When we are eventually dismissed, my brothers file wordlessly out of the door, but I remain behind, rubbing my scar hard enough to bruise the skin.
I don’t look at Grandmother as she crosses the room and sits down beside me. When she speaks, her voice is gentle. ‘Forgive me.’
I do look at her now. ‘For what?’
‘For ensuring Flint’s training and neglecting yours,’ she says. ‘For wanting to protect you, from yourself as much as anything. For hoping that this day would never come.’
‘Grandmother …’ I begin, but I trail off, because I don’t know what to say.
‘Perhaps last night could have been avoided if only I’d acted sooner,’ she continues. ‘Perhaps you would not be feeling so helpless in the face of what lies ahead if only I’d made sure that you had been taught about your gifts and how to control them.’
‘But how, Grandmother?’ I say bitterly. ‘Before last night, I couldn’t freeze so much as an ice cube. And as for my rain, they may call me the Storm Weaver, but since that storm, the most I’ve ever been able to summon is drizzle. And even then, that’s only when I’m thinking about –’ I stop myself.
Grandmother stares at me, eyes blazing. ‘Go on.’
I swallow, feeling somehow more exposed than I did yesterday at the dress fitting, standing in this very parlour in my underclothes. ‘Mother,’ I whisper eventually. ‘It only drizzles when I’m thinking about Mother.’
The silence is abrasive. It rubs me raw.
Grandmother breaks it. ‘All love has its price. The cost can be crippling. Yet if what you say is true, then you have found a way to turn pain into power.’
Her words are the spark of a match at the end of a tunnel, but I shake my head, stamping out the hope before it can spread. ‘It’s just drizzle.’
‘There is no limit to what you can do or how you can feel, Blaze. Your gifts were never gone for good. They are a part of you.’
I run the tips of my fingers over my glowing brandmark. ‘I thought I was empty.’
Grandmother smiles. ‘You have never been, nor will you ever be.’
I bite the inside of my cheek. ‘I’m afraid.’
‘I know you are. But you must promise me something.’
I look up at her.
‘You must embrace it,’ she says. ‘Fear, sorrow, anger, joy, you must embrace it all. Don’t bury your emotions. You cannot hide from your heart. That is where your power lies; that is what will guide you.’ Her expression softens. ‘To feel is to be alive, Blaze. And I swear to you that no matter what, it is better to feel everything than to feel nothing.’
A familiar tightness lodges itself in my chest.
If to feel is to be alive, then to be alive is to hurt. And if I were to surrender myself to the pain I keep buried deepinside of me, I’m scared it would drown me. That is why I deny and deflect. That is why I have not shed a single tear since the day my mother died.
Grandmother claims I cannot hide from my heart, yet I have spent nearly seven years trying to.
But her gaze is unrelenting, and I yield beneath it.
‘I promise.’
Grandmother takes my hands, my brandmark shining between us. ‘Fate has many faces, my darling one,’ she says. ‘Make sure you look them all in the eye.’
7
Iwalk alone through a dark passageway upon a carpet of fallen leaves, their skeletons bone-dry and brittle. Something gold glimmers in the darkness beyond.
I hear a whisper. My name.
Blaze.
A sharp pain shoots through me. I look down to find that the leaves have become pieces of broken glass. With every step my feet are sliced and shredded. I watch, horrified, as hot blood pours on to shards of crimson ice.
