IT HAD ALL been about a boy.
It had never been about a boy.
It started with a boy, but that isn’t the same thing at all. It’s easier, telling myself the boy is to blame. It hurts less than admitting it’s always been about Nuala.
Frostbite hurts. The humiliation of frostbite stings long after fingers go numb and black. I draw mine through the living flame of my hair, by long habit. Though I no longer expect the gesture to warm me, I’m disappointed every time when my hands emerge still cold.
It hurts, but curses are supposed to hurt.
My prison is the plane of ice, an endless terrain of caves and snow. Or, if it has an end, I’ve yet to find it. The caves, I formed myself. I have no interest in mapping them. If I want out, I can just melt my way.
Even the ice elementals are bored of me, and mostly leave me alone. Occasionally some plane-bound creature explores my caves, perhaps on a challenge or a dare. They melt from my heat before I can draw near enough to ask.
At least they don’t leave behind corpses to compound my guilt, and a few of the items they leave behind in their puddled remains have proven useful to me. The chronometer, scavenged from the mortal plane, is a beautiful thing of metal and glass and dials. It withstands my heat, as long as I’m careful, and seems to be of the same make as the portal frame, resistant to tarnish, brute force, and corrosion, as well as the elements.
With the chronometer, I know when the portal will come to life. I have set the device so that both wands are pointed upward when the cycle begins. Upward, for hope.
The frame is powered by aether and steam. It gets hot. Because it’s a heat I haven’t made, I can feel it. I must be close by when it starts up so that I can wrap my hands around a column, press my body to it like a lover, and soak in those burning moments while I can. It makes the chill worse, but the indulgence is worth it. Besides, curses are supposed to hurt.
Demons emerge from the portal. My birth mother first, then a dozen or so children, then my mama. The heat of their skin reacts with their new environment, and steam wisps from their bodies. The ghosts of tethers encircle one ankle of each child, tying them to their home plane.
“Stay close, little sparks,” my mama says. Mother helps round up the stragglers and keeps them still while Mama counts them.
I’ve slipped behind the post, pressing my back to its waning heat.
“Who here knows what a curse is?” Mother asks. About ten scarlet hands shoot up. I don’t have to see them to know it. It’s the same every time.
“It’s what happens to you if you’re very bad,” one little ember says.
The metal is nearly cold. I press my cheek to it and peek round it to catch Mama’s eye. The look she gives me is sad. It’s a look I know well.
They’re teachers, my parents are. It’s the only way they’re able to come and see me.
“That’s right. Everyone has to be fair to everyone else, or they could get cursed.”
A curse is a funny thing. There’s no defence against it, and no way to bypass or remove it save by following its conditions exactly. Some creatures are just so powerful that their decree can reshape reality. Nuala knew she had that power. At first, I comforted myself by believing that she hadn’t known; that she had spoken in anger and hadn’t meant it. But I knew better.
“Come out, Izelle,” Mother calls. As always, I consider what would happen if I didn’t obey. I’m already here, powerless . . . it’s not as if they could punish me much further. But the little joys are all I have, and seeing Mother and Mama is one of them. Even if it comes at the cost of a handful of gawking children.
The littlest ones gasp and stare when I emerge. My frostbitten fingers and tail are as black as my hooves, and the rest of my skin has faded to pale pink from exposure and cold. I barely look like one of their kind anymore. I can see them all thinking it.
“The thing about curses,” Mama says, “is that there’s always a trigger that removes them, but only the one who places the curse knows what it is. She can tell the target or not. She doesn’t have to tell anyone. She can tell the target and make them unable to tell anyone else, or put them in a situation that would make the conditions of releasing them impossible.”
“What do you think?” Mother asks them. They’re all still staring at me. “Is that fair?”
“Punishment doesn’t have to be fair,” one of the littles says. Mother calls them sparks, but I think of them as embers, their optimism burning brightly, but easily snuffed out.
“What’s your curse?” another asks me. My parents share a look. They’re supposed to address their teachers, not me, but because I’ve been asked, I can answer. Do my mothers fear what I might say?
“My own fire will never warm me.” It’s been a long time since I last used my voice. I expect it to be hoarse, to sound unpleasant in my ears. It doesn’t. “Only when my body is back to its normal temperature will the portal allow me through. I may speak only things I am asked to say.”
“What about fire you kindle?”
“Even a fire I make by physical means, yes.” I look around pointedly. “Not that there’s anything here to burn.”
There had only been my clothes. I had learned by burning my clothes.
“What did she do?” the first young one asks Mother. This one has remembered not to speak to me.
Mother considers a moment, then surprises me. “Izelle, what did you do to earn this curse?”
I can recite the stock answers the teachers always give, or I can speak in my own words. In opinions. Do I dare to?
“I angered a summoner.”
They all gasp. Glances are exchanged. No one is quite sure what to say next.
Some mortals, powerful ones, can summon us. The embers wear the tethers to keep them from being summoned too young but most of us can choose to resist the call. To me, Nuala had been radiant, full of life and ambition. Perhaps she had been powerful enough to compel me to her, but I would have gone to her by my own will in any case.
No one has told me to stop speaking, so I go on. “We were familiar for a long time. Long enough for her to grow from girl to woman. I was her pet and servant and companion. She compelled me to share my thoughts, my opinions. But I had a strong opinion she didn’t like. She was—that is, I thought she was—in danger, so I warned her. I tried to protect her. She was so angry at my interference that instead of just dispelling me, she cursed me and banished me here, to the plane of ice.”
Silence, but for a distant howl of wind. I can read the children’s moods by the subdued colours in their fiery hair, all oranges and yellows. A dozen or so pairs of eyes are fixed on the snowy ground.
“This is why we no longer heed the plane of mortals,” Mama says quietly.
What? I try to speak it, but she hasn’t asked for my reaction, so I can’t. I spread my hands, hoping the supplicating gesture will do. The few moments of speech have spoiled me and now I keenly feel its loss.
Neither Mother nor Mama look at me now. Mama has let herself say this to the children so that I can hear it. I’m sure of it. So she must intend to follow through. She must.
She doesn’t.
The portal opens. Through it I see a world of fire. My home. I yearn to reach toward it but I know I’ll only be knocked unconscious if I try to rush the aperture, or even draw too near—I can only approach the structure carefully, from the side.
My parents gather the children and shepherd them through, without another word or glance to me. They can’t let on that I’m their daughter around the children. That would shift focus from the lesson they’re meant to learn. I’m a cautionary tale, not an object of pity or a damsel to be rescued. If any of them should be compelled to rescue me, they must come to it on their own.
But they will not. Ours is a race of passion, not compassion. Fire devours and cleanses all in its path. It gives no consideration to the unwary.
Be wary, my presence here teaches them. Look on this freezing wretch and remember her. Do not slip your tethers. The mortal plane is not for you.
The rest have all gone through when Mama, bringing up the rear, pauses. “Close one, today,” she says to no one in particular, and then steps through.
Silence rings loud in my ears.
I turn and walk idly toward my caves. I need to think.
What do they do, then, in this new demon utopia where the threat of summoning by mortals has become obsolete? Do they keep their tethers all their lives? Do they still train in the arcane arts? Do they still hone the strength of their mental self-control?
In my youth, I learned how to resist a call, how to accept one, how to throw another demon into a summon if I did not want to go. How to defeat a summoner and return home at will. Without these things, what is there? How does society function if no one is ever swept away without warning?
If I ever get out of exile, will I recognize the world I return to?
I sleep fitfully and dream of bonfires. Even in dreams I’m never warm.
I wake with the words “Close one, today” ringing in my ears. Hope is dangerous. Hope distracts me and makes me weak.
Nuala knew just what she was doing. The curse can only be broken by one who does not know how to break the curse. One of those little shits has to feel sympathy for me and want to warm me of their own accord. But I’ve been cast as a villain and deprived of the voice to explain myself, so that may never happen. I’m unlikely to ever inspire kindness, Nuala’s words loudly implied.
This was the reward for trying to save a summoner’s heart. Look on it, little children, and meddle not in the affairs of mortals.
Let them burn.
DAYS GO BY without another “close one,” but I still see that moment every time I shut my eyes. I don’t need to sleep, but I like sleep. It helps to pass the time. Without it, time passes slowly and thoughts zip about like embers, singeing wherever they settle.
When I see the dark shape in the snow, I assume it’s a hallucination. Not a mirage, because mirages require heat and the only heat in this place is me.
Closer, carefully closer. I’m positive I’m losing my mind, I’ve finally cracked, because it looks like a person. It looks like the one person it can’t possibly be.
I kneel in the snow, hands hovering but afraid to close the distance. If this really is a torment made in my own mind and my hand goes through her, I may never trust my own senses again.
Yet, that’s still better than whatever it might mean if this is real.
I’m losing feeling in my legs. It’s time to decide. I lower my hand, and—
Solid. Wet, limp silk, sweat-soaked hair freezing in crisp clumps like arctic lichen.
Nuala.
Time has touched her. There are lines at the corners of her eyes. Someone has touched her, too, and not gently. Burns crust her face, raw and oozing. Burns decorate her body, wherever skin is visible.
I lift her, surprised I have the strength to—either I am not as weak as I thought, or she has very little substance left—and I carry her into my caves, out of the wind. I warm her. At least my fire is of use to someone, if not to me.
Holding her while she slumbers floods me with memories, all overlain by her face, twisted with rage, when she pronounced my curse. It hurts more than frostbite, more than solitude. I wonder if this is a test of some kind. Of my compassion, maybe, to see if I’ve been punished sufficiently yet. It could well be, but I find that I don’t care. I will do what I will do for my own reasons, no one else’s.
Different voices are loud in my head now. These voices, at least, let me sleep.
“Izelle.”
For the first time in an age, I don’t know what I’m going to see when I open my eyes.
“Izelle, I know you’re awake.”
She always could tell.
“You were right about the boy. Lenzhen. The dragon. Whatever he is. I’m sure that’s what you want to hear. Well, it’s true. He hurt me. He was too much. Too cruel. I thought I could tame him the way I tamed you.”
It stings right to the quick. And she hasn’t asked anything of me, so I can’t retort. I huff and elbow her in the side. She ignores both.
“I thought you were just jealous of him. Now I understand what you saw. What you tried to warn me of. Dammit, I’m confessing to you. The least you could do is look at the wreck of me.”
No, if I’d done my least I would have left her where I found her, to freeze. I’ve already done more than the least. When she cursed me, she dismissed me. She has no power to compel me anymore. I leave my eyes closed.
A confession is not an apology.
She huffs and turns over, shutting me out. I wonder if she remembers the limits she put on my speech. Is she deliberately avoiding questions to keep me from talking, or has she just forgotten?
Or is she that accustomed to giving orders instead of asking?
She’s muttering to herself. “. . . send you to wherever you sent your demon wench . . .” and “. . . see if anyone keeps you warm.” She sounds delirious, but from her grumblings I can piece together a chain of events.
She is not here for me. I’m meant as her punishment and that is how she sees me. Karma made flesh, nothing more.
I withdraw my heat from her.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she snaps at me.
She has no control over me. I stop.
Nuala rolls onto her back, wincing, and shrugs. “Fine. Cold is good for burns, anyway.”
I watch her until she starts to shiver in silence. She could ask for my help. Request it. She doesn’t.
I turn away.
BY THE TIME my chronometer signals the arrival of the next class, Nuala’s wet clothes and raw skin have frozen to the ice. Fused to it. She screams when I rip her free. More than frozen silk stays behind.
I don’t press myself to the portal. I savour the cold. It’s colder for Nuala, because she could be warm at any time for the small cost of a little kindness. It’s colder for Nuala because she’s only endured one night of it, and considers that equal to the eternities of torment to which her words sentenced me. Were they careless words? I still don’t know. It doesn’t matter. That’s what I’ve learned. Whether she meant the curse or it was a heated response to a heated moment, she’s never regretted; never had remorse.
Knowing this . . . I’m not comforted by it, but it’s enough.
Mama comes through first and halts in her tracks. The first little ember bumps right into her before she remembers her hooves and moves out of the way.
When Mother comes through, Mama grasps her hand and clings to it.
Silence. Long moments of it.
I imagine what this must look like to Nuala. A cluster of crimson-skinned creatures, most small, led by two stern women. If she thinks they’re considering how her frosty white flesh would taste, she’s not far wrong.
I tighten my fist in Nuala’s stringy hair, forcing her head into a token bow. She wavers on her feet, so I let her fall to her knees. I keep hold of her hair.
“Izelle,” Mama says carefully, “who do you bring us today?”
“This is Nuala, Mama.” The mortal stiffens. “She’s the summoner who sentenced me here.”
Now she knows she’s not just before a jury of my kind, but a jury intimately connected to me.
The children have never seen a mortal, but they all know to fear the word “summoner.” Many of them take an instinctive step back, even though this summoner is in no condition to pose a threat. They can’t know that, I suppose. Those tethers they wear: have they ever been tested?
Nuala is still. She says nothing, having lost her urge to complain before a greater audience.
“Tell me more, Izelle. How did she come to you?”
“She was cursed to be exiled to wherever she’d sent me.”
“Ah. Are you pleased to see her?”
I’m uncomfortable suddenly. I don’t want to analyse my thoughts on this, and I want to admit to them even less. But I’ve been asked.
“I always thought I would be, but I also thought she’d be remorseful about how she’d treated me. But she wasn’t, so . . . no. Her presence adds to my torment.”
Mother appears to consider this, but I already know what she’s thinking. Suddenly it all plays out before me. And I smile a toothy smile. “Children?” She turns to the embers.
Nuala twitches. Now she sees the road before us, too.
“Set her on fire,” one ember squeaks. “Can we? Can we do it?”
The rest bounce on their hooves, excited. “Can we?” It becomes a cacophonous chorus. Excitement sparks from child to child; it blazes alight.
“Go ahead, sparks.”
The children are glowing. Pent up energy spills out their eyes and fingers. Their hair blazes.
I miss the first spark. I don’t know which of the children sets it off. Nuala’s hair catches first. She almost seems to welcome the warmth for a moment. Then the flames reach her skin. I’m still behind her, holding her by the hair, and by hell, she’s warm. I’d forgotten what heat feels like. It’s absolute bliss. Like sinking into silk.
The children stare. My parents stare too, with teary hope in their eyes. When I pull back and make a show of toasting my palms on her flaming hair, they see. They can’t show extreme emotion before the kids.
The colour returns to my skin. My arms darken, changing from frost pink to my natural crimson.
It’s working.
It’s working.
Nuala thrashes weakly. Flames crackle up my arms, warm my torso, lick at my chin.
Someone who didn’t know how to lift the curse set a fire. And it warmed me.
“It’s . . . It’s broken, I think,” I say, experimenting. The words come out, so it must be true.
I’m reluctant to let go of Nuala’s burning corpse, as if the snow will quench her and the curse will return. I add to it, making my own flame, and I feel it.
I keep my hand in her hair while Mama and Mother rush up and embrace me. They add their heat to mine. The embers circle us, dancing and cheering.
I drop my tormenter’s body only when it’s time to go through the portal. I consider taking her with me, but she doesn’t deserve my home. Her corpse will freeze, preserved on ice. I leave her as a visual aid for the next generations of students.
“Close one, today,” I say to no one in particular as I step through.