Firefrost: A Flameskin Chronicles Novel

by Camille Longley

  He stared at her. “I thought you were going to leave me there.”

  She opened one eye, and closed it again. “I considered it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  She sighed. “I didn’t.”

  “Don’t sound so torn up about it. You saved my life.”

  She rolled over and put her back to him.

  Kelan lay on his back and looked up at the gray sky. His pyra returned, slowly, warming first his core then spreading heat to the tips of his fingers and toes. Snow fell and landed in big flakes on his face. He blinked it out of his lashes, and it melted on his cheeks.

  “Come on,” he said, and stood. “We should keep going.”

  He took a few steps forward and sank deep into the snow with each step. “Oh, sorry, Sol. I lost both the snowshoes.”

  She curled up tighter on the skins, and falling snow piled up on her hat and coat.

  “Sol?”

  “I’m too tired,” she mumbled.

  “Is there somewhere we can camp that will be out of the snow and away from the cliff? We can’t stay here.”

  She opened her eyes. Her face was wet with melted snow and sweat. “There’s a cave not far from here. My pa and I stayed there once.”

  “Are you sick?” Kelan asked, peering at her ashen face.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. She sat up and tried to stand, but her legs shook beneath her. He reached out to help her up, but she shoved him out of the way.

  “Don’t touch me, Demon.”

  He sighed. Prickly as a pincushion lost in a bramble bush. Hadn’t she just used his name? And now he had been relegated to “Demon” again. Some people couldn’t be reasoned with.

  “I hope the cave’s close,” he said, “because you’re not making it far.”

  He coiled the rope around his arm and quickly rolled her furs up, trying to shake off as much snow as possible. Snow fell thick and fast, covering their shoulders and the tops of their heads with white. Kelan loaded both bags onto his back.

  Sol pointed at a gray shape shrouded by falling snow. “The cave’s there.”

  “Come on. We don’t want to be buried in the stuff.”

  She looked up, seeming to finally realize it was snowing. “Oh.” Her brow furrowed. “That’s not good.”

  Kelan stomped through the snow, sinking deep into the drifts without his snowshoes, and he had to stop every few steps for her to catch up. The snow fell fast enough that he worried she’d fall into a snowbank and be buried before he could find her again.

  He stopped again and turned, sighing as she limped toward him. He took both bags and slung them across her body, and it looked as though the weight would drop her to the snow.

  “Get on my back,” he said, and crouched. “I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”

  “No. I won’t touch a demon.”

  “Would you rather be lost in the snow?”

  She hesitated and Kelan fumed. Why would she rather suffer than accept his help?

  But she wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her sweaty cheek against his. He hefted her onto his back, groaning under the weight, and sank to his knees in the snow with each step. Kelan pushed his pyra into his legs and back, strengthening the muscles with fire, but he still struggled to hold both of them upright as he fought his way toward the cave.

  “Ashes and cinders. You’re so heavy.”

  “I’m no dainty Lady Isabella,” she murmured.

  They had reached the bottom of the slope where the cave lay. Sol pointed out the opening to him and he set her down in the snow. He slung both bags over his back again and half dragged, and half led her up to the cave.

  It was as cold inside the cave as out, but it was protected from the snow. He rolled out her furs and sat her on them.

  “I’ll go out to find some firewood.”

  “No, don’t,” she said, hanging limply to his sleeve. “You’ll get lost out there. You’ll fall off a cliff again.”

  Outside the cave, snow continued to fall thick and heavy. She was right, of course. They’d barely been able to see the mountain in front of them. Why did she always have to be right?

  “I guess we’ll have to wait out the storm,” Kelan said. His stomach clenched. He’d have to make the food last longer as well. He hated being hungry.

  Sol shivered in her furs and wrapped them tighter around herself. He knelt next to her and placed his hand on her forehead. Her skin was as hot as his.

  “Don’t touch me, Demon,” she growled, squirming away from him.

  “You’re burning up.”

  She swore and covered her face with her furs. “It’s my leg,” she said, her voice muffled by the blanket.

  “Let me see it.”

  She turned over in her bedroll, putting her back to him once more.

  “Sol, if you die, I’m going to be stuck out here with no way back. Let me see your leg.”

  She pulled her leg out from under the skins and winced as she unwrapped the bandages. The cut was clearly infected, and the skin around it was red and irritated.

  “Bring me snow,” she said. “I have to drain it and clean it.” When he returned with an armload of snow, she wiped it clean, but it didn’t look any better.

  “Is there anything we can put on it?” Kelan asked, trying not to look at it. “I don’t know anything about wounds. When a mage or Flameskin gets injured we just seal them up and let them rest.” Kelan had never been sick before. A pyra burned away illness and infection quicker than any poultice or potion.

  “I know all the herbs in these mountains, but they’re all buried under the snow.” She blinked twice with her bleary eyes. “I’ll rest a bit while it’s snowing. Then I’ll feel better and we can keep walking.”

  Kelan frowned at her. “Don’t die on me.”

  “I wouldn’t,” she said, closing her eyes and lying down. “Because then there’d be no one to boss you around.”

  For one night and one day it snowed, and all the while Sol tossed and turned in a fevered sleep. When she woke every few hours, she could do little more than take a few sips of water.

  Kelan sat beside her, staring at the falling snow and thinking about the men he had lost, and about Markus, as he fingered the button on the chain around his neck. His pyra grew restless and insistent.

  Leave the girl, it hissed. She’s dying.

  Sol had saved his life. Twice. He couldn’t abandon her. But there was nothing he could do for her fever.

  The boredom made him hungry and he ate, cursing himself with each bite.

  Sol mumbled in her fevered sleep, and once startled him by crying out. “The winds howl with the cries of men! The mountain has stolen their hearts!”

  They were words from one of those bardic poems, the one about the dryads, the spirits that lived in the trees of the Ulves. The poem was often sung during Solstice, and he had heard it many times. It was the tale of a man who had come into the Ulves searching for one of the abandoned dragon caves and its gold, but he got ensnared by a dryad, instead. He fell hopelessly in love with her, and she plucked his heart from his chest. He’d wandered the Ulves in search of his heart for the rest of his days.

  The snow stopped just before sunset the next day, and Kelan stepped out into the brilliant white. He was lost the moment he set foot outside. The only reason he could tell up from down was because of the sky, but the entire landscape was indistinct drifts of white snow. He wasn’t even sure where they had come from or which way they had been heading. If Sol died, he’d be lost.

  Kelan emptied her bag. The tin of lemon cake fell out, along with the rope, her food, and the manacle with its glowing emberstone.

  He stared at the red stone. Uncle Haldur had once said that most Nordese were mages, with the power to draw fire into their blood from emberstones. But they hid their gift or left it undiscovered. Kelan picked up the manacle, careful not to touch the emberstone locked inside it.

  He lifted Sol’s limp wrist and snapped the manacle in place,
tightening the band until it was snug to her skin. He studied her face, but she seemed no different. She didn’t stir in her sleep.

  He lifted her blanket and unwrapped the bandages on her leg. Her wound was disgusting, and it stank.

  Kelan took a deep breath and drew a tiny flame onto one finger. He lowered it close to her ankle, where the skin was clean and unmarked. He drew it closer, and closer, waiting for her leg to jerk or for the flame to burn her, but she didn’t react at all. He wrapped his flaming hand around her ankle and her skin didn’t burn.

  The hypocrite! Here she was calling him Demon when she was a mage herself. She didn’t have a pyra, but with an emberstone, she had the same fire running through her blood that he did.

  Did she know what she was? She must not, or she would’ve healed her wound already. Kelan grinned. He couldn’t wait to see how she reacted when she found out she was a mage.

  He pushed fire from his hand across her wound, burning away the infection and the stitches with stinking smoke and sealing her wound closed. When he finished, her calf had only a thin line of red running across it. Though the skin was still mottled and irritated, it already looked better than it had been. Her body would draw a steady stream of fire from the emberstone and heal her on the inside. Sol would get better, and quickly.

  Chapter 15

  Sol

  Sol was at once shivering in the freezing cave and burning in the Infernal Pit. The cold made her body ache, and the heat burned her.

  She woke and saw a man through her blurry eyes, and he forced her to drink water. But he wasn’t Pa.

  No, that wasn’t right. She had come into the mountains to hunt, hadn’t she? She and Pa had been following the trail of a winter herd. There had been a storm, and they were waiting it out in the cave.

  And then she was eight again, walking through the forest with her pa. “Are you leaving again?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t I come with you?”

  “When you’re older I’ll take you all over the mountains with me.”

  “But why do you have to leave again? You just got back.”

  “I have to hunt so we can eat.”

  Sol frowned. “But you could hunt closer to home.” That’s what Ma always said. “Why don’t you hunt around Hillerod?”

  Pa glanced back at her and studied her face. “The mountains make me restless. And . . . I’m looking for something that I can’t find here.”

  They had arrived at their rock by the river and Sol climbed on top of the boulder to watch the water flow beneath the thin ice.

  “You’re a big girl now and I need you to take care of my girls while I’m gone,” Pa said, and Sol nodded, proud and tall. Ma said she’d be the tallest woman in the family when she was grown. And Pa said she’d be the best huntress in the Ulves.

  “Put out your hands,” he said.

  Sol put them out, palms up. Was this an early birthday gift? What could she fit in two hands? A bow? A new quiver?

  Pa placed something in one palm and closed her hand around it before she could see it. He looked into her eyes. His were dark green, like the pines.

  “What does it feel like?” he asked.

  “Like a rock.”

  “Does it feel warm?” he asked, his lips tightening.

  Sol’s eyebrows shot up. “It is warm. And prickly, a little. Like when your arm falls asleep, but not in a bad way. It feels good.”

  There weren’t words to describe how this stone made her body feel warm and happy and tingly all over. Sol tried to open her fist, but Pa kept his hand clamped over it. He had that stern look he got when she had done something wrong. Sol’s heart raced. What had she done to displease him?

  “Pa?”

  “Sol, I want you to focus on the stone in your hand, focus on its warmth, then pull the heat inside you to your heart.” He touched her sternum with his finger. “Then push it into your other hand,” he said, touching her open palm.

  She stared at him quizzically. Was this another of his mind games? He was always coming up with new tricks to keep her occupied during a hunt.

  “Can you do that?” he asked.

  “I’ll try.”

  Sol imagined the warmth of the stone flowing through her to her hand. A bright orange flame burst through the skin of her palm.

  She screamed and wrenched away from Pa. The stone flew from her hand and got lost in the snow. Pa swore loudly, and he kept swearing until he had found the stone again.

  She cowered against a tree. There had been a fire in her hand, but it hadn’t burned her. What had she done wrong? Had he wanted a bigger flame, or had he not wanted fire at all?

  Pa stared at her, his eyes hard. Tears formed in Sol’s eyes and glimmered on her lashes.

  “I’m sorry, Pa. I don’t—”

  “No, no, Sol,” he said, burying her in his arms. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”

  She burrowed herself in his familiar warmth and he kissed the top of her head.

  “Did I do wrong?”

  “No, I’m the one who did wrong. I gave you my curse, Sol.”

  She sat up. “Curse?” Curses belonged to princesses in stories, not to Hunters’ daughters.

  Pa sighed. “I had prayed my curse wouldn’t pass on to my children, but I suppose the gods didn’t listen. You’re a mage Sol, just like me.”

  He turned her in his arms until she was looking into his face. “You must promise me, Sol. You must never touch an emberstone. You must never let fire taint your blood.”

  “I promise.”

  Sol’s eyelids were heavy, and her body shook.

  “Pa?” she asked.

  She sat up and blinked rapidly, sweeping the bleary visions from her mind. Pa had been dead a year now.

  It was Demon who had brought her here.

  Sol scrambled onto her hands and knees. Where was Demon? He wasn’t in the cave. Had he left her there to ride out her sickness? Taken her food and continued on toward Baarka? She rifled through her bag. Everything was still there, except the manacle. She frowned. He’d probably thrown it off a cliff.

  She sat back and took a swig from the water skin. He had been there during her sickness. She remembered seeing him at least once, and he was the one who had forced her to drink water.

  Sol sighed. He was probably already lost by now. If he’d left during the storm, he would surely be dead already. She could try to follow his tracks, if he had left any in the snow, but what was the point? She had no chance of taking him as prisoner without an emberstone manacle. At least he had left her with all her food.

  She felt a twinge of what could be regret, but it was probably just hunger. She was ravenous now that she was feeling better, and she tore into a piece of jerky.

  A figure in a red coat appeared at the cave entrance, and Sol lifted her hand to squint at him, blinded as she was by the sparkling sunlight.

  “Kelan?” she asked, reaching for the knife at her belt.

  He stomped into the cave and shook snow off his boots as he gave her a brilliant smile. “You’re awake! I was hoping you’d be better today.”

  “I thought you’d left,” she said, still chewing on the piece of jerky, and annoyed by the relief she felt. Being alone should be better than being with a demon, but somehow it wasn’t.

  “No such luck,” he said, still smiling. He untied the snowshoes from his feet.

  “Look at these!” he said, holding the snowshoes up for her to see. “I made them myself.”

  His happiness was infectious, and she smiled. The snowshoes weren’t bad, actually.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, sitting beside her.

  Sol blinked. “Surprisingly good.” The pain in her leg was manageable and the chills and fever had passed. “But hungry.”

  She rolled up her pant leg and inspected the wound. It had healed nicely. The infection was gone, and she had a thick, healthy scab running across her calf. But as she stared at it, her stomach dropped.

  “How l
ong have I been asleep?” Her wound looked like it had been healing at least a week. Kelan would certainly be starving by now. She was surprised he hadn’t eaten her food.

  “About a day and a half. Dawn broke a couple hours ago, and the storm ended last night at dusk.”

  She gaped. “But that’s impossible. It shouldn’t have—”

  It was impossible, unless he had healed her with an emberstone.

  “Did you know you were a mage? We should’ve checked long ago. I could’ve had you fixed up and on the road—”

  “Where is it?” Sol screamed. “Get it off me!”

  She could feel it now, the warmth in her blood, the tingle of fire just beneath her skin. How had she not noticed that she wasn’t cold?

  She yanked up her sleeve and pulled at the manacle. “Get it off! Get it off me!”

  “Sol, calm down. I’ve got the key here.”

  He looked at her like she was a wild animal. Maybe she was. He had poisoned her with fire.

  He grabbed the shackle in one hand and stuck the key in. It fell open with a click and Sol yanked her wrist free. She scurried away from him, crouching at the other end of the cave as she pulled out her knife.

  “You tainted me, Demon.”

  He threw the manacle to the ground and crossed his arms. “You knew you were a mage?”

  She scowled at him. “You had no right to do that to me.”

  “I saved your life.”

  Sol swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to blink away her tears. She had promised Pa she wouldn’t use emberstones, and that she’d never let them touch her skin. She had broken that promise once before, and had sworn never to do it again.

  She rested her forehead against her knees and dropped her knife onto the cave floor. “How long was it on me?”

  “One night.”

  She sobbed into her knees. “I don’t want to be extinguished.”

  Mages didn’t have pyri, but they could draw fire into their blood and use it without fear of possession if they had an emberstone. But there were consequences to using emberstones. Emberstones leeched the emotions from their host mage and left them as empty, unfeeling shell.