On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Recruiting Dragons

             The seasons reversed. Melt snaked back up branches and hung from woody fingertips like beads where they waited, ready to fall, though fate commanded them not to. Soon, there would be no trees at all. They grew sicker as the northernmost tips of her country approached. More of their ranks shriveled and curled in upon themselves to ail, letting the wind give voice to their dying moans.

Just like its people.

This land had been dying for a thousand years, and it had been winter since the first silver petal had fallen.

Odoo khaantai tulalddagdlya ikh koronaki

Shirubyn zovlon züdüüriig tögsgöl uikh

She'd promised her little fawn spring, and what had she given him but ice? Cold. This carriage carried them far from the birthday Ryuu had wanted, the May Yuina had since come to dread. She'd taken him back in time, away from his aavaa and the ever-looming threat of combat, of Classes.

Of losing her son forever.

The window reflected his frown, sad and but the slightest bit resentful. Soon, even that froze away. It clouded and fogged until it showed only the slow, falling snow.

"Ryuu-miizhair." She drew him nearer with a lazy arm. Felt warm relief fill her as he laid his head on her shoulder, snuggled into her side before finally falling asleep. So soft. So small. So gentle. ...But for long?

Mös khailj baina, tsasyg taraana

It would be foolish to assume Dai would give her forever- stupid to believe he'd give her enough time. To assume he'd give her until fourteen- or at least until an age where she could be sure he wouldn't be forged by warfare, shaped by the weapons he held. That power wouldn't corrupt him and destiny wouldn't break his mind.

"How long can we fight this?" she asked, pushing the little boy's hair from his brow. "Your aav, your uncle, their gods, all of it."

Ryuu murmured something incoherent, stirred against her side.

"Hm?" she hummed, tilting her head to glance at his face, to try and guess what dreams dwelled beneath its surface. Or perhaps lurked was a better word for it. No- raged. Raged like a troubled Phantom. Like an army given the order to charge.

Ryuu's eyes flickered violently beneath their lids. His lips opened, then closed, twisting into words she didn't know and shapes she couldn't name. The rest of him trembled and shook, harder and deeper as the flurries of snow quickened outside.

Yuina put a hand to his forehead, frowned when it came off hot. Fevered.

Fevered?

"Ryuu?"

But that was impossible. Shokudai's monks had assured her he'd never fall ill. Nothing would hinder him, no sickness would plague him, nothing would dull his senses or reflexes lest the Outskirts Chosen One come for his soul. She'd lose her son to no one but them. No one but the Outskirts' assassin, whoever they may be... and Daiki.

Far away from them both, Yuina's heart thundered.

Then, the thrashing began.

"Ryuu?"

More foreign words, words that weren't his native tongue or the Shirub his majka used with the spirits. It wasn't Tiaii or Kopere or any of the dialects spoken in the south. Yuina didn't understand. But the shogun's consort knew begging when she heard it.

"Ryuu!"

Cool glass stole the warmth from her knuckles and used it to paint itself with fog. It left her hands cold as bone, cold as death without cremation.