Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,78

down I go, my tailbone smacking hard, my right boot sinking into the river.

“Sylvi!” Kyn yells.

I yank my leg out and push to stand, only to find myself surrounded by rushing water.

“Flux. Flux!”

Kyn’s still on solid ice, his movements mirroring mine as I drift downstream. He won’t leave me—an uncomfortable certainty that fills my chest—but he’s too far away to help. The ice bumps along, the river pushing me toward the drop-off, farther and farther from the plow.

Kyn yells for Mars, waves his arms. But Mars is busy. He’s saving Lenore and that’s more important than anything he can do for me. My block of ice bumps another, and my thighs clench, but I’m watching the Kerce smuggler.

His dark form is still on the ice, his mouth moving. I swear I see the magic this time. Black dust soars from his lips, glistening as it stitches the ice before him. Winter bucks and squirms against his commands—it sets the air prickling—and I know: He’s fighting a losing battle. That plow is going under, Winter has decided as much.

“Mars!” I yell. “I can help!”

“Then help. Give Winter her marching orders, Miss Quine, and get over here.”

Panic rises in my chest as another swell of black water sloshes up and over my boots. “Tell me what to do!”

“The river is moving too quickly—”

And then the ice beneath his feet disappears. Melted in a blink. His hands fly up and his boots go under. But before I can scream, he hisses a command, and, with an indignant growl, Winter yanks him into the sky. The plow shifts again, hisses of spray rising as the bumper drops below the surface.

“He can’t talk to you and Winter,” Kyn yells. “Not at the same time. She—”

“Takes advantage,” I say, finishing his thought. My eyes are rabid, searching, searching. Kerce magic is about more than telling Winter what to do. You have to know what needs to be done. And with Mars hovering over the plow, his attention focused solely on keeping it above the surface, I’m going to have to figure this out myself. And fast.

The river, he said.

I swivel my hips, spinning the bobbing block beneath my feet so I can see where the water emerges from the cliff face. It looks like nothing but ice jutting from the darkness, but there’s water beneath it all. Rushing, pushing toward the drop-off. Beneath the surface, it’s moving too fast, tugging at the plow, breaking the ice, and undoing all Mars’s work.

“Sylvi,” Kyn yells. “What are you thinking?”

“If we can stop the river, Mars will be able to steady the rig.”

“It’s the Flux, snowflake. Everything’s melting.”

“But we have Winter. She’s ice and snow. She’s everything we need.”

The truth of it slams into my sternum, a punch of self-loathing. I don’t want to use Winter as a tool, but if Winter doesn’t stop the melting, my best friend will drown. There’s nothing I won’t do to keep that from happening.

And I know how to make her do it.

Mystra Dyfan taught me. There’s very little about her lessons I still remember, but she hammered one Kerce word into my mind with such repetition, I’ll never forget it. It was the word she shouted when I flipped the latch and climbed out the window. The word she sighed when I abandoned lessons for the foxes congregating near the coop. The word she spat when I whittled my pencil into an arrow.

“Stiyee,” she’d say. “Est stiyee.”

Stop. Just stop.

I can still see the exasperation on her face, disappointed that I cared nothing for her plans. Now I open my mouth, and, like Mystra Dyfan did so often with me, I demand Winter give me her full attention.

“Stiyee,” I say. “Stiyee flux!”

But it sounds like a question; the words flutter into the cold air. I feel Winter’s confusion, her dismissal. With my eyes on the river beneath my feet, I try again, reining in the doubt, purging it from my voice. I think of the look on Mystra’s face when she was absolutely done with me. With my refusal to take part in anything she had prepared. With my deep-rooted need to be free of expectations. I feel my brow crease like hers used to, and I repeat the words.

“Est stiyee,” I shout. “Stiyee!”

Again and again, I repeat the command. Seconds turn into minutes, and I’m drifting farther from the rig. My heart bangs hard and erratically, my voice scratching a fire against my throat, and when I’m almost certain everyone’s wrong and