“What tests? Ready for what?” I ask. But who am I asking? No one is talking—no one but me is here. This is just in my head, knowledge coming up from—the key?
I think I’m holding the key. Asleep, somewhere, I’m holding it, and it’s using my voice, droning on and on.
“And these tests—these tests will make them—”
The nothingness lifts, unfurls like curtains drawn away from a window until all around me is white: walls paneled ivory trimmed in silver.
Winter. I’m in a study in the Jannuari Palace.
“I have to do this!”
Hannah stands in the center of the room, her body pivoted away from me as she talks at a man with his forehead pressed to the wall.
“You don’t understand,” she growls. “This is the only way to save them.”
Seeing her now makes me realize how much I’ve missed her. She doesn’t react to me, though—not when I say her name; not when I stand right in front of her, forehead pinched.
“They need this, Duncan,” she says, and her voice breaks on a sob.
I turn, but the man stays facing away from us, his long, white hair brushing across his back as he buries his face in his hands. Duncan. My father.
“I asked the magic,” Hannah continues. “I begged it to tell me what to do. I don’t want to just save them from Angra—I want to save them from all the dangers of the world.” Her sobs abate, and she tugs her shoulders back, hardening. “I asked how to save Winter.”
I know this already. The magic told her that when a conduit breaks in defense of a kingdom, the ruler becomes the host for the magic. They become their own conduit, a limitless supply of magic for their people. That was why she arranged for Angra to break her locket—she wanted to save our people from him.
“I have to let him kill us,” she states, trying to convince herself as much as Duncan.
Killus?
As I watch her, the rest of the story unfolds in my mind. One piece in particular jerks out in an uncomfortable lurch that rips the breath from my lungs.
How did I not see this before?
Hannah arranged for Angra to break her locket—but she also arranged for him to kill her. That was part of her deal with him—she promised him an end to the Dynam line, not knowing that she was pregnant, and that that meant killing her child too.
“When a conduit breaks in defense of a kingdom, the ruler of that kingdom becomes the conduit. And if the conduit were to break again—if that ruler were to die in defense of their kingdom as the last of their bloodline—the magic would seek out the next host linked to it—the citizens of its kingdom.” She stops, winded. “They’ll—you’ll—never want for anything. I have to do this, Duncan. He has to kill us so Winter can be saved.”
Us.
No—this iswrong. This is a trick—
“They must be ready. And these tests—these tests will make them ready.”
My voice again, taunting me. I tangle my fingers in my hair, shaking my head to keep the information from sinking into my mind. But it does, and everything unravels.
If what Hannah said is true, if I hadn’t been born—if Hannah had let Angra kill us both all those years ago—
Our ruined kingdom would be whole right now. Sir would have raised Mather as his son. Nessa and Garrigan and Conall would be filled with power, and Spring would have fallen, and the Decay would be a distant memory beneath all of Winter’s conduit magic.
That’s what the key wants me to see? How my very existence kept my people from safety?
“A ready heart,” the magic says. “These tests will make you ready.”
I bend forward and scream frustration, exhaustion, everything I have left. I don’t even scream words, just noise, how tired I am of fighting a war when I can barely see one step ahead, how tired I am of being the only one who evenseesthe war.
And now—what? I should just let it all kill me so my people become their own conduits? This can’t be it. This doesn’t even have anything to do with the magic chasm—and these tests are supposed to help me reach the magic chasm, aren’t they?
But the visions I saw when I touched Theron didn’t have anything to do with the magic chasm either. He didn’t see anything, though, and he touched the key—if he did see something, I would’ve noticed him react. So why just me? Because of my own magic? Why would the Order have set up the keys to be conduits that only react with a conduit-wielder? No one without magic can open the door? None of this makes sense.
