House of Winter

Chapter 12, Part 1

LUMI

Lumi clutched onto Tom's back as Kobuk launched into the skies. Beside them, Doctor Hart on Mondli took flight gracefully. The two kinnbeasts worked hard to gain as much elevation as possible fast, so they could be up in the clouds before they were spotted. Lumi stared down at Singtsu below, wondering when she would ever see the city again.

The last time she'd left Singtsu, it had been reluctantly on a ship, heading into an unknown future as a bride. Now, she was fleeing from her tyrant brother and the councillors who wanted to crown him king. Singtsu had been her home since the end of the Fire War, and briefly now it had been her home in this strange limbo time during which a new war was surely starting.

Lumi felt a pang of guilt for leaving. But she knew if she were capable of stopping this war, she would need to find out how to quell Tai's powers for good.

They flew for a few hours, until the rosy fingertips of sunlight appeared over the Lothern ocean. Finally, they aimed for one of the remote islands to rest for a few hours before they took flight again.

The two kinnlings landed, and Lumi dismounted inelegantly. She was realising just how unprepared she was for a long journey. She was wearing the fire army issued uniform made for Singtsu weather, but as soon as they started heading Dorth she would need much warmer clothing. They had no food, no shelter, and Lumi didn't even have the faintest idea how to get to Reunsgar.

She tried to remember the journey she took as a small child to Sredsibirsk to hide in the mountains from the war, but she'd been so young that she only remembered glimpses - a sled crossing a snow field, pulled by tigers, and a ship laden with jars of dried fruits and preserves.

The island they were on was mostly just rock and forest. At least it was warm and shady, but Lumi doubted there was any salvageable fruits on the island. The archipelago around Singtsu was dotted with islands like these - small and uninhabited, but forming a perfect physical barrier around the capital.

Doctor Hart sat down on one of the rocks next to Mondli. In the daylight, Lumi realised just how strange it was to see the chancellor of the school outside of her natural habitat. She was someone who had always existed to Lumi in the confines of the school, and now here she was, an old lady sitting on a rock on a beach.

Doctor Hart was entirely blind, although her lion Mondli acted as a guide and enabled her to behave quite independently. The woman was wearing good travelling clothes instead of her usual suit, but she still had the necklace around her neck that looked like the spokes of a sun.

"Do you know the way to get to Sredsibirsk?" Lumi asked her.

"We will head away from the suns," Doctor Hart said. "Eventually we will have to ask directions, but hopefully then we will be in familiar and friendly territory."

Lumi watched as Tom stripped off his shirt then bent down to the water to clean the shirt in the ocean. She almost let out a little gasp to see the huge scar running down his otherwise smooth brown back.

"That's the injury from the championships?" she asked, and she found herself walking down the beach towards him.

Tom looked up, seemingly surprised to see that Lumi was watching him. She blushed.

"I took a pretty bad fall," he admitted.

"Is it painful?"

"Not anymore," Tom said. "But it'll be there for life, I'd say. Still, other champions have far worse injuries. Take my mother for example. She lost her arm to the kinnling charging arena."

"I thought she lost her arm in a battle against Pythos Savvas," Lumi said.

"Well, sure," Tom said. "But my mother doesn't blame Pythos for that."