House of Winter

Chapter 7, Part 1

S A N N A

Her bedroom had its own private bathing pool in a dedicated courtyard outside. She was in the habit of spending an hour in the pool each morning. The servants brought her a tray of cut fruit displayed in pretty patterns on a wooden board. She would sit in the water with her arms resting on the stone ledge of the pool, eating fruit and shading her eyes from the morning sun. Sigrún lay in the shade beside her, turning her nose up at the fruit.

In Norrlund, Sanna usually spent her summers swimming in Lake Gigur, where there was mud between her toes as she stepped into the clear icy water. She would swim laps early in the morning, and then she would ride Sigrún back through the forest to the summer palace, where Katja would just be waking up for breakfast. It was Sanna's favourite time of day, before Katja was awake.

In the Volcano Palace, the bathing pool was a cheap imitation of Lake Gigur, but it allowed Sanna some semblance of control over her routine that she was grateful for. Her laps of this pool were much shorter than the ones she had swum in Norrlund, and yet they allowed her to feel her muscles ease from tension every morning. Plus, the pool was a relief from the constant heat.

It was winter, and yet Sanna had realised that Singtsu did not see a true winter, like she was used to in Norrlund and Lombardia. The warmth was year round and it was inescapable. Even the water was warm. But Sanna used magic to cool it, to make it feel more like home.

Home.

Would Singtsu ever feel home to her?

Her room here in the Volcano Palace was tolerable. The comforts were strange and new, but comfortable. She had a soft bed with silk sheets that remained cool even when the nights stayed balmy. She had servants to bring her food and drinks at the ring of a bell, which was at least better than what she was used to at the school. And she had this bathing pool in her own private courtyard that looked out onto the gardens.

She spent her days reading what few books she had left. She'd also been trying to learn the Kaio language, although it was terrifically difficult. Both Norrlish and Starg languages shared a common root, and so it had never been to huge a jump to learn Starg when she was a child. But the Kaio language was completely foreign, written in a different alphabet with strange characters. After bathing, Sanna spent her mornings practising calligraphy with paint brushes dipped in black ink.

The days were hot and seemed endless. Sanna had always been bored at the school - the lessons were too easy, and the other students were intolerable - until, of course, the Tsukasai twins and Ariane had entered her life.

As Sanna lay in the pool that morning, eating fruit, she imagined where Ariane was now. She'd heard rumours that Vastiens in Lombardia were all being rounded up and put into camps, locked away so they couldn't go to Vastier and join the war efforts. Maybe Ari had been rounded up with other Vastiens and put into a camp.

The idea of it made Sanna feel ill.

She had no love for the Vastien people, but Ari was... different. She was smart, and Sanna valued intelligence above everything. She'd been amazed to realise the younger girl had read more books than Sanna. All of her favourites, Ari had devoured. With any other girl, Sanna would have felt a bitter rivalry against someone who had read more books than her. But Ari had seemed so downtrodden, always sitting out in the cold with her ill-fitting coat, that Sanna couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her. And as she'd spent more time with Ari, she'd found herself drawn to the quick way Ari thought.

It seemed a waste for a girl with that intelligence to be locked in a camp somewhere in Lombardia. Or perhaps at this very moment Ari was being forced into working for the Lombardians. Sanna remembered reading a book about children who had worked in factories to make weapons during the Fire War, and had gone mad from poisoning by the metal.