On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Fifty-One: Nightfall

          Yuina Mongonai didn't remember what it was like to be well.

Tenekhka should've.

But Tenekhka wasn't here. That little wanderer, that little princess should've felt the cold like a needle to her spine- a jolt to make her scream, and struggle, and fight.

But all Yuina knew was cold. Only cold and Yuina remained and she didn't have the energy to fight it. She didn't remember what it was like to be warm.

She'd never be warm again.

No warm hands came to pull her from the deep, no warm arms embraced her and demanded to know what had happened. What had become of that brave little girl so that only a woman with a tattered crown and broken heart remained.

Never let them take that away from you.

Phantom teeth nibbled away at her flesh- stripped her to the bone.

Wild thing among the stars? She'd always been one of those. Only now did she remember what became of stars that fell. Blazed and burned and fell, leaving scorch marks in their wake.

Dai had left her coals to burn, but the world around her was damp, cold, and dark. She could not make flames catch. She didn't remember what it was like to be warm.

She'd burnt out.

She'd been snuffed out.

Dry wind blew those wilted, tattered pieces of her crown away. She watched them flutter northward.

...What?

Yuina squinted, gasping at the warm parka keeping the wind off her thighs. Shirub silver beads twinkled in an absent sun. Impossible. The River...

Home home home sang the Sünsnii toli, the ghostly choir she'd soon have to join. They wanted her now. Gaping mouths found her toes but did not meet them. They teethed at the swirling Ice above, feasted on a reflection of warm boots she shouldn't wear.

Bending down revealed her face, her long hair bound in little braids with beads that sang over those moaning spirits.

Rags and a crown of tatters, that's how Warauryu had left her, blood her only cosmetic.

"Batu?"

He'd barely possessed the power to change himself. Had possessed such weak King's Sight that Yuaa had never aged past seven in his eyes. He couldn't have done this. He-

Petals blew northward.

"Hello?"

The Ice crunched beneath her feet- not a threat but a welcome.

Home home home

"Later," she whispered. Not now. Not before a cruel blade and a crueler former lover compelled her.

"Batu?" Names wouldn't disturb him. The dying could not wake the dead. "Are you there?"

Another white path danced in the dry breeze.

Arms out for balance, Yuina Mongonai followed it, the wind and the wild, toward...

Toward a silhouette in the distance, blurry, but solid. Broader than her brother. Taller, too. Wearing a coarse, matted garment that looked fresh off the beast: a pelt so raw it hadn't seen even a baba's needle.

"Hello?"

A single step brought her over the Ice- deposited her beneath a smoldering gaze.

Yuina stepped back, looked up at the man as he waited patiently for her to speak. To understand.