House of Winter

Chapter 33, Part 1

ARI

"How did you find Jinni?" Lumi asked, directed at Sanna. Her voice still wavered and there were tears in her eyes.

"It was all Ari," Sanna said.

The five of them now sat around the fire. Lumi was holding onto Jinni, as if afraid that he might disappear again at any moment. Ari noticed that Tom was sitting close to Lumi, and that he poured her tea first.

Ari looked over at Jinni, who glared at her. The tiger still didn't seem to like her, despite the time they had spent together.

"I was hiding at the school, after the Midwinter Championship," Ari said. "The Garde were looking for me. But when I realised you were all gone, I started looking for Jinni. I overheard the medical students say they were going to kill him. So I knew I had to get him out."

"And the dragon?" Tom asked.

"Warrah's been following me," Ari said. "I wish I knew why. I thought he would stay in Vastier with the other dragons."

"But you, Sanna," Katja said. "Your father told us you were at the summer estate. Why did he lie?"

Sanna looked down at her hands. Ari followed her gaze, to watch the girl's long, pale fingers.

"My father never told the truth about my mother. He couldn't."

"But you were going to marry Tai?" Tom said, and his voice rang with disgust.

Sanna looked up. "I wanted to meet my mother," she said, with brown eyes blazing. "If only you knew what it's like to have the emptiness of an absent parent looming over your entire existence."

"Ah, Sanna," Katja said, her voice icy. "Once again you assume that only you can feel the sharp bite of pain, when in fact many of us have experienced that and more. My father died when I was young. Lumi lost both of her parents, as did Ari. And yet you speak as if only you may understand your unique loss."

"You would tell me that if you had the chance to get to know your father, you wouldn't take it?" Sanna bit back. "Not one of you may know the pain of a parent who has left, deliberately."

Tom let out half of a laugh.

Ari's gaze flicked to Tom, and she wondered what his dark expression was in that moment. She knew everything of Tom's mother - the famous kinncharger who had been defeated by Pythos Savvas and had retired to breed kinnwolves - but what did anyone know of Tom's father?

"And yet you rushed into her arms, while knowing she was working with Tai in his plan to cause those explosions and bring Lombardia to war," Katja accused Sanna.

"I knew nothing of the sort," Sanna said.

"You agreed to marry Tai!" Tom said. "How could you do that, Sanna? You know who he is."

"I know he is a teenage boy, with grandiose ideas because of his sheltered existence," Sanna said.

"And blood on his hands," Ari whispered. "The blood of my sister."

"You have betrayed everything I believed you to be, Sanna," Katja said. "I believed you to be my sister, in all but blood. I believed you to be kind and loyal. To discover you have deceived me, and everyone, to find your own power... it is heartbreaking."

"You speak as if you have never done anything wrong," Sanna said, words sharp as ice. "Do you not remember the wards you mistreated? The way you had that girl expelled? The way you made Ari sneak around all night in the cold? You have abused all the power you have ever had."

Katja looked at Ari, and their eyes met.

"Everything I have ever done..." Katja started, and then her lip trembled. "Ari, if you knew how much I'd thought about you since the Midwinter Championships..."