House of Winter

Chapter 24, Part 1

Sanna kept her face neutral. It was Warrah. Ari and Warrah were in the refugee camp.

"The fire soldiers here are waiting for orders from Singtsu," the shopowner said, as she sipped her tea. "They're waiting to decide what to do with the Vastien refugees. I'm sure the Empress doesn't want Lombardia to believe that we're harbouring Vastien refugees, especially after she sent her own granddaughter to Lombardia to marry their prince. Not that that went very well."

"Yes," Sanna said quietly.

"So we're waiting for orders. And at the moment at least some of the townsfolk have agreed to provide some food for the poor souls. Although it might all be for nothing, if we have to send them out to sea again. Their fishing boats were badly battered in the storm and they won't survive another journey without a dragon."

Sanna looked away from the woman's intense gaze, instead looking down at her silverwares while the woman talked.

"But of course the Vastiens are insisting that they need more food, and they're saying that they want to catch fish. But the townsfolk aren't happy with that. I know in Norrlund you might find it different. But in the Fire Lands we know that each creature's soul is magic, and to kill a creature to eat it is sacrilegious. It's not right. Only kinntigers are sacred enough that they may hunt. But we ordfolk are not sacred enough to kill for our own food. We have lived and thrived for generations on what our land has given us."

Sanna bit her lip. None of this woman's story was any help to her. She wanted to find out how to get Ari out of that camp, but the woman just carried on about fish. She picked up a silver spoon and stared at her reflection in the back of it. She knew now that she could blend as a Kaio girl - she had done it once before to get Ari out of the barracks prison in the Volcano Palace - and she knew now she would have to do it again. But her hair was too brown.

Sanna swallowed and looked up at the woman. "Do you have black dye?" she asked, cutting off the woman's monologue.

And so here they were, in the shopowner's cramped apartment above her shop, looking into a dirty mirror. Sanna's hair was now black as pitch.

She looked Kaio.

Sanna glowered at her reflection in the mirror, angry at the realisation that it was true.

Her brown hair in elaborate ties around her head was the only thing that had felt distinctly Norrlish to her. But now with the dark hair hanging limp around her face, her mother's features were showing. There was almost a hint of Lumi's face, if she made her eyes wide and doe-like and tried to look simple.

She was no longer (and never had been) purely Norrlish, as she had thought her whole life. She was two halves, her identity sliced neatly in two.

She remembered the tapestries in the palace in Vulfholm, which had depicted the incredible lineage of Katja's family. Katja had been able to trace beautiful gold-threaded lines connecting her parents and grandparents and ancestors for generations. They had always been Norrlish, and they had always lived in Vulfholm, so far back that the tapestry had faded beyond recognition.

Sanna remembered imagining her own family lineage tracing back just as far. She had thought that her father must have come from a line of dukes before falling into squalor. She had thought her mother might have come from a distant princess's lost line. She had thought that maybe she might even find her ancestors on Katja's tapestry, in some forgotten branch.

In modern times, purity was much less important to the Norrlish. So many of them had moved to Lombardia in search of new opportunities and mixed their blood with Stargarzen and Alamadian and even Vastien, before coming back to Norrlund with children who spoke different languages and wanted different food.

But to the royal family, at least, purity was the most important thing. The royals were only ever allowed to marry those of a pure Norrlish bloodline with strong winter starrling powers. Since Sanna's father had such strong powers, she had always assumed that they were that such family. She had always believed that her blood could be pure enough that she would be accepted into the royal family.

But now she knew the truth.

She was half Kaio. She was half Fire. Her father's pure blood was tainted, mixed within her, and she was neither Kaio nor pure Norrlish. She was a poor imitation of either. She would barely pass for a Kaio girl and yet now she knew she was not the pure Norrlish she had always hoped to be.

She was like Ariane, a mix of two different things.

With a pang, Sanna remembered Ari in the refugee camp.

"I need to get into that camp," Sanna had explained. She'd finally been able to trade her silver necklace, for everything the woman was able to give her. She now had a bag with warm clothes, food, and blankets. They would be prepared for a journey into Sredsibirsk, where they hoped that Jinni would lead them to Lumi. The shopowner had helped her devise a plan to get into the refugee camp in the morning, when the villagers would take food to the refugees.

But after the suns set, Sanna heard the bells in the harbour. The shopowner cursed as she looked out the window and down towards the port. Sanna stood up, peering over the shorter woman's shoulder and looking down at the new ships in the harbour.

"What is it?" Sanna asked.

"If that's who I think it is... oh, no. It must be him."

"Who?" Sanna asked.

"He's flying the Burning King's banners," the shopowner said.

"The Burning King?" Sanna asked with a sinking feeling. "Isn't that... Taisun Tsukasai?"

The shopowner hissed. "We do not say the name of the dead, my dear."

Sanna rolled her eyes. "Names have no power."

"Names have all the power in the world."

"But if he's flying the banners of... the Burning King," Sanna said. "Then it must be his son? Taikku Tsukasai," she hissed.

Of course he had found them.

"I need to get into that camp now," Sanna said, and the shopowner must have heard the urgency in Sanna's voice.

"There is a way to get past the soldiers," she said.

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elle xx