Ashes of Snow

Chapter 27

THE FLOOR OF Lorgen's throne room gleams in the light from above, letting my reflection stare up at me as I cower on my hands and knees at his feet.

I'm Egwene's daughter.

My eyes flit back and forth, my lungs inhaling and exhaling panic. I can't be Egwene's child, because Lucien... but Egwene asked Doreah and Sir to say Lucien was the prince. Lorgen knew Egwene's heir escaped that night, so they couldn't just say the child had died—he would never have believed that. They said it was Lucien so Lorgen wouldn't care that Winter's heir was just a boy, not a girl, not a threat even if we got the conduit put back together and the magic returned to it.

But the locket is powerless now, has been powerless since Lorgen broke it sixteen years ago, because all that power sought a new host. It went into me. I'm Winter's conduit.

No one knew it was even possible except Egwene, because she let her conduit tell her what needed to be done to save Winter. Her locket needed to be broken in defense of Winter, a sacrifice so its power couldn't be taken away, couldn't be broken or cast off, wasn't limited by an object. This power is me, is Winter, is unfettered because it's connected to my life now...

I'm Winter's queen.

I suck in a breath, forcing the air into my body to keep me alive under all of this, a weight heavier than anything I've ever felt.

Sixteen years of everyone keeping this secret. Of Sir training me, treating me like I was some nameless orphan who should be grateful to be free. And Lucien... no. All this time, his true parents have been right there, until Sir—

There's my sweet girl.

The cottage. Sir hugging me. That wasn't real. It was a cruel trick of Lorgen's, a horrible toying with my dreams. Everything I want out of life, everything I will never, ever get—a simple, happy family in some cramped little cottage.

But Egwene—that was real. That was her attempt to save me from Lorgen, a desperate ripple of protection urged by her connection to the conduit magic, to her bloodline. My bloodline.

I fall forward, forehead touching the cool obsidian, mouth opening in the beginnings of a sob. Tears stream down my face as I remember Sir's arms around me, the way he held me in Lorgen's evil dream, completely unafraid of loving me.

But he isn't my father. He's Lucien's father. My own father is Winter's dead king, and my mother is Winter's dead queen. She's been using her connection to Winter's conduit to talk to me. Because I —

I'm Winter's conduit. No matter how many times I push those words through my head, they don't make sense.

"Cain!"

Lorgen's shout, dripping with uncontrolled menace, shakes the palace apart. He'll kill me, destroy me here and now, rend every piece of me into inconsequential bits and scatter them over Winter's desolate land. He'll win.

I fly up, stumble back, not sure where I can go or where I can hide. I can't just die—not this easily. It can't end now, just like that— Lorgen throws open a door. "Cain! Bring him, NOW!"

I pause, hands out, chest heaving up and down. Him. Has Lucien been captured? Lorgen turns back to me as footsteps draw closer from the hall. "Winterians, always getting in the way of greater things," he says, riled into a fantastic desperation. "You may be able to resist me, but there's another way to get you to talk."

Resist.

He didn't hear any of it. He doesn't know. For him, the image of Jannuari must have dissolved once I left the cottage. Egwene used the conduit magic to keep us hidden because she needed to prepare me; she took the risk to give me a fighting chance to save our kingdom.