He’d caught one of the fevers once, when he was a boy. He remembered feeling sick at Raf’s house, tugging on Raf’s mother’s skirts to tell her he’d better go home, then waking up in his pabbi’s bed what turned out to be days later. He could still see the expression on his father’s face when he’d come to—relief and exhaustion and love.
It was the same look he saw when he peeled his eyes open after the smoke cleared from his mind, but on a feminine face.
That was when he believed it. Believed her. That she was his mother.
Her fingers brushed the hair from his forehead, as warm as the water in whatever bath they’d spoken of. “Feeling better, Niki?”
He lifted a hand, glanced at it expecting to see water sluicing off—but it was lava that clung to him. Pushing up to sitting, he realized he was completely submerged in the stuff…and it felt like nothing more than his favorite hot spring. “How long have I been in here?”
“A couple hours. Dae, Logi, and Ember just returned.” She took the hand he’d left hanging there in the air, folding his fingers over hers. “I never would have left you of my own volition. I need you to know that. I realize you don’t even remember me, that you thought I was dead. But I thought of you every day. Prayed you were safe and well and happy. I never stopped missing you and your father, not for a minute.”
Nik had no idea what to say. He didn’t remember her. Not her face, not the sound of her voice, not the fear and confusion his not-quite-two-year-old self must have experienced when she left him with his pabbi in the workshop and never came home. All he knew was the empty chair she’d left at their table, the empty shell Pab had become in her absence, the empty spot in his ownchest when Raf stopped to pick wildflowers for his modur every spring and Nik could only add his own to his friend’s bouquet.
But she needed something more than that, he could see it in her eyes. So he offered what he could. “Pab never stopped loving you. Never remarried, though plenty of opportunities came along.”
His mother’s eyes slid shut, but his words hadn’t brought her comfort, from the look on her face. “The king said—is it true? He bombed the palace? Killed Andresa and her eldest two children?”
He’d had no reason to doubt it, every reason to believe it. Though at this point, he questioned everything. “So it seems. He was…angry. Always. So focused on making the Fjorders give us our due that it was all he could see. What we lacked instead of what we had.” He still didn’t know why his father had mentioned Nik to the king before setting off the bomb. Why would he implicate him? Thoughts he’d pushed away during his imprisonment, not wanting to let in anything that would lead to bitterness.
Thoughts that clanged too loudly now.
Pain creased her brow, but she opened her eyes again. “He always inclined that way. Though I did too. His passion for our people was one of the things that drew me to him. But enough of that.” Her cheer was clearly forced, yes, but still it brought a flicker of almost-memory. “Tell me aboutyou. Are you wed? Children? I imagine at your age, you have a farm of your own.”
“No.” His life had always felt full. Worthwhile. But looking back on it now, seeing how little there was to tell… “Neither farming nor mining held any allure, and Pab sold off our land when I was a boy anyway. I’d have joined the kyrka, had there been openings. The law even, had thanes been allowed. Brother Gylfi—did you know him?”
Her smile went genuine, proving she did. “Of course! Everyone in Harroby knew Brother Gylfi. And his wife’s pastries, of course. As legendary as his wisdom.”
“Sister Dagny passed into the Beyond when I was a lad. I think perhaps that’s why Brother Gylfi agreed to teach both Raf and me, even though he shouldn’t have. I spent my days in the library of an abandoned kyrka, with Brother Gylfi guiding my studies, and Raf has learned how to make the old mosaic-glass windows and build in the old ways too. His name is on a list to receive lands in the next dome to open, but until then, he is without prospects. He’s a fifth son.”
Without inheritance. The law only allowed for division of land into quarters.
“My son—a scholar.” She straightened and drew in a breath that puffed her chest out in pride. “Though I admit, I’m surprised some pretty girl hasn’t snagged you yet. You’re as handsome as your father. Or…?” Her good humor fled. “You and the queen seem close. Tell me that wasn’t part of the plot, Nikanor. If you sought her affections to use them against her while your father—”
“What? No!” He pulled his hand free and rubbed it over his face. “No. I only met her a few weeks ago. A month, now, I guess. Raf’s been infatuated with her forever. We saw her on the street as soon as we crossed the Ice Bridge, and he chased her down for an icograph. That’s when the bomb went off, so we came with her to help search for survivors.”
When his mother lifted her brows like that, she at least looked older than him. “And that’s why you reached for her hand? Why she clung to yours?”
Whyhadhe reached for her fingers? Perhaps he’d just sought the soothing her ice could bring to his fevered body.
Or perhaps it was because she’d proven herself to be exactly who she’d seemed. Even more. Perhaps it was because she wasthe only Blessed he’d ever heard of who fought for a better way—and won. Perhaps it was because she was the only woman he’d ever met who’d been told the worst about him but deemed him worth knowing anyway.
Perhaps, too, it was because the moment her blood mixed with his, a fire had lit inside that felt far different from the lava’s call, yet just as strong. Not that he was going to tell his mother that.
“We worked for hours together in the rubble, developed a rhythm. We spoke daily in the prison, and she defended me in my mockery of a trial. Finished my Awakening.” He pulled his left hand from the lava. The mark glowed from the heat. “Her father used the flint on me. But he’d have sent me over that cliff without finishing the ceremony. Why, if he’s been forcing you all to labor for him? Why wouldn’t he want to condemn me to that punishment too?”
Elianne pressed her lips together and rocked onto her feet. He realized only then that whatever chamber they were in had a rocky tub that rose out of a sunken floor, basalt benches lining the wall. She paced to an opening that led into another tunnel, then pivoted and paced back. “The others have their theories—I don’t honestly know. He sent me here without any criminal charges, without a trial. But none since me have survived the fall. I don’t know if that means they were like us but not Awakened, or if they were just ordinary revolutionaries given the worst possible punishment. But clearly many of us have the potential in our blood. I suppose it just goes undetected unless there’s a Test or as part of a criminal trial.”
“In both Daryatla and the Sunken Kingdom, everyone is tested for magic. Perhaps Kyrja will start doing the same here, so that anyone with this fire inside can be trained to use it.”
Elianne winced. “Mastery is a long process, and not without pain. Be aware of that now. Perhaps it’s different with water orwind—but I felt like I was dying off and on for years. Sometimes the lava would feel pleasant and welcoming. Other times, especially if I hadn’t bathed in it recently, I’d feel as though fever were eating me alive, and I’d fantasize about snow and ice. Anything to cool me down.”
It sounded as though the secret, then, was in frequent submersion. Which meant what? That he’d have to live inside this mountain? Or at least visit it daily?
The others hadn’t had any other option, he supposed.
He sat up a little more, though when he spotted the black leather folded on the bench, he had no desire to emerge from the lava while his mother was there beside him. “I need to go back to the surface. Find Raf. He’ll know my trial was set—he must be fearing the worst.”
“For good reason.” The new voice came from the tunnel, and a moment later, Daemon stepped through the opening. He looked just as fierce as he had before. His gaze took in Nik, presumably to check his health, then moved to Elianne. “The new queen has given us the streams I’ve always asked for, removed the ice wall, and told us we will be free to come and go between Below and Above. Though she did ask that we wait until she has time to explain our existence to the people. So that, and I quote her obnoxious friend here, we ‘won’t scare the children into hiding.’”
