Sriduangkaew - Winterglass

Table of Contents

One toWake

On the night of Nuawas execution, she sawthe Winter Queen for the first time.

The wind was inert and the night ignited byfrostworks, teeth of ice biting flowers into the sky. The soldiershad given her something and it made her world both heavy and light,her thoughts dragging behind her like a train. She was thinking notof the ghost-kiln before herthough even at six, she knew what itwas and what it didor even of her mother holding her hand. Insteadshe was wondering how it was that the queen could walk so evenlyand stride so fast in her armor. Frost and iron, the coronet morehelm than crown, the sword at her hip as broad as Nuawa. It seemedimpossible for a single person to move under so much weight,shoulder so much heft. She imagined then that the queen was ironand rime underneath too, dense strong bones inside the annihilatingwhite of her skin.

A soldier lowered Nuawa into theghost-kilns petal mouth. It clenched shut with a small hiss. Latershe would try to recall whether the soldier flinched as they didthis, whether it mattered to them that she was a childsmall forher agebut she would not remember.

Inside the stomach-chamber the air was thickwith the smell of dying, the odor of bodies that had alreadysuccumbed. Her giving-mother held Nuawa, pressing something sharpinto her mouth, whispering that she would live. Nuawa made anobedient noise and swallowed, like a good daughter. It cut goingdown and filled her mouth with blood, sweet and staccato, though itdidnt hurt. Most of her seemed asleep, swaddled in a warm anddistant place while here her bare feet turned numb. She lay againsther mothers breast and dreamed of a painted blue sky.

After a time, her mothers arms fell limp.The world turned inside Nuawa and the dark scraped at her ankles,her wrists, the base of her skull. It seeped into her mouth and hernose until she felt feverish with secrets. She was a fish, swimmingthrough dark waters. She was a bird, fluttering up a sky shed onlyseen as oil on canvas.

When the machines belly opened, it wasstill night, or perhaps night again. Nuawas sense of time hadslipped like water on stone. Weak as she was, she looked to makesure, but the queen was no longer about.

People were drawing blanched, drained bodiesout of the machine. They pulled. They pried. They wept and carriedaway their dead. Nuawa waited for her turn without sound orprotest. She did not cry for help. Her giving-mother had told herto be quiet until her bearing-mother came.

And she did come, her bearing-motherIndrahi. They were the last. A few other bodies remained, kinlesson the gray, frozen ground.

Are we not taking her home? Nuawa askedthrough cracked lips as her bearing-mother lifted her from hergiving-mothers breast.

That is not her. She is gone. From now onyou are to understand that she was never your kin. In the cold,her bearing-mothers expression was stone, was ice. She tipped hotember wine into Nuawas mouth. Are you afraid?

Nuawa considered her fears: freezing todeath, falling into the canals where the ice thinned and crackedunder her weight, being a disappointment in her arithmetic. Butalready she was forgetting everything from before her passagethrough the ghost-kiln, as though itd purged her, as though itdremade her anew. Something was gone. Something else was gained. Atlast she said, No, I dont think so, Mother. It was strange, tohave only one now. One parent, one mother.

Mother took Nuawas hand. Good. For yourmind is a weapon, Nuawa, and we shall nurture it in the absence offear. One day you will fire all that you are, like a bullet, intothe heart of the Winter Queen.

Chapter 1

The seasons last match brings with it apress of audience, the mass and noise of them audible even in thepreparation vestibule where silence is meant to be the final word.Theres nothing for it, Nuawa supposes, as she tightens the sealson her armor and checks her gun one last time. Everything is oiled,ready.

The gladiators bell rings. The arena gatelifts slowly, a hum of blindfolds and lion helms, a susurrus oftiger tails and specters. She knows the mechanisms are lubricatedwell, the ghosts fed a rich diet of incense and candlewicks, butthe tournament masters like their theatrics.

She steps into a dome of obsidian glass andagate tiles. It is opaque from inside, transparent from theoutside. If she falls, they will hear every last noise: the rattleof her final breath and the wet slap of viscera meeting glass,while she will never see their faces. Their rapt faces, empty-eyed,mesmerized by spectacle. So it goes.

The opposite gate unfurls, dove wings andmandarin petals. For half a moment, she sees nothing at all, thendiscerns the solid outlines of the muzzles, the light-drinkingcoat, the sleek knotted limbs. They have sent her leopards tofight.

She hears the whirr of their articulatedlegs, the scrape of their curse-alloyed claws, and knows they aremore than animal. Guided by a human mind, potent with thaumaturgy.She counts: four pairs of jade-dark eyes, four tails likewhips.

An instants calculation for angle andtrajectory, and she fires. The leopards are fast, upon her farquicker than any human or natural beast could be. Her bulletricochet off the dome, piercing a leopards shadow; its fleshcorresponds in a rip of meat, a spray of gore. Her second shotcatches another in the haunch, interrupting it mid-pounce.

Her drop to the floor is a fraction toolate. Claws screech across the metal of her armor, not penetratingbut leaving a slick of concentrated grudges: pain flashes down hervertebrae, bright turquoise synesthetic across her vision. Hergauntleted arm is all that keeps her face from being shredded tocartilage and gore.

She pulls a polynomial from her belt,tearing off its safety with her teeth. An implosive flash, morelight than heat, blinds the puppeteer behind those feline eyes.Nuawa uses the pause to gain distance, rolling away, drawing herblade. Her swords beaked shadows click and clatter, a spread offive today: thanks to the lighting, all far longer than the bladeitself or her reach. More than sufficient.

Blade shadows roar as they meet theleopards. Fur tears; arteries rupture and tendons snap.

Nuawa beheads the animals, for theater andfor good measure. Even then she half-expects each to get up for arematch, but apparently they havent been witched to work beyondstopped hearts and spilled brains. A ground fog of expended powerrises, is quick to dissipate. She wonders what shape the puppeteeris in. Incapacitated, with luck. In agony, she hopes.

Her gate lifts. There is no announcement ofher victory, no applause. The Marrow is too refined for that.

Back in the vestibule there are attendantswaiting, sent by her manager Tezem. One is moon-dusted, the otherwith a face painted half white and half green. Both are slim, male,adolescent: the diametric opposite of Nuawas preferences, Tezemsidea of a joke. When they offer her purifying balm and cleansingointments, she takes the bottles and jars from them. Ill go upfor a bath. Many of Tezems duelists enjoy being pampered, withattendants to scrub their backs and lather their hair, oil theirlimbs and perfume their throats. Nuawa prefers to be left wellenough alone.

She steps into an elevator; here no sense ofdrama interferes with function and so the ghosts are efficient, theride smooth and fast. From overhead, a portrait of the queen looksdown, the royal coiffure as iridescent as borealis light. Wintersvisage is everywhere, austere in its gauntness, alien in its sclerathe black of frostbitten flesh. Speculations as to the queensorigins run abundant, in euphemism and guarded whispers, and mostsay she is from the distant isle of Yatpun: a snow-woman frompermafrost peaks, sick of the mountain gods tyranny and determinedto be lord and deity of her fate. But Yatpun has been inaccessiblefor centuries behind its event-horizon wall, and if she is indeedfrom the island nation, the queen is the sole individual alivecertain of that truth.