Chapter 840: Stillfrost

It stood at the edge of Emberfall’s line and looked in.

It was taller than the trees by the stream. It had a long, thin body like a heron, but it was white all over, and it glittered. Its legs were as thin as spears. Its head was long and narrow, and it had no eyes. Where its feet touched the grass, the grass turned white and stiff and snapped.

Frost was spreading from it in a wide ring.

It came right up to the warm white stones of the line, and then it kept coming. It crept across the red-glowing grass inside, slow and silver. Behind it, the grass went pale and brittle.

"A Stillfrost," Hessa said quietly. "It ends warmth."

The cold came in with the dawn.

At first it was only uncomfortable. People pulled their coats tighter and moved closer to the fires. Then the fires began to shrink.

They did not go out. They just got smaller. Flames that had been knee-high were ankle-high a few minutes later. The heat coming off them felt thin and weak, as if it was being pulled away somewhere before it could reach anyone.

Big D stood at the edge of the line and watched the frost creep in.

"How far does it reach?" he asked.

"All the way," Hessa said. "It’s a lord. Its ending will cover the whole line, sooner or later."

"How long?"

"For people to freeze?" Hessa looked out at the camp. Thirteen thousand people from Emberfall were huddled around their shrinking fires. "The old and the very young will go first. By tonight, maybe. Everyone else by tomorrow night."

The Warlord of Emberfall had come up behind them. He was staring at the white heron-thing on the far side of the stones.

"It can’t come in," he said. "You told us. Nothing crosses the line."

"It doesn’t have to come in," Big D said. "It only has to stand there."

The warm stones fought back.

As the frost crept over them, their red light grew brighter. Each stone glowed like a coal that someone had blown on. Where the frost touched them, it hissed and turned to steam.

But it did not stop. It flowed around the stones, the way water flows around rocks in a river.

At the top of the rise, the little dark-red shoot was shivering. Its flame-like leaves had begun to dim.

"It’s fighting it," the Pyreking said. He was standing beside the shoot with his arms wrapped around himself. "The line. The seed. It’s trying to stay warm."

"It can’t win," Hessa said. "Not on its own. It’s a new line. It’s barely a day old."

The Pyreking looked down at the shivering shoot. Then he held out his hand.

Hearthflame.

A small fire bloomed in his palm. It was no bigger than a candle flame. The cold pressed in on it from every side, and it shrank, and it flickered. But it did not go out. It could not. The orb did not let tiredness put it out, and the Stillfrost was very much like tiredness, in its way.

He knelt and held the little flame close to the shoot.

The shoot stopped shivering.

"There," he said through chattering teeth. "That’s one thing it doesn’t get."

Big D organized the camp the way he always did, by walking through it.

"Close together," he said, to every group he passed. "Closer than that. Share your coats. Old ones and children in the middle. Nobody sleeps alone tonight."

The Warlord followed him and said the same things, louder. Emberfall listened to the Warlord in a way they did not yet listen to Big D. By midmorning, thirteen thousand people were packed together in tight knots across the rise, wrapped in every blanket and cloak they owned.

The Empress of Skytheum had walked north with Emberfall. She had been planning to go on to Brightwater, to plant her gold seed by the south gate. Now she stood at the edge of the biggest knot of people with Vess beside her.

Rampart.

The low line of pale light rose out of the frozen ground around them. It did nothing against the cold. But everyone who touched it found their feet planted, and their panic quieted, and they stopped pushing and shoving to get closer to the middle.

"I can’t warm them," the Empress said. "But I can keep them from trampling each other."

"That’s plenty," Big D said.

The first death came a little after noon.

It was an old man from Emberfall. He had been sitting at the very edge of a knot of people. He had given his blanket to a child. When his daughter turned to check on him, he had stopped shivering.

By sunset there were nine more.

Big D took each name. He walked from knot to knot in the gray light and asked for them, and people told him, and he said each one back.

Keeper of Names.

It did not warm anyone. But every name he spoke stayed. Every person who heard him say their dead father’s name or their dead daughter’s name looked up at him. Afterward, they held on to each other a little tighter.

Rudra had not moved from the edge of the line all day.

He stood there with his arms crossed and his jaw set, staring at the Stillfrost. It had not moved either. It had not needed to. Its thin white body stood perfectly still against the darkening sky, and the frost kept flowing in.

Natalia came and stood beside him as the sun went down.

"You’ve been thinking for nine hours," she said. "That’s a long time, even for you."

"I’ve been counting," Rudra said.

"Counting what?"

"What it’s taking." He did not look away from the Stillfrost. "It isn’t just cold. It’s taking the warmth. Out of the fires. Out of the stones. Out of thirteen thousand people. It’s pulling it all out, and it’s going somewhere."

He opened his status. His four imprints hung in the dark. Stillness. Debt. Deep Water. Helm.

His finger rested on the second one.

"I had a deck once," he said. "Tollbound Reckoning. Every time something hit me or mine, it owed me. The debt sat there and grew, and when I called it in, it all came back at once." He closed his hand. "When the decks went, that part stayed. I’ve never used it. I’ve never had anything big enough to try it on."

Natalia looked at the Stillfrost. Then at him.

"It’s taken warmth from thirteen thousand people," she said slowly.

"For a whole day," Rudra said. "That’s a very large debt."

They gathered by the shoot as night came down.

Big D, Rudra, Natalia and Kael. Hessa, with her hand already over her eyes. The Warlord and the Pyreking. The Empress and Vess.

The Pyreking still knelt beside the dark-red shoot with his small, stubborn flame held close to it. He had not moved in hours. His hand was shaking, but the flame stayed lit.

"Tell me how it works," Big D said.

"I name the debt," Rudra said. "Debt. Raw. Everything it’s taken from us since dawn, all of it, owed back. Then I collect it." He paused. "But I have to put it somewhere. Into it. And it’s standing out there behind a line it can’t cross, and it’s covered in ice. I’d have to touch it. Or I’d need a wound to pour it through."

"So someone cuts it," Natalia said.

"Someone cuts it, and the cut has to land. Deep, and in the right place. It won’t hold still for a second try. If the first one misses, it moves, and we’ve lost our chance."

"How deep?" Big D asked.

"To the heart." Rudra looked at Natalia. "Can you find it?"

Natalia narrowed her eyes at the thin white shape in the dark.

Mark.

A dull red light bloomed in the middle of its long chest. It was small, and it was deep, and the Stillfrost’s body was thin there, but it was hard as ice.

"There," she said. "One strike. A hard one. Right there. Through ice."

"Nobody here can make a strike like that land for certain," the Warlord said. "Not in the dark. Not at F."

Kael had not said anything for a long time.

"I can," he said.

Everyone looked at him.

He opened his status. His four imprints were there. Certainty. Swiftness. Break. Ward. He had been using Swiftness through his Quickstep orb for weeks. The other three he had never touched.

"Certainty," he said. "That was my last card, on the layer above. Every possible way a fight could go, folded down into one strike that lands. I used it on that thing in the heart. I used it on Almond." He looked at the first word on his status for a long moment. "I’ve never used it here. I don’t have a handle for it. I’d have to do it raw."

"What would that cost?" Hessa asked quietly.

Kael smiled a little. It did not reach his eyes.

"Last time I used it, I’d already burned through everything else I had," he said. "I couldn’t stand up afterward. That was with a whole deck behind it." He shrugged. "Raw, at F? I don’t know. Maybe I fall over. Maybe I don’t get up for a while."

"Maybe you don’t get up at all," the Empress said.

Kael looked at her. She was his Empress. She had been his Empress his whole life.

"Maybe," he said. "But there are ten dead out there already, and there’ll be a hundred by tomorrow. And I’ve watched this family throw themselves at things for a month now." He looked at Rudra. "I’d like to try it their way once."

The Empress was silent for a long moment.

Then she stepped forward and put her hand on Kael’s shoulder. It was the first time any of them had seen her touch him.

"Come back," she said. "That’s an order."

"Yes, Empress."

Big D looked around the circle. Rudra, with his hand closed around a debt he had never called in. Kael, pale and steady. Natalia, with her mark still glowing in the Stillfrost’s chest. The Pyreking, still kneeling by the shoot with his small flame shaking in his hand.

"Natalia marks," Big D said. "Hessa watches it, and tells us the moment it moves. Kael cuts. Rudra collects." He paused. "And I walk out there with them."

"You don’t have to," Rudra said.

"It ends warmth," Big D said. "I’ve been cold before. For a very long time." He cracked his knuckles. "Unbowed doesn’t care about tired. I’d like to see if Endure cares about cold."

They walked out through the line at midnight.

The moment they crossed the white stones, the cold hit them like a wall. It was nothing like the cold inside, which had at least been fighting the warm stones. Out here, the Stillfrost’s ending was everything.

Natalia’s breath froze in front of her face. Kael’s fingers went white on the hilt of his sword. Rudra’s jaw locked so tightly that his teeth ached.

Big D walked in front of all of them. His shoulders were hunched, and his face was set like stone.

Endure.

He did not stop.

The Stillfrost turned its long, eyeless head toward them.

Behind them, inside the line, Hessa’s voice rose high and sharp over the frozen grass.

"It’s seen you! It’s moving!"

The thin white legs began to walk.