Cold Fire

“Does the Wild Hunt hunt at your pleasure, or for some other purpose?”



“Does no one teach the law these days?” he said mockingly. “Let me educate you, little cat. On Hallows’ Night, the Wild Hunt rides into the Deathlands. It culls the spirits of those who will die in the coming year. I am sure you already know the story. The hunt rides on the night of sundering because that is its nature and its purpose.”



I bowed my head, for I remembered the story my father had told me long ago about the Wild Hunt and a young hunter who had sought and found the other half of his soul. I remembered the day I had escaped from Four Moons House, when I’d heard a horn’s call on Hallows’ Eve rising out of the earth like mist and filtering down from the sky like rain. That call had penetrated my bones and my blood and my heart. No one fated to die in the coming year could escape the hunt.



“But that is not the only reason the Wild Hunt rides. Blood, Daughter. We must have blood. One mortal life feeds the courts for a year. The stronger the blood, the richer the feast.”



“The day court and the night court,” I whispered. “That’s what they’re called.”



“All serve the courts,” he agreed.



“The enemy doesn’t serve them.”



Movement stirred in the ice, and I realized I had gone too far. An owl swooped out of the empty air to settle on the perch. Its golden eyes chained me. I fell into the rip current of its gaze.



I was trapped in the banded, breathing heart of the ice. It was as cold as death and as heavy as the weight of an ice shelf groaning down to crush one fragile human heart. Beneath winter’s aching cold lies a deeper cold that leaches blood and heat into a vessel where stolen sparks can be shaped into more obedient forms.



“The ice is alive. Not as you and I are alive. It’s not a creature or a person. But it lives, although I couldn’t tell you how or why.” The recollection of Brennan Du’s words roused me.



I had been standing. Now, as if I had been brutally hammered by the power of a cold mage’s anger, I found myself on hands and knees although I had no memory of falling. I had dropped the cup, and it had rolled an arm’s length away.



I inhaled hard, air hit my lungs, and the dizzy whirling dread subsided.



Until I looked up to his masked face.



“The blood of the enemy is poison,” he murmured, as if he had once sipped it. “But the enemy found a way to enter our world through mortal hands, through the females who walk the tide of dreams. So must the courts enter the mortal world likewise, through mortal flesh. You will go to a place in the Deathlands that is surrounded by the Taninim, they who rule the seas. You can reach there because of the flesh you wear that you inherited from your mother’s blood and bone.”



Did “surrounded by the Taninim” mean an island? Was it possible the Wild Hunt could not reach islands? Or only one particular place? I knew better than to ask such a question directly.



“Sire, you already have servants who walk in the mortal world. Like the eru and coachman who brought me here. They pretend to serve the mage Houses, but they are really there to spy on the cold mages, aren’t they? To make sure no magister becomes too powerful a threat?”



Had he not been wearing a mask, I would have guessed he smiled, yet it would have been a smile one could not wish to see on a face. “Cold mages serve the courts without knowing they do. They comprehend in an attenuated way the power of the courts and do their best to avoid the Wild Hunt’s notice. They understand that if they spread their net of power too widely or grasp at too much, the courts smell a scent of power, and the Wild Hunt is unleashed to hunt them down.”



“That’s a clever way to control the power of the cold mages,” I agreed with what I hoped was a smile of rueful admiration, preparing my flattery in order to attempt a leading question.



“Do not play false with me, Daughter. I can smell it.”



To give myself a moment to think, I picked up the cup. It had not lost a single drop of the amber wine. “How shall we communicate while I am in the Deathlands? Can you see through my eyes and speak through my mouth?”



“Ah. You’ve pleased me with a clever question instead of an impertinent one. No. Your mother’s flesh blinds me to you except on Hallows’ Day. I will send my servants if I need to speak with you.”



My heart’s pulse thundered in my ears as a sense of relief flooded me. Well, then. Once I left this hall, he could not oversee or control my actions. Yet perhaps he was hiding a hook. “If that’s so, why send me? Why not send your other servants?”