The Ivory Rite

Chapter 22

I know almost immediately that I'm dreaming.

Although I can't put my finger on the exact differences between this world and that of reality, there is something in the air that tips me off. The sun shining on my face is too warm for the clouds to be this low. The graveyard is too quiet for this time of day. There should be wind rustling through the surrounding trees, winter birds singing. Instead, it's eerily silent.

I look across the steps of the tomb where I'm perched, over at Colter. He's an exact image of the man who called himself Toryn earlier today, but there's something about him that's different from when we saw each other in Capitol Hall. His hair hangs in his teenage face the same way it did when he was a child. He crinkles his nose at me, just the way he used to, before returning to working on the familiar sculpture he holds in his calloused hands.

"It's really you," I say, my head tipping to the right as I study him.

"Of course it's me, Ash." He looks up again, placing my small glass horse on the step beside him. He's been chipping at it as though it's made of ice, possible to shave and shape into what he wishes. The glass should be shattering with every move he makes, but it doesn't.

"Where have you been?" I'm suddenly and irrationally angry at him for staying away so long. "How could you have left me here alone?" My throat feels scratchy as a sob begins to build, ten years' worth of utter loneliness threatening to erupt. He regards me carefully before answering.

"Waiting."

"For what? What is different now?" I bite my lip and clutch the step I'm sitting on with both hands.

"You know." He smiles, brushing his fingers over the top of one of my hands. My grip on the step softens.

"We need your position," he continues. My gaze, previously locked on our touching skin, jumps to his face. "We need your power," he tells me.

"I don't have any power." I frown at him. "They'll never let a ruling queen stand. It's only a matter of time." I shudder, drawing cold breath into my lungs, but it feels good to say the words out loud. Until this moment I haven't dared to give a voice to that fear.

"Then find somewhere else to stand, Ash." He says it like it's the simplest thing in the world. "Don't let anyone stand in our way."

"There's an entire world standing in our way," I counter as his gaze leaves my face, training over one of my shoulders into the heart of the graveyard. In that same moment I feel a set of eyes burning into my back and I whip around just in time to see someone dressed in black duck behind another tomb. I turn back to Colt, panicked.

"Someone's here. Someone saw us." My hand flies to my hair, pulling down some strands to check the color.

Dark as night.

"He knows." Colter is staring at me intently.

"Who knows?" I turn back again, looking for the imposter.

"Who do you think?"

"Don't answer my questions with more questions, Colt." I scowl at him. "It's maddening." He takes his hand back and reaches for my little glass horse, sitting on the step between us.

"I can't tell you anything you don't already know."

"Because this is a dream." I glance sideways at him for confirmation. "Because we're in my head, and nowhere else."

"Yes." He sighs. "You and I can be nowhere else." He regards me with an emotion I can't place, and I look away from him, washed in sudden sadness.

"Hold out your hand," he says, his voice grounding me. I hesitate, but place a hand back within his reach. He takes it in both of his and turning it palm up, places the horse there.

Cold bites into my skin as I realize that unlike the first one he gave me in the world of the living, this trinket is indeed made of ice. He closes my fingers around it, looking like he wants to say more.

"Tell me," I insist, instinct whispering that what he has to say is important. Water drips between my fingers and I open my hand to find that the horse has melted straight to water. There's nothing left.

"Nothing is permanent." Colter shoots me a troubled look.

"What does that mean, Colt?" I look from him to my empty hand and back again.

"The Thaw. It's coming."

The ice of the tiny sculpture rematerializes in my veins.

My eyes move from Colter's face to a shadow behind him, one that wasn't there a moment ago. Before I can move, Adair steps out from the side of the tomb. One of his darkly clad arms slices through the air, arcing down towards Colt. There's a glint of steel.

I can't move fast enough.