Page 68

“The Prism Master?” The Yellow Lord laughs. “Certainly, if he could be bothered. But you have already asked him, haven’t you?”

I slump in on myself. “Why won’t he help me?”

The Yellow Lord looks at me with a sort of regretful frankness. He smiles, thin and haunted. “Because he’s afraid of you, Eldingar. Your brother is hungry for power—he is afraid that yours will surpass his.”

“But he has Prism magic. I only have mind magic.”

The Yellow Lord raises one white eyebrow. “I read your brother when he came to me the first time. He was sickly, once. He could hardly walk. What little magic he had was eating him up from the inside. What happened, do you think, that so changed him?”

Dread worms through me. “He said he learned to control his magic. He said our father taught him.”

The Yellow Lord studies his hands, light dancing once more between his fingertips. “Or perhaps he learned how to tap into your father’s magic. To sap it from him. Have you ever heard of a Prism Master who died before they reached their third century?”

“Brandr would never —”

The Yellow Lord catches my arm, his eyes piercing me as his light dances from his skin to mine. The light doesn’t burn me. It isn’t even hot.

“Do you truly know,” he says, “the things your brother would never do? Do you know him at all?”

Images flash through my mind: Lilja bent over her worktable, her fingers covered in grease, her spectacles sliding down her nose. Me, perched on a stool at her elbow and barely acknowledged. But Brandr isn’t there. He never is. He’s always shut away in his room, reading. Resenting me.

The Yellow Lord sighs and I see his age, suddenly, behind his eyes—he’s older than the mountain, older than the ice, older than I can possibly imagine. He lets go of me, and I take a step back from him.

“Now,” says the Yellow Lord, “I must rest before my trial of power in the morning.”

“What exactly does this trial of power entail?”

His eyes glitter. “You will have to ask him that. He bid me to silence.”

“Must you obey him?” I demand.

“I am bound to the one who unchained me.”

“And when he ... unleashes you ... you will consume everyone and everything outside of the mountain, except Iljaria.”

The Yellow Lord nods. “It is my purpose, Eldingar. It is why I was made.”

I take a breath, struck by a sudden realization. “It will kill you. To expend that much power.”

He gives me a wry smile. “It is my purpose,” he repeats. “It is why I was made.”

Grief sticks hard in my throat.

“Young one,” he says gently. “Go.”

I turn. I go.

I tell myself that at least everyone in the mountain will be safe. At least Saga and Vil and Ballast, at least Gulla and Rute and Finnur and all the children from the Collection, won’t be consumed.

Saga will survive. Ballast will survive. I’ll make sure of it.

They will hate me forever. But they will survive.

When I emerge from the tunnel that leads to the mountain’s heart, I find Brandr waiting in the corridor. There’s no disguising where I’ve been, and I tell myself I don’t need to feel guilty—I have just as much right as my brother to speak with the First One.

I fold my arms across my chest and face Brandr with my chin up. “What did the Yellow Lord mean by a trial of power? What are you going to make him do?”

Brandr frowns. “Brynja, I thought you’d be in bed by now.”

“I’m not a child, Brandr. It’s hardly the fifteenth hour. Now what did he mean?”

A muscle twitches in my brother’s jaw. “He’s to execute the prisoners in the great hall. You’ll be there to watch, never fear.”

I stare at him in abject horror. “You can’t do that.”

“Of course I can. I’m Prism Master, and acting ruler of the mountain. I can do whatever I want.”

Panic wrenches in my gut, and my heart beats too quick, too hard. “That’s not our way, Brandr. That’s not the Iljaria way. We don’t kill people in cold blood! The First Ones taught us to hold life sacred, to uphold peace, to—”

“And you say you’re not a child,” he cuts me off, mocking me.

“Do you really believe all that, Brynja? The Skaandans, the Daerosians—I don’t care who they are or what you think they have or haven’t done.

They’re guilty of defiling the Iljaria’s sacred land.

They’re guilty of dealing out blood and death and war.

They’re guilty of murder. Justice must be had. ”

“And you think you’re the one to deal it out?” I demand. “You’re not a First One, Brandr. You’re not even the ruler of the Iljaria. You’re just—you’re just—”

His eyes go hard, magic rolling off him in prismatic waves. “I’m just what, Brynja?”

I step toward him. I reach out my right hand and touch his cheek, his stubble rough under my fingertips. I lift my hand higher, to his temple.

Power sears me and I gasp in pain, a vision wrenching through me with horrible sharpness.

Brandr sits on a stool in the corner of our father’s office, watching him lock my magic inside of me. He hates me. He hates me so much , because I have been deemed useful, and he is weak and small and alone.

Brandr sits in the dark of his room, a single lamp burning on the table beside him. He reads an ancient book, its pages so brittle and soft they crumble as he turns them, so he reads as quickly and as thoroughly as he can.

The book is about the Ghost Lord. About the power our parents won’t admit that he has, the power that is eating him from the inside.

The power he fears so deeply will kill him if he does not learn how to channel it.

The book tells him that the Ghost Lord’s power does not nullify other magic, as all the tales say.

It consumes other powers. Absorbs them. And grows.

If he can learn how to wield his gift, he need not be sickly and weak any longer. He can be strong.

It is hard to learn, in the dark, in the quiet. But he does. Slowly. And bit by bit he becomes stronger. Until he can glean pieces of magic from our mother, little specks she won’t realize are missing. Until he can absorb power from our father, enough that our father begins, at last, to notice him.

Our father is proud that Brandr’s power has finally shown itself, relieved that it is not the abominable gift he feared it was.

And our father begins to train him in the wielding of Prism magic.

Because he does not know that the magic Brandr uses is his own.

He does not realize, until it is too late, that as Brandr grows stronger, he grows weaker.

Then it is too late, and there is nothing left of our father but a hollow shell, and Brandr grows tall and strong, bursting with power.

It is Brandr who releases our father’s body to the stars while our mother stands near, cold and sad and not understanding why, not understanding how.

Or perhaps simply not wanting to understand.

I jerk back from my brother, head wheeling, heart pounding. For an instant, my magic was mine again—it drew those images from Brandr’s mind. But now, even though I scrabble and reach, it’s gone again, its absence a hollow in my very soul.

Brandr doesn’t seem to have noticed any of this. He just frowns at me, like I’m a pesky fly. “Don’t worry, little sister. Your despicable king will be the first to die. I’ll make sure you have a prime seat.”

Without another word, he pushes past me and steps onto the stairs winding down to the tunnel.

Then he’s gone.

I stare after him, my whole world inverting itself.

One thing is brutally clear: Brandr doesn’t believe in pacifism anymore, if he ever did.

I am not sure if any of my people do, not truly, not as I was taught when I was small.

Maybe the Iljaria never believed in true peace.

Maybe I don’t, either. Maybe Vil was right, all those weeks ago, and the Iljaria’s professed pacifism is a sham.

What is the good of near-limitless power if it isn’t used to protect and defend, to uphold peace and preserve life?

Whether Brandr intended it at first or not, he killed our father.

And now he’s going to kill Saga and Vil. Now he’s going to kill Ballast.

Now he’s going to kill Kallias .

This realization twists inside me like a serrated blade, and I feel every jagged cut.

Death by the Yellow Lord is too good for Kallias.

He murdered Lilja. He tormented me and countless others.

He laughed while he did it. Death by the Yellow Lord is too good for him.

Kallias stole my childhood, my family, my magic, my name.

He murdered my sister and caged me like an animal.

He tormented me, day after day, year after year, kept me trapped and terrified in the never-ending dark. But no more.

No more.

My feet turn toward the great hall before I even tell them to, and somehow there’s already a knife in my hand.