Frostfire Read online

  He pointed at them with a thickly muscled arm. Sabira felt a stab of fear in her stomach, hotter than the fire. She started to run, but her mother grabbed her by the wrist. “No, Sabira—they have muskets,” she said, her voice taut. Silently, Kyran held Sabira’s other hand.

  Another, taller man with gold symbols on his shoulders fixed his black eyes upon them. “Well spotted, Sergeant Major,” Yupin said.

  Colonel Yupin’s head was shaven, like most of the others, and his cheeks were gaunt. Under each eye, tiny symbols had been blackened onto his skin. Sabira couldn’t make out any meaning—her people and theirs spoke the same words but wrote with different letters. She was glad of that—she didn’t want to know what a man like this would write on himself.

  “Move in,” he said, barely glancing at his men.

  The other Ignatians seemed almost as scared of him as Sabira was. They flinched when he looked in their direction, even though he seemed to be the only one of them unarmed.

  “Stay behind me,” her mother said, shielding her children from the advancing men, who quickly encircled them. Sabira’s heart was pounding, but she forced herself to stand still. Kyran held her hand tightly and shot her a small smile—as if telling her that everything would be all right.

  Drawing herself tall in the tendrils of smoke, their mother raised her voice. “Yupin? Why have you done this?” she asked, her words ringing out over the crackling of the forest fire. She said his name like she knew the man.

  “We do as we please with our land, Aderasti,” the squat sergeant major answered for his master. Sabira quaked with worry, but her mother showed no fear.

  “This is not your land. What do you mean by this? Is it some kind of warning?”

  Although she addressed Yupin, it was his underling who replied again, his tone sneering.

  “The place didn’t look right without a little ash! By the lash, you people are always sure to tell us how lucky we are to have the ash geysers, how fertile our land can be! Guess what? Your forest is ash now, and it will grow back all the better afterward! Just like our crops. You should thank us.”

  He shifted slightly, revealing the weapon he was holding at his side. It was a coiled whip, but metal rather than leather. The entire length of it glowed red hot, ready to sear the skin of anything it touched. Maybe this was what had set the forest ablaze. Maybe practicing with it was what had given the man that disturbing cut in his lip. She could see yellow teeth through the gash and had to look away. Sabira’s mother held up her hands, palms up, showing that she was holding no weapon—her bow was still fastened to her back.

  “This doesn’t have to get ugly,” she said carefully.

  Sabira could sense the tension. The taste of danger in the air was as heavy as the acrid smoke. She didn’t understand why this was happening, but could feel it worsening by the second. Why were they doing this?

  “We’re not going to kill you,” Colonel Yupin said at last, unblinking. His words were soft and considered, and without a hint of compassion.

  “We’re not?” the sergeant major said, sounding surprised.

  “Stay your hand, Sergeant Major Lifan. They can be useful and tell the rest of their honorless people what they’ve seen.”

  The colonel spat the words, and Sabira saw the hate in him. Not just hate for the three of them but for everything they were, down to the blood and bone. Her mother’s eyes narrowed, and she said quietly to Yupin, “Your mother was Aderasti. How can you do this to her people?”

  How does she know this man? Sabira wondered. How Mother could even speak up to him, she didn’t know, but her words went unanswered. Yupin’s expression tightened, though he did not respond. Lifan—the man with the whip—reacted more strongly.

  “Colonel, are we really just letting them go?” he demanded.

  The sergeant major’s leer sent another ripple of fear through Sabira, and even her mother lost some composure. She half turned, and Sabira thought she might grab her hand and pull them into a run—Kyran tensed, as if preparing to flee—but the colonel darted forward, quick as a cat, catching her arm.

  “I didn’t say they got to go without a scratch, Sergeant Major,” he said, looking into her eyes. His calmness set more dread in Sabira’s belly than all of Lifan’s threats.

  “Let her go!” Kyran said, his voice hoarse with fear.

  “Hold the children,” Yupin ordered a few of his men, and hard hands closed around Kyran’s arms, pulling him from Sabira’s grasp. Although a year Sabira’s senior and fiercely brave, he hadn’t yet reached a man’s height. He struggled uselessly.

  Other hands grabbed Sabira. “Get off me!” she cried, though she couldn’t move, let alone run, no matter how much she wanted to. They’d shoot her. They’d shoot her mother. The Ignatians closed in around them.

  “Perhaps your daughter should get acquainted with the branding lash?” Lifan asked, leering at Taranna. “She ought to learn some respect.”

  He loosened his grip on his lash, allowing it to uncoil menacingly in his hand. Sabira’s breath shortened, panic gripping her at the thought of sizzling metal touching her bare skin. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening.

  “Leave them alone!” Taranna demanded. Lifan didn’t bother to acknowledge her. “Don’t hurt my children!” she pleaded, turning to Yupin. “They’re not even old enough to understand what this is about!”

  And with a slow and awful kind of grace, the colonel held up a hand.

  “Stand down, Lifan. They are not subject to our great laws,” he told the sergeant major. “Not yet. One day, we will come to Adranna, and things will be different—yet you ought to remember, Sergeant Major, we are not animals. It is not their flesh that we desire, but their compliance.”

  The sergeant major obeyed, but his eyes dragged over Sabira’s body, and she shivered, wishing she could hold her mother’s hand.

  “Teach the woman a lesson,” said Yupin, “but don’t break anything. She will need to be able to run afterward. No need to touch the children—their fear will be enough.”

  That fear took hold of Sabira with a bear’s strength as soldiers grasped her mother. When the first full-fisted punch was thrown, Sabira screamed.

  They didn’t stop. First her mother’s gut, then her face, then her side.

  “Stop! Don’t you dare hurt her!” Kyran cried, but no one cared to listen.

  The thud of fists on flesh turned Sabira’s legs to jelly. She screamed and screamed, but it earned her nothing except a stinging cuff from one of the men holding her. She fell silent.

  “Understand,” said Colonel Yupin, “this is of your own making. There are consequences when your people wrong us. The rest will come soon enough.”

  Sabira’s mother cried out as she was again struck in the face. She fell, the men holding her letting it happen. It was easier to kick her when she was down. Sabira fought to get free, desperate to do something to help. She managed to pull an arm loose, but Yupin barked, “Hold her,” and more arms obeyed.

  “Don’t struggle, it’ll only make it worse,” someone whispered in Sabira’s ear. She stopped, partly from shock. The voice was surprisingly young: a boy’s voice in a soldier’s body. She struggled for half a second more, managing to twist around for a moment, and caught a flash of his face before they caught hold of her once again. The boy looked as young as he had sounded—perhaps her brother’s age—and seemed almost too thin to be carrying a musket, let alone holding Sabira prisoner. He had the goggles, though, just like the others. Without eyes, there was no pity to be seen, even if he had any.

  “I’m sorry,” he went on, “I’ve seen him do this before—but he’s no liar. He’ll let you go, as long as you don’t fight him.” Another soldier growled at him to shut up, and she heard no more. Sabira was sure he was lying, but all she could do was watch as the men turned their black boots and gloves red with her mother’s blood. Anger boiled through her veins and tears streaked her face. Surely they would kill her? She prayed to the mountain
that they would stop at the next blow, or the next, before it was too late.

  “Enough,” Yupin said, an eternity later. Instantly, the violence ceased. It was as if it had never begun, save for the evidence of her mother’s battered form. “Up,” he demanded, and Taranna was hauled to unsteady feet next to Sabira. The hands restraining her let go, and both were allowed to stand freely. But Colonel Yupin wasn’t done.

  “You have five seconds,” he stated, turning his back on Kyran, Sabira, and their mother, as if he was bored. He watched the forest burn. “Best make use of them. Count down, Sergeant Major Lifan.”

  “Five!” the sergeant major yelled happily. Sabira stared, not understanding.

  “Come on, Sabira,” Kyran said. He grabbed her hand and pulled, but she was numb, she couldn’t move.

  “Four!” he added, and the other Ignatians formed into a line, their muskets at attention. Sabira saw a flash of the boy soldier there, looking almost as afraid as she felt. Frozen, she turned wide, teary eyes to where her mother tottered, desperately hoping that she knew what to do.

  “Sabira!” Kyran yelled, tugging at her arm. She staggered, unbalanced.

  “Three!”

  “Run,” Taranna mouthed through cut and bloody lips. The word sliced through Sabira’s indecision. Her muscles unstuck, and she ran, allowing Kyran to tug her into a sprint.

  “Two!”

  Nothing existed but Kyran’s hand in hers, her legs hammering on the rocky path, back toward the foothills and the mountain path, toward home. Her feet pounded the hard, rocky ground, slipping and sliding in her desperation to escape.

  “One!”

  She was too frightened to think of anything except whether the next second would be her last.

  “Fire!” Lifan’s voice rang out over the landscape, echoing over the crackle and roar of the blaze. Deafening cracks exploded behind her. Musket fire.

  Kyran’s hand was tugged from her own.

  “Kyran!” she yelled, stopping and ducking to help him up. His face was ashen. She pulled his arm over her shoulder and tried to lift him to his feet. He staggered up with a cry of pain, and Sabira noticed the blood soaking his hunting trousers at the top of his leg.

  She heard another runner coming up behind. She glanced over her shoulder: It was their mother, running awkwardly but alive.

  Her face was a mass of blood and bruises and she was holding her arm tightly. Sabira could see red trickling from a gash beneath her fingers, and she realized with horror that her mother had been shot too. She stopped, looping Kyran’s other arm around her own battered shoulders.

  “Let’s go,” she said through gritted teeth.

  They half dragged, half carried Kyran a few paces before the muskets fired a second time, the deafening cracks echoing through the valley. Sabira flinched, expecting to be hit—instead, laughter rang out from the Ignatians. What if they weren’t quick enough to escape? What if the Ignatians changed their minds about letting them live? Kyran was sobbing, only half-conscious.

  “It’ll be all right. We’ll be all right,” Taranna reassured them both. “We’ll get you to Father, Kyran.” Sabira almost believed her, before another volley of musket fire cracked, and she flinched again.

  “They’re just trying to scare us,” her mother said as they reached the mountain path. “We’re safe now.” But even though the musket salvos had stopped, and even as they put more distance between them and the Ignatians’ laughter, it seemed to Sabira that nothing would ever feel safe again.

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  SABIRA WAS CLEANING around her mother’s skinning table, scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees. She could see Kyran inside, organizing their father’s herb box with a thunderous frown on his face.

  Sabira stole a glance at him as she dipped her brush in the bucket of soapy water, but dropped her eyes before he noticed her watching. She was avoiding talking to him. They always argued, these days—Kyran was much quicker to anger than he used to be, before the Ignatians had— She shook her head. She didn’t like to think of what had happened in the forest. Couldn’t.

  Father and Uncle Mihnir were due home any day. They’d gone as part of a diplomatic delegation to Ignata. The Ignatian forest fire—and their treatment of Sabira’s mother and brother—was just one symptom of how the relationship between the two countries was breaking down. Now they were trying to fix it. The benefit of doing chores was being able to keep an eye out for her father and uncle’s return. It helped that it was a mild summer’s day, with a thin layer of meltwater glistening on the city’s ice walls.

  The delegation had been away since early spring, but it felt like forever to Sabira. The whole family had been so proud when Father was selected. He hadn’t expected the honor of the mission, but Sabira thought that perhaps they, his family, should have—he was the most well-respected healer in Adranna, after all. It had been hard without his usual calming influence, though—especially with Uncle Mihnir gone too, accompanying the delegation as a packman—and it was a relief to know that he was on the way home.

  She returned to her scrubbing, sighing.

  “Sabira!”

  In the road, as if from a dream, stood her father and Uncle Mihnir. Both carried large packs on their backs, and their clothes were dirtied from the long journey. Father looked tired from walking across nations, but his smile still drew Sabira. This was a man desperately glad to be home. Heart swelling, she dropped her scrubbing brush and ran to circle his waist with a hug. He laughed and tousled her hair, saying, “I think you may have grown a whole hand.”

  “That’s what happens when you go away forever,” Sabira mumbled into her father’s chest. She hugged huge, bearlike Uncle Mihnir next.

  “How’s my favorite niece?” he boomed.

  “I’m your only niece!” she replied, just before her uncle pulled his arms tight around her and lifted her off her feet until she squeaked and laughed.

  She pulled herself free of the hug and turned to her father. He held her at arm’s length and said more seriously, “How’s Kyran? Keeping my medicines in order, I trust?”

  She nodded. “It’s kept his mind off things,” she said quietly, so her brother wouldn’t hear from inside. “Some of the time, at least.”

  Her father picked up the concern in her voice, his smile wavering as he turned to the house. The slate-roofed building was not large, but they had more than many. A room for her parents, one for her, one for Kyran, and one for the whole family, where meals were prepared and stories told over the firepit. As was tradition, Sabira and her family had painted the uneven stone-and-brick walls the same bright colors as Adranna’s ice walls.

  Beside the door were paintings daubed by the children in their early years—a hastily drawn stick figure from Sabira and a bright blue, icicle-shaped frostsliver by Kyran. It was such a long time ago—Sabira felt like a different person now. Sabira grabbed her father’s hand in one of hers and Uncle Mihnir’s in the other and dragged them to the little wooden door.

  “Father and Uncle Mihnir are home!” she yelled as she pulled them inside.

  Sabira’s mother emerged from the back of the house, rushing to embrace her husband. Kyran set the box of herbs aside and stood up. He swayed for a moment, leaning on the wall to take the weight off his artificial leg.

  The Ignatians stole his real one, Sabira thought with a flash of anger.

  “Trust you to make it back hours after I sold the best of my hunt!” Mother said. “We ought to be having a feast, not leftovers.”

  “I’m sure Butcher Torran will be happy to return a cut or two,” said Sabira’s father.

  Kyran unpropped himself from the wall and said, “I’ll go. Can’t have a celebration without good food.”

  “Don’t worry, Kyran,” Father said. “I can get it.”

  Kyran didn’t take it as the courtesy it was.

  “I may be broken, Father, but you don’t have to treat me like it!” Kyran barked, and stomped for the door. “I’ll be back later,”
he added, and left, shutting the door harder than was needed.

  The family exchanged looks, but said nothing.

  * * *

  While Sabira’s mother lit the fire, the three adults started to catch each other up on all the news. Hours passed, and Sabira assumed that Kyran had decided to take some time to cool off before returning. That wasn’t unusual for him nowadays.

  Eventually, tiring of waiting for the meat, they sat down to a feast of pastries and cheeses from the larder. The traditional feast meal of many courses, alternating spicy and plain, would have to wait—though Sabira was pleased to find that her father had brought back some Ignatian firefruit for dessert. They didn’t get many sweet things on the mountain.

  After they’d eaten, Sabira’s eyelids began to droop. She intended to stay awake until Kyran got back, though, despite feeling so dozy. Where did he go? she wondered. When her head bobbed low for the third time, Sabira forced herself to join the conversation in a bid to keep from nodding off.

  “Did you manage to help in Ignata?” she asked her father.

  He paused before answering, “You could say that. Things didn’t go very well, but I gave what advice I could. Talks are ongoing; they plan to send a delegation of their own, come winter, so that’s something, I suppose. Managed to heal a few people while I was there too. Plenty of work for healers in that place.”

  “Is it so dangerous in Ignata?” Sabira asked, holding out her little ash-cat. “Do the ash-cats attack people?”

  Sabira’s father smiled at her fondly. “Not often, but you’d be shocked at how many ailments those ash geysers of theirs cause—mostly lung problems,” her father replied. He turned to her mother, softening his voice. “Oh, and speaking of problems, Taranna, I did see Yupin.”

  Taranna’s expression grew abruptly cold, and Sabira noticed how she lifted her fingers to the scar on her arm, where the musket ball had once lodged. Sabira shifted uncomfortably. The colonel featured in nearly all of her nightmares.

  “Adranna is well shot of that family,” Taranna replied at last. “The city welcomed them when his father married one of us, and how did his father repay us?”