The carriage broke through the final set of trees. A huge field of white led up to intimidating ice walls that towered towards the sky. The sun began to rise, making the snow and walls shimmer with dazzling light. In the middle of the huge wall were two gates thrown wide open. Jordan let out a startled cry as other carriages erupted from the forest in bursts of powdery snow. Carriages of all sizes, decorated with designs and pinstripes like race cars sped towards the gates as if approaching a finish line.
“That’s Wintra?” Jordan asked faintly.
“Yup.”
The first carriage with Mr. Parker and the other adults was nowhere to be found in the crush. Their carriage seemed to fit through the smallest gaps and beat the other carriages through the gates. The carriage slowed and slid onto a wide path made of textured ice. The carriages jammed as they tried to beat each other into the city. Like a highway, carriages going the opposite way were on the other side of the street and turned onto frosted paths that led between the buildings.
The city of Wintra was made of ice and snow. Majestic buildings towered overhead, white and beautiful in the sunlight. Like wallpaper, the walls of these buildings were carved with intricate designs to distinguish one from the other in the monotone of white. Instead of signs, the walls of each building advertised services or merchandise. Cibrian explained that a building made of frosted ice covered in hieroglyphs was a well-known museum. Jordan squinted at a building covered in hearts. The display window looked as if Valentine’s Day exploded within it. Love potions. A building of a man’s cracked, scowling face was made of packed snow.
“That’s Old Man Pete’s. They make the best sandwiches in Wintra.”
As they made their way into the city, Jordan saw that some buildings were made of frosted ice, but the largest and grandest were made of ice so clear you could see straight through to the customers within. Some of the buildings looked like swirled ice cream cones while others were sculpted in the shapes of animals, people or nature scenes. The detail on the buildings was breathtaking- works of art so beautiful Jordan and Levi stared in reverent silence. Along the sidewalks, women pushed strollers made of ice while others ice-skated. Bare trees with foot long icicles were planted in pots of snow. People yelled from booths made of ice, holding their merchandise aloft.
“Why is it winter here?” Jordan murmured without taking her eyes from the incredible view.
“Each capital is stuck in one season and it’s that way all year round. If you want to visit somewhere cold, you come here. If you want to go somewhere tropical, you visit Paradice.”
The sidewalks were lit by a soft rose glow that wove its way into the heart of the city. Jordan could see advertisements on some of the buildings as if there were huge TV screens within the ice. Advertisements for coats, perfumes and drinks passed by in a blur. Something flew across an advertisement and Jordan let out a scream.
“What?” Cibrian groaned, rubbing his ears.
“There’s someone f-f-” she stuttered, unable to believe her eyes.
Cibrian peered through the glass and snorted. “Well, of course he’s flying. Who would want to walk when it’s so crowded?”
“C-can you-”
“Maybe one day. It takes a lot of concentration. Usually only pure Thishe can manage it.”
Jordan opened and closed her mouth for a few seconds, unable to speak. They passed a building in the shape of a castle, complete with stiff ice flags caught in a nonexistent breeze. Next was a building in the shape of a mountain and the next- a building made of life size angel statues, one on top of the other.
“Cool. We’re staying at The Aquarium,” Cibrian said.
Their carriage came to an abrupt stop behind its twin. Two men dressed in pantsuits decorated with colorful sea life ran forward and opened the carriage door. Mr. Parker was the first one to step out. One of the uniformed men recognized him, took a hasty step back and gawked. Mr. Parker didn’t notice. He looked back into the carriage and a delicate wrist adorned with pearls extended out to him. Instead of doing the gentlemanly thing and helping Ruth out of the carriage, Mr. Parker walked to the second carriage and opened the door. Cold air whooshed in, making them all shiver. Knight rose from his position by the fire with an irritated growl.
“Let’s go,” Mr. Parker said.
Levi and Cibrian hopped out of the carriage first. Mr. Parker held his hand out for Jordan and she hesitated before she put her hand in his gloved one. Some of the pedestrians stopped and murmured to one another. Knight jumped down beside Jordan and several people let out yelps of alarm. Unconcerned by the small crowd that gathered, Mr. Parker led Jordan towards wide aqua colored steps. No one stopped them from entering a prestigious hotel with a nine hundred pound cat. Knight stalked by Jordan’s side and showed his fangs to the horrified onlookers.
The lobby was made of floor to ceiling aqua colored ice. Straight ahead was a large front desk manned by avidly staring men and women. Off to the side, people stepped onto airborne ice circles. They zoomed through the air, using their weight to guide the circle in the direction they wanted as if they were on surfboards.
Jordan frowned when she saw movement within the aqua walls. She edged towards a pillar and stared at the school of fish that darted beneath the ice. Jordan looked down at the floor and saw a pink fish inches from her boot. Before Jordan could go down on her knees to examine the fish, Mr. Parker wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck and squeezed. Jordan looked up and saw his gaze fixed across the lobby. Two men approached. One was tall with wavy brown locks streaked with gray and light silver eyes. He was dressed in a white suit that should have looked ridiculous on him but was intimidating and dignified instead. The second man had a riot of strawberry blonde hair, dark eyes and thick-framed glasses. He jogged to keep up with his tall companion and clutched a notebook to his chest. When the little man noticed Knight he stumbled to a halt, dark eyes wide with fear.
“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” said the man in the white suit.
“Come to welcome me to Wintra, Yale?” Mr. Parker asked in a mocking voice.
Yale stopped several feet away and examined the assembled group. His companion sidled up behind him like a child and peeked around him. The little man held the notebook aloft in preparation to swat Knight if he decided to attack. Yale’s strange silver eyes paused on Levi, widened on the Valor and finally settled on Jordan.
“You have quite a party here. Is that a Valor?”
“Yes,” Mr. Parker said.
“Is it tamed?”
“No.”
The man with the glasses let out a squeak while Yale rolled his eyes. “I’ve heard strange rumors about you.”
“Really?” Mr. Parker was bored and unconcerned.
“Word is, you have a biological daughter. Is it true?”
Jordan tried to sidle away from Mr. Parker, but he tightened his grip and kept her beside him.
“Why do you care?”
“You know why the hell I care. Is she yours?”
“If I say yes?”
“If she is yours then she should be tested. It would give the others hope.”
“We aren’t in the medieval ages, Yale. She’s not gonna be tested to see if she’s compatible with any of the men.”
Jordan took a step back from Yale’s cold silver eyes and this time, Mr. Parker let her. Levi and Cibrian crowded behind her.
Yale scowled. “You know what it’s like for us. After what happened to William, they need hope. If she’s your blood, she could give them time.”
“She isn’t being tested.”
Yale cocked his head to the side. “Nobody’s gonna hurt her. They’ll treat her like a queen. What are you afraid of?” he paused and raised his brows, “Unless you’re not sure she is yours.”
There was no warning. One moment Mr. Parker stood in front of Jordan and the next he was face to face with Yale, holding the other man up by the lapels of his perfect white suit. The man that had been hiding behind the Guide scrambled to the side, a pen flashing in his hand as he wrote in the notebook without looking at the paper. The group behind the front desk of the hotel chattered nervously, but made no move to intervene.
“Push me, Yale, and I’ll melt your perfect city,” Mr. Parker warned.
Yale sneered. “I thought you turned over a new leaf. Taking in strays and all…”
Mr. Parker shoved Yale backwards so hard, he slid several feet on his ass across the ice. “I’ll excuse you because I know you’re worried about your son.”
Yale said nothing as he rose. His eyes touched on Jordan once more before he turned and walked out of the hotel, his companion still writing madly as he followed.
“That was thoughtful of the Guide of Wintra to stop by and greet you personally, Donovan. Real classy,” Heath muttered. “He’s still an ass.”
Kelly sighed. “He’s desperate.”
Mr. Parker reached out and gently pulled Jordan away from the boys. One of the ice circles sped towards them and hovered a foot off the ground. Mr. Parker lifted Jordan onto the round platform and stepped up beside her.
“Hang on,” Mr. Parker said.
Jordan let out a stifled cry as they shot up. She wrapped her arms around Mr. Parker’s waist as the ice circle hurtled through the air, tipping from side to side as it wheeled around corners and up stairs. The circle finally stopped and Mr. Parker stepped down, pulling Jordan’s rigid form with him. Jordan watched the ice circle zoom down the hallway like a crazy Frisbee before it disappeared from sight.
Mr. Parker opened a door and ushered her into a room that was warm despite the ice ceiling, walls and floor. Jordan stared through the walls at fishes of all colors lazily drifting along as if their accommodation within hotel walls was the norm for them. Jordan stood in the entrance of a room so large she couldn’t see the other side of it. To the left was a kitchen and on the right side of the room was a seating area with comfortable looking white and lavender couches. Behind the seating area, between the fish tank walls were frosted windows and glass doors. Beyond that was a balcony that looked out over the ice city.
In the middle of the huge room was a circular lake with smooth black stones that led to a small island. In a daze, Jordan walked across the room to the lake. In the pond, dozens of huge red, yellow, orange and black koi fish splashed as she neared. The fish acted like puppies excited by their master’s return. The grassy island in the middle of the pond had a sprinkling of white lilies over its surface and a lone stone bench.
Jordan knelt on the aqua floor and the fish beneath the surface of the ice gathered around her. She couldn’t see the bottom of the dark lake. She dipped her hand in the water and the koi swarmed around her hand. One of the koi sucked on her finger and she let out a gasp and withdrew her hand. Something huge swam overhead, causing a temporary darkness in the room.
Jordan heard the hotel room door open and Knight prowled through. He trotted down the stairs, eyes tracking the fish beneath the surface. Absently, he bat at them with his paw. Mr. Parker jerked his head at her. She crossed to the bar around the kitchen and sat on one of the stools. He poured red liquid into a short glass and slid it across to her before he poured the same thing for himself. Jordan jumped when she picked up the smoking glass. Cautiously, she sipped the drink and it fizzed and bubbled in her mouth and slid down easily. She shivered as warmth spread through her and the taste of blueberries lingered on her tongue.
“What Yale said downstairs,” Mr. Parker paused, “I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to. If you are a Grounder, there’s gonna be a lot of people in your face, telling you it’s your duty to save sorcerers. That’s bullshit. You have a choice. After what happened with William, you, more than anyone has a right to choose your fate.”
“You chose to leave this all behind and do something different?” Jordan asked quietly.
“Other sorcerers can’t stand that I left my responsibilities behind to live a normal existence. To many, it’s a desecration and something I should be ashamed of.”
“You don’t trust yourself, do you?” Jordan blurted without thinking.
“Can you blame me?”
Jordan thought of her power, which was constantly growing, wanting to be expelled. What would it feel like to deal with unrelenting power for the rest of her life?
“I guess not. That man you threw on his ass is the Guide of Wintra?”
Mr. Parker shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Yale’s son is a sorcerer?”
“Yes. He started school last year. Youngest sorcerer alive right now.”
Mr. Parker poured himself and Jordan another glass of frothy red liquid. Jordan downed the glass and felt her whole body flush with warmth. She blew out a breath. “How does he want to test me?”
Mr. Parker’s eyes heated with anger. “It’s barbaric.”
“What do they do?”
Mr. Parker put his glass down so hard, Jordan was surprised the whole ice bar didn’t shatter.
“The examiners will try to drown you and see if you can breathe under water to prove you have Undala blood. They’ll toss you in a furnace to see if you can control fire to prove you have Darsana blood. They’ll trick you into drinking poison to see if you can detect which plants they used to prove you have Eliten blood. To prove your Thishe blood, they might toss you into a hurricane to see if you can manipulate the wind that might tear you to pieces,” Mr. Parker’s eyes burned.
Jordan licked dry lips and said faintly, “Yeah, that’s barbaric.”
“Welcome to my world,” Mr. Parker said mockingly.
“Why did I think it would be easier here?”
“I think you left easy behind the moment you Awakened. It’s not going to get easier.”
On that dire prediction Kelly, Levi, Cibrian and Heath walked in. Levi stopped dead while Cibrian walked towards the refrigerator and pulled out a can of soda.
“You don’t mind if I stay with you, right, Uncle Van?” Cibrian asked and took a hefty swallow of his beverage.
“As long as Ruth doesn’t come here looking for you.”
Cibrian grinned. “You know Mom doesn’t care where I go.”
“Good,” Mr. Parker muttered.
Cibrian leaned on the bar and waggled his brows at Jordan. “So, how do you like Wintra thus far?”
“It’s fantastic,” Jordan said sarcastically, giving him a smile that showed a lot of teeth.
“You sure liven things up, don’t you?”
“Not on purpose.” She slid the glass from hand to hand across the bar.
Mr. Parker spoke to Kelly and Heath before he turned to several men in the hotel uniform that filled the doorway. Was it her imagination or did the men draw back the slightest bit?
Cibrian grinned. “I haven’t seen Uncle Van toss anyone on their ass in a long time. Donovan Parker, the rebel, has returned to Wintra with a daughter and Valor in tow. Everyone expected him to become a Guide straight out of school, but he disappeared after graduation and no one heard from him for seven years.”
Levi stumbled down the steps and cowered when a whale swooped across the ceiling.
“Get a grip, man. They’re within the walls. They can’t bite you,” Cibrian said.
“But what if it breaks?” Levi stared at the underbelly of a whale.
“That’s never happened before, but if it did, find somebody with Undala power to patch up the hole for you.” Cibrian crumpled his can. “Come on, let’s look at our rooms.”
Levi put his arm around Jordan and cast wary glances around the room at the swimming sea life within the walls. Koi splashed happily as they passed and Levi stared impassively down at them. Cibrian led them to the far end of the room where three steps led up to five lavender colored doors.
As if he owned the place, Cibrian walked into one of the open bedrooms. The walls of the room were made of the same aquarium walls. A suitcase with Levi’s name on it stood near the door with three neon orange suitcases that Jordan assumed belonged to Cibrian. A block of ice served as a screen for a TV, several intimidating ice sculptures of warriors with their blades held over their heads as if going for a death blow stood around a bed covered in animal furs. To the right was a narrow hallway. Intrigued, Jordan shrugged off Levi’s lax arm and went to investigate. The hallway opened up into a small dome with a small bathing pool. A skylight let in bright sunshine. Jordan looked up at the skylight and could see snow falling, but not settling on the glass.
“Bathing room,” Cibrian said from behind her.
Jordan glanced at him. “You people bathe in pools?”
“Whenever possible.”
Jordan thought of her room at Haven and the sink she used to bathe. “Cibrian, you’re spoiled.”
He laughed. “My dad is the president of Tolly Inc.”
“Is that supposed to make sense to me?”
“My dad is a tech genius. Phones, computers, the networks… My dad, Seth Tolly, controls all of that. Don’t you have a Tolly?”
“Excuse me?”
“Um, you’d call it a telephone.”
“You mean a cell phone?”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, here, we call them Tolly’s. Instead of a telephone we call them Tolly Phones because they’re made by my family.”
“Tolly Phone?” She went into the bedroom to find Levi prodding the ice figures around the bed suspiciously. “Levi, they call telephones here Tolly Phones.”
While Cibrian tried to explain, Jordan sat on the fur covering the bed and let out a scream as she sank into a hollow rectangle filled with warm water. Jordan thrashed and spluttered and when she found her feet she stood in water up to her thighs. Someone cleared their throat and she looked up to see Heath and Mr. Parker standing in the doorway.
“What’s up?” Heath asked.
“Why is the bed filled with water?” she demanded.
“Most of the Wintra population has an affinity for water. Sleeping in their element comforts and rejuvenates them,” Heath explained.
Mr. Parker shook his head and left. Jordan winced as she hopped out of the bed and then stared down at her dry clothes and boots. She looked at the blue liquid in the bed and put her arm in, letting her jacket sleeve get saturated before she pulled her hand out. As soon as her arm left the water, it dried instantly.
“Huh,” Jordan said.
Levi stared at the bed in horror. Cibrian clambered into his bed fully clothed and floated within the confines of the rectangle. Even his ears were submerged beneath the water and he breathed in and out with his arms stretched out on either side of him like a starfish. He was fast asleep and snoring within seconds.
Jordan walked out of the boy’s room and turned the corner into the next open doorway. A suitcase with her name on it sat at the foot of an identical ice bed. Warily, she lifted the white fur covering the bed and grimaced when her hand slipped into water. Jordan shrugged off her jacket and tossed it on the suitcase. She walked right up to the aqua wall and put a hand flat on the surface. Warm to the touch. When she pulled her hand away there was no smudge and the wall gleamed. Knight walked into her room and settled with a grunt beside the bed.
Jordan examined the fish swimming within the walls and watched their progress as they swam around her room. She couldn’t see through the wall to the next room, which she didn’t understand but she was too distracted by the fish to focus on that inconsequential fact. Jordan narrowed her eyes at the TV mounted on the wall and looked around for a remote. After searching the room for several minutes, she realized there wasn’t one. She crept closer to the TV and peered at the bottom left side of the screen that read, Tolly Vision.
“No way,” she muttered.
“Knock knock,” Kelly said as she stepped into the room.
“Oh, hey,” Jordan said, spinning away from the TV.
“How do you feel?”
“Alright. You?”
Kelly shrugged. “The same. Yale usually isn’t such an ass, you know. He’s a good guy. He’s just worried about his son.”
Jordan didn’t know what to say, so she clasped her hands behind her back and waited for Kelly to continue.
“Donovan won’t let anyone force you to do anything. You know that, right?”
Jordan tilted her head to the side as she considered Kelly. “Were you tested?”
“No. My parents were normal, very average power. My dad had Thishe and Undala blood and my mom had a strong affinity to the Darsana and Eliten power. No one expected them to have kids that had more than two elements. It just happened with Monica and I.”
“Your dad wasn’t a sorcerer?”
Kelly shook her head. “It happens once every hundred years or so… That my parents produced two daughters that turned out to be Grounders was unheard of. My parents weren’t into politics or the power struggles at the top, thank God. They let us choose our own path.”
“Where are they?” Jordan asked.
Kelly’s smile dimmed. “They died the year I was accepted into The Academy. My sisters and I were raised by Mary Ann, our aunt.”
Jordan absorbed this and asked, “Did you choose your path?”
“I did. I chose your dad,” Kelly said with a weary smile.
Jordan thought of Ruth and how she came onto Mr. Parker. Did Kelly know her sister still wanted Mr. Parker? She remembered Heath’s question on the plane trip from Las Vegas. ‘I’m guessing you never told Kelly about this’. Mr. Parker needed Kelly because she was a Grounder, but why did she stay with someone who didn’t care about her?
Before Jordan could think of something to say, a voice boomed, “Donovan Alexander Parker!”
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