Tragedy follows those who cannot accept their true destiny.

—Crime and Punishment in a Reunified Amadera, by Fiennes de Marta

Adelina Amouteru

Queen Maeve is thinner than I remember, and her face has become harder in the months since we last met. The Elite who aligns with death. With my weary demeanor, sunken cheeks, and hard gaze, I imagine she thinks the same when she looks at me. She and her battalion traveled over the Karra Mountains, the crooked range of long-dead volcanoes that divides Beldain from Amadera, and set up an encampment of sheepskin tents here on the outskirts of Laida, where humanity ends and a horizon rimmed completely by ice-capped mountains begins. Torches light the snow in patches between the camp’s tents. The air has turned cold and cruel, cutting straight through my riding gear. As evening washes the bleak landscape in blues and purples, the Beldish queen makes her way through puddles of slush from her tent to ours, flanked by her soldiers.

I wonder what she has gone through since we faced each other on the seas, and what the state of her navy might be. A part of me calculates whether it will be worth invading Beldain in the future or not. No doubt she wants to do the same to Kenettra—but we both bite our tongues now as she nears. She gives me a stiff nod of greeting.

“We leave at dawn,” she tells me. “If your sister does not wake by then, carry her.”

I return her nod, even though my whispers hiss. This is the closest we will come to civility. “We’ll be ready.”

Maeve walks past me without acknowledging my words. I turn and watch her disappear inside our tent. Show her what you can do, and then she will respect you. The Queen of Beldain and I may be forced allies for now, but there will be a time after this when we will all return to our sides, and our enemy state.

Behind her soldiers walks Magiano. When he sees me, he removes his cloak and wraps it around my shoulders. I relax as it blocks the bite of the wind; the lingering warmth from Magiano feels soothing against my body. “I can’t talk him into getting inside a tent,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder as ice crystals flake from his braids. Some distance from the tents, where the land fades off into the blackness of the mountains, I can see a lone blond figure kneeling in the wind, his head down in prayer. Teren.

I put a hand on Magiano’s arm. “Let him stay,” I reply. “He will talk to the gods until he feels comforted.” But my stare lingers on Teren for a moment longer. Does he, like Raffaele, now feel the pull of the Elites’ origin calling from somewhere deep in the mountains? I can sense a pulse in the back of my mind now, a knot of power and energy lying somewhere beyond what I can see.

Magiano sighs in exasperation. “I’ve told Maeve’s men to keep an eye on him,” he says. “Let’s not have come all this way only to lose him to frostbite.” Then he turns and walks alongside me as we head back into our tent.

It’s warm inside. Lucent sits in one corner, grimacing as she wraps her arm in a hot cloth. She has injured her wrist again during the battle, but when she notices me looking, she quickly glances away. Nearby, Raffaele rises from his chair and bows his head in Maeve’s direction. Maeve stands near the tent’s entrance, her body turned subconsciously toward Lucent, her eyes on Violetta’s bed.

Even in the lantern light, Violetta still looks deathly pale. Her eyelids flutter now and then, as if she were lost in a nightmare, and a sheen of sweat covers her forehead. Her dark waves of hair fan out across the cloak folded under her head.

“Snow is coming from the north,” Maeve says, breaking the silence. “The longer we stay here, the more we’ll risk having our routes cut off. The snow breakers are already heading up to the ranges.”

“Snow breakers?” Magiano asks.

“Men who are sent up to the snow packs. They break up the snow into small, controlled avalanches in order to prevent larger ones. You probably saw them in town, with their ice picks.” Maeve nods at Raffaele. “Messenger.” At the mention of his name, her stony face softens a touch. I’m surprised at the twinge of envy I feel, that Raffaele can so easily draw others to him. “Are you well now?”

“Better,” Raffaele replies.

“What happened?” I ask. “We saw you freeze—you crumpled to your knees.”

Raffaele’s jewel-toned eyes catch the light, glinting a dozen different shades of green and gold. “The energy around me was overwhelming,” he explains. “The world became a blur. I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t breathe.”

The feeling overwhelmed him. Raffaele’s power is to sense each and every thread in the world, everything that connects with everything else. This must be how Raffaele’s powers are deteriorating, the equivalent of my spontaneous, out-of-control illusions, of Violetta’s vicious markings, and Lucent’s fragile bones. Unless we can succeed in our mission, his power will be his undoing, like the rest of us.

I can tell by the look on Raffaele’s face that he is thinking the same thoughts that I am, but he just gives Maeve a tired smile. “Not to worry. I’m well enough.”

“It seems you stumbled across our traveling band at exactly the right time,” Magiano says to Maeve.

In the silence that follows, Lucent pushes herself to her feet, wincing as she goes, and heads for the tent flap. “We should all get some rest, then,” she mutters. She hesitates a step as she passes Maeve. A flicker of expression—something lonely, longing—crosses her face, but nothing more than that, and before Maeve can react, Lucent ducks out of the tent and disappears.