Fortress of Ice

“Sorcery killed my gran,” he said bitterly, flinging the young man’s hand away from him. “Sorcery killed her, sorcery wanted that thing found! I wish I’d never found it! I wish it had been you that died in that fire!” he shouted, looking straight at his mother. “That would have been justice! Now get away from me!”

“Your kingdom,” the young man said, behind him, “your kingdom will not be denied. You see how cruel your own sorcery can be, if someone stands in the way—like your gran. You assured she would die, when there was no other way to get you to the library. You assured you would lose your brother, when you enticed him out into the woods—he will grow up a bitter, angry man, all your doing. If you had only taken that book to your mother, none of this pain would have happened. Who else will you kill, until you take the place you were meant to have? I assure you, there will be more pain if you go on denying your own nature. There will be more deaths. Who next? Lord Crissand? That will throw the south into confusion. There’s no other lord who can rule as aetheling—except, of course, you, my prince.”

“I’m no prince, nor wish to be!”

“That is the very trouble, dear,” his mother said. “You blame me for the old grandmother. I assure you, I did nothing. It was you. I quite fear to be in your thoughts at all, until you know what you are, and understand what a power you do wield in the world. Everyone has to fear you, especially when you most afflict whoever loves you—i

“You’ve never lied to me,” he said in disgust. “At least I thought not. But you did. Everything you did was a lie.”

“My dear, you know you were born by sorcery. Can you think you might be ordinary? You were born to overcome my sister’s enemy, and do you know who that is?”

“I don’t care to know.”

“ Tristen. Tristen Sihhë. Now do you understand how very foolish you were, to be drawn to him? He looked you over. He saw a magic too potent to confront.”

He outright laughed. “A ridiculous boy who couldn’t light a candle, let alone a proper fire, to save himself from freezing. He saw someone too stupidto teach, with too many entanglements with sorcery. Forgive me, Mother, but I had all the ride home to think about that.”

“Then you quite missed the point. He entombed my sister alive, he warded meinto the tower above so I couldn’t break free, and accepting that imprisonment was the only way I could stay alive and stay near you—”

“Oh, spare me!”

“The old woman had power he lent. Oh, he is powerful, he is powerful beyond easy understanding. I fear him, but hefears you.”

“Ridiculous, I say.”

“You are not yet grown, son of mine! You are not yet grown, and even so the world bends around you—a piece of your power has come to you, not that you know how to read it, yet. Tristen would if he laid hands on it, I’ve no doubt; but there will come a day it comes clear to you and shows you the way to bring him down.”

He didn’t want to talk about the book, which clearly they knew he had, as they knew other things. Lies, he said to himself, all lies.

Aloud, he said: “All I wish is to be out of here. And, see? It failed. My wishes have no success at all. Fortunately, I put little hope in them.”

“So young, so bitter,” the young man said. “So impertinent toward your lady mother. She has endured years of prison for your sake, endured them teaching you to hate her, mistrust her, all these years. Endured blame, when your own rebellion killed those around you…”

“A lie. I will not forgive you thatlie, sir wisp.”

“I hope you will, when you rule.”

“Then you’ll wait a long, long time, sir wisp!”

“You will rule,” his mother said. “You fear our taking the book from you, do you not? You could hardly be more wrong. The book is yours. It was always yours. It was the text old Mauryl used, and a wickeder wizard there never was than Mauryl: you saw him, at Ynefel—did Tristen point him out? The face above the door. He brought a dead soul back, in Tristen, one of the Sihhë-lords, by blackest work, and to counter him, Mauryl’s enemy brought you. So none of this nonsense about subservience to Tristen Sihhë: Aewyn will never forgive what you are—the very check on his power. Your dear brother, sweet child that he is, will learn what you are, and after a certain time, he will understand quite well that he faces a choice—between Tristen, who sustains his father on the throne—or you, whose destiny is to bring down his dynasty and put it under Sihhë rule, and one ca

“My own sister, too!” He was truly, deeply offended. And yet the eyes, the wonderful violet eyes, stayed with him, heart-wrenchingly intent on his. “Mother, that’s an abomination!”

“And youhave listened too obediently to the Quinalt and the Bryalt. Your queen, and your subject, your one love, or there will be no love at all for you in this world. And you will, like Tristen, live long, very long. Will petty rules matter so much to you, I wonder, when you rule?”

“Well, it’s no matter,” he said with a shrug, “since the sun will come up in the west before I rule anything. Even Gran’s goats. We gave them all away, so I suppose I have no subjects.”

“The pride of a king, certainly,” his mother said.

“The face of one,” the young man said. “The bearing and the ma

“Perhaps it was a spell,” his mother said. “It could walk out of my cell, with him. He could carry it wherever he wished, right past the wards. I gave him many such gifts.”

That chilled him to the bone. He refused to think he had carried his mother’s curse home with him. If that were so, he wasto blame for the fire.

“Well, well,” the young man said. “You have reasoned with him as best you can. Let your sister set him at his lessons.”

“My sister,” his mother said, and spun full about, her skirts swirling. They came to rest, and she looked at him again, but with a she-wolf’s look, a terrible, burning stare, and a smile he had never seen on his mother’s face.

“Nephew,” those same lips said. “Listen to your mother.”

“Leave me alone.” Horror overwhelmed him. “You’re dead. You’ve been dead since I was born.”

“Tristen is ever so much older than that,” his aunt said, “and you had no fear of him. I assure you, you should have had. He did recognize you.”

“My dead aunt and a wisp,” he said, drawing himself up. “Small choice I have.”

“He only wishes to provoke us,” the man said with a tolerant smile. “Be patient. We have time. We have as much time as we wish to take.” Both winked out, with a little gust of wind that disturbed the fire, and left him with a curse in his mouth and nowhere to spit it.

He stood for a moment, in case they might come back and catch him collapsed onto a bench. He stood glaring at the fire, then settled himself with as much dignity as he could muster, given aching legs and frost-stung feet and hands and face. He felt the pain of his injuries now, a pain that grew and grew, and stung his eyes with indignation.

Anger was very, very close to the surface, anger enough to wreck the room, anger enough to fling himself at the shards of ice that barred the door, and die that way, if that was all that would spite them. He had no other hope.