Elli
I clutch the edge of the table as I feel the earth tremble yet again. It’s happened a few times this morning, and every time, from all around me, I hear people crying out with fear. My own response is to be silent, and to brace for the world to fall apart again, but these are smaller tremors and end much more quickly than the first time.
Across from me, Topias, the leader of the town council, is white with anxiety as he clutches his long brown beard, as if it were a rope that could pull him to safety. Truly, it’s a comical picture, but I have no laughter left inside me.
When the ground is still once more, I lean forward to draw his attention. “You were saying?”
He lets out a stuttery little hiss. “I was saying that the people need to hear from the temple, Valtia. They want their queen to tell them how she will keep them safe.”
“I have fire and ice,” I say. “I do not control the earth.”
He glances around at his fellow council members. “We are threatened by more than the shaking ground, Valtia. I thought you knew.”
“We will continue to prepare for any incursion by Soturi forces—”
“That’s not what we’re talking about at all.” Agata, the dressmaker, steps forward. “Don’t you feel it?” she asks, peering at my face. “All the other wielders seem to. An unsteadiness. A loss of control.”
Heat blooms across my skin and I hope I am not blushing. “My priests and acolytes at the temple felt it as well. That something was off with them. But I . . .” I offer as serene a smile as I can muster. “Perhaps it is the balance of my magic that protects me from this feeling.”
“There have been accidents,” Topias says. Now he is stroking his beard as if it were a nervous pet. The council medallion of heavy copper shines dully on his chest, and it is a reminder that we may have done this to ourselves. “Wielders have . . . done damage.”
“Please be specific,” I say. “Let us be straight with each other.”
Agata puts her hands on the table, and I gaze down upon her spindly fingers and the glittering rings that decorate them. “An ice wielder killed the child she was minding this morning. Froze him in her arms.”
I put my hand over my mouth and swallow back a wave of sick. “How horrible.”
“It was the youngest son of Yrian, the blacksmith. The wielder—her name is Ivette—she claims she did not know she was a wielder until that moment, but no one believes her.”
I bite back a comment about how I could not blame her if she were hiding her ability. Until several weeks ago, wielders either escaped to the outlands—or were taken to the temple to serve. No one had much of a choice. Very few wielders have revealed themselves to their fellow citizens, who cannot always suppress their fear and suspicion. To them, wielders belong in the temple, unseen, toiling in the service of their people. “Is she safe?”
“Is she safe?” Agata folds her arms over her bosom. “What about the boy she killed?”
“That is a tragedy, but I cannot raise him from the dead. It sounds like a tragic accident—and I’d like to make sure there is only the one victim.”
“Then control your wielders!” The words burst from Topias in a spray of spittle, and he uses his velvet sleeve to wipe it from his lips. “Appear in the town square and tell them to reveal themselves! Invite them to the temple or figure out some other way to bring them to heel!”
“I can appear before the people, but I will not ask frightened wielders to step forward in the midst of a potential mob,” I say, taking care to keep my voice steady. “That is not the way to quell anyone’s fears. Magic will spring forth to protect the wielder—the last thing we need is our people attacking each other. It wouldn’t go well for anyone.”
“Is that a threat?” Topias asks quietly.
I stand. “I would never threaten the people I rule and care for. Those with magic and those without. I love you all equally, and I will not participate in your proposal to single out wielders for suspicion.”
“They are dangerous!”
I lock gazes with Agata. “So are you.” I step away from my chair. “I am returning to the temple now. I will send guards to bring Ivette to the temple. And I would ask each of you to remember the greater good over your own fears and prejudices. We all must work together to rebuild and to defend this city.” I turn in place, taking in the fissured stone walls of the council chamber, the spills of rock in the corners, the crack in the ceiling, and then all the council members themselves, bedecked in dust-streaked robes and gowns that were possibly pulled from the rubble of their fine houses. “Wielders are critical to our protection. Attacking them will only divide our society at a time when we should be most united. See how we have worked together these past weeks? This is how it always should have been.”
“The elders and the Valtia used to take care of everything!” says one man who stands near the doorway, looking ready to run if the ground shakes again. “Now we must do more than we ever have.”
I tilt my head. “Thank the stars for that. We were sorely deprived of your gifts until now. Think of what we could have accomplished had you been required to use them sooner.”
He looks at me as if he cannot tell if I am sincere or mocking him. In truth, it’s both.
“I will appear in the square tonight,” I continue. “I will reassure our people and offer safe haven to wielders who are unsure of their magic, for it is clear that the unsteadiness in the ground and in the magic are linked.”
“Are you saying that magic is causing our land to tear itself apart?” Agata asks.
“Not at all.” My patience is wearing thin, but I keep a smile on my face as I glide toward the door, where my guards await, ready to carry me on my paarit back to the temple. “I am saying that the unsteadiness in both is connected, and we at the temple are searching the texts to uncover a remedy.”
I have already thought of one: I can only hope, if the cause of the temblors is indeed that the copper has been drained from the land, that there is a simple way to offer it back to the earth, but I do not say this to them. Right now it would cause them to panic—I’d be telling them to throw their wealth into a deep hole, something they will not right now be willing to do. I first have to be sure—and then I have to find a palatable way of feeding it to them. “For today, though, let us focus on keeping peace. The townsfolk will be looking to you for an example. Please be your best selves.”
I walk quickly to my paarit. My guards, disciplined as always, wait until I sit on my chair. Then they raise me into the air. As I float several feet above the road, dipping and tilting as my guards carefully avoid the tears in the ground at their feet, I watch smoke curling into the air, several columns between the temple and the city wall. I don’t know how people in the outlands fared—I can only hope that none of the old mines collapsed, as that is where so many find shelter.
I wave to our citizens, who cry out to me and lift their arms, beseeching. I do not call out to them, because I think it is best to hold my words until tonight, when I address all our people. Rumors spread like sickness in times like this, and one careless promise could be fatal.
When we reach the white plaza, I have the guards let me down and walk the rest of the way. It’s pointless for them to carry me when I can walk perfectly well—the only reason I ride in the paarit is to reassure the citizens that not that much has changed, even though so very much has changed.
Raimo and Oskar are in my chamber when I stride in, and I feel the magic swirling in the air as I cross the room to my ice wielder. He sits on a chair at the table, his dead white hand resting on its surface. I look away from it as guilt snaps its jaws closed over my heart. “There are wielders out in the city who are losing control,” I say as I lay my hand on Oskar’s shoulder, needing to feel his cool and solid presence.
Raimo, who has been standing by the fireplace, turns. “And I bet the town council is howling about it.”
“An ice wielder killed a child this morning.”
Oskar flinches. “Her own child?”
“No, but one in her care. I am having her brought here.”
“She’ll be lucky if she makes it in one piece,” says Raimo. “People will need someone to blame for this catastrophe.” He nods at me. “You will be lucky if they do not blame you.”
“I am appearing in the square tonight. They need to hear my voice.”
Oskar puts his arm around my waist. “It doesn’t sound safe, Elli. If they riot . . .”
“They’ll riot if their queen abandons them in their time of dire need,” I say firmly. I look down at him. “Oskar. I know how to do this. I was raised to do this.”
“You were raised to wield magic that never came to you,” he says, his gray eyes fierce. “And without it you are vulnerable. I’ll go with you tonight.”
“As will I,” says Raimo. “But first we need to see what we can do with Oskar’s hand.”
As he moves toward the table, he leans heavily on his walking stick, and his gnarled hands grip it tightly, the veins sticking out blue beneath spotted, papery skin. I tuck my arm under his and help him the rest of the way. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve swallowed two dozen snakes.”
I blink at him. “That sounds rather awful.”
“The magic is unstable, Elli. And I think it’s only going to get worse.”
I find myself staring at Oskar’s face, and his look does nothing to reassure me. “Are you feeling this way as well?”
He clears his throat. “The truth?”
“Oskar.”
“Worse.” He turns to gaze out the window, where the Motherlake undulates beneath the hazy sky. “Elli, I don’t know how long I can hold on to it.”
I bite my lip, because I feel like crying but I know I can’t. It won’t help anything. “What if I try to siphon some of the magic?”
“That might help.”
And so I do, laying my palms on his cheeks and bowing my head over him as I pull his icy suffering into my own body, where it dances a gusty snowfall through my thoughts. My forehead touches his, and he sighs. “I could stay like this forever,” he whispers.
“Me too.”
“But we have other things to do,” Raimo says. “Elli, that’s enough. Let’s see if we can work on his hand.”
Reluctantly, I let go of Oskar, though I can still feel his cold power inside me. “Tell me what to do.”
“You have to strike a perfect balance of the two extremes,” says Raimo, moving in behind me. “And you have to direct it to just the right place.”
I look down at Oskar’s hand. It is bloodless and unmoving. “Does it hurt?” I ask him.
“Not right now.”
“Will it hurt?” I ask Raimo.
He shrugs. “Would it be any worse than it is now?”
“Nothing is worse than this,” says Oskar. “Please, Elli. For me.”
I could never deny him. I hold out my palms over his hand as Raimo lays his own tremulous palms around my neck. Instantly, I feel the unsteadiness, the shocks of hot and cold. This is why Raimo doesn’t want to heal him directly. But as the two magics combine inside me, they settle and meld. I lean over Oskar’s hand and focus on the gray veins beneath his skin. A living thing needs blood to quench its thirst, to feed it and cleanse it. Blood is the answer.
Oskar gasps and then clenches his teeth to hold in a moan. “Don’t stop,” he says, his lips barely moving. He is sweating now, glistening beads that freeze on his temples and forehead.
“Focus, Elli,” Raimo snaps.
“Valtia!” a voice cries out from down the hall.
Oskar snatches his hand away with a stifled cry of pain.
“Did I hurt you?” I ask as he turns away. My fingers are dripping ice and fire, and I ball them into fists.
Oskar doesn’t answer my question—he has gotten to his feet and is standing between me and the doorway. “Come any closer and I’ll freeze you where you stand.”
“Try,” says a shaky, familiar voice.
I step from behind Oskar to see Sig leaning against the door frame, looking like he’s been trampled by a herd of wild horses. His white-blond hair is standing on end, and his face is covered in scratches and scars. Ugly, weeping blisters trail across his forearms and bare chest, which shines with sweat that evaporates in steamy clouds as he walks forward.
Raimo hobbles over to stand on my other side. “Where have you been?”
Sig’s brown eyes slide over the three of us. “Here and there. What you should be more interested in is who I’ve been with. I’ll tell you if you fix me.”
“Fix you,” Raimo says.
Sig nods. He holds up his hands, palms lousy with more blisters and charred spots. His face twitches as he looks at them, either with pain or disgust. “I was gone from Kupari, but when I crossed the border . . .”
“Yesterday?” asks Oskar.
“Yes. Something started to happen with me.” He glares at Raimo. “I need you to fix me. I feel as if I’m about to burn from the inside out.”
“It’s happening to all of us,” says Oskar. “Every wielder in the land feels it.”
“Not like this,” says Sig, though he gives Oskar an appraising look. His gaze lands on Oskar’s white hand. “But maybe like that.”
“We think it’s the copper,” says Raimo. “The last of it was pulled from the earth a few weeks ago. And now the land is rebelling. I’m still searching for the way to calm it.”
“Work fast,” says Sig, “because you may have other problems.”
“The Soturi?”
A small smile plays across Sig’s scarred face. “Yes and no. This is where things get interesting. This is where I can help.”
“Stop playing games,” Oskar snaps. “Tell us what you know.”
Sig’s eyes meet mine. “The Valtia. I know who she is. I know where she is. And I can take you to her.”