you let Angra make you do.

I should be killing Angra, not Herod. Herod is just a pawn. But he doesn’t deserve to live.

You are weak.

Meira, stop!

Hannah. Cold sucks my breath away as hands grab my arms.

“Meira!” Theron pulls me back and we collapse in a tangled ball of limbs and tears and blood. He broke the chains with Herod’s dagger and pulls me into his arms now, cradling me and stroking my hair and whispering my name over and over, the lull of his voice rocking me away from this horror. Like the rush of morning light that floods a dark room after a night of endless, mindless terror, sending reminders that the world is not a completely awful place. That even screaming children awaken from nightmares.

Theron tightens his hold on me and I realize that I
am
screaming, my voice pinching in strangled sobs. I drop my chakram on the floor and bury my face in Theron’s shirt, wanting to splinter into fragments of myself and disintegrate into him. I don’t think it’s possible for him to hold me any tighter but he does, his arms clasped around me, impenetrable walls enveloping my body as the smell of blood washes over me.

I killed Herod.

“Meira,” Theron says again, just my name, like it’s all he knows how to say. “Meira.”

He kisses my forehead, my hair, keeping my face pressed into his chest and away from the mangled corpse of Herod at our feet. He’s dead. He’s gone.

Something on the edge of my mind, something distant and numb, urges me to pull back from Theron. I look up at him until he comes into focus, his dark eyes, the bruises on his face, the dried blood on his forehead. The small shadow of a smile on his lips, still trying to offer comfort in a place so horrible.

“We’ll be all right,” he says. Us. Together, we’ll be all right.

Theron pulls me to my feet, keeping my back to Herod’s body. I watch his eyes dart to the bloody corpse behind me. I don’t even know what I did to Herod. I don’t remember anything but the feel of my chakram, slick with blood.

I’m coated in blood—my pathetic cotton shirt, the torn pants I wore under my armor for Bithai’s battle. It’s splattered all over my face, my hair, but I can’t bring myself to touch it to wipe it off.

“What now?” I close my eyes and draw in a calming breath, focusing on how the air flows into my lungs, fills me up.
Alive. I’m alive.

And Angra will never be able to use Herod to hurt anyone again.

I don’t think what I saw in Sir when he killed people was ease. What I saw was what I’m feeling now—tired and sad and even more connected to the endless strands of life. But not regret. I don’t regret killing Herod.

I wish I could tell Sir all of this. I wish I could talk to him about everything.

Theron backs up a step, and when I open my eyes he’s surveying Herod’s room. A wardrobe in the corner catches his attention and he marches toward it. The doors swing open, light from the windows spilling over an array of clothes and shoes and weapons.

“What’s next,” Theron says, “is we join my father’s army and free your people.”

CHAPTER 29

THERE’S NO TIME
to find proper battle gear or steal something from Angra’s armory, so we divide the weapons in Herod’s room between us and I take clothes from the wardrobe. Theron busies himself with strapping knives to his shins while I peel out of my blood-soaked clothes and put on Herod’s too-big shirt and pants. There’s a black leather vest I tighten around the shirt and a thick belt that keeps the pants up. It’s ridiculous for a battle, far too baggy and loose and about as protective as running around stark naked. And it belongs to Herod, which makes my stomach roll with the same nausea I feel from his blood drying on my skin.

When my chakram settles in its familiar holster between my shoulder blades, I’m able to breathe for the first time in weeks. Like I’m never truly whole without it. Coupled with the knife and sword I strap to my waist, I’m as prepared for war as I can be.

Theron hefts a sword in one hand, a dagger in the other. “Ready?”

I nod. He approaches the door to Herod’s chamber, shifts his weapons, and opens it a crack, surveying the hall beyond. I take one determined step after him, keeping my eyes on Theron’s back and the two crisscrossing knives strapped over his spine. Not on the body still in the center of the room, the unmoving mass of darkness and blood that pulls at my mind like an anchor on a boat.

Theron looks back at me. He is an anchor too. Something to hold on to when all other things drag me down.

I nod again. “Let’s go.”

The hall is empty. No soldiers, no frantic, running servants. It’s quiet and desolate, as if we’ve already won and Spring has fled.

Theron creeps ahead of me, his blades ready, while I slide the chakram into my hand. The farther we get from Herod’s room, the more chaos bubbles up. Clumps of uniformed men sprint between rooms, servants bustle down hallways and keep as out of sight as possible. Theron and I duck under wall hangings, hide behind statues and plants, as we weave our way out of the darkness.

After what feels like a lifetime of this hide-and-run through the palace, we reach a narrow servants’ staircase, open doors revealing the entryway to the palace at the bottom. We slide down the stairs and pause behind the open door, listening for movement in the hall.

Theron shifts his weapons to one hand and gropes for mine with the other. “We leave the palace,” he whispers. “Wherever my father approaches, we run in the opposite direction. Abril’s wall will be less patrolled there and we can—”

“Leave Abril,” I finish, my voice trembling.

Theron looks back at me, his face dropping like he knows what I’m going to say next. “We will free your people, I promise you. But you’re no good to them if you’re dead.”

I shake my head and pull my hand out of his, heart pumping ice through my veins. I start to protest, tell him I have to go to the Winterians, have to help them because I’m their conduit and it’s my duty. I start to tell him again. I’m Winter’s queen, all this time. I’m—

But Theron shifts his attention for a beat to the hall, where a stomping group of soldiers files past, into the throne room. The hall quiets in their wake, empty, and he pulls back to me, not seeming to care about anything beyond the way his eyes lock on mine with a gentle intensity.

“I never wanted to be a king.” Theron’s voice is low and quick, cutting through me with urgency. “I wanted to sit in my library and write until the sun fell from the sky. But you—this—the Winterians, your entire kingdom, gone in a heartbeat—it’s made me realize how I would feel if Cordell ever fell like that, if I ever lost something so much a part of me. I want to be someone worthy of my kingdom. I want to be someone worthy of
you
.”

My whole body lights up with a wondrous chill that amplifies when Theron slides his hand around the back of my neck. He draws my face up to his and pauses, some of his certainty fading in the realization of what he’s doing and how close we are to each other. His fingers curl against the back of my neck and I stare up at him, waiting, unable to move or breathe or think beyond the way his lips part in an exhale, so close to mine.

Then he falls into me, his mouth collapsing over my own. A moan eases out of my throat as I grab at the emotions that fly through my body like flurries of snow in the wind. Fear we’ll be caught by Angra’s men; ecstasy at the burst of comfort and need that swirls off his lips; and a steady flicker of shock that this isn’t at all shocking, that I’ve been waiting for this to happen all along—our lips and tongues and his fingers pulling my hair, desperation exploding out of us in a few too-short seconds of needing each other.