Page 105 of Ice Like Fire
When the Decay was first created, it fed on the fuel of the thousands of people who used their small conduits for evil. It made everyone’s darkest, most sinister thoughts theonlything they thought—and those who had conduits were also given extra strength and power. It has always been able to affect people regardless of their bloodline—Theron and I saw that firsthand in Abril. Normal conduits cannot affect someone not of their kingdom; the Decay is the exception to that rule. It’s the bridge between bloodlines, created during a time when everyone had conduits regardless of lineage or kingdom.
When Mather broke Angra’s staff, maybe Angra became Spring’s conduit, and the Decay became strong enough to infuse not only evil desires in people, but magic as well. The Decay, Angra, and Spring’s conduit could be one now, a morphed, twisted entity of limitless evil that breaks through everything we used to know about magic.
Which forms the terrifying question . . .
If Angra is alive, where is he?Or after centuries of feeding off Angra, did the Decay finally become strong enough to infect whomever it pleases?
A heavy weight settles in me. I can’t save Ceridwen and Lekan, not now, not here, because I can only use my magicto affect Winterians. So I just watch in helpless horror as Raelyn pauses over Ceridwen, her head tipping back and forth as she surveys the princess of Summer at her feet.
“This is better than promised,” she says, raising her voice for all to hear. She enjoys the audience, the stunned Summerians, her leering Ventrallan soldiers.
Simon stomps forward, a few Summerian soldiers following with drawn weapons. “What are you doing? This isn’t—”
Raelyn waves, beckoning some of her men to restrain the Summerian soldiers. When they’re just as helpless as Lekan, she shoots a look at Simon.
He falls to his knees before her, gasping like an invisible hand slowly clamps around his throat. His face dims to a violent purple, and Raelyn pushes her long fingers through his riot of hair.
“Dear Summer king,” she says. “I’m afraid nothing will happen according to your plan.”
“Angra . . . promised me,” Simon pants, his strain clear in his clenched arms, his face darkening more and more.
I crouch lower behind the roof, quivering so hard that the building must be shaking too. Simon’s words echo relentlessly through my mind.
Angra promised me.
“To ally Summer with Spring.” Raelyn reprimands like he’s nothing more than a misbehaving child. “Yes, I know. But you didn’t honestly think someone so powerful wouldally withSummer, did you? Angra only gave you true magic to keep you occupied while real rulers decided what would become of your land.” She pauses, still stroking her fingers through his hair as he coughs and gags. “And we have decided Summer will best serve our new world without its conduit bloodline. So you see, Spring will not ally with you. Our goals do not require you at all.”
With Raelyn focused on Simon, Ceridwen’s pain stops, her body relaxing. She eases onto her elbows, her fingers digging into the cobblestones as she looks at Raelyn as if the Ventrallan queen is more rabid beast than person.
“True magic?” Ceridwen dares.
“Spring.” Raelyn turns to her, Simon gagging still. “They discovered the true source of power, and it is not useless baubles imbued with centuries-old magic. Spring holds a power stronger than any conduit.”
Ceridwen shakes her head. “Angra’s dark magic? After what he did to Winter, after the vacant control he enacted over his own people? You’re insane. This is just another form of slavery. Jesse will never let this happen!”
Ceridwen stops, her gaze frozen on Raelyn. That name echoes around them.Jesse.
“You’re quite right,” Raelyn snarls, and kicks her in the stomach. Lekan cries out, but no one pays him any attention, everyone enthralled by the building storm of the Ventrallan queen and the Summerian princess. “Jesse is too weak. He will fear this power, and he will doom thiskingdom as he did when he beddedyou. But we don’t need him anymore—Idon’t need him anymore.”
“No . . .” Ceridwen chokes, sucking air in uneven spurts.
Raelyn lifts her skirt and slams her foot against Ceridwen’s throat, pressing as she shouts words down on her. “I will kill him, sweet girl. I will kill him and those brats and every remnant of the Ventrallan conduit’s bloodline, because I don’t need them. The time of the Royal Conduits is over. The time of true power has come.”
“Stop . . . Raelyn . . .” Simon spits out one gasping plea. “Leave her alone!”
In a swirl of green and black, Raelyn spins away from Ceridwen. As if she can sense what will happen, as if every moment had built up to this inevitable end, Ceridwen scrambles to get onto her hands and knees.
“No!”
Raelyn flicks her wrist, and Simon utters a single, trembling gulp before his neck breaks, the bone grating in the jarring snap of a quick and easy death.
Ceridwen’s scream fades to silence and she hovers there, watching her brother’s body fall lifeless to the stones. The other Summerian soldiers move to action, but the Ventrallan soldiers are faster, and the square is soon coated in so much Summerian blood that it’s hard to imagine the stones were ever anything but this gruesome red. The branded Summerian and Yakimian slaves drop to their knees, cowering, spared in their meek surrender—even Lekan is leftalive, hanging limp from the Ventrallans who hold him, his eyes on Ceridwen in a look of pure sorrow.
Ceridwen doesn’t react when Raelyn grabs her hair and jerks her head back to peer down into her eyes. “Isn’t this why you came here? To kill your brother? I saved you the trouble of having to murder your own family. You should be grateful.” Raelyn twists Ceridwen’s neck back and she yelps in pain. “You will be grateful, Princess. You will beg me for death, and before I grant your wish, your last words to me will bethank you.”
The chakram leaves my hand, my great, spinning blade swirling through the air, but I know as it leaves my palm that my aim is off, my horror sending shudders up my arm that make my chakram teeter and bend.
It licks off Raelyn’s shoulder, a hand’s width below my intended target. She screams in a deadly mix of pain and fury. All eyes in the square follow my chakram’s path back to me, and as I leap to catch it, arrows fly.
