2 A VOICE LIKE WINTER

2

A VOICE LIKE WINTER

Andry

He’d traded away his chain mail for food a week ago. His green-and-gold tunic was little more than a rag, torn and crusted with blood, dirt, and dust from the long journey home. Andry Trelland knelt as best he could without collapsing, every limb trembling with exhaustion. It was well past midnight in the capital, and weeks of riding had more than taken their toll. A stone floor had never looked so inviting.

Only fear of sleep kept his eyes open.

The nightmares wait for me,he thought. The nightmares and the whispers both. They had haunted him since the temple, since the slaughter that left him alive and so many heroes dead. Red hands, white faces, the smell of burning flesh. He blinked, trying to force away the memory. And now a voice like winter stabbing me through.

Two knights of the Lionguard flanked the empty throne, their golden armor glowing with candlelight. Andry knew them both. Sir Eiros Edverg and Sir Hyle of Gilded Hill. They were compatriots to the knights fallen, whose corpses were somewhere in the foothills, lost to the mud. They stared at him but did not speak, though Andry saw concern on both their faces. He looked at the stone beneath him, tracing the patterns of tile while he waited in blistering silence.

Andry knew the sound of men in armor. They clanked and stamped in their steel, marching toward the throne room from the Queen’s own residence. When the door to her apartments swung open, spitting out a diamond formation of knights, Andry clenched his teeth so tightly they nearly shattered. His eyes stung; his heart sank. He braced himself for a fresh wash of pain.

The others died and died poorly. The least you can do is hold your ground.

It was no wonder so many vied for the Queen of Galland’s hand in marriage. She was young and beautiful, nineteen years old with fine bones, porcelain skin, ash-brown hair, and the silver-blue eyes of her late father, Konrad III. She had his steel spine too. Even though she seemed small in her robe and nightclothes, without a crown or majestic jewels, her presence was dominating. She peered sharply at Andry between the gaps in her Lionguard, never taking her eyes off him as she sank onto her throne.

Her velvety green robe pooled around her, falling like a beautiful gown. She leaned forward on her elbows, fingers clasped together. She only wore the ring of state, a dark emerald set in gold, rough-cut and hundreds of years old. In the dim light, it seemed black as the creatures’ eyes, yawning like an abyss.

“Your Majesty,” Andry murmured, bowing his head.

Queen Erida looked him over, her gaze piercing. Her eyes snagged on his tunic, reading the stains like she would a book.

“Squire Trelland, please rise,” she said, her voice gentle but echoing in the long, ornate room. Her blue gaze softened as Andry clambered to his feet, shaky on his legs. “The road has not been kind to you. Do you need a moment? A meal, a bath? My doctor can be called.”

“No, Your Majesty.” Andry glanced down at himself. He felt unclean from head to toe, unfit to stand before the Queen of his country. “The blood is not my own.”

The knights shifted, glancing among themselves with wary eyes. Andry could guess as to their thoughts. The blood belonged to their brothers, knights of the Lionguard who would never come home.

Erida did not falter. “Have you seen your mother yet?” she asked, still staring.

The squire shook his head. He looked at his boots, flecked with mud and stinking of horse. “It’s late, she’ll be sleeping, and she sorely needs whatever rest she can find.” He remembered the hacking cough that often woke his mother in the night. “I can wait until morning.”

The Queen nodded. “Are you able to tell me what happened to you?” Andry felt the question like the cut of a knife. “And to our dear friends?”

White faces, red hands, black armor, knives dripping blood, ash and smoke and rot—

His mouth worked but no words came, his lips parting and closing. Andry wished to turn and run. His fingers trembled and he tucked them away, folding his hands behind his back in the typical pose of a courtier. He raised his head and set his jaw, trying to be strong.

The least you can do is hold your ground,he thought again, the admonishment searing.

“Leave us,” Erida said suddenly, looking around at her flanking knights. The young woman went fierce as the lion on her flag, both hands curled on the arms of her throne. She bore the ring of state like a shield.

The Lionguard did not move, stunned.

Andry felt the same. The Queen went very few places without her sworn knights, guardians to the death. His eyes snapped back and forth, weighing the will of the Queen against the will of her warriors.

Sir Hyle sputtered, his pink face going pinker. “Your Majesty—”

“The boy is traumatized. He doesn’t need nine of you looming over him,” she answered swiftly, without so much as a blink. Her focus shifted back to the squire, her sharp eyes pressing into him. A sadness pulled at her pale face. “I’ve known Andry Trelland all his life. He’ll be a knight alongside the rest of you in a few years’ time. Leaving me with him is the same as leaving me with any of you.”

Despite all he had seen and suffered, Andry could not help but feel a swell of pride in his chest, albeit short-lived. Knights do not fail, and I have certainly done that, he thought. The Lionguard must have shared the same opinion. They hesitated as one, unmoving in their golden armor and green cloaks.

Erida was undeterred and undeniable. Her ring hand curled into a fist. “Do as your queen commands,” she said, her countenance stony.

This time, Sir Hyle did not argue. Instead he dropped into a short, stilted bow, and with a twist of his gloved fingers beckoned the other confused knights to follow. They tramped from the room, a cacophony of steel and iron and swishing fabric.

Only when the door to her apartments was safely shut behind them did the Queen drop her shoulders, curling inward. She waited another moment, then exhaled a long, slow breath. She seemed to shift back into herself, becoming a woman barely more than a child, not a queen with four years of rule behind her.

For a split second, Andry saw her as she’d been in her youth: a princess born, but still without the burdens of a crown. She loved sailing, he remembered. All the children of the palace, noble cousins and page boys and little maidens, used to accompany her out into Mirror Bay. They would pretend to run the boat, practicing their knots and pushing around sails. But not Erida. She would sit at the helm and point, directing the real crew over the water.

Now she directed the country, and she was pointing at him.

“I answered the Elder call,” she said in a low, raw voice. Her eyes went oddly bright, shimmering with the candles. One of her hands slipped into her robes and drew back out, clutching a roll of parchment.

Andry swallowed hard. He wanted to burn that infernal piece of paper.

She unfurled it with shaking hands, her eyes blazing over the inked message. At the edge of the page, the ancient seal of Iona was still there, stamped in broken green wax. By now the sight of it turned his stomach, and the memory it brought forth was even worse.

Sir Grandel and the Norths knelt before the Queen on her throne. She was resplendent in her court finery and dazzling crown. Andry knelt with them, some yards behind, the only squire to accompany the knights into the audience chamber. For what purpose, he did not know, but he could guess. The Norths were always a bit more . . .self- sufficient than Sir Grandel, who seemed to want a squire’s aid for every task big or small. If the Queen had a command for Sir Grandel Tyr, certainly Andry Trelland would be made to follow on his heels.

The squire kept his head bowed, glimpsing the Queen only from the edges of his vision. She was as green and golden as her knights, with a strange parchment in her hands.

In an instant, Andry saw the seal, the crude image of a stag stamped deep. He racked his memory, sifting through lords and great families, their heraldry well known to even a page boy. But none matched.

“This is a summons,” the Queen said, turning the letter over.

On his knees, Sir Edgar blanched. “Who would dare summon the Queen of Galland, the greatest crown upon the Ward? The glory of Old Cor reborn?”

Queen Erida tipped her head. “What do you know of Elders?”

The knights sputtered, exchanging bewildered glances.

Sir Grandel laughed outright, shaking back brown hair flecked with gray. “A story for children, Your Majesty,” he chortled. “A fairy tale.”

Andry dared to look up. The Queen did not smile, her lips pursed into a grim line.

This was no joke.

“Immortals, my lady,” Andry heard himself answer. His voice trembled. “Born of the Spindles, having passed into Allward from another realm. But they were trapped, the doorway to their home closing not long after they arrived. The Elders are stranded in our realm, if they even still exist here at all.”Impossible beings, rare as unicorns, never to be glimpsed by my own eyes.

“A fairy tale,” Sir Grandel said again, shooting a glare at his squire.

Heat flushed in Andry’s cheeks and he dropped his head again. It was not like him to speak out of turn, and he expected a sharp rebuke from both his lord and the Queen.

It never came.

“Stories and tales all have roots in truth, Sir Grandel,” the Queen answered coolly. “And I would like to know the truth of this.” The letter caught the candlelight of the throne room, aglow. “One who calls herself the Monarch of Iona bids us greeting, and humbly asks for aid.”

Sir Grandel scoffed. “Aid? What can this decrepit old witch think to demand of you?”

Andry could hear the smile in Queen Erida’s voice. “Care to find out?”

“Would that I had ignored their call, and my own curiosity,” she mumbled, still glaring at the page. If she’d had any Spindle magic in her, the letter would have burst into flames long ago.

“How could anyone have known?” Andry whispered. I certainly did not. Even when they warned of danger and doom for the realm. It seemed a lifetime ago, though only a few months had passed.

The days flew by in his mind, a blur. The road to Iona, the great halls of their ancient city, the council of Elders and mortals alike. Then the trail of heroes marching into the wilderness, all of them doomed.

Andry blinked furiously to clear his eyes and head.

The Queen lowered her eyes, running her thumb over the emerald ring.

“I sent you to them, and into danger,” she whispered. “The blame for whatever befell Sir Grandel and the Norths is mine. Do not take this burden onto yourself, Andry.” Her voice cracked. “Give it to me.”

The moments slid by like leaves in a fast current, but Erida waited with the patience of a stone. Andry fought to speak, the words slow and reluctant in his throat.

“In Iona, the Elders—the Monarch—she told us a sword had been stolen from their vaults,” he forced out, the tale spilling from him in a torrent. He tried not to be pulled under. “A Spindle­blade, forged in a realm beyond the Ward, imbued with the power of the Spindles themselves. The one who took it, a man named Taristan, is a descendant of Old Cor, with Spindleblood in his own veins. With the blood and the sword together, he could rip open a Spindle long since closed, tear a doorway between our realm and another, to whatever lay beyond.”

Queen Erida’s eyes widened, the whites like a moon eclipsed by blue.

“He was headed for an ancient Elder temple in the mountains, some miles south of the Gates of Trec. The last known location of a Spindle crossing.” Andry gritted his teeth. “Thirteen of us went forth to stop him.” The first tear fell, hot and furious on his cheek. “And twelve died.”

The throne room echoed with his voice, his rage and sorrow. His loss carried up the columns and into the chandeliers of wrought iron and flickering candles. Andry’s fists balled at his sides, his resolve threatening to crumble. But he pushed on, retelling the slaughter of his Companions, the failure of Cortael, the smell of immortal blood, and a burned realm spewing a corpse-like army. The red wizard, the sword through Taristan’s chest, and his leering white smile. How Sir Grandel stumbled and fell, never to stand again. How the squire could only watch and run away with little more than his own skin.

Andry expected the cold whispers to rise with his memories, but there was only his own voice to fill his head.

“I should have fought,” he hissed, glaring at his ruined boots. “It was my duty.”

Erida slapped her hand against the throne, the noise jarring and slick as a whipcrack. Andry looked up to find her staring, her nostrils flared.

“You came home. You survived,” she said firmly. “And what’s more, you’ve delivered a very important message.” With a will, she stood, her robe flowing around her. She stepped lightly, descending from the dais to join Andry on the stones. “I’ve spent more time studying diplomacy and languages than Spindle lore. But I know my histories. Allward was a realm of crossing once, subject to great magic and terrible monsters, we mortals warring with dangers we must never face again. That cannot come to pass. If what you say is true, if this Taristan can cut open Spindles long dead, then he is very dangerous indeed, and he has an army at his back.”

“The likes of which none of us have ever seen,” Andry admitted, feeling the pull of their hands again. The creatures of Taristan’s army shrieked in his head, their voices like scraping metal and cracking bone. “I know it sounds impossible.”

“I have never known you to be a liar, Andry Trelland. Not even when we were children, fibbing to the cooks for extra desserts.” She drew a breath and dipped her head. “I am sorry for what you have lost.”

Though her junior by two years, Andry was much taller than the Queen. But somehow she was able to look up at him without seeming small.

“They were your own knights, not mine,” he said.

“That’s not what I meant,” the Queen murmured softly, looking him over again. Andry saw the same young girl in her eyes, set apart from the rest of the children. Eager to smile and laugh and play, but isolated too. Forever marked as a princess, without the freedoms of a page boy or a maiden or even a servant child.

The young girl vanished with the tightening of her jaw. “You will speak of this to no one, Squire,” she added, turning back to her throne.

Without thinking, Andry followed quickly on her heels, his gut churning. We were caught off guard. That cannot happen again. “People must be warned—”

Erida did not falter, her voice stern and unyielding. She knew how to make herself heard.

“The Spindles are myth to most, legends and fairy stories, as vanished as Elders or unicorns or any other great magic born of other realms. To speak of one returned, torn open, and a man who would wield it like a spear into our hearts? A man who cannot be harmed at the head of a corpse army?” She glanced at Andry over her shoulder, her gaze like two sapphires. “I am ruler of Galland, but I am a queen, not a king. I must be careful in what I say, and what weapons I give my enemies. I will not give anyone cause to call me weak-minded or mad,” she snapped, clearly upset. “I cannot move without proof. Even then, it would cause panic in my capital. And panic in a city of half a million souls will kill more than any army that walks the Ward. I must be careful indeed.”

Ascal was a bloated metropolis, sprawling across the many islands in the delta of the Great Lion. The streets were crowded, the markets overrun, the canals dirty, and the bridges prone to collapse. There had been riots after King Konrad died: opposition to a girl assuming his throne. Fires in the slums, floods at the ports. Disease. Bad harvests. Religious upheaval between the dedicant orders. A criminal underbelly thick as smoke. Nothing compared to what comes, Andry knew. Nothing compared to what Taristan can do.

He gritted his teeth. “I don’t understand” was all he could muster, running up against the wall of the Queen’s resolve.

It was not to be climbed.

“It isn’t for you to understand, Andry,” she said, knocking on the door to her apartments. It swung open to show her Lionguard knights waiting in the passage beyond, rigid in their armored rows. “You need only obey.”

There was no argument to be had with the Queen of Galland.

Andry bowed at the waist, biting back every retort rising in his throat. “Very well, Your Majesty,” he said.

She paused, the knights shifting into formation as she took one last look at the squire. “Thank you for coming home.” Her face was bittersweet. “At least your mother won’t have another knight to bury.”

I’m not a knight. And I never will be.

His heart tightened in his chest. “A small mercy.”

“May the gods protect us from whatever comes of this,” Erida murmured, turning away.

The door slammed shut, and Andry all but ran from the throne room, eager to tear off his clothes and scrub away the last few weeks. Anger overtook his sorrow long enough to propel him through the passages of the New Palace, his feet guiding him down familiar halls.

The gods had their chance.

Asleep, Lady Valeri Trelland did not look ill. She was tucked in comfortably, a fine silk sleeping cap pulled over her hair. She wore no cares upon her face, the skin around her mouth and eyes relaxed. She seemed younger by decades, still a beauty despite the sickness burrowing in her body. They had similar faces, Andry and his mother. Her skin was darker, a polished ebony, but they shared the same high cheekbones and full lips, and their hair, thick, black, and curly. It was an odd thing for the squire to look into a mirror and see his mother. Odder still to see what she’d been before the sickness came, reaching with wet hands for the candle burning so brightly inside her.

She rattled a breath, and he winced, feeling the raw edge of her pain in his own throat.

Sleep, Mother,he willed, counting the seconds as her chest rose and fell. He braced for a coughing attack, but it never came.

Her bedchamber was hot, the air close, with the firewood piled high in the hearth. Andry sweated in his fresh clothes but did not move from his spot on the wall, wedged between a tapestry and a narrow window.

Even with the fire, he felt the cold, the icy finger of dread running down his spine.

It must be hidden.

The whispers spoke with a voice like winter, brittle and cracking. They were a woman, a man, a child, a crone. Impossible to pin down. He shivered as they returned, rising to a howl inside his head.

It is hidden!he wanted to shout, his jaw clenched tight. The cold played along his ribs.

It must not be spoken of.

His teeth gnashed. I said nothing of it. Not to anyone. Not even the Queen, he answered. It felt like madness. It could be madness, born of slaughter and sorrow.

The voices had first come on the road home, with the Elder stallion beneath him and the Spindleblade lashed to his saddle. He nearly fell from the horse but pushed on, trying to outrun what was already in his head. No matter how far or how fast he rode, they never left him behind.

There was laughter and sadness in the whispers, both in equal measure. This you are bidden, they hissed, letting the words carry over him. Keep it hidden.

Andry wanted to brush the voices away but remained pressed against the wall. He would not break his silent vigil, keeping watch over his ailing mother.

And the Spindleblade concealed beneath her bed, a secret to all but Andry Trelland.