Snowmancer

Chapter 1, Part 1: Jem

Jem

Cresting the hill, under a dead sky, a profusion of ice exploded into view, the black iron city hidden safely within. The ocean surf crashed against the ice walls, only to drip down the unbeaten surface like widow's tears.

I stopped, drinking in the sight like a starving man sighting snow tubers. My breath fogged and blew into my eyes, turning my woollen scarf into a sodden, heavy, and frosted mess. I tugged the scarf down, the frigid air caressing my cheeks, welcoming me back.

This would be the last time I would ever look upon my silent city like this.

But the game... Even so many miles back, the unfinished game of Go tugged at my mind. When we'd arrived at port, I'd been forced to abandon it. I'd had the next move planned, and the countermove, but now I would never finish it. I never should have started one.

The leash jerked in my hand. I tightened my grip, holding the impatient prince back. The prince stopped, hands bound behind his back by my leash and kept there by so much more. He pulled back his shoulders and lifted his head high even through the lingering sedative haze. Not even the weeks-long trek through the snow had bowed his back. He carried himself the same in the wilderness as he had striding into his harem my first day there.

As soon as he entered, the harem had thrown itself into a calamity of flashing silks and demands. Yet all I could do was kneel in the corner, my head bowed as I watched him beneath my white bangs and tried to remember how to breathe. My skin had blazed, and not entirely from Nuriya's infernal heat.

He'd strode in with fire in his veins, a heart brimming with emotions, and his eyes drinking in his pleasures. He was nothing I'd ever encountered before. He was magnificent.

I had known then, as he reminded me there upon the snowy hill, that I'd made the right choice in the mythical Land of Fire's Prince Heir Ilyas.

But underneath his proud defiance and woollen layers, he shivered. His fragile body was used to languid heat, not the wet cold. Only his violet eyes and a glimpse of brown skin peeked between the scarves and hood. In the Sentei port, Ilyas had sneered at the beige garments and slurred a demand for more colour. Drugged and stolen far away from his crown, he still acted like he was the prince heir and I was only his humble slave, rather than I'd only played the part of one.

What would such self-assurance have felt like? My mind came up blank, but it must have felt wonderful.

Ilyas' silence made the trek easier. I didn't need to lie to him about his fate. If he knew what was really in store for him, he would have strangled himself with the leash.

Ilyas would suffer to save my kingdom, Lumi.

Suffer, because I knew no word strong enough, in either the trading language or Lumian. No one deserved such a fate, but I had no choice.

Snow crunching beneath my feet, I passed him and descended the hill. Ilyas hurried behind me, making his strides longer and longer to hide his eagerness.

Ilyas slipped on the ice-slicked path leading through the gate. I turned my eyes away, giving him the privacy of his gangly legs, as I glided along. It took time and skill to adjust to the paths in Lumi, and a proud foreigner who'd failed to hide his horror upon first seeing snowflakes falling from the air couldn't be expected to know.

Unlike Lumi, where the snow remained year long, it never snowed in Nuriya. It never even grew cold. It was absolutely disgusting.

We passed through the gates, two mountains of ice guarding the city. It was such a magnificent sight that even I gawked after so many years, but Ilyas refused, keeping his face straight, as if nothing Lumi could offer was enough to so much as turn his head. He flicked his violet eyes around, though, marking the path for his escape.