Firefrost: A Flameskin Chronicles Novel

by Camille Longley

  Flameskins had an opposite and complementary curse. Their pyri manipulated their emotions and possessed them, but an emberstone could sap a pyra of its strength entirely, leaving the Flameskin without any fire at all.

  Demon sighed. “Well, you can cry, so obviously you’re not extinguished. It takes years of using an emberstone before you start to lose your feelings. One night won’t hurt you.”

  “I hate you,” she muttered, clenching her teeth and willing the tears to stop. How had she let herself cry in front of him? She wrapped her arms around her body. Now that she wasn’t wearing the emberstone manacle, the cold bit into her, nipping her uncovered face and fingers.

  “Fire isn’t evil. We all use fire, to cook, to light and warm our homes. Without fire, humankind wouldn’t survive.”

  “But it is evil to use it like this. To be tainted by it. To let it enter the blood.”

  “I won’t apologize for saving your life.”

  “It’s better to die untainted than to let the poison take you.”

  “Maybe we aren’t so different,” Kelan said softly. “We’re both afraid of what fire can do to us.”

  Chapter 16

  Kelan

  The hunger was a constant gnawing in Kelan’s stomach.

  She has food, his pyra said. Take it.

  Kelan grimaced and shoved its voice away. He focused on the walking, endless walking through the drifts of white, untouched snow. It had been meditative at first, but now it was disheartening. He was exhausted and hungry and footsore, and he had no idea where they were or how far they had to go. But he knew if he tried to complain, Sol would just tease him.

  An enemy made a good traveling companion, in a perverse sort of way. They were both getting weak from the starvation and the strenuous climb, but when one or the other started to slow, they could taunt each other into continuing on. It was sort of encouraging. In a way.

  Kelan glanced at Sol a few steps ahead of him. They had reached a snow-covered saddle between two peaks and she led them around the edge.

  “Why don’t we go across the saddle?” he asked, pointing to the open space in the center.

  “Because there’s a glacier there, and crevasses, probably. You don’t want to chance stepping into a crack and falling to your death. The rope isn’t long enough to compensate for that level of stupidity.”

  Kelan closed his mouth. Why did he even ask her questions? She always had some know-it-all answer to make him feel like a fool.

  “It’s possible we could find some game,” she said. “There’s a pond on the south side. It’s frozen over, but sometimes there’re still animals there.”

  “Where? I haven’t seen anything.”

  “Hunting is all about patience.”

  Sol barely limped now, but he could tell she was tired. If she kept an emberstone on her, she wouldn’t be so exhausted. The fire would strengthen her muscles and heal her, but she refused to touch it.

  “Why do you hate fire so much?” he asked. “I get that you think I’m a demon, but what’s so wrong about you using fire?”

  “I told you. I don’t want to be extinguished.”

  “But it takes years to even dull your emotions. It won’t hurt you to use a little. My uncle’s a mage, and he wasn’t extinguished until his thirties.”

  She turned and glared. “Drop it, Kelan.”

  He crossed his arms as they slogged through the snow. She’d given him no thanks for saving her life, but at least she wasn’t calling him “Demon.” Did she expect him to feel grateful she now considered him partially human? Human enough for a name, at least.

  Burnitall, even dogs had names. Rabid dog, that’s what she’d called him.

  “Do you even consider me a person?” he asked.

  She gave him a withering glance and shrugged.

  “How can you look at me and not realize that we’re the same? If you didn’t know I was a Flameskin, you’d see no difference between us.”

  “Well, you’re a man. That’s different.”

  “Then all men are animals.”

  She paused and smiled. “No, not all of them. But many of them.”

  “I guess I’m in good company then.”

  She shook her head, and it wasn’t hard to imagine her rolling her eyes.

  “Tell me, Huntress,” he said. “What kind of animal do you hunt that they gave you that title?”

  “Deer, mostly.”

  “You killed ten of my men, and I would say that gives you the right to call yourself a murderess as well.”

  “I did not take pleasure in killing them. I wouldn’t have killed them, except that I was impelled to. I didn’t sign up to become a soldier.”

  “What does it matter if you kill them?” he asked. “Since we’re just animals?”

  “Isn’t it a mercy?”

  Kelan tugged at the button hanging from the chain around his neck. Rabid dog. Mercy killing. He closed his eyes. As much as he fought her prejudice, hadn’t he done the same thing once?

  “Taking the life of any creature is hard,” Sol said. “I won’t pretend I enjoy it.”

  It’s not hard for me, Kelan’s pyra said. I’ll take your guilt and consume it.

  “Sol—”

  She raised her hand and cut him off, her body tense and alert. A chevron of geese flew over their heads and glided toward a section of the frozen pond.

  “Blast,” she whispered. “I wish I had my bow.”

  There were six geese that had settled onto the snow and nosed their beaks at it.

  “Can you use your fire to hit one?” she whispered.

  His stomach rumbled. “Yes. Unlike you, I realize the importance of survival.”

  She put a finger to her lips, and they advanced. Sol was considerably quieter than he was. How could she move so silently while wearing snowshoes?

  She stopped them a few dozen paces from the geese, which still hadn’t noticed them. “Can you hit them from here?”

  “Yes.”

  He took a deep breath. This was for survival. This was necessary. He was so hungry he couldn’t think about anything else.

  Yes. Use me. Let me help you burn them.

  He pulled fire into his hands and closed them into fists. Sol immediately stepped away from him. The fire coiled and spun to form two balls of fire, then he focused on the center of the flock and released the pent-up energy. Fire whipped through the air and the geese squawked and took wing, but the balls exploded before they could escape, and two geese dropped.

  His pyra snaked tentacles of fire into his mind before Kelan had a chance to restore his mental defenses. His vision tinted orange and red with the fire behind his eyes.

  Sol was shouting something, but he couldn’t hear her. His body trembled as he fought it back.

  “You will not. Take. Control,” Kelan hissed, through gritted teeth.

  I own you, Kelan.

  He fell onto hands and knees. The snow hissed and steamed as it touched his burning hands. When he looked up, Sol was staring at him, her eyes wide and frightened.

  Kill her, it said. She thinks you’re nothing more than a rabid dog. Watch her body burn. Turn her bones to ash.

  “Sol,” Kelan gasped. “The manacle.”

  She threw down her bag and emptied it into the snow. The manacle tumbled out and Kelan reached for it, but his pyra pushed fire into his right hand and yanked it back. He roared and launched himself at the emberstone, gathering it up in his other hand. The moment his fingers brushed the red stone, his pyra disappeared.

  He collapsed into the snow, panting, his fingers wrapped tight around the manacle. Too close. He had gotten too close that time. His pyra had gotten his right hand, had forced it to obey the flames instead of him.

  “Kelan?” Sol asked, her voice uncertain.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I just need a minute.”

  “Was that your . . . pyra?” she asked. “Was it trying to take control?”

  He sighed.

  “But you di
dn’t let it,” she said.

  “No. And I never will. I’m not a demon. I refuse to be.”

  She knelt next to him and her lips quirked. “Maybe not a demon, but you are a man. So that still makes you something of an animal.”

  Kelan let out a laugh that felt more like a breathy grimace.

  He held the emberstone until the cold pressed in around him and made him shiver in his thin coat. When he let go, his pyra immediately sparked to life again. It was angry, but weak.

  Sol walked toward him with two slightly-burned geese in one hand. “Here,” she said and tossed one to him. “One for you, and one for me.”

  “One for you, and one for me,” Markus said.

  He put a berry in Kelan’s hand, and they both popped them into their mouths.

  Kelan was eight, and Markus, his cousin, was fourteen. And since the time Kelan had moved into Markus’ house, Markus had allowed Kelan tag along with him. Markus’ friends had abandoned him last winter, and Kelan had become a sort of accomplice in Markus’ schemes. Markus had shown him how to navigate the big city of Duhavn, how to cut the strings of purses, how to throw rocks at the palace guards and make them jump and swear, and where to steal the best sausage.

  It was spring now, and the horrors of the winter that had brought Kelan to Duhavn, to the house of his cousin, had been cast far from Kelan’s childish mind.

  “Thieves!” the shopkeeper shouted.

  Markus grinned madly and grabbed Kelan’s hand. They scurried out of the way as the shopkeeper threw a brick at them. It cracked against the side of a crate of fruit, and berries rolled into the street to be immediately scooped up by other waiting miscreants or trampled by hooves and boots.

  Kelan laughed, breathless as they ran. They slipped into an alley and hid in a doorway. Kelan’s heart raced wildly.

  More chase! his pyra begged. More danger!

  The adrenaline was exhilarating. He and Markus were always after the next thrill. Fire glimmered on the tips of Kelan’s fingers, but Markus’ arms were alight, and fire threatened to singe his sleeves.

  “Next time he attacks us, we should burn his fruit stand to the ground,” Markus said, his voice deep and dark. Whenever Markus’ voice changed like that, it meant that his pyra had taken control.

  Kelan shifted away from him. Markus’ pyra had come into full strength when Markus was twelve, and it had possessed him at thirteen. When Markus was possessed, he was fun and reckless and unpredictable. They burned things. They got into trouble. Sometimes it was fun, and sometimes it wasn’t. And the fire that filled Kelan on these escapades was so intoxicating he had a hard time saying ‘no.’

  “What do you want to do next?” Kelan asked, grinning.

  They both jerked up at the sound of footsteps charging through the alley and peeked out from around the corner.

  Peder.

  Kelan’s pyra shrank as fear seized him, and the flames on his fingers evaporated.

  “Come out, demons,” Peder spat. He was flanked by seven other boys, all bigger and stronger even than Markus.

  Kelan shrank away, but Markus had a terrible, terrible smile on his face. “We have an idea,” Markus’ pyra said, its voice deep and ugly. “We’re going to teach our friends a lesson.”

  Markus stepped out into the alley and Kelan stood in his shadow. “Hello, Peder,” Markus said. “So nice to see you.”

  Markus and Peder used to be best friends, but that friendship had ended last winter. That was when King Anton had slaughtered his Flameskin wife and daughter. That was when the pyres had been lit, and Kelan’s mother had been killed. That was when Uncle Haldur had gone to find Kelan and brought him to Duhavn to live with their family, where he would be safe.

  Peder and his friends all carried weapons: rods, kitchen knives, a horse’s whip. They hadn’t come to play nice. Kelan’s heartbeat fluttered in his chest.

  Markus’ arms flared, and he grinned wickedly.

  Peder startled backward and tightened his grip on the wooden club in his hand. “You’re demons. Both of you. You’re cursed.”

  Markus growled, a sound like roaring fire, and flames shot out of his arms.

  “No, Markus. Don’t!” Kelan shouted. Markus shoved Kelan to the ground and left a burning handprint on Kelan’s shirt.

  Streams of fire flew into the ranks of boys, and they screamed as the flames ate at them. Three boys escaped, but the other five writhed on the ground as the fire consumed their clothes and burned their skin.

  Markus’ face contorted. “Peder?” he asked, his voice quiet and afraid. Markus shook his head, and then grinned. “Does it hurt, Peder? Does it burn?”

  Chapter 17

  Sol

  Sol groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. There was nothing worse than waking up in winter, except waking up in winter on a patch of snow in the middle of the mountains.

  When she opened them again, Kelan’s turquoise eyes stared back at her. She jerked away, clutching the blankets to her chest.

  “Kelan!”

  He yawned lazily. “What?”

  “Why are you so close to me?”

  “You do this every night. You always cuddle up to my warm demon body.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He sat up and shrugged. “I haven’t moved all night.”

  The fire had died, but he hadn’t bothered to start it again. Sol had watched him light the fire last night. He had used one spark from his finger, then immediately put out his pyra by holding the emberstone manacle. Kelan kept the manacle and its key in his coat pocket now.

  What would it be like to know your body would eventually be taken over by a pyra? Would the manacle be enough to stop it?

  “Why don’t you wear the emberstone all the time?” she asked as she rolled up the furs.

  “If I did, I’d freeze to death. I don’t have warm clothes like you do. But even if I had proper clothing, it’s hard to . . . give up my pyra like that, by choice.”

  “But won’t it eventually take you?”

  “Maybe not. I’ve fought it back this long.”

  She pressed her lips together. It looked like a losing battle. “But why not use the manacle? It would be easier, wouldn’t it? You told me you struggle with it all day.”

  “Without my pyra I’m cold. And my body is weaker. With a pyra I never get sick. I heal quickly. My muscles are stronger. I have greater stamina.”

  “But are all those things worth your soul?”

  He tied a tight knot on his snowshoe strap and stood. “I thought demons didn’t have souls.”

  “I guess they don’t,” Sol said. “But you aren’t a demon. Not yet.”

  He stared at her, his brow furrowed. She turned away. It was unnerving when he stared at her like that.

  They’d eaten the last of the geese the night before, and now they shared a single strip of venison jerky, their last one.

  “If we push hard today,” she said, “I think we’ll make it to Baarka.”

  He grinned. “Bless the gods! Food! And a bed. And no more hiking.”

  She smiled faintly. It seemed too good to be true after so many days in the snow.

  “You aren’t going to try to turn me in, are you?” he asked.

  She should. “No. I won’t. I’m not happy about what you did, putting the emberstone on me, but you did save my life.”

  Letting Kelan go free was a foolish decision she would probably come to regret, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to turn him over when the time came. If she gave Kelan to the Tokken Army they’d kill him, and she couldn’t stomach that.

  “Is that your way of saying ‘thank you’?” he asked, his eyebrows rising. “I never thought I’d hear a kind word from your lips.”

  She scowled at him. “Yeah, well, I’m a huntress. We aren’t known for being nice.”

  She stood and slung her pack over her shoulder. Breaking camp was easy. Roll up the bed and tie on the snowshoes. They had nothing else to pack or eat. “I still think you’re dangerous.
If I let you go free, how do I know your pyra won’t take control and kill people?”

  “I won’t let it.”

  “But you’re still a soldier.”

  “I’ve never killed innocents,” he said quietly. “And I never will.”

  “But you’ll still fight in the war, won’t you?”

  “As long as there are people in the world who want to kill Flameskin children, then I won’t stop fighting.”

  Sol sighed and turned toward the trail. He followed her as they started down the mountain. Pa had taken part in killing the Flameskins in their village, including the children, but Sol hadn’t even been able to kill a Flameskin trapped in an avalanche, or hanging on a ledge of ice. Pa had lived what he believed, and he was stronger than she would ever be.

  They traveled downhill toward Baarka Valley, and made good time. Once they got close, Sol started scanning the trees for people.

  “When we get to the village, it would be better if you hid what you are,” she said. “We might have to winter there, and it would be easier if the villagers didn’t suspect you were a Flameskin.”

  “How long will we have to stay in Baarka?”

  “At least two moons.”

  “Ashes and cinders. That’s too long. Can’t we just continue on?”

  “It depends on the conditions. Would you rather get caught in a snow storm or buried in an avalanche?”

  He sighed. “And what am I supposed to do in Baarka for two moons?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll offer my services as a huntress, and they’ll give us some food, and lodging. Once the snow melts a bit, I’ll take you the rest of the way to Cassia, if that’s where you want to go. That’s where I’m going anyway.”

  She chewed on her lip. Anywhere Kelan stayed in the village he would draw attention, especially with his red coat. She’d have to get him a new one if they were going to make his disguise convincing.

  “Kelan,” she said and glanced back at him, “you may have to wear your manacle while you’re in Baarka.”

  “I know,” he said and sighed again. “What kind of a demon am I? To wear a collar like a dog and obediently wait for the snow to melt?”