A dark discoloration covers his left cheek and jaw, his soft innocent face seeming harsh. She traces her fingertips over the marks with sadness in her eyes. The boy flinches from contact, hissing in pain.
Gripping his shoulder gently, she assesses him.
He sits crookedly on the bed with his shoulders slightly hunched. The side of the boy’s face is covered in dark splotches.
“You miss’t it though, Glacier. You should‘a seen the ice that was e’erywher’! There were ‘eaps and ‘eaps of spikes‘a ice all ‘round us!”
His arms motion around wildly with excitement, before they dart to cradle his ribs.
“Cast, how hurt are you?” Glacier watches him with worry, but the image of ice spikes has her head spinning.
Was it her that did it, when I felt that white feeling? I hadn’t shown any element until now, but ice wasn’t an element…
“He didn’t get me that bad ya know. Kelly said that I just ‘ave a frack-tured rib and bruisin’.”
The mention of her father’s nickname caught Glacier off guard.
“So my dad knows what happened?” The thought of him being disgusted that she had killed a man crosses her mind.
Would he think I killed him? Was it me that killed him?
Castor nods his head, “You fell ‘sleep, so I ‘ad ta get ‘em to get ya, ‘cause I can’t carry ya.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
His little smile drops at her question, “Like, a whole day.”
Her face pales.
I slept for an entire day?
“Where is my dad now?”
“In the kitchen wit’ mom. She’s real angry at me.”
Glacier nods her head in understanding. The short movement sends a sharp pain through her nose, and the memory of Mr Michael’s head butting her comes to mind.
I hope it isn’t broken.
Glacier swings her legs over the edge of the bed, placing her feet on the wooden floorboards. The wood feels rough against her sensitive feet. Castor swoops in under her, wrapping his arm around her waist when he sees her sway. Despite being nine years her junior, his head nearly reaches Glacier’s shoulder.
“Thanks, Cast.”
“S’OK.”
Heading towards the door, Glacier takes short steps across a tattered rug. The palms of her feet ache as she moves sluggishly over the floorboards. Some creak under her weight.
When the two of them enter the kitchen, they find Glacier’s father and an older woman sitting at the small dining table, a steaming cup of tea between their fingers. Glacier’s dad has his eyes trained on his finger, as it circles the rim of his mug. The woman’s eyes dart to the injured girl standing by her son, her lips forming an ‘o’. Glacier smiles at the familiarity of Castor’s mother, Mill.
In Glacier’s opinion, Mill is an understatedly beautiful woman. Her head was wrapped in a cloth, tied at the back and covering her non-existent hair. Her large bird nose pokes out parallel to her chin, and her skin is spotty with age marks and sunspots.
Her mug of tea forgotten, the older woman raises from her chair, scurrying across the short space to envelope Glacier in a warm, tight hug.
“Ah dear, ya don’t know how special ya are! Ye’are truly ‘n a’gel, purest a souls!” Her thanks are kind and gracious.
Glacier nods in return. “I’d protect him from anything, Mill,” she says, addressing the older mother with a reassuring smile.
Glacier’s eyes then shift to her father sitting silently at the table, his finger still trailing around the rim of his tea mug.
Kellen watches Glacier with interest, studying her appearance from head to toe.
“You were reckless, Glacier.”
His words sting, but they weren’t the worst she expected to hear. Glacier lowers her head, and Mill rubs her back reassuringly.
“He could have seriously hurt you. You knew Michaels was crazy.”
“He was beating Castor like he were a disobedient dog! I wasn’t just going to walk away and pretend I didn’t see anything!” Glacier fires back.
“Michaels was a ticking bomb, just waiting–– ”
“Was?” Glacier tries to breath, but the air around her feels thick. “He’s dead?”
Kellen heaves a sigh before pushing his mug away. His dark brown hair hangs limp over his thick eyebrows, light grey streaking like sparkling highlights. Crow’s feet and age spots surround his dark blue eyes.
Despite her father’s tough act, she knew something is off. He looks worried.
“I saw the ice, Glacier. How did you use it? Did you control it?”
“You think the ice was me?” Her jaw drops, her heart and stomach clenching.
Kellen watches her with unwavering eyes, chewing his thumbnail nervously. His eyes briefly flicker to Mill and Castor before he moves his hand to speak.
“Mill, would you and Castor please wait in the spare room? Get some sleep. I know you both need it. You can stay as long as you like.”
Mill nods her head before shooing Castor down the hall toward the spare room. Glacier watches as they trek down the corridor to the adjacent room from hers, shutting the door with a quiet click. She turns back to her father confused.
“Dad, I don’t understand how you think I could have done that? I mean…I’m latent…” She had never shown any sign of an elemental power.
I’m the girl who could never control water.
Latent. No one in the Hydra Region has ever lacked the ability to manipulate water, until Glacier Wardgrave.
“Doesn’t it confuse you, why you’re latent? Maybe because your element hadn’t developed within you until now…” His voice sounds far away, like he is thinking something over as he spoke. She recognized the look in his eye every time he lied to her.
He’s hiding something…
Glacier shakes her head, trying to understand what her father is implying.
“What happened with the ice wasn’t some parlour trick, dad. No water elemental has been able to freeze water. It isn’t possible…” Her words trail off into silence, as she watches his face for any change.
His mouth pulls into a grim line, but he gives nothing else away.
Advancing to where Glacier stands hunched, Kellen gently rests his hands on her shoulders. He observes her with the same grey look he always has, but this time there is something lingering behind his dark eyes.
Definitely hiding something.
Releasing a long sigh, he pulls his daughter into a gentle hug. She enjoys the closeness she shares with him, and the comfort he provides.
“Sometimes, the things you say remind me of your mother.”
Glacier is stunned by his words. This was one of the only times he has ever mentioned her mother.
Kellen never kept any pictures of her for Glacier to see what she looked like. She doesn’t even know her mother’s name.
Glacier notices a flicker of soreness flash through her father’s blue eyes, before he squares his shoulders and continues.
“She used to say she was willing to die for nothing, but wishing to die for something…”
Her father’s face pales with remembrance, before he shakes his head. “How about you get some rest, and we will discuss this more in the morning? I think it’s time I tell you…”
Glacier pulls back at his words, shock seizing her limbs. “Tell me? No dad, I slept for an entire day already. I want to know what––”
“Go rest.” His words are final, and from the set look on his face, she knew that nothing she could say would suede him.
Glacier huffs in annoyance, stumbling back into her room.
Pain continues to emanate from her back and shoulder. She pads over to her bed after closing the door, and lowers herself onto the cotton sheets. Gazing around the room, her head rests on her pillow, her body over the sheets.
There isn’t much decoration around the room, but it is still more than some have.
Families like Mill and Castor didn’t use to live on the dirty unkempt streets. Mill’s late husband, Fern, had been a shop hand at the butcher, until one night he was brutally beaten to death by a group of Higher Class drunkards. Simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fern had been a past saviour of Glacier’s. The sentiment to repay the favour in any way she can drives her to protect his family at every turn…
Sitting up, Glacier hobbles over to the small cracked mirror leaning against the wall near her closet. The large crack that runs through the mirror separates her reflection.
She notices the glass of water she had left there the morning before. Glacier squints her eyes at the glass as she wills the substance to move. She clenches her jaw, raising her hand in front of her like she had tried many times before, and again tries to move the water.
Nothing happens.
Giving up, she blows out a winded breath before once again glancing up at her reflection.
A thick white bandaging gauze covers her forehead, wrapping over her large messy hair. The natural curls puff around her jaw, framing her face like a fluffy white aura. Her nose looks slightly crooked, a little dried blood around her nostril. Glacier’s blue eye looks sunken, and her green eye has a yellowing bruise surrounding it.
Her eyes have always been her metamorphosis. No one has two different elemental coloured eyes. No one except Glacier.
A large, dark purple bruise has formed across the bridge of her nose and another peeking under the gauze.
Hesitantly, Glacier reaches to untie the bandage around her head, slowly unravelling it. Once it falls into a pile on her lap, she can see the large gash closed with a handful of crooked stitches, from her right eyebrow up across the centre of her forehead to the hairline.
Her hand flies to her mouth to muffle a sob as she looks at her broken face.
Her mind travels to the times her father would remind her how beautiful she is. But right now, Glacier felt anything other than beautiful.
I am going to have this hideous scar for the rest of my life. For the whole world to see just how freakish I am.
Turning away from the broken mirror, Glacier leaps to her bed, bursting into a river of tears. Sobs wrack her entire body, paining her newly crooked nose as she shakes.
Glacier falls asleep to the sound of the wind blowing against the creaking walls of her room, tears dried to her cheeks.
TWO
THE DEAL
The brash sound of a banging door startles Glacier from her slumber.
The sound is followed by heavy footsteps, then her father’s yelling. She gazes out the window and meets the breaking of dawn. Shifting from her bed, she throws off her covers sleepy and confused. Her feet glide into her clumpy slippers before she grabs her hooded sweater from the end of the bed. Glacier makes her way across the room, pulling on her jumper as she goes.
Kellen curses loudly. “What gives you the right to barge into my home uninvited?” His tone is vicious and annoyed.
It is unfamiliar voice that answers him. “Miss Wardgrave’s presence has been requested at the Chancellor’s Hall. She is to arrive as soon as possible. Any obstruction or disregard to Chancellor Staren’s request will be seen as an act of imprudence to the Chancellor’s authority, and will be dealt with in the most serious order.” The voice is hard and unwavering, his words rehearsed. The tone is powerful and confident, without room for questioning.
Crap! That sounds like the Chancellors’ Guard!
As silently as she can, Glacier opens her door, tiptoeing across to the spare room to where Mill and Castor are resting. Quickly opening the door and creeping inside, Glacier finds Castor on the bed wrapped in his mother’s arms. They watch the door silently, shaking like leaves. Glacier hurries to the small window, yanking it open. A powerful gust of air rushes against her.
“You guys cannot be caught in here. You need to go!” Mill nods her head in agreement, before nudging her son towards the window.
“Mill, you go first. I will help Castor out after you.”
Loud footsteps thump on the wooden floors, indicating there is more than one unwelcomed guest.
“You have no right! Now I am asking you to leave,” her father’s angry voice continues. This time, it wavers with anxiety.
Anxious to get them out unseen, Glacier hurries Mill out the window before picking Castor up under his arms. Mill grabs his legs as the two of them shimmy him out the small gap. Castor remains silent, Mill’s face clouding with fear of being caught.
If the homeless are found in already owned houses, they are severely punished for ‘piggybacking’ off those who can afford to pay the Chancellor for their houses.
Just as she is about to relinquish her hold on Castor, the door is pushed open. A man in a black dress uniform and military hat barges in.
His narrow blue eyes are sunk back beneath his prodding eyebrows and his nose is wide across his face with bushy eyebrows. His lean eyes take a lazy scan of the room before he realizes what is happening.
“We have two Critters exiting out the left bedroom window!” This man’s voice is also unfamiliar, as he calls back to the living room.
I hate when they call them Critters, like they are pests that needed extermination. They are elementals, not bugs you can just step on!
“Run!” Glacier shrieks as the Chancellors’ Guard advances on her. The sound of crunching ice echoes from outside the window, as Glacier is swooped into thick arms, hers pined to her sides.
“I have the girl,” the guard speaks in a calmer, though still loud, voice. Glacier’s ear rings at his shout.
Easily lifting her feet off the floor, he walks out of the room. His tight hold is uncomfortable and strenuous on her lungs as she tries to breathe past the rigid grip.
Once the two of them have joined the crowded living room, Glacier notices her dad reading a glass tablet with a frown on his face.
When he hears the footsteps of the man holding his daughter, he glances up with an outraged sneer.
“Take your hands off my daughter! You have no right!”
The man standing proudly in front is a skinhead, standing straight with the other two flanking either side of him in military hats and uniform identical to the man behind me. Beside the man in the centre of the room, are two other men.
Skinhead speaks calm and collectively, “Actually Mr Wardgrave, with the warrant you're holding, you have no say in the matter. Any attempt to impede us will be considered a deliberate act of treason.”
He is the man who had spoken earlier.
His smug tone and opaque grey dress uniform indicates to Glacier that he is a highly ranked guard in comparison to his colleagues. His hands are clasped loosely against his torso. His flanking officers have theirs behind their backs, their gazes forward.
Glacier’s eyes catch sight of the pistol sitting against the skinhead’s belt. The hover disk it floats against glows ice blue.
She swallows thickly at the sight of the weapon. A bead of sweat forms above her unscarred eyebrow.
The skinhead turns, finally acknowledging Glacier’s presence. She remains tightly held in the arms of the brutish guard, as the bald man scans her with beading eyes.
The man tuts at her appearance. “My, my. You copped a rather violent beating, didn’t you my dear?” His voice seems playful as he jokingly states the obvious.
Glacier gives no reply. She only glowers in his direction.
He ignores her childish frown and continues, “I am High Chancellor Guard Thomes. I have been sent by Chancellor Staren to collect you.”
Her father continues to fight them, “I understand why you men are here, but you have no official grounds to take her on!”
Her father’s eyebrows are creased with worry, his lips pulled in a menacing frown. Distressed.
“The Chancellor of Hydren requesting the presence of Miss Wardgrave is plenty grounds, Mr Wardgrave.” Thomes smug smirk has Glac
ier’s molar’s grinding with irritation.
What in the bloody world does the Chancellor want with me?
Trying to shake away from the guard, a quiet groan escapes Glacier’s lips when he squeezes against her injured shoulder and back.
Thomes claps his hands together, a wicked smile on his lips. “Officer Bogg, please escort Miss Wardgrave to the car––”
“She’s not going anywhere!” Kellen shouts.
Everything quickly erupts in chaos.
Glacier watches as her father’s hand rises in front of his body. The glass of water on the coffee table quivers, the liquid dancing against the edges.
The water spills up from the glass as Kellen’s arm rises, his fingers spread. His eyes blaze a brilliant blue, as the water weaves around the room, before suddenly driving up the nostrils of the two men behind Thomes. They gag on the water as Glacier’s father drowns them, his fingers slowly clenching into a fist.
A small pop booms past the choking gasps and rushing water.
The water falls to the wooden floor like heavy rain, leaving large messy puddles. Glacier’s body retracts, trapped in her chaotic mind, as everything around her happens much too quickly to comprehend.
Kellen’s eyes dim to their original dark blue. They meet Glacier’s briefly before he falls forward, hitting the ground heavily. Glacier watches her father’s still body with intensely wide eyes, waiting for movement. A slow puddle of dark red pools, past his neck and around his shoulders, soaking his shirt.
Glacier’s chest heaves as she tries to breathe past the anguish, but her lungs refuse.
I can’t breathe. Someone help my dad!
Glacier briefly glances back to Thomes. He lowers his hover gun back to the disk on his belt, his eyes blank. The pungent metallic stench of blood fills her nostrils. Glacier gags for fresh air.
“Dad!”
Glacier hears the loud scream before her throat starts to ache. She smells the saltiness before she feels the gushing tears.
Struggling against Officer Bogg, she kicks and screams, her eyes trained on her fathers’ unmoving body.
Glacier throws her head back, ignoring the brutal pain she feels resonate through the cut on her forehead and her aching nose. She hears a sharp crack, and at the same time her head feels like it has been kicked. Glacier hears a wail close to her ear, a vicious growl following. The arms around her torso move up, dropping her feet to the ground. The same arms wrap around her neck in a chokehold, pulling tight. Glacier scratches at the arms like a vicious animal, throwing her legs about wildly.
The Frozen Beginning (Elemental Diamond Book 1) Page 2
