Ember and Ash Read online

  Slowly, shaking, Ember clambered to her feet, edging back a little, away from the river. What kind of spell had Ash performed? It was as smooth as a millpond.

  Except for one last wave. Out of the corner of her eye, Ember saw it coming—down the cascade, down the stream, a running ridge approaching at a gallop.

  “Ash, ware!” she called. The wave hit the roots of the willow and curved up, higher than their heads, cutting off the sun, and splashed down—not on Ash, but just beyond him. The spray blinded them. When Ember blinked it away, the Prowman was standing on the willow road, where the wave had landed.

  He looked around quickly, getting his bearings. He was bone dry, even to his boots.

  “Starkling? What brings you here?” he asked Ash.

  “Elgir,” Ash said.

  They locked gazes for a moment, then the Prowman nodded.

  “My Lady Water has an arrangement with him, to guard his sanctuary,” he said, nodding at Ash’s bloody hand. “I am glad of it—it let me find you.”

  Ash had some relationship with Water? No. No, that couldn’t be right. She would have to ask him about that later. For now… Ember moved forward. “Why did you need to?”

  “To warn you,” he answered. “There is more at stake than we realized. The fires have gone out in all the Domains.”

  For a moment, Ember didn’t understand. Then she felt the magnitude of what he had said.

  “Why would Fire—?” she asked, bewildered.

  “He just doesn’t distinguish between the Domains,” the Prowman said. “To Him, they are all one.”

  Frowning, Ember stood by the Prowman, noting that he was still in the same clothes she had last seen him in, down to the cha stain on his shirt. As though it had only been a matter of hours instead of days.

  “The south is in less danger,” she said.

  “Not by much,” Cedar said thoughtfully.

  “A month or so,” Ash said.

  “How cold does it get in the south?” Ember asked. She wanted badly to get off this bridge, but the men seemed to feel quite safe, now, and she didn’t want to act like a coward.

  “Cold enough that to be without fire is dangerous,” the Prowman said, his singer’s voice grim. “Your people have nowhere to run to. You must not fail.”

  “That’s helpful,” Cedar said.

  The Prowman grimaced, acknowledging his tone, but he addressed Ember. “I will do what I can,” he said. “But the solution lies in Fire Mountain.”

  He looked out over the moving water. “I think the time has come to remind the Powers that the blood has been mixing for a thousand years now. To hurt one people is to hurt both.”

  Ember nodded. She’d thought much the same, standing between her mother and Sigurd, just before the—before Osfrid’s death. These were new times, since the Resettlement, and it was time to let go of the old divisions. Whether Fire would agree was another matter.

  To Ash, the Prowman added, “No need for the others to give blood. She will let them pass.”

  He nodded to the others and then simply stepped off the bridge into the river below. Ember rushed to the edge, but he was gone, as if he’d never been there.

  “That did happen, yes?” Ash joked, a smile twisting his mouth.

  She had to ask.

  “You are one of Water’s men?” she said, staring into his hazel eyes, willing him to say “No,” although she didn’t understand why it mattered to her so much. The wind was rising again, lifting his hair, drying their damp clothes.

  He shook his head. “Not at all,” he said. “But we have been… introduced.”

  A sharp satisfaction pierced her and she pushed back the curls which clung to her face, welcoming the cool breeze as it dried her. She reached for the kerchief in her pocket and wrapped it around his hand. He was all right.

  The fires were gone everywhere, across all the Domains.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “We have to hurry.”

  The Road from Foreverfroze

  There were altars along the way, notably at Oakmere, but Elva decided to wait until they were back at the fort before she approached the local gods about defending the domain against the Ice King.

  She had traveled for eighteen years with her mam before she had met Mabry, and she had talked with the gods the length and breadth of the nine southern domains in that time. She had learned a great deal which was hard to describe to anyone else—although perhaps Sealdaughter would understand—but one thing she did know was that the gods were truly local and, at the same time connected to the next world and to each other.

  The altars were at the heart of their power, and she suspected that they allowed the gods in different places to be connected; to know what each knew. But not to care about what each cared about. Although wherever she went the gods recognized her and welcomed her, it was not the same with other humans. The gods at the fort knew of Mabry, but did not yearn toward him as the ones in Hidden Valley did, eager for the images of beauty his mind created.

  So she thought that it was better to ask at the fort altar, where the gods were personally connected to the people she would be trying to protect. More likely to help. She hoped.

  Entering the Valuers’ Plantation was reassuring, like coming home from a foreign country into familiar lands. Lamb, the Council leader, was back from Palisade and welcomed her kindly even though she’d been roused from her bed. She listened to Sealmother’s plan gravely, then took Elva to a guest cottage and left her and Bass to rest while she spread the news.

  At dawn, Elva made her way to the black rock altar. Dawn light was harsh but not so strong that it caused her too much pain, and although she didn’t usually go to the dawn ritual, at the moment she felt the need for the familiar touch of the gods’ minds.

  The altar was surrounded with worried faces, but they were glad to see her. Elva prayed with them and the gods were there, right enough, so she reassured the Valuers about that, and it was like any dawn ritual, except that afterward the gods didn’t leave, but streamed toward the young man, Thyme, who had brought her food on her last visit. He stood shyly at the back, alone. Elva wasn’t sure if he was aware of the gods, but they certainly loved him, and she smiled at him as she went back to the cottage, too tired to talk to him right now. He looked confused to be singled out, and she felt maternal toward him. Mabry always laughed at her for that: “You’d mother the whole world if you could,” he teased, and it was true enough, she sometimes thought. This boy looked as if he could do with some mothering.

  In the later morning, after a nap, it was cloudy enough for Elva to go outside, as long as she wore a hat to shield her eyes from glare. With not much surprise, she found Thyme sitting on a log down by the mill stream drawing with a stick of charcoal on the back of a smooth board. The curve of water and the turbulence where the millrace met the main stream were taking shape under his hand. She had seen Mabry work like this, silent and concentrated on the wood he carved, but this boy reminded her more of Ash, the Prowman, as he had stood in front of them one night, reciting poems with such power that she had seemed to hear and feel and even smell everything he described.

  “Thyme,” she said. He jumped and turned, an expression of alarm vanishing when he saw who it was.

  She sat down beside him on the cool wood and smiled reassuringly. He was only about the same age as her youngest, Gorse, about fifteen, maybe, and still mightily shy of strangers.

  “I have a question for you,” she said. “Do the gods speak to you?”

  He flushed, and ducked his head.

  “My da says prayin’s women’s work,” he muttered, in a thick northern accent. “He reckons gods don’t do no one no good, it’s hard work gets results.”

  Wonderful.

  “And I suppose he doesn’t approve of your drawing, either?” Elva asked.

  He shrugged, that one-shouldered shrug young ones use to agree without committing themselves to words.

  “Your da is right, in some ways,” she said. He ha
dn’t expected that; his head came up in astonishment. “The gods won’t help those who don’t work; and they don’t really care all that much about individual humans unless those humans are special, somehow.” She paused, let the silence deepen. “As you are special.” He blinked with shy pleasure. “You speak to the gods, don’t you, Thyme?”

  He nodded, his head going back down again, half-ashamed and half-excited.

  “Excellent,” she said briskly. “We are going to need you.”

  He sat up and brushed the unruly yellow hair from his eyes. “Why?” This time his voice was high and unguarded, like the boy he was.

  “It will get colder, and colder still, and at some point we will have to fight, to hold Ice at bay. I will be the center of the fight, at the fort, but we will all have to work together. The gods here will tell you when the time comes, and what you have to do, but you must be ready to do it, no matter what your da says—or everyone here might die.”

  His eyes were huge.

  “But—”

  “I’ve spoken to the council here; they know what to expect. You’ll have support.”

  That scared him almost as much as it reassured him. Elva smiled and patted his arm, put on her best mam’s voice.

  “Don’t worry, lad, we’ll be fine. Just don’t go too far afield. Make sure you’re where you can hear the gods.”

  He nodded, struck dumb by the responsibility. Sometimes, Elva thought, your life changes in a few moments, who you are shifts completely, and that had just happened to him. “The gods trust you,” she said softly, “and so do I.”

  As she left he stared blankly at his drawing, and then, as though compelled, began to sketch in the small curves of primroses on the bank. Emblems of spring. Of coming warmth. She hoped, for his sake, that the flowers would survive Ice.

  Starkling

  The weight on Ember’s shoulders seemed almost physical. The whole Eleven Domains. In the back of her mind she had kept the south as a way out—if she failed, at least her people could go there; they would lose everything they had built in the north, but they would not die. Now there was no refuge anywhere.

  The river flowed calmly beneath them, occasionally flicking her face with spray, and the willow branches lifted from the great roots and trunk like a fan, creating a living screen which trembled gently with each breath of wind. She was in a tree. No doubt. But although her eyes knew that, to her feet it felt like solid ground.

  Ash went first, and they followed him, the river sweet and gentle below.

  Two-thirds of the way across there was an intricate entanglement of trunks—the other tree was an alder, and its paler, smoother bark swept in curls and knots around the crinkled willow.

  Ember paused before she stepped across onto the alder. Here, in the middle of the stream, she could feel a faint swaying from the trees, and the river rushing below seemed a long way down. Yet her fear had left her, and even the horses went across calmly. Ember took the step onto the smooth gray bark, and felt a small shudder run through the alder.

  The alder still had its catkins, busy with bees, but its leaves were growing, so that they walked down into a darker green than the willow, a rushing windy green where leaves tossed on side branches and Ember’s hair was lifted into a plume that streamed downriver. The breeze was making Ash’s clothes billow and puff, but he kept his jacket snug over Merry’s eyes.

  Ahead of them, Cedar had reached the other side and leaped down, his chestnut scrambling off eagerly and immediately beginning to crop the sweet grass by the base of the tree.

  Tern was next, and then it was her turn. The alder roots were not as long as the willow’s, so the angle was steeper here and Thatch chose to simply jump off, pulling Ember down with her. It was a wild leap. Her arms flailed at the air and she tumbled, letting go of the reins, but she fell onto grass and lay, winded, staring up at the intricate lattice of alder branches which shut out the sky.

  Ash led Merry down more carefully, but he didn’t come over to see how she was. He stood still, staring at something. His bow was in his hands, arrow at the ready.

  “Princess,” he said, his tone making her scramble to her feet and whirl to follow his gaze.

  A man watched them from the edge of the alder’s shade. His face was in shadow and his hands were hidden. He was more a silhouette than a figure. Tall, very tall. Brown. Brown clothes, leather maybe, brown hair, long to his shoulders and shaggy, browned skin. Her eyes adjusted some more to the light and she began to make out his features.

  A long, solemn face, not young but not old, deep-set eyes. Brown eyes. Eyes that lit with amusement as she brushed her clothes off and tried to regain her dignity. Oh, she knew those eyes.

  “My lord Elgir,” she said, her voice as tart as Martine’s ever had been, scolding a dairymaid. “How nice to see you finally in your own body.” She paused for a beat, judging it carefully. “That is your own, is it not?”

  Amusement broke out across his whole face, transforming it from solemn to mischievous.

  “Aye, this is me, for what it’s worth.” His voice was as dark as his hair, but soft, like fur. A voice that gave nothing away. He came forward and Ash moved instinctively to stand beside her, but she put a reassuring hand on his forearm. There might be danger here, but Elgir wouldn’t just attack her. “I’m sorry if you resented my other form—most wouldn’t have noticed.”

  He clicked his fingers to the dogs and Grip immediately pranced up to sniff his hand and be scratched behind the ears. Holdfast held back, tail down as if she weren’t sure of what she was smelling.

  “We have been forced to notice more than that,” Ember said, unrelenting. “Where is my man Curlew?”

  “The one who tried to ride past my guards?” he asked, smiling with disarming candor. “He’s in the high trees, I think.” He gestured beyond the curtain of leaves and Ember looked out. The curve of the river had brought them around so far that the ridge which had been on their right now stretched up ahead of them. It was crowned with trees, enormous things which stood higher, surely, than any mortal tree could.

  Elgir glanced at Cedar, who was staring at him intently, and smiled a small, secret smile. “They’re cedars,” he said. Cedar blinked and looked up at the far trees, drawing a breath as though there was some significance to their species.

  “You are not going to turn into a tree,” Ember said firmly. She glared at Elgir. “Don’t even think about it!”

  He was taken aback. “Turn into a tree?” he said. “Why would he do that?” He had been thrown off balance by the idea, and Ember was glad of that. Better off balance than laughing at them.

  “It happens,” she said shortly. “Take me to my man, if you please, my lord.”

  “Well,” he said slowly, “I’ll take you to the high trees, but from there you must go alone. I’m no hand at climbing.”

  “It’s hard, when you’re used to four feet, isn’t it?” she asked sweetly, and he shot her a look that was a mixture of surprise and admiration. She’d seen that look before, in younger men who had thought to cozen the warlord’s daughter and found it was harder than they’d anticipated. The memories bolstered her confidence. Strange it might be, but this was a warlord’s stronghold and, in some way, she was back in known territory. A place for civilized conversation, which her mother always said was more vicious than any battle. She was gripped by urgency, the need to move and move quickly.

  As they walked out of the alder’s shade and along a clear path through the long grass, she became less certain that she was anywhere near civilization. The meadowland near the river was broken up further back into a series of glades, bounded and linked by trees. She’d thought them coppices, earlier, the kind of managed wood all villages had nearby, but now she saw the trees in them were too old and huge to have ever been coppiced.

  Yet, they had been managed. Like the bridge, the growth of these trees had been controlled, twisted into shapes more like houses than living plants. Some had branches growing straight and flat
from the trunk, and these had platforms made of intertwined boughs, so closely laced that it was like good wickerwork, but solid as a floor. A small child sat on one of these, her bottom resting amid living leaves, her hand stroking a small branch as another child might stroke a cat.

  Ember paused, looking up at the child, who stared back down at her with interest. The first human apart from Elgir they’d seen—or was she? There was something about the texture of her skin, a slight shimmer that reminded Ember of heat haze on a road, or moonlight on water.

  “Hello,” Ember said. Elgir looked on, his face unreadable, but his stance relaxed.

  The child opened her mouth and replied, but the sound was more like birdsong than language. Ash laughed, delighted, and the girl smiled at him.

  “Hello,” she said to him. “This is my tree.” There was an accent to her words and she said them carefully, as a stranger to the language might. But her pride in the tree was unmistakable.

  “It’s beautiful,” Ash said. She nodded and rose, climbing swiftly up, showing off as children did. Her face peered down at them from behind leaves, and she smiled again, then disappeared, giggling.

  “Your daughter?” Ember asked Elgir politely.

  “I have no children,” he said.

  He led the way forward, staying just a little ahead of Ember as they kept on, passing trees which had grown into rooms and towers, the long sinuous branches curling and twining so that there were no straight lines anywhere. Lime trees, beeches, elms, even oaks had been coaxed or enchanted into use. Not every tree, not every group of trees. The birches were too small, the aspens too weak, and willows were uncommon, it seemed, away from the river. But chestnuts and walnuts, and old, old alders. In one copse, several yews made an aerial village, their branches forming corridors as well as rooms, the boughs forming a lattice for a may hedge, dripping white with blossom. And on the outside of most of the clumps, fruit trees grew: cherry and apple and pear. She wondered what it would be like to wake up in a bed surrounded by cherry blossom.