Page 11 of Frost Like Night
Nausea grips me and I reel forward, head in my hands. He could have heard anything—all my plans, all my feeble attempts to stop him. It had nothing to do with him touching me. He could have talked to mewhenever he wanted. Who else could he do this to?
But I know. He did it to Theron—he could do this toanyone who isn’t actively protected from his Decay by pure conduit magic.
I glare at the flames before me. “So you fought him off for me. Buthow? I’m not Paislian, and Paisly’s magic should only affect your people.”
“Magic rules are different for human conduits,” Rares says. “I couldn’t affect a normal Winterian, but you are filled with the same magic that runs through my body. We’re linked, just as I’m sure you’ve discovered you’re connected to other conduit-bearers. Though the Royal Conduits were created to obey only certain bloodlines, the magic in them is, at its core, the same—and therefore, all conduit-wielders are connected. I’m sorry for the unconsciousness, but your endurance will increase. You were only out for about three hours, not even long enough for me to carry you out of Ventralli.”
I gawk at him. I wasted three hourssleeping.
Anything could have happened in that time. Mather and the Winterians could be safely out of Rintiero—or everything I fear could have come to pass. And not only that, but if we’re going to Paisly, the journey will take weeks—every moment we waste is another moment that Angra’s grip on the world tightens.
And I don’t even know his plan. I don’t know what he intends to do next, who he will kill, which kingdom he wants to destroy first. . . .
Metallic anxiety fills my throat, making it impossible to swallow, to breathe, to do anything but stare at Rares as thethudding ache across my skull resumes.
No time to waste.
“You said you’ll help me get the keys from him,” I force out. “With all the Order’s knowledge, you must have asked your magic how to destroy it too. And it told you the same thing it told me—by sacrificing a conduit and returning it to the chasm?”
Rares nods slowly.
“And you’re going to help me get the keys from Angra,” I repeat. “You’re going to helpmedestroy all magic. So—”
Memories flutter across my mind. The chasm and its electric, destructive fingers of magic that could only inhabit objects—when people attempted to let the magic touch them, it incinerated them as thoroughly as a lightning strike.
My anxiety is replaced by dread when Rares’s gaze doesn’t break from mine.
“There’s no other way to destroy magic,” I guess, the words coming from somewhere deep inside me, somewhere numb. “You’re going to help me die.”
That makes Rares drop the knife and sharpening stone. He swings onto his hands and knees and closes the distance between him and me, moving close enough that I can feel the severity radiating off him as surely as I can feel the heat from the fire beside us.
“For nearly two thousand years, my people have lived in a state of regret for what the Order did to Paisly,” he tellsme. “By the time we could use our magic to figure out how to destroy it, we realized we would have had to get every Paislian to willingly throw themselves into the chasm. We areallPaisly’s conduit now. So we have been observing the world’s rulers in stealth through our link to their magic, hiding knowledge of the conduits’ true limits from any who would seek to abuse them, hoping that a ruler would come to the same conclusion we had—that magic is too dangerous. We had hoped, of course, that this monarch would only need to throw their object conduit into the chasm. But you are the first conduit-wielder in centuries who has decided that the negatives of magic outweigh any benefits. Not even your mother sought such a thing.”
I flinch at the mention of Hannah, expecting her voice in my head again—but no. She’s gone. And that feels far more liberating than it should.
Even when she tried to help me, she never actually helpedme—she merely scrambled to fix her own mistakes, and as I look at Rares now, hoping to see some other emotion beyond his odd mix of remorse and eagerness, all I see is a door. The same door Hannah guided me toward, one leading away from a world of chaos and pain, control and destruction.
But unlike Hannah, Rares is willing to help me understand all this. He can help me control my magic so I have a better weapon when I face Angra to get the other two chasm keys. Rares and his people have had centuries to study their magic—maybe they can help me come to a placewhere my fear evaporates into resolve.
“Are you sure telling me all this is a good idea?” I ask. “You don’t want to hide it from me so I misinterpret something and make a mistake?”
Rares puts his hand on my shoulder, a steady pressure that makes me start. “You are not what you’ve done. Who you are right now, this moment, is who you choose to be.”
“Who I choose to be,” I echo. “I’m incapable of making the right choices lately.”
I left everyone I care about in Rintiero’s dungeon. I let three wasted hours pass. I—
Rares lifts his hand, coils his finger, and flicks me in the forehead.
I slap my palm over the stinging spot. “What—”
But he shakes the offending finger at me. “Consider this the first lesson as I teach you how to fully harness your magic: I will not stand for such talk about the person who will save us, especially from said person.”
“How is that a lesson?” I squeak.
“You’ll think twice before you try to be too hard on yourself next time. Now, since we’ve started our lessons, let’s move on to lesson two, shall we?”
I let my hand drop. “What about everyone back in Rintiero? Can we find out what happened to them first? What if Angra—”
