Ice Crown by Kay L. Moody (best books for 8th graders TXT) 📖

was only a week away now, and she’d been training during every minute of her spare time. When the fire ribbons got too close to her body, it would raise her internal temperature just like a fever. But she needed that little bit of danger or else the demonstration wouldn’t be impressive enough. She’d written another letter to Marmie all about her new plan.

This one would work. It had to.

She swirled a fire ribbon around her arm. When it reached her shoulder, she let the ribbon grow longer so it could then swirl around her torso, and down one leg. A cool afternoon air drifted in through the training room door, which felt nice on her heated skin.

Just when Talise made another fire ribbon spin around her from bottom to top, Mrs. Dew walked into the room. Talise hadn’t snuck in this time, but the sight of her teacher still made her jump.

“Mrs. Dew.” Talise stopped shaping immediately as she lowered her head in a quick bow. “What can I do for you?”

To her surprise, Mrs. Dew didn’t answer. Her face remained stoic as she pointed toward the little stools in the corner of the room. One thing did seem different though. The muscles around her eyes looked heavy as if something weighed them down. It made Talise’s hair stand on end.

“What is it?” Talise asked. “What’s wrong?” Terror flashed through her, but the logical part of her brain tried to swat it away. Mrs. Dew always looked serious. That was her default. This expression was no different than usual. Still, something like doom seemed to settle into the walls. Something was wrong. Talise didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew it.

Mrs. Dew only pointed to the stools again. Without waiting for Talise, she lowered herself onto the nearest one.

Terror gripped Talise by the insides, but she tried to squash it down. Mrs. Dew probably just wanted to see Talise’s demonstration. She’d been going around to the other students giving advice.

No matter how much her brain worked, by the time Talise sat down across from Mrs. Dew, she knew this had nothing to do with her demonstration. A faint glisten of tears sat in the corner of Mrs. Dew’s eyes.

At the same time, a lump appeared in Talise’s throat. Her muscles suddenly couldn’t be relaxed, no matter how she tried to soothe them. And when had she started breathing so quickly?

“What happened?” Talise asked.

“I just received word,” Mrs. Dew said, suddenly staring at the ground. She gulped and held her lips together as if unable to force them open.

A rope of ice seemed to tighten around Talise’s heart. Her breathing got deeper, and her muscles got tighter. How many seconds had it been since Mrs. Dew entered the room? Ten? Twelve? It felt like a thousand. Not a thousand seconds, but a thousand hours.

She knew what was coming. She knew it.

But how could she know it? Mrs. Dew hadn’t said anything about it yet. This conversation could have been about anything. Talise tried to force her mind to consider how ridiculous she was being. Tried and failed.

Her mind had no control now. She was being led by her thumping heart and the anxiety that seized her muscles. No longer able to calm herself, she held her breath waiting for Mrs. Dew’s words.

“Your,” Mrs. Dew said before she gulped again. “I just received word from one of the guards. Your…”

She paused again as if the words were too much. Too heavy.

Just say it, Talise thought. I already know what you’re going to say, so just say it.

Mrs. Dew closed her eyes and turned away. “Shyna was found this morning by a neighbor.”

Marmie.

“Apparently she’s been sick the past few weeks.”

Talise’s seizing muscles were replaced by a cold, icy grip. No more thumping heart. It must have stopped. It had to have stopped. Because how could she be alive when Marmie…

“The neighbor was there the night before. He said she fell asleep. When he came back in the morning…”

“No,” Talise said. It was all she could think to say. This couldn’t possibly be real.

“She passed away in her sleep. She probably didn’t feel anything at all.”

“No!” Talise shouted. She jumped off her stool, but then standing there didn’t feel any better. She had to do something. She had to move, or her muscles would explode.

The stool.

She kicked it over, but it wasn’t enough. She threw it across the room, but that wasn’t enough either. Grabbing the stool again, she heaved it at the wall. It needed to break. Something had to be destroyed. Something needed to break for the impossibility of this situation.

When the stool hit the wall, it bounced to the ground with barely even a dent. Talise let out a guttural scream and fireballs appeared in her hands. She didn’t really mean to set the stool on fire, but at the same time, she did.

Soon, the wooden stool had burst into flames atop the cement floor. The wood cracked by the heat of the flames. Talise watched until the legs of the stools turned black.

And then she fell to the ground with her face in her hands and wept.

Sobs shook through her. The muscles inside had been weakened by the anxiety that gripped them. Her heart no longer beat, it only fluttered. For some reason, her eyes felt tired.

So tired.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Dew said.

Her teacher had never been particularly comforting, but having her arm wrapped around Talise’s shoulders felt nice. Not enough, but nice.

Mrs. Dew said nothing of the burning stool. Instead, she squeezed Talise’s shoulders and let her cry as long as she needed.

It took longer than it should have.

“How did she die?” Talise finally asked. Her voice sounded like the croaking of a frog, but she managed to get the words out.

“In her sleep.”

Talise nodded. “Yes, I know you said that, but what did she die of? Why was she sick?”

Mrs. Dew wet her lips as she looked away.

“Are a lot of people getting it? Is the sickness spreading? A fever? A cough? What?”

Looking at the ground, Mrs. Dew asked, “Do you know how most people in the Storm die?”

Blood rushed through Talise’s ears as her heart pounded. Again, the world seemed to freeze while she was forced to deal with these awful truths. “Malnourishment,” Talise whispered. The same thing that prevented people in the Storm from being able to shape was also the thing that usually took them away forever.

Mrs. Dew nodded, still unable to make eye contact.

They were both quiet, watching the flames around the stool turn to embers.

“I have to go to the funeral,” Talise said. “I have to leave a mark on her gravestone.” It was the only thing she could do now.

Since the time of Kamdar, the first emperor of Kamdaria, gravestones had been marked by the deceased’s family members. The simple marks honored the person’s life and acted as symbols for the love their family members held for them. The more marks a grave had, the more honored that person was considered to be.

Talise had just enough money to get to the Storm. Not enough to get back, but Mrs. Dew or the school might help with that. They allowed that sort of thing on occasion.

Maybe it was reckless to spend a day of traveling this close to the competition, but Talise didn’t care. She needed this. She had to say goodbye. She had to leave a mark on Marmie’s grave because hers would be the only mark the grave would bear.

“Of course. We have funds for you. I’ll contact the city and find out when they plan to do the funeral.”

“The city?” Talise looked up with a start.

Mrs. Dew nodded. “Yes, the city is doing her funeral.” When Talise stared back at her, Mrs. Dew added, “She didn’t have any family in the Storm, did she?”

Talise turned away as she wrapped her arms around her stomach. Shaking her head, she said, “No. She has no family in the Storm.”

And whose fault is that? she thought.

Talise dropped her head into her palms and began crying again as if she had never stopped. At this rate, she might never stop.

Not until Marmie’s grave bore her mark.

 

NINE

 

 

 

LETTERS.

They captured the essence of Marmie, but not the smell. They didn’t hold the soft edges of her wrinkled skin or the few gray strands in her hair. How many strands of gray were there now?

Talise hadn’t seen Marmie in ten years. When she first joined the academy, the one thing she feared most was forgetting Marmie’s face. At first, it took no effort at all to recall her sparkly smile and gray eyes. The first few years, it was easy.

And then it wasn’t.

Now she wondered if she had imagined that freckle under Marmie’s right eye. Or was it her left? Had her lips been full or thin? She never thought to look when she was younger.

Marmie insisted Talise would never be able to forget her as long as she loved her. But she was wrong. She loved Marmie with more heart than she even knew was capable.

And she could barely remember her face.

Talise clutched the letters against her chest and breathed them in again, praying for even the hint of a smell.

Of course it never came. What did Marmie smell like? Now she’d never know. At the funeral, she’d smell like embalming fluid. That wasn’t Marmie. All Talise would really get was to see Marmie’s face again.

Her beautiful face that had sacrificed everything, everything for Talise to be here.

Why did fate have to be so cruel as to let Marmie see Talise get so close to the competition, but not close enough to win? Talise had bought Marmie a riverboat ticket so she could attend. If things had gone according to plan, Marmie would have had one full day of food and rest. It would have been the best she’d felt in years.

And now she was dead.

Gone.

Sand seemed to scrape down Talise’s throat as she tried to swallow. She clutched the letters to her chest as she paced across her bedroom.

How was she supposed to compete like this? How could she focus now?

She swallowed again and brushed an errant tear from her cheek.

She just had to put a mark on Marmie’s gravestone. If she could just leave a mark on the gravestone, then she could focus again. Why was Mrs. Dew taking so long to tell her when the funeral would be?

Talise’s bedroom door opened a crack, and the letters flew through the air as she wrenched the door open. Her arms sagged at her sides when she saw Wendy in the doorway.

Talise turned away and tucked a strand of chin-length black hair behind her ear. “I thought you were Mrs. Dew.”

“Why weren’t you in class this morning?” Wendy asked.

Gulping seemed like a good way to subdue the frog in Talise’s throat, but the sandpaper feeling only got worse. Considering how much she’d been crying, it made sense that her throat was dry.

“I had a, uh… personal…” Why was she trying to be brave in front of Wendy? Wendy was her friend. But maybe if she could be brave in front of Wendy, she could be brave in front of everyone else too. “A personal issue,” Talise finished with a curt nod.

Wendy’s face had fallen. All the lighthearted laughter in her eyes had been replaced by a shroud of black. “What happened?” Her voice came out higher than usual.

All of that