Maria Snyder - Sea Glass

“That wouldn’t have stopped her. Akako would have just found another way to finance her coup. Selling Gressa’s fake diamonds as real was the fastest way for her to raise money.”

Diamonds were expensive and hard to find in Sitia, and the Commander kept the imports to us to a minimum. Which made sense when I considered his aversion to magic. Diamonds held the unique property of being able to enhance a magician’s power. Enough of them together could provide a significant boost, and since Sitia and Ixia’s relationship remained on unstable ground despite Yelena’s efforts, the Commander wouldn’t want his potential enemy to increase their powers.

I wondered about the diamonds I had created. Would they augment a magician’s magic or not? They didn’t work for me. As my father would say, only one way to find out. The desire to be home, sitting in my father’s laboratory and discussing glass, chewed my heart. Simpler times and simpler problems.

“How about the people? Are they friendly?” Janco asked.

The only Cloud Mist Clan member I knew was Pazia. She was Vasko Cloud Mist’s daughter. Vasko had discovered a bountiful vein of rubies and was one of the richest men in Sitia.

I met Pazia during our first year at the Magician’s Keep. Her powers had been the strongest in our class, and rumors she might become a master-level magician circulated even then. She hated me from the start and I endured four years of torment from the woman. In our fourth year, First Magician Bain Bloodgood assigned her to help with one of my magical-glass experiments. Pazia attacked me with an illusion of lethal Greenblade bees.

Channeling her magic into a glass orb in my hands, I transformed her illusion into glass bees and inadvertently drained Pazia of almost all her power. Despite the fact she aimed every bit of her strength at me, I should have stopped, but I was determined not to let her get the best of me again. My ego and pride had cheated Sitia out of a potential Master Magician. We only had three.

At least the incident hadn’t been a total disaster. Pazia and I settled our differences and now she worked in the Keep’s glass factory, creating intricate vases decorated with precious stones. Wealthy Sitians had been buying them as fast as Pazia could produce them.

“Opal, hello? Where ja go?” Janco waved a hand, snapping me from my reverie.

“Just thinking about the only Cloud Mist I know, and she’s not representative of the entire clan. I’ve heard they’re friendly if you’re staying in one of their towns, but they won’t let anyone visit the mines. The people who live up in the mountains tend to be very insular. They say they know a few routes across the Emerald Mountains. The Sitian Council sent an expedition with a Cloud Mist guide a few years back, but they turned around, claiming it was too cold and too hard to breathe. The high-mountain clan members also claim a vast desert is on the eastern side of the mountains. A wasteland with no end in sight. Has anyone in Ixia climbed over the…what do you call the chain in the north?”

“The Soul Mountains.”

“Interesting military designation.” I teased him. Not everything in Ixia had a number.

Janco frowned. “The mines have the proper codes.” He scratched his goatee as he thought. “The Soul range is thicker in the north. We’ve had a few groups try to summit them, but they never returned. The winds are nasty in the higher elevations. Do you remember how strong an Ixian blizzard is?”

I nodded, remembering the horrible keening and bone-shattering cold.

“Well, it’s twenty times worse in the mountains.”

Shivering, I pulled my cloak tight. The late-afternoon sunshine warmed the land, but I hated being cold. All those years working in my family’s glass factory had gotten me used to the heat. Eight kilns running nonstop kept the brick building steaming hot.

“Has anyone tried skirting them to the north?” I asked.

“Suicide. The mountains run right into the northern ice sheet. Between the icy temperatures and the snow cats you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

A finger of fear traced my spine as the image of bloodstained snow formed. Fierce, cunning and with heightened senses, a snow cat was impossible to hunt. They smelled, heard or saw a person well before the hunter spotted them. With their white coats blending into the ice sheet, the sole warning of an impending attack was movement. By then it was too late.

One man held the honor of killing a snow cat. The Commander of Ixia. Even Valek, the Commander’s chief of security and assassin, couldn’t make that claim. Yet he’d managed to hide the Fire Warper’s glass prison in a snow cat’s den. Interesting.

At least the prison would remain hidden. No one else would risk sneaking by seven snow cats to retrieve the Warper’s soul. It would be suicide.

Four days of travel with Janco proved to be an extended exercise in patience. His curiosity focused on everything and everyone. Nonstop commentary about the strangeness of Sitia flowed from his mouth, and he enjoyed arguing. He found a fault with every issue, and we even debated on the merits or lack of merits of dust.

At least I learned a few self-defense tactics and he promised to teach me how to pick a lock in Ognap.

We reached the edge of the Emerald Mountains on the morning of the fourth day. The rolling terrain painted with lush greenery spread out before us like a rumpled quilt. Farms dotted the mounds, and clusters of buildings occupied the cracks. One large grouping extended along a narrow valley and climbed the hills to each side. Ognap, the Cloud Mist Clan’s capital.

The snowcapped Emerald Mountains loomed beyond the foothills, stretching toward the sky. Impressive.

For once, Janco remained quiet. But as we drew near the town’s limits, he stopped Moonlight. “With your glass messengers in every city, the details about our escape have probably been sent to each one. So there’s a chance the town’s guards will be watching for us. We could do one of two things. Either go in via the main road separately or circle around and find another way in.” Janco glanced at the sky. “And we should go in after dark.”

Although the thought of being alone tempted me, I decided we should stay together. My fighting skills needed to be much better for me to feel confident in them. Devlen had bypassed my sais with ease even though I had three years of lessons at the Keep. More emphasis on training and self-defense went into the final year of the curriculum. The final year I was currently missing.

We found an isolated glade to wait for the sun to set. To help pass the time, I challenged Janco to a match.

He jumped to his feet, his sword at the ready. “The glass warden isn’t bor…ing. Her sais may sing, but I am the king.”

“Warden and boring don’t rhyme.” I set my feet into a fighting stance with my sais in a defensive position. The guard was U-shaped and flared toward the weapon’s point. I balanced one arm of the guard between my thumb and index finger, which lay along the hilt. The rest of my fingers curled around the other side of the guard.

“You try and find a word that rhymes with warden.”

I tried, but Janco attacked and all my concentration focused on his lightning-fast strikes and quick parries. He won every match. Despite his tendency to lapse into extreme smugness, he guided my efforts to defend myself and I learned quite a bit from him.

During a break, he said, “Not bad. Not good, either. You need to practice every day for four hours.”

“Four hours!” My arms ached and sides heaved after just an hour.

He grinned. “The Commander’s soldiers run for two hours every morning, and practice drills every afternoon. When you’re new, practice time lasts six hours and when you’re an old soul like me, practice lasts about two hours. Keeps the skills sharp.”