Ashes of Snow

Chapter 21

EGWENE SURRENDERED.

The truth makes it painful to breathe. Egwene handed herself over to Lorgen. In Bithai's garden the night of the ball, Theon had been so certain that Egwene had yielded, and Lucien had been just as certain that she had fought against Lorgen until the end. Theon was right, though. She did surrender— but not in the way he meant. It was a sacrifice, not helpless submission. A sacrifice like the one Lucien tried to make for us.

Tell me how to save them...

In my dream, Egwene asked her conduit to show her how to save her people. Is that what it told her? That the only way to protect them would be to die? But she didn't know she was pregnant, and that the end to Winter's royal line meant murdering her son too.

Lorgen's staff barrels through the air and slams into my cheek, making my head smack into the floor and roar with electric fingers of pain.

"You brought magic into my palace, general." His voice cracks through the air like his soldier's whip. Magic? Terror lances through me—terror that Lorgen will take away whatever magic source I have, terror that I could actually have a magic source at all. The stone? Egwene? Whatever it is, how am I using it? Egwene said she couldn't speak to me once I got into Spring, that Lorgen would watch me with his dark magic. Was it really the lapis lazuli then?

Cain coughs a laugh. "Magic? She's harmless."

Lorgen swings his staff at Cain and knocks him to the ground before whirling on me. "Whatever remnant of magic you have, you're out of luck, girl." Lorgen stomps forward and pulls me roughly to my feet. He makes sure to only touch my armor, not allowing skin-to-skin contact again. "Your weakened magic cannot win here."

Lorgen would never have been satisfied with ending Winter's line, with breaking the locket, killing Egwene and Lucien and letting us go about our lives. He wouldn't have been satisfied until we are where we are now, his slaves, Spring standing on the fading carcass of Winter. Even Egwene's sacrifice, something so much larger than anything I could ever do, wouldn't have changed anything. But why? What was all of this for?

"What do you want from us?" The question spills out of my mouth, shaking and feeble.

Lorgen releases me, takes a step back. "Power," he says like that explains everything.

I shake my head, fighting the urge to collapse in gasping sobs. "Winter isn't powerful! We're nothing now."

Lorgen purses his lips like I'm a toddler throwing a tantrum. "Winter will not stand in my way," he whispers half to himself. He nods at Cain before I can decode his senseless explanation. How are we standing in the way of anything? He's insane. There is no reason for what he's done, nothing we can do to satisfy him. And knowing that makes everything so much more terrifying, because it means there is no end to his horror. There is no box it can be contained in, no way to predict what he'll do.

He just wants to watch us bleed.

"Strip her armor," Lorgen tells Cain. "Rid her of anything she has."

I lurch back as Cain stands, grabs my arm, his face reddening, spit flying from his mouth. A rabid dog leashed to Lorgen's wrist. He shoves his face into my hair, his breath warm and heavy from the battle and the long march to Spring.

"I'll teach you your place," Cain growls as he undoes the straps on my armor, the mess of padding and dented metal clattering to Lorgen's floor. I'm left in a stained cotton undershirt, tattered pants held up by a fraying leather belt, and my worn boots. I hadn't realized how much of my strength lay in having a layer of metal between Cain and me. My knees buckle, my insides rolling over like a whirlpool.