Free Icicles Like Kindling by Sara Raasch

Kingdom of Autumn
Six Years Ago
    I don’t want her to leave.
    Walking with Crystalla usually makes me happy—the freedom from camp and all of those disapproving glares from Sir. The forest is quiet and cool today, everything holding still, as if the entire kingdom doesn’t dare interrupt our conversation.
    But there hasn’t been any conversation. Our walk has been nothing but tense and silent since we left camp. As I trudge alongside Crystalla through the crunchy undergrowth of Autumn’s woods, all I can think is something I should never utter aloud, not if I want to be a soldier too.
    I don’t want her to leave.
    Crystalla keeps her eyes ahead, her lips parted like she’s trying to piece together what she wants to say. This time is different from all the others—before regular missions, everyone jokes and laughs and brushes off worry as if it’s nothing more than a stray snowflake on their sleeve.
    But today.
    Today I want so badly for her to smile or tug on my hair and tease me about the rip in my dress from climbing trees that morning. Normal things.
    Because her mission tonight is anything but normal.
    I hurry ahead, channeling my worry into running, darting over the fallen orange and gold leaves that litter the ground. Autumn is my favorite place we’ve stayed. The entire kingdom is a forest of sleepy, half-alive trees, oaks and maples and rustling aspens.
    “Meira, look at these!” Crystalla says suddenly, and the happy distraction in her voice makes me stop. That’s the happiness I wanted.
    The tightness in my chest loosens as she smiles up at me from her crouch on the ground.
    She doesn’t smile like that very often.
    I jog back to where she bends over a pile of aspen leaves. When I squat next to her, she picks up a ruby leaf as big as my palm, hooks a strand of hair behind my ear, and slides the leaf in with it, pursing her mouth in mock seriousness as she surveys her work.
    Her lips break into another smile and she cups my chin. “Like an Autumnian princess.”
    I giggle, touching the leaf. “No—like an Autumnian soldier!”
    Crystalla’s smile falters. “Have you been asking William to train you?”
    At her mention of Sir I frown and drop my eyes to the leaves beneath us. Dozens of them, each more vibrant than the last. I scoop up a handful and count them into my palm, my words muffled as I press my chin into my knees.
    “He says he doesn’t need me to fight,” I mumble.
Three, four, five.
    “He says I have other duties.”
Eight, nine, ten.
    Ten leaves. One for each person in our refugee camp. I let the large stone, a brown leaf puckered at the edges, flutter out of my hands—Sir. Our leader. A narrow maroon one follows his to the ground—Alysson, his wife. A small copper leaf next—Mather, our future king. The rest cascade from my fingers, dripping one by one back to the forest floor, until finally, only three remain in my palm. Two identical circles of pale yellow—Crystalla and her husband, Gregg. And the last, orange and freshly fallen, still wet with life—me.
    I finger the orange leaf and stack it under the two pale yellow circles.
    I could help them on this mission—I could help them get our magic back from Spring. They
need
help, especially for missions like this, where they have to go so close to the man who overtook our kingdom and stole our conduit. King Angra won’t give our kingdom and people back without a fight, and he won’t give our magic back either. There are only ten of us he hasn’t captured or killed yet, and as I stare at the leaves I dropped on the forest floor, the pile looks small and brittle. I could help
everyone
—if not for Sir. If not for the way he pushes me aside like I’m just one of these leaves, fragile, disposable, and unneeded.
    “We have soldiers,”
he says.
“You’re not needed to fight this war.”
    I glare at the brown leaf on the ground. But I feel Crystalla watching me, and when I flick my attention up, her blue eyes flash in the