FrostFire

by Zoe Marriott

  I stared down at my own hands. They were clean, faintly stained at the tips with green grass sap, but I could see the blood. I could still feel the blood.

  I didn’t mean to…

  Fifteen

  Livia has turned Luca from her tent four times. On the first and second occasions I had still been shivering, wrapped in a blanket despite the heat and clutching a strong mug of aniseed tea in shaking hands. She hadn’t even asked me, had just driven him off with a few forceful words.

  By the third time Luca came, it was late afternoon. I had shrugged out of the blanket and was sitting cross-legged on the floor, half-heartedly sorting dried herbs into muslin bags. Livia gave me a quick, questioning look, and took my fierce head shake as all the encouragement needed to oust him again.

  When I heard his voice outside the tent the fourth time, it was coming on to evening and the light was fading. Before going to the tent flap, Livia reached out very slowly and carefully, and touched my hand. “You’ll have to face him sometime, if you’re to stay. You don’t have to worry that he’ll make excuses for Arian – he just wants to apologize for allowing that situation to occur. And you might feel better for hearing it.”

  I shook my head once more. Livia sighed, but didn’t argue. She stood outside the tent talking to Luca for some time. I guessed she wouldn’t be able to get rid of him so easily again. He was getting concerned.

  Livia had understood immediately what had happened to me in the clearing, and won my gratitude by holding back the questions that were obviously burning her tongue. I guessed that she had just as many shadows in her past as I did, and Arian had managed to blunder into those too, at some point. It had been clear from the first that she disliked and distrusted him. She probably thought I was refusing to see Luca because I was still shaken and angry with him for leaving the two of us alone together like that. Angry about his failure to control his friend and lieutenant. But in truth, I had shed the fear caused by Arian’s actions shockingly quickly. Maybe it was because I had long practised forcing such memories back into that tangled knot of darkness under my ribs.

  Or maybe it was because I had seen Arian’s devastated face after Luca had knocked him down and the way he stared at his own hands, as if they belonged to someone else.

  He hadn’t meant to hurt me. He had meant to challenge me. He thought of me as a rival, a dangerous unknown who had somehow come too close to his brother – maybe even too close to Arian himself. I could see why. In almost no time I had succeeded in surprising him in his vulnerable state at the forest pool and caused an argument between him and Luca. Then he had seen that scene between Luca and me, and it must have seemed like I was already causing Luca pain. Who knew what damage I might do if I was allowed to stay any longer? His remarks had made it clear that he was sure I was hiding my true self. He had meant to force me – the snarling, powerful wolf he believed was me – out into the open. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that he had the power to frighten me, that I was weaker than him, that I could not fight back even if I wanted to.

  By the time he saw that he was wrong, it was too late. He couldn’t take it back.

  I, of all people, knew how that felt.

  Arian might be dangerous. In fact, I was sure he was. But he was not sadistic. No one who took pleasure in hurting others could have looked so shocked and ill when he realized what he had done to me. He might not ever be my friend, but I thought I understood him a little now – and in understanding, I could let go of the fear.

  The real reason I made Livia send Luca away was far less worthy.

  I had kissed him, and he had recoiled from me. Just now, I never wanted to face him again.

  Livia was right, though. If I was to stay here, I would have to face Luca, and soon. Anything else was cowardly, and too foolish for words. I had made an idiot of myself – but the very fact that Luca kept coming back to the tent meant he must have forgiven me for it. The trust and friendship that had sprung up between us when we had gone after those bandits, when he had given me the chance to run and I had followed him instead, couldn’t just be thrown away. I couldn’t destroy the first real hope I’d had in years.

  I still believed in him.

  I had to push those treacherous feelings down, knot them up with the dark memories and ignore them so that no one, especially not Luca, ever suspected they were there.

  When the singing started outside, I saw the torn, longing expression on Livia’s face. “You can go if you want. I’m all right,” I said.

  She gave me a considering look, the expression exaggerated now by the lamplight’s black shadows. “Why don’t we both go to the gathering? You know you’re welcome.”

  “I’m not really in the mood for singing. And I’m not going to run off if you leave me alone, so don’t worry.”

  Her eyes flicked away guiltily, and I knew I had got it right. Luca must have made her promise to keep an eye on me.

  “I’m going to Luca’s tent to wait for him. You’re right. I need to get it over with. Thank you,” I said, climbing to my feet, “for being so kind.”

  She got up too and placed both hands on my shoulders, leaning forward to plant a motherly kiss on my cheek. It took an effort to hold myself still, but less of one than before. I was getting used to Livia.

  “No thanks necessary,” she said. “Now, off you go.”

  I forced a smile for her as she extinguished the lamp. Then we both left the tent. She headed towards the centre of the camp and the flickering lights and voices lifted in a sweet, cheerful song about a maiden setting impossible challenges for her beloved. A part of me wanted to change my mind and follow Livia, to envelop myself in that warmth and cheer. But I had no warmth or cheer of my own to offer. I didn’t belong there.

  Before I could take the first step towards Luca’s tent, I felt a tingle of awareness lift the fine hairs on the back of my neck. I was being watched. I turned, searching the slope of the hillside above me. There was a dark shape there. A man was standing on the crest of a rock that jutted out from the trees. The distinctive, square lines of his back and shoulders were silhouetted against the emerging stars.

  Arian.

  I stared up at his shadow in the night sky. He was determinedly solitary and self-contained, isolated like me, by choice, from the flickering light of the Mother’s Fire and the happy babble of voices there. Yet, just like me, something kept him from leaving. Something forced him to prowl the outskirts of life with the hill guards, never quite part of it, but never straying too far.

  Luca bound Arian to this place and these people, exactly as he bound me.

  I argued with myself as I turned away from the camp and began to walk towards the hillside.

  Just because you think you understand him doesn’t mean he feels the same about you.

  You know he’s dangerous, you know he acts without thinking. He’s threatened you three times now.

  He clearly wants to be alone. What do you think you’ll achieve?

  What are you even going to say to him?

  The voice of common sense raged. I kept walking. I lost sight of Arian as soon as I entered the trees, but I didn’t lose track of where I was going. It was as if the sheer loneliness of his self-imposed solitude drew me towards him: an exiled wolf, howling in the night.

  As soon as I stepped from the trees that surrounded the outcropping of rock, I could see I had been mistaken about some things. He wasn’t standing on the rock, but sitting. The height of the stone had misled me. His shoulders and back were slumped in an attitude of defeat, head bowed, just as it had been after Luca had knocked him down. The steadily brightening starlight showed me that he was sitting on his hands.

  I didn’t mean to…

  I stared up at him, not quite daring to approach, but still feeling there was something I needed to do here. I didn’t even know if he had seen me arrive. Should I call out?

  “What do you want?” His gravelly question made me jump.

  “To talk to you,” I man
aged to say, with a fair assumption of calm.

  “If you had any sense at all you’d stay far, far away from me.”

  The words were probably supposed to be threatening, but instead they reminded me of the sulky mutterings of a child who knows he has done wrong but can’t think how to apologize.

  I began to climb the rock, feeling carefully for the footholds in the dark. I pulled myself up, with a grunt of effort, to sit about a foot away from him, legs dangling over the edge of the rock, so that I could gaze down at the white and grey muddle of tents below and the pulsing glow of the Mother’s Fire. From the corner of my eye, I could see him leaning away from me, the glint of starlight betraying his wide eyes.

  “You make a lot of threats,” I said. “Do you really enjoy frightening people that much?”

  “No!” he snapped. He took a harsh breath, as if to say more, but the silence drew out, and when he spoke again, his rough voice was quieter. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I know it’s no excuse. But … I won’t come near you again.”

  “Because Luca made you promise not to?”

  “I’m not a monster.” One hand came out from under his leg and rubbed at his forehead as if his head hurt. “Do you think he would have me here, have me anywhere near him, if I was? You ought to think better of him than that.”

  “Then why did you act that way earlier?”

  I thought I’d guessed the answers, but I wanted to prod him to admit it.

  “I don’t know,” he said, words like pieces of jagged rock grinding together. “I despise men who— I feel sick about what I did and I’m sorry. You won’t believe it, but I am. My whole life I’ve tried to protect people, to make up for… My mother, she was only fourteen when I was born. A Sedorne raiding party had attacked the village. One of the men – some disgusting thug – raped her. Got her pregnant with me. Childbirth killed her. Heartbreak killed her. I have to live knowing that. I would never, never hurt a woman – hurt anyone – like that.” He stopped, breathing ragged. Then he repeated, “I’m sorry.”

  I swallowed hard, feeling petty and cruel for goading him to confide in me. His past clearly hurt him very much. But at the same time I was glad. I had been right about him. It took me a minute to be able to answer. “I do believe you.”

  There was another long pause before he muttered gracelessly, “Thank you.”

  “Will you help me? Please?”

  He lifted his head. “Help you how?”

  “I want to learn how to defend myself.”

  “Luca’s going to teach you that. He’s the best teacher you could ever have.”

  “I want you to teach me things he can’t. I’m tall for a girl, and I’m strong, but I know that I’m … vulnerable. When I panic, my instinct is to run. Always to run…” I shook the memories away with difficulty. “And that’s going to get me into trouble. It has in the past. I need to be stronger than that. Quicker, faster, and better prepared. I want you to push me, show me the dirty tricks – all the ways to bring someone down that Luca wouldn’t need to learn.”

  He sounded almost amused when he said, “You assume I know dirty tricks?”

  “You said yourself that Luca is honourable. He can afford to be, because he’s so strong, so good. He fights fair. I won’t always be able to. I don’t think you’ve always been able to, either. Am I right?”

  He sighed. “Seems like it. Bloody Luca.”

  Before I could ask what he meant, he rose to his feet, a square shadow against the stars again. He held out his hand to me. I hesitated for a second before taking it. His hand was harder than Luca’s; the fingers that closed around mine were rough and square and blunt. He heaved me to my feet with no apparent effort, and let go of my hand immediately.

  “Are we friends, then?” I asked.

  “Comrades,” he corrected. “Less likely to stab you in the back.”

  When I arrived at Luca’s tent a little while later, he was already there waiting for me, sitting on his bed. He had clearly been to the river before coming back. His hair, dampened to the amber gold of good cider, hung loose around his shoulders and down his back. A fresh shirt was only laced halfway up, exposing a smoothly muscled chest, and his feet were bare.

  He looked at me anxiously, concern and regret clearly visible in his face.

  “I’m glad you came back. I was starting to get worried.” There was no reproof in his voice, but I felt the need to apologize anyway.

  “I went for a walk, to clear my head.”

  “Frost, about what happened earlier—”

  “I’ve spoken to Arian. He’s sorry, and it won’t happen again. I think things will be all right from now on.”

  Both Luca’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve spoken to him? When?”

  “Just now, when I was out walking.”

  “That’s good,” he said slowly. “I don’t want you to have to go through that again. But that wasn’t the only thing I wanted to talk about.”

  “Please don’t.” I forced my face into a smile, and tried to make the words sound smiling too. “I know what you’re going to say; I don’t need to hear it. It was a strange moment, one that shouldn’t have happened. I’m not here for that, and your … your friendship is very important to me. If it’s all right, let’s just forget it happened.”

  Something moved in the deep blue of his eyes – relief, or something else? – and was veiled immediately. He looked away. “Of course. Thank you. Then we’ll start training again tomorrow?”

  I nodded. “I’d better get some sleep.”

  Without waiting for an answer, I retreated behind the carved-wood screen and pulled it out so that it concealed me completely. I waited until he had called good night and put out the lamp. Then I buried my face in one of the furs he had given me, and cried.

  Sixteen

  My life with the hill guard – as one of the hill guard, albeit a trainee – settled into a routine very quickly. Every now and again I would stop what I was doing, suddenly breathless, to look around in disbelief at how suddenly my life and all that I knew had changed.

  There were other times when everything that had come before – the lifetime of hunger, hurts and hard scrabble – seemed like nothing more than the sore scratchiness of a fading nightmare.

  I couldn’t decide which sensation disturbed me the most.

  I was surprised, and happy, to find that Arian did not try to shirk on our deal. He would have had reason enough. Although the hill guards’ main mission of capturing the rebel leaders – including Luca’s brother, about whom I had still learned nothing – was in temporary abeyance while they waited for reinforcements, Arian was just as busy as Luca. Sometimes more so, since he was responsible for more of the day-to-day running of the camp. It was him who collected the reports, sent out the scouts, marked maps, organized sentry and other duty shifts, and ordered supplies. But most days he would appear at some point, dragging me away from whatever I had been doing to put me through drills that were far less formal and much more stressful than the ones Luca had devised for me.

  “And if I grab you here, what’s your first instinct?” Arian asked, his right hand taking a firm hold of my left forearm.

  “I would … hit you,” I said hesitantly, trying not to look at the small crowd of hill guards who had gathered around the sparring area to watch.

  Arian rolled his eyes up to the sky, as if begging for guidance. “Hit me where?”

  I made my right hand into a fist and mimed punching Arian’s right arm, just above the bony point of his wrist.

  “Good. That’s better than trying to twist your arm away. But if you hit me here or here” – he took my fist with his free hand and guided it to a point on the inside of his arm, just above the elbow, and then to another point next to the round ball of muscle at the top of his shoulder – “you would make my whole lower arm go numb. I’d be forced to let you go, and my hand would be useless for a couple of minutes at least. Try it.”

  “Really hit you?” I asked, appalled. S
omeone in the crowd snorted with laughter.

  “Yes, really hit me,” Arian said, with surprising patience. “How else will you learn? Go on.”

  I blew out a breath, drew my fist back and shoved it gingerly at the place Arian had shown me. Before the blow could connect, he seized my hand again.

  “Too slow,” he said. “Because you hesitated, you lost the chance to get free from me simply and easily. What do you do now?”

  I tugged hard on my arms, testing. In this situation, Luca would have let go immediately; Arian’s grip tightened, not enough to hurt but enough to make it clear that I wasn’t getting away.

  “I’d kick you,” I said decisively. “I’d aim … you know … between the legs. Most men panic when you do that.”

  “Good. Try it.”

  “Really?”

  “Frost!” Livia’s exasperated cry came from somewhere in the crowd. I jumped. I hadn’t realized she was among the watchers. “Do you know how many people in this camp would kill for a free shot like that? Just do what he says!”

  As the other hill guards dissolved into laughter, I braced myself and kicked out, aiming my boot at the junction of Arian’s thighs.

  Quick as a flash, he shifted and instead of connecting with him, my foot hit only air. Suddenly he was right up against me, his feet between mine, my arm folded up behind my back.

  “Once again you hesitated and lost your chance. Now what?” he asked.

  I concentrated on keeping my breathing slow and even as panic squirmed in my chest. This is why you wanted him to teach you, I reminded myself. You need to learn to deal with this.

  “Should I tell you, or just do it?” I asked, surprised that I didn’t stutter.

  “Do it,” Arian said.

  I nodded – and jerked my head forward. Arian jumped out of the way just in time avoid the headbutt, releasing my hands. The watchers applauded. Livia let out a piercing whistle.

  Arian’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes lit up with approval, like a smile that didn’t reach his lips. “Good. But you’ve only got me to let go for now. I’m going to keep coming at you until you put me down.”