FrostFire

by Zoe Marriott

  “You should have let Arian challenge me,” Luca taunted, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. “At least he’d have had some chance.”

  My entire face throbbed, and it hadn’t even been that hard a punch. I knew that Luca could have knocked me out if he’d wanted to – but only if he didn’t mind breaking my jaw. He was holding back. He didn’t want to hurt me, no matter what he said.

  My Luca was still in there.

  “He’d have no chance at all. He’d never fight you for real,” I said. “Arian would let you carve him open before he took the risk of hurting you. But you don’t care about that any more, do you? You don’t care that he loves you, that he’d die for you. All you care about is Ion.”

  For a second Luca’s mask of hatred seemed to flicker. He shook his head fiercely. “Don’t tell me what I feel. This has nothing to do with Aria. Don’t bring him into it.”

  “You brought him into it. You brought us all into this by bringing us here.”

  He attacked again. I blocked a lightning-fast slash at my face and a thrust at my chest, spun away from a flying kick, ducked under another punch – and drove my axe forward, hitting Luca squarely in the stomach. He stumbled back with a grunt.

  We circled each other, breathing heavily. Sweat was beading on my skin despite the cold.

  “Ion must be so proud,” I said softly. “I bet he’s somewhere here, watching you, absolutely hugging himself with glee. This must be what he’s always wanted.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” Luca edged sideways, his blade lifting as if to shield himself from my words.

  “Haven’t you figured it out yet? He caught you. He tortured you. And then … he let you go.”

  “I escaped.”

  “Are you sure about that? I don’t think, in the state you were in, you could have escaped from your own bedroll. He was playing with you. He let you go because he wanted to see what you would become. He wanted to see if he could take that brave, kind brother – that golden boy who he must have loved and hated so much – and turn him into a mirror image of himself.”

  “I am not like him!”

  “Look at yourself, Luca,” I snapped. “Look at what you’re doing. You’re trying to kill one of your own men, and when you’ve finished you’re going to start torturing children. Mad King Abheron would want you on his side.”

  “Shut up!”

  Luca flew at me.

  The moment our blades met I knew I had been right. Luca had been holding back before. His strength now forced me backwards, my feet skidding in the snow.

  “You know it’s true,” I said, diving sideways to avoid another cut at my face. Luca didn’t respond. His eyes were febrile, desperate, as if I had driven him to the edge of madness. He whirled and kicked wildly, teeth bared.

  I fell back. I was fighting just to keep on my feet. Luca’s sword bounced off the iron langet of the axe and nicked my chin. Blood trickled down my neck as Luca landed a kick that nearly stoved my ribs in. I stumbled, knees going weak. Luca raised his sword.

  The Wolf stirred again.

  Daughter, it whispered. Its voice was different now – not quite Garin Aeksaar’s any more, but something fiercer, something more akin to the snarling, ferocious voice I had heard in my vision. Daughter. You must fight for your life now, or you will die.

  Then help me, Father. Fight with me.

  The wild thing inside me unfolded. A shiver travelled through my body as its powerful limbs infused mine with strength. Muscles tensed, twitched. Frost begin to curl across my skin. My vision sharpened, flickering with silver lights.

  I felt the wolf bite blaze into life on my cheek.

  My axe flew up, catching the edge of Luca’s blade. Luca disengaged, turned and dropped, sweeping his leg out. I jumped it and flew into a two-footed kick. My feet thudded into the centre of his chest. Cold burst through the muscles of my legs, travelling down to my boots.

  Luca’s metal chest plate buckled. He flew backwards with a hoarse cry of pain as I landed squarely on both feet.

  He hit the snow a few feet away, rolling over once before climbing shakily upright. He wavered for a second, then took his sword in both hands. I could hear his breath coming in painful gasps. His face around the bandages was whiter than before.

  “You do know it, don’t you?” I said mercilessly as I moved towards him. “We stormed this place, defeated our enemies and secured the House of God – and yet somehow, despite all that, he’s won. He’s won you.”

  “You don’t know what he did to me,” Luca said. Tears were shining in his eyes. “You have no idea… He took everything. Everything. I can’t get it back!”

  I swung my axe in a great overhead arc that forced Luca’s sword up into a defensive position. He disengaged with a hard grunt. I blocked his next blow easily, recognizing the forms of the drill we had practised together so many times. Panicking and in pain, Luca had fallen back on the basic moves.

  It was too bad he had taught them to me himself.

  I slid sideways to avoid a body kick, bringing my axe down to deflect the sword aimed at my gut, then spun, bringing the axe up for a neck blow that I knew Luca would catch on his blade. I disengaged and used the momentum to whip round, this time jabbing at Luca’s face with the head of the axe.

  As Luca blocked, I caught his sword on the pick of the axe. I twisted, turning the pick and shifting onto my back foot, dragging with all the Wolf’s lent strength.

  Luca’s sword jumped from his hand.

  It skidded through the snow to land at Arian’s feet. Arian stamped his boot down on it, meeting Luca’s betrayed look without wincing. Luca turned to face me, defiant, clearly waiting for me to strike him down. When I didn’t, he charged me.

  I dropped my axe with a clang and let him tackle me, using the Wolf’s agility to turn us in the air so that we landed with me on top. I closed my hands on his fists and pinned them to the ground. Gloved hands burning icy cold with the power required to resist his struggles, I braced my knees on either side of his body to keep him in place.

  “Why didn’t you strike?” he demanded, voice ragged, chest heaving. “Burn you! We’re supposed to fight to the death. Traitor!”

  “Idiot,” I said softly, gazing down into his face.

  “Don’t – don’t look at me like that. I’m not that person any more. I’m not the one you loved. I’m not him.”

  Slowly, cautiously, I reached for the bandages that were wrapped around Luca’s face. Luca bucked, legs kicking frantically, but he didn’t try to push me off. His newly freed hands clenched at his sides. His teeth ground together as if to keep the pleas inside.

  The stained bandages fell away, exposing the livid burns. Tears trickled down the crusted wounds. He tried to turn his head away from me. I stripped off my gloves and caught his face between my cold hands. I kissed his forehead. His mouth. Then, most gently and reverently of all, I kissed each cross-shaped scar.

  He went still beneath me.

  “You can’t,” he whispered. “Not after what he did to me.”

  “I don’t care what he did,” I said, my voice breaking. “Nothing – nothing – could take away the feelings I have for you. They’re part of me now, part of what makes me, me.”

  “You don’t know,” Luca said, his eyes begging me to understand. “I’m not the same. I’m ruined inside, empty. It’s too late. I want … I just want to be dead. He took everything I had.”

  “But you aren’t dead, and no one can take your soul. Not the gods, not even Ion. Remember?”

  I slid back, taking my weight off Luca’s chest and easing into his lap as I pulled him carefully into a sitting position. Resting my cheek against his, I gently combed my fingers through the silky, uneven tufts of his hair. He still smelled the same. I hadn’t even realized how much I missed the scent of honeysuckle. “I know you’re in there. I know the man I love is still alive. I’ll keep telling you that until you realize it’s true. Come back. Come back to me.”

&n
bsp; Something seemed to break free inside him. His arms wrapped around me, squeezing tight, tight. He buried his face in my shoulder. His body shook with hoarse, almost soundless sobs.

  Across the courtyard I met Arian’s eyes. They were alive with the brilliance of his smile, the dimple showing in his cheek. Whatever pain he felt at seeing me in Luca’s arms was hidden – and I realized then that he would never let me, or anyone else, see it again. He was too good a brother. Too good a friend.

  He saluted me sharply, then took his boot off Luca’s sword. His lips parted as if to speak.

  I never found out what he would have said.

  Arian’s gaze flicked upwards, over my head. His eyes widened. Then he launched himself at me and Luca.

  The impact knocked the wind from my lungs. The three of us skidded across the ground, my right knee and elbow grinding painfully into the frozen dirt. I felt Arian jerk. His breath huffed against my neck.

  People were yelling: yelling my name, Arian’s and Luca’s. I heard Ion Constantin’s voice spitting out vile curses. Luca was struggling to get out from beneath me and Arian. I tried to help, but I couldn’t get my legs under me. Arian was a dead weight pinning me down.

  “Arian! Arian!” I didn’t know if it was me screaming or Luca, or both of us.

  His weight was suddenly lifted away. An icy shudder wracked my body as the warmth of him left me. Luca jackknifed upright. I scrambled to my knees. We both turned.

  Arian lay prone in the snow. Livia was crouched beside him. There was blood everywhere.

  Arian’s blood.

  Luca groaned. He pulled Arian to his chest, cradling the other man’s body in his arms. The healer said nothing, not even a caution to be careful. That would have told me everything I needed to know, even if I couldn’t see the wound for myself. A crossbow bolt was buried deep in Arian’s side. Dark blood was bubbling out, trickling over his armour, over Luca and pooling in the snow beneath him.

  “Oh, my brother,” Luca whispered. “Not like this. Not for me.”

  “Idiot. Not … just for you.” Arian gasped the words, breath moving his chest in short, shallow jerks. “Frost…”

  I crawled towards them on hands and knees, pressing myself into Arian’s uninjured side so that I could help support his weight. His arm lifted, his trembling fingers cupping my neck as he drew me down towards him.

  “Gonna … kick me in the head?” he asked, trying to smile. His teeth were streaked with blood.

  “I’ll let you off this time,” I said, struggling to smile back. I laid my hand on his heart, gently touching my lips to his. He tasted of iron and salt. Blood and tears. “Arian, I—”

  He shook his head a little, opening his eyes wide, like a child trying to stay awake past bedtime. “Keep … my brother … out of trouble for me?”

  “You know I will.”

  “Yes.” His eyes lifted to Luca, dimple flashing again. “You too. Look out for bossy—”

  A terrible convulsion rattled Arian’s body. His fingers dug into the skin under my ear as he fought to hang on. Luca bent his head, pressing a kiss to his brother’s forehead, clutching Arian to him as Arian’s limbs spasmed: twitching with the last of his strength.

  I felt Luca’s fingers brush mine. I reached out, and our hands entwined on Arian’s breast. We held him between us in the silence of the falling snow. The only warmth in my world at that moment was the point where our hands met. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  Arian’s fingers slid limply away from my neck.

  “Good riddance to the bastard whore’s son!” Ion’s strident voice echoed over the courtyard.

  On top of the first rampart, two hill guards held Ion Constantin, his hands bound behind his back. The crossbow he had used to kill Arian – that he had intended to use on Luca and me – lay smashed on the ground at the base of the wall. His face was stretched into a joyful grin. “May Ovidiv piss on his carcass!”

  Inside me, the Wolf snarled, snapped, and then howled: an unearthly wail of sorrow that made my ears throb, my teeth ache, my back arch. The Wolf could feel my pain.

  It wanted vengeance.

  Ice exploded across my skin with an audible snap. Luca grunted with pain, but clung to my hand, face twisting. “No, Frost! Don’t!”

  Carefully, I disentangled my fingers from his and climbed to my feet. Everything clouded and rippled around me, the intense cold warping the very air. My hair was working free of its braid, whipping around my face as if in a high wind. Glowing ice crystals formed among the thick strands. The ice crackled at my fingertips, then extended, forming long claws.

  “Ion Constantin.” It was my lips that moved, but the words came out as a high-pitched, ululating wail, a mixture of human and beast.

  I bent my knees and leaped. The earth cracked and dimpled as my feet left it. I caught hold of the top of the rampart with both hands and swung up effortlessly, patterns of ice swirling across the stone as I stood. The hill guards who had been holding Ion released him and stepped back, expressions awed.

  “Ion Constantin,” I repeated, my voice a wolf pack in full cry. “This time, you will pay for what you have done.”

  He didn’t cringe back. Stiffly, as if it cost him a great effort, he bent his head and spat at my feet.

  The saliva froze instantly. My boot crushed it as I caught Ion around the neck. The shards of ice on my fingertips pierced him; blood spurted and then solidified like red flowers around the wounds. I lifted him up so his feet scrabbled uselessly.

  “Go on, if you’ve the belly for it,” he said between gritted teeth. Ice blisters crawled across his skin where I held him, and he writhed with pain, but his taunting eyes never left mine. “Go … on!”

  It would only take the tiniest squeeze, just a flex of my fingers, to crush his neck. To close that wicked mouth forever. My fingers began to tighten.

  The door to the rampart slammed open behind me. I heard running footsteps.

  “Wait!” It was Luca’s voice. “Don’t kill him! Not like this!”

  “Pleading … for mercy … for your big brother? How … touching,” Ion rasped.

  “Frost, Arian told me what happened to you in the fire,” Luca said. “He forced me to listen, even when I tried to ignore him. He was so proud of you. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Ion’s not worth it, not when you fought so hard to tame your wolf.”

  Ion struggled weakly in my grip. The blisters covered more than half his face now, scalding the skin yellow and bright red, like a burn. “Great gods … you’re … spineless. No brother of … mine.”

  “You don’t have to do this. Please, Frost,” Luca begged. “He just wants to hurt you more, damage you more. That’s all he’s ever wanted. To see people suffer. I realize that now.”

  “Snivelling … coward.” Ion’s hands came up to claw at my fingers as if he couldn’t stand it any more. He screamed as his hands stuck to the ice coating my flesh. “You’re … nothing now … do you hear me, Luca? Nothing!”

  My fingers opened. Ion dropped heavily to the rampart, blood oozing sluggishly from his neck and hands. He stared at me in disbelief.

  “Luca is something you could never be.” My human voice emerged from the Wolf’s howl as I spoke. The ice on my skin cracked and drifted away like snow. Icicles fell from my hair, shattering on the stone with musical noises. “He is something you could never understand. Luca is loved.”

  I turned away from him into Luca’s arms.

  Thirty-five

  “Farewell, my love, our time has come,

  Long though I might to stay;

  Our time has come, my one true love,

  The world calls me away…”

  The candle, even protected by the bubble of glass in my cupped hands, flickered and danced. The wind rose and the trees that surrounded the cairn of white stones stirred.

  “Goodbye, my love, remember well,

  My shadow on your door;

  I leave my heart, my love, farewell,

  And pray you cry
no more…”

  The sound of the leaves nearly drowned out my voice as I finished the song. Carefully, I wedged the base of the candleholder between two large stones, watching as the flame stretched long and thin, and then went out. Above, the stars were slowly surfacing from the dark water of the sky.

  After a while, my back and knees began to ache from kneeling for so long. But I didn’t move. I was waiting.

  It had been nearly a month since the battle at the rebel fortress. I didn’t know much about what happened after I passed out on the rampart. The Wolf’s overwhelming display of power had drained me completely, and by the time I woke up again, I was on my way down the mountain, tucked into a hastily constructed litter, with Livia to look after me. Another group had followed behind, bearing the bodies of the dead hill guards.

  We had come back to the old camp and buried the fallen. Arian’s body had been given the special honour of this cairn in the clearing on the edge of the site. In Uskaand, they burned the dead on wooden pyres, so that their ashes were carried away on the wind. Watching, dry-eyed, as they had covered the shrouded form of my friend with stones, blocking out warmth and light and air forever, I had wanted nothing more than Luca’s arms around me.

  But he was not there.

  “You don’t have to worry about him,” Livia had said. “He was tired and grieving and upset but – but he was himself. You brought him back. He wanted you away from that place so that you could recover.”

  But he didn’t want me with him.

  Messages came frequently to the camp from the absent hill guards, the ones who had stayed on to secure the House of God and the captured rebels. Livia read the letters to me. The prisoners – including Ion – had been escorted to Mesgao and handed over to the small army garrison there. They would be marched to Aroha to stand trial before the king and reia. The freed Rua were taken back to the villages and farms they had been stolen from.