Beasts of the Frozen Sun Read online

  I was conscious of nothing beyond my brother’s broken body.

  I crawled to Rhys, shaking him, screaming at him. He was still, his eyes open, staring at nothing. I wrapped him in my arms, rocking back and forth, babbling—apologies that came too late, promises I couldn’t keep. How much time passed, I couldn’t say. I barely registered the sound of my name, shouted, then whispered. I fought against the hands that touched me, the arms that tried to pull me from Rhys.

  The darkness was lit with torches, Father’s and Garreth’s faces swimming within the bright wash of light: pale and exhausted, covered in small injuries, spattered with blood.

  “Where were you?” I said. “You should’ve been here. You let this happen.”

  It was unfair, but I couldn’t stop. There was too much pain inside me.

  Garreth loosened my grip, and Father lifted Rhys from my lap, laying him on the ground. Father stared down at his youngest child with such despair that it shattered my heart anew. Then it disappeared, replaced by his stoic commander’s mask.

  “Go to the healers,” Father said. “You both need tending.”

  I didn’t want to leave Rhys; I wanted to live in this moment a little longer, because it was the only thing that kept his death from feeling real. But Father needed to be alone to grieve, and Garreth’s arm was already around me, leading me toward Olwen’s cottage.

  Several men rushed by us on the path, carrying a litter. My grandfather was sprawled across it, his skull cracked wide open, leaking gray sludge. Garreth and I stopped and stared in silence. The men carrying the litter hurried, even though it was pointless; Aengus, our clan’s chieftain, was dead.

  I should’ve cried, but my tears were all dried up. I wrapped my arms around myself, around the dark pit forming inside me, and pulled away from Garreth, heading toward the harbor. Garreth protested weakly, but in the end, he simply followed.

  When I got to the cliffs, I scanned the horizon. There—the silhouettes of ships moving across the water, back to the forsaken lands they’d come from. And the Savage was on one of them.

  “One day I’ll find him.” My voice cracked. The wound behind my ear throbbed. “I’ll cut out his black heart.”

  “You take his heart,” Garreth said. “I want his head.” We looked at each other, sorrow unfurling between us at what was missing. What had been taken from us.

  Our brother was gone.

  Eight years ago, the small bodies of three children had lain on tables in the great hall, draped in linen to hide the horrid bite marks and missing limbs. Victims of the Brine Beast. One table had no body to display, its surface covered instead with my mother’s favorite dress. The table that had been meant for me.

  I’d wept rivers at that vigil. This one was different.

  I sat with Rhys’s body, replacing candles as they guttered out, singing the requiems of our ancestors. Every time pain threatened to overcome me—my brother is dead, he’s gone, I’ve lost him—I folded it tight, shoved it far from my mind. Later, I would cry. Later, I would ache. I wasn’t ready to feel the loss yet.

  The funeral ceremony commenced the next day beside the harbor. Rhys was dressed in his best armor, sword on his chest, arms folded over the hilt, warrior-mark facing the sky. Other dead warriors lay on litters beside him. One by one, our clan’s priest set fire to each warrior’s body, all except Lord Aengus, who would be entombed in a barrow alongside all the chieftains of Stony Harbor who had died before him. Ishleen stood with me, holding my hand as I watched my brother’s body burn.

  That night the villagers got drunk on wine and ale, stuffed themselves with meat and bread. They laughed and sang, told stories of the dead and made toasts in their honor. They opened the doors of every cottage and let the wind sweep through, ferrying spirits past us in their final farewells.

  Our allies sent envoys to offer sympathy on behalf of their clans. Quinlan was there representing clan Fion. He kept a respectful distance, but he was never far, his dark eyes always following me. Whenever our gazes met, the knots inside me loosened slightly.

  Well into the reigning hours of witches and wolves, curls of smoke from the funeral pyres rose above the treetops, phantoms traipsing somberly around the cold white moon. I snuck away to where the village ended and the forest began. Dangling overhead from a thick rope, like charms from a necklace, were the heads of the Westlanders killed during the invasion, including the one I’d stabbed in the throat. They were slack-skinned, hollow-eyed. I searched each face.

  Reyker wasn’t there; he must have escaped with his beast brethren.

  I leaned against a tree, trembling with relief, sickened with myself for it.

  The watchtower was built on a curving lip at the center of the cliffs overlooking the harbor. I mounted the stairs spiraling along its circular stone walls. At the top was a wooden belfry where a sentry always stood watch, ready to ring the bell and alert the village of danger. Usually manned by younger warriors, on this night it was Garreth who paced the belfry.

  “You haven’t been on watchtower duty in years.” I stood to one side of the bell and regarded my brother, his figure framed by the dark sea.

  Garreth grunted. “Father says he needs someone he trusts watching the harbor, though I suspect he enjoys how it rankles me. An amusing punishment for my dissent.”

  How much time had passed since the invasion? I tried to count the days but couldn’t keep them separate. The minutes had crawled by, yet the hours had been a blur.

  “The men voted today on who they want to be chieftain,” Garreth said. “They were evenly split between Torin and Madoc.”

  I put a hand against the wall, feeling as if the ground shook beneath me. “But the Sons of Stone are Father’s men.” Since his twentieth year, Father had trained and led them into battle. They respected him. Madoc was a fearsome warrior, but he preferred scheming to fighting. And his immoral ways were no secret—he was a liar, a manipulator. Even Aengus knew it, publicly favoring his second-born son. “How could anyone vote for Madoc?”

  “These men believe in tradition. They fear the precedent set if Torin is chosen, the potential uprisings if younger sons can take what rightfully belongs to the eldest. They fear for the futures of their own sons. With strong divisions over how to deal with the Westlanders, much is at stake. There’s to be a Culling.”

  A chill rose in my blood.

  “Summoning a god to choose our leader. Are they mad?” I knew of Culling rituals only through legend, and none of the stories ended well. When mortals made demands of them, the gods didn’t play nicely. “No one’s attempted a Culling in ages. It’s dangerous.”

  “It was Madoc’s idea. The others agreed. Nothing less than a god’s decision will satisfy them.” Garreth turned. “We have to leave. We’ll go tomorrow, before the Culling commences.”

  “Go? Where?”

  “I want to take you to Taloorah. To Aillira’s Temple, where you belong. You can train with the priestesses, put your abilities to better use than what Father has made you do with them. I’ll join the temple guard.”

  “You’re serious.” I gaped at him. “I don’t even know if I want to pledge myself to the temple.”

  He resumed his pacing. “The day the Brine Beast took you … Lira, you were in my arms, and then you were gone. It tore you from me. I thought you died.” He squeezed his sword’s hilt, as if he could return to that moment and slay the Beast. “I couldn’t protect you.”

  “Garreth, you were twelve.”

  “I’m the oldest. It was my responsibility to keep you and Rhys safe. I failed you both. Now Rhys is gone, just like Mother. But Mother wouldn’t have died if Father spent as much time looking after his family as he does his warriors. Rhys wouldn’t have died if Father had listened to me and kept him out of danger.”

  Garreth had spoken heatedly of Father before but never like this.

  “You’re wr
ong,” I said. “Father is a good commander. The Sons of Stone defeated the Westlanders.”

  He whirled and took hold of my shoulders. “The Westlanders underestimated us, bringing only fifty men. We had two hundred, and still our victory was narrow. They’ll return with greater numbers. Father is blinded by arrogance. He thinks he can protect Stony Harbor, but he can’t. I’ve seen it. If Madoc or Torin take control of the village, it will be destroyed.”

  “What do you mean? How could you have seen such a thing?”

  “The blind mystic.”

  “You spoke with the mystic?” My steadfast, rational brother had subjected himself to a heretic’s cryptic divinations. I could scarcely imagine it.

  “Years ago. She showed me things.” His eyes clouded over. “Awful things that made me question everything I knew. I told myself they were lies, but half of it’s come true.”

  Abilities like mine, gifted by the True Gods, were natural. The Fallen Ones could bestow gifts as well—for a price—but they were a corruption of the natural order. Those who wanted to speak to the dead might cut out their tongues, those who wanted to see beyond the limits of mortal vision might pluck out their eyes. The blind mystic’s power to peer into the past and the yet-to-come was blasphemy, and her prophesies weren’t enough to make me abandon my home.

  “No, Garreth. I’m not leaving.”

  “Then you give me no choice.” His face became a blank mask, so like the one Father often wore. “Go back to the cottage. I need to think.”

  As I made my way down the watchtower’s stairs, he called out, a disembodied voice floating across space. “Whatever happens, Lira, know that I’ll fight to my dying breath to keep you safe.”

  The sentiment was no comfort. It was a promise that he would die as Mother and Rhys had, for the same unworthy cause.

  Me.

  Instead of going home, I crossed the rim of the cliffs to the village sanctuary, removing my sandals and rinsing cool water across my hands and face from the basin outside to cleanse myself before paying tribute to the gods.

  The sanctuary was tall, cylindrical, its walls decorated with protective symbols painted in our priest’s own holy blood. Wooden benches faced the altar in the center of the room. Beside the altar was a stone pillar that held a fire pit—a torch the priest kept lit at all times. There was no floor but the loamy ground, so worshippers could be close to the earth that provided for them, and no roof, nothing above but sky, so prayers drifted straight up to the gods. Incense burned in clay censers, the cleansing fragrance of sage tinting the air.

  At this late hour, the sanctuary was empty.

  The worn soil was smooth under my bare feet as I approached the altar. I’d brought no offering, no gold or food to bestow, no crops to burn or animals to sacrifice. Only myself.

  Unsheathing my knife, I looked up at the dark sky. “I kneel before you, Silarch, goddess-mother of warriors, to confess. I killed a man and aided the battle-deaths of several others, including my brother. For the deaths of these men, I seek your absolution.” I drew the blade across my palm, dripping blood upon the altar.

  In one of the four windows cut into the top of the tower, something moved. Starlight revealed a lammergeier, perched on the window’s ledge. Like the one from the harbor that called me to where Reyker lay dying.

  The huge bird regarded me piously with its red eyes. A single feather drifted down, mottled silvery black, landing in the droplets of my blood.

  The door in the back of the sanctuary leading to the priest’s quarters opened. The old priest emerged dressed in gray robes, his entire body shaved in the traditional style of holy men, symbolizing that nothing but skin separated him from the gods. In that same tradition, he was a nameless eunuch, simply called Doyen, having given up his identity to better serve the gods’ will.

  “You’re the reason for this,” he said. “Your blood profanes this holy pantheon.” Doyen shuffled toward me. His eyes were like chips of flint, hard and dull, set deep in his wrinkled skin.

  “I told Torin all those years ago. What your mother did was blasphemy. You were chosen to die. That you still live is an affront to the gods.”

  I shook my head. “My mother offered herself in my place to appease the sea-goddess. Faerran accepted. The debt was paid.”

  “There’s a balance to things. The gods don’t choose idly. Your mother performed some trickery so the Brine Beast took her instead of you. She insulted Faerran and her kin. The gods chastise us for it, sending those Frozen Sun devils to punish us!”

  High above, the lammergeier screeched. I didn’t realize I’d backed away from the priest until my spine touched the wall. I wanted to tell Doyen he was wrong, but he was our spiritual leader, closer to the gods than the rest of us. If his words were true …

  The possibility sank into me like a dagger.

  “You want absolution for the deaths you’re responsible for?” Doyen asked. “To save the village and those you love?”

  “Yes.” I clenched my fists. Blood oozed between my fingers.

  “Go down to the harbor. Walk into the sea. Let Faerran take you, as she always intended. As long as you live, we must endure our own destruction. End this cycle of death now, before the gods punish us further.” With a swirl of robes, he retreated to his quarters and slammed the door.

  Walk into the sea.

  The priest wanted me to drown myself.

  I’d give my life to have Rhys back. I’d give my life to ensure Garreth and Father didn’t meet Rhys’s fate. But I didn’t want to die. To kill myself would cause them untold anguish and render my mother’s sacrifice meaningless.

  “Why did you do it, Mother?” I murmured into the still air, the question drifting up, past the burbling lammergeier, into the sky where only the gods could hear. It was a pointless question. I knew she’d done it out of love.

  Sometimes I hated her for it.

  REYKER

  Lira was dead.

  Reyker thought of her small hands, cool on his skin. Those hands, lifting water and broth to his lips. Those hands, trembling, coated in the blood of her first kill.

  Hands slight and fine-boned, like the rest of her. Bones that would easily break.

  He thought of her voice, calming, constant—the thread he’d clung to as his mind faltered into madness. He’d followed its soft sounds when he was lost, letting it lead him out of the darkness.

  Her voice, falling silent. Her slender throat, crushed.

  If she had stayed with him, he’d have kept her safe, but she’d run after the Dragonmen, lugging an axe as large as she was, determined to die with her people. Stupid girl.

  He couldn’t help but admire her.

  He would not go back. Reyker was a Dragonman no more.

  He’d crawled to the hut and collapsed, drifting in and out of consciousness for what must have been days. Then he’d woken with a start, realizing what he’d done. Stranded in enemy lands, with no way home. The only one who could help him was dead. She must be.

  But Lira wore his mark. Wouldn’t he have felt it if she’d died?

  He had to be sure.

  It was easy enough to avoid the patrolling guards. Reyker was a hunter. He knew how to move quiet as wind, how to hide from prey in plain sight. He prowled the forest’s edge, eyeing the layout of the village—cottages, guard tower, meeting hall. Another stone tower, lit up, smelling of spices. A place of worship.

  Reyker caught his breath as Lira stepped through the tower’s archway, violet tendrils of hair floating in the sea gusts sweeping up the cliffs. Her face was stark white, her eyes pained. Alive, but lifeless. The bright spark in her had dulled.

  His stomach twisted. He did not want to know what the Dragonmen had done to her.

  “I’m sorry, Lira,” he whispered.

  She couldn’t hear him. It changed nothing. Yet it needed to be said.


  I’m on Winter’s back as she gallops through the forest. Rhys trails after me on his horse, Victory, trying to catch up. I turn to tease him.

  When I look back, my brother and his horse are gone. In his stead is a man with long, silver hair. His face is shadowed, but I see the gleam of golden eyes. His mount is no ordinary steed—its coat is a flourish of black scales, and plumes of steam waft from its nostrils. No matter how fast I ride, he doesn’t fall behind.

  He draws closer, near enough to grasp my elbow. His touch is ice.

  I woke shivering, rubbing my arm where the dream fingers had gripped me; my elbow seemed colder than the rest of me. So did the scar behind my ear, as if the Savage had reached through the dream and frozen it with his touch.

  When I rose, I found our cottage empty. Another shiver danced along my spine as I remembered what today was: the Culling.

  Father had stationed a guard outside our cottage for my protection, but I snuck out a window and circled around through the forest. It was quiet, as if all of Stony Harbor held its breath. The Sons of Stone were at the sanctuary, consecrating themselves—they were the only ones allowed to attend the ceremony. The women and children of the village sat inside their homes, watchful through slatted shutters. On every doorstep, incense burned beside offerings: ripe fruit, sweet wines, beautifully crafted weapons, precious gemstones. Left in the hopes that whatever god came to our village would bless the villagers and spare them from harm.

  When I reached Ishleen’s cottage, I found her slipping silently from her bedroom window. “I knew you’d be out here,” she said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me up the path. “You simply couldn’t resist.”

  “Nor could you. Your mother will blame me for this.”

  “Well, you were the one who taught me to sneak out.” She glanced around the empty village. “What happens now?”