by Zoe Marriott
There were no messages from Luca.
After a fortnight, more hill guards began to trickle back into camp, their tasks completed. Then Rani arrived, bringing all the surviving and wounded hill guards with her, including Hind, who had joked that she was half cat, and was sure she still had three lives left. Rani also brought the news of Luca’s imminent return.
“Arian,” I said to the stones. “Arian, I don’t know what to do.”
“He’s not here, you know,” a familiar voice said from the shadows.
I started to my feet and then faltered, a wave of dizziness sweeping over me. Strong arms caught me before I could fall. The scent of sunshine and honeysuckle teased my nose.
Luca’s hands were very warm against my back, making me aware of how chilled I had become. In the starlight, all I could make out of him was the gilt gleam of his shaggy hair and the bluish-gold of his eyes. There were no bandages on his face.
I made a restive movement, and immediately Luca’s arms dropped away. I could have cried out at the loss, but it was too late. He was already stepping back.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I shrugged, words clogging in my throat.
“I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long,” Luca said tonelessly. “Would you sit down with me? For a little while?”
I knelt again. Luca followed suit. We both stared at the cairn. I waited for him to speak, but the only sound was the rustling of the leaves in the rising wind.
“What did you mean?” I asked, after a moment, unable to stand the awkward silence any longer. “By saying that he’s not here?”
“I meant … that this place is for us, not him. Warriors, great-hearted men and woman, are embraced in the Holy Mother’s mantle of flame. He’s with Her now.”
“He’ll like that.” I stared down at my hands.
There was another uncomfortable silence. It felt unreal. We had never been like this with each other. It was as if we were more strangers now than we had been when we had first met. There was so much pain, so many bad memories between us; I had no idea how to fix it.
“You miss him a great deal, don’t you?” Luca asked softly.
I turned my head to look at the pale blur of his face in the darkness. “Don’t you? He was your brother.”
“He was more than that to you. He was my friend and my brother but he was your … your…”
I sighed. “Luca, it wasn’t like that.”
“You don’t owe me any explanations,” he said, voice strained. “I’m so sorry for the way I reacted before. It was unforgiveable. You never made any promises to me, and—”
“Will you shut up?” I demanded, my voice coming out so like Arian’s that it brought a lump to my throat. “Arian kissed me twice. I let him twice. That was all. Put whatever else you imagined out of your mind. It’s unfair – not just to me – but to him. He knew that I loved you, and he accepted it.”
Luca hesitated. When he spoke again his words were so unexpected that it took me a moment to understand. “Do you … still? Can you feel anything for me after what I’ve done? I tried to kill you…” His voice cracked. “I broke every promise I ever made to you. Even if you could put up with this face, I’m not exactly a good bargain any more.”
I took a deep, slow breath. I had thought we’d put this behind us in the courtyard at the House of God. But I had to remember that even if Luca was better now, he was still a changed man. A man who had been broken and had put himself back together again. He would never be the reckless, care-for-nothing risk-taker he had been before. Caution had been burned into his flesh.
Maybe he would never take anyone’s love for granted again. And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.
“When I first met you, Luca, you guessed that I’d been alone for a long time,” I said slowly, feeling that the slightest mistake, a single wrong word, could break something irreplaceable. “I had. I’d been in darkness nearly all my life, and you brought light into my existence for the first time. And maybe that’s the reason why I started to … to have feelings for you. You seemed like a dream. Perfect and golden and good, and sure of everything. You made it too easy to believe that you would always be strong, always have all the answers. I think you believed it yourself. But that – that’s just infatuation. Hero worship. It’s not real. I’ve learned a lot about love over these last months. And part of what I’ve learned is that you have to want someone for who they are, not who you want them to be. You have to love a real person, not some dream in your head. Neither of us could have lived that way.”
“What does that mean?” he asked quietly. He was twisting towards me – trying to see my face. “What are you saying, Frost?”
I turned, letting the starlight fill my eyes. “I don’t want you because I expect you to swoop in and rescue me and make everything all right. I don’t want you because you have all the answers. I don’t even want you because you’re beautiful. None of that matters. You could never be a bad bargain to me, because … you’re Luca. And I love you.”
I heard the sharp intake of his breath. Then his arms were around me, his heart thundering against my breast as if he had just crossed the finishing line in a life or death race. I felt warm tears streaming down my cold cheeks, and I didn’t know or care who they belonged to. I held onto him with everything I had. I would never let go again.
Finally, Luca drew back a little, holding me against him with fearful tenderness. His eyes were great, dark pools, as warm and filled with happiness as they had ever been. I lifted my hand and laid it on his cheek, where the scar marked his skin, and he did not flinch from my touch.
He said, “I didn’t know if you could forgive me for everything I put you through, for causing Arian’s death. I didn’t know if I should even ask you to.”
“You didn’t cause Arian’s death,” I said, thumping him lightly on the arm. I had a feeling I would have to repeat these words many times before they really sank in. Luca was too used to taking responsibility for other people to relinquish guilt easily. “Ion shot the arrow, and Arian chose to save us. He would never have blamed you, any more than I would have blamed him if you had died in his place.” I glanced at the mound of stones. The candle was alight again, its tiny flame flickering blue and purple and green. My breath caught.
I whispered, “You’re the one who taught us both that we had choices. Arian made his. All he ever wanted was for the people he loved to be safe and happy.”
“If you stay with me, then he’ll have his wish,” Luca said. “I think … it might take some time for me to … to be who I was before. I might still be mad for all I know. But come what may, I’ll always love you, Frost.”
Then he kissed me, and I tasted honeysuckle sweetness and the bitter saltiness of tears on his lips. I tasted his sorrow and his love. I tasted frost and fire.
I tasted forever.
Acknowledgements
It seems to me that life’s difficult experiences divide up into two categories. The first is for situations and challenges which seem unbearably hard, even impossible, at the time – but which, looking back, make you smile and think, “Hey, it wasn’t all bad.” The second is for times so unpleasant that you avoid looking back on them if at all possible, and do everything in your power not to repeat them. Writing FrostFire, and then completely rewriting it when it turned out not to work, was certainly one of life’s challenging experiences for me. But thanks to the following list of people, instead of giving up writing forever and running off to Tibet to herd yaks, I can now smile wryly and say, “Well, it wasn’t too bad.” My deepest thanks go out to:
My editor, Annalie, and my agent, Nancy, who managed to catch me before I could book passage to the Himalayas, and persuade me that I was much better cut out for revising than animal husbandry.
The members of the Furtive Scribblers Club, who kept pace with the dizzying changes to my “work in progress” and kept cheering me on, even when they had no idea what gender any of my characters were, or who would live or die.
/> All the wonderfully talented crew at Walker Books, who make me realize every time I meet them that I really am working with the best publisher in the world.
My crew of Twitter pals, including my adopted mothers Emma Davies and Vivienne Da Costa, the lovely Liz de Jager, Sarah Gibson and Lynsey Newton, Elle and Kate, not-really-stalkers Ashley Benson, Misty Braden and Enna, and fellow writers Kaz Mahoney, Cat Clarke (Ha! Next to each other again!), Jackie Dolomore and Lee Weatherly. And many more, who were always willing to exchange rants or war stories.
My adorable “Dear Readers”, who make running my blog and website worthwhile. Special thanks go to Alex, Isabel and Megha, who can be counted on to respond to everything I write with such enthusiasm that I become convinced I’m a genius, for thirty seconds at least.
And finally, to my parents. Just because.
Daughter of the Flames
Zira was orphaned when the Sedorne invaded her country. For ten years she has been in hiding, training to become a warrior priestess. Now the time has come to fight back– and nothing will stand in the way of her people’s freedom. Not even the man she loves.
Shadows on the Moon
Trained in the magical art of shadow-weaving, sixteen-year-old Suzume is able to recreate herself in any form – a fabulous gift for a girl desperate to escape her past.
But who is she really? Is she a girl of noble birth living under the tyranny of her mother’s new husband, Lord Terayama, or a lowly drudge scraping a living in the ashes of Terayama’s kitchens, or Yue, the most beautiful courtesan in the Moonlit Lands?
Whatever her true identity, Suzume is destined to capture the heart of a prince – and determined to use his power to destroy Terayama. And nothing will stop her, not even love.
The Swan Kingdom
Darkness has fallen across a kingdom far away. The queen is dead – killed in the forest by a terrifying beast – and her daughter, Alexandra, suspects that the new woman in her father’s life is not all that she seems. Exiled and betrayed, Alexandra must face magic, murder and the loss of all she holds dear in a desperate struggle against evil.
Zoë Marriott says of FrostFire: “Most stories spark to life when the main character starts to talk in my head. FrostFire arrived with three characters talking, all at once. Frankly, they gave me a heck of a headache until I figured out just who they were and how they’d got into this mixed-up love/hate situation. Each of them had their own journey and their own heartbreak to overcome. At its core, FrostFire is a story about the thin, thin line between good and evil, and how sooner or later each of us has to decide on which side we’re going to make our stand.”
Zoë lives in North East Lincolnshire with her two cats, named Echo and Hero, and the Devil Hound, otherwise known as Finn.
FrostFire is Zoë’s fourth book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.
First published 2012 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Text © 2012 Zoë Marriott
Cover photograph © 2012 Trigger Image/Alamy
The right of Zoë Marriott to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-4119-5 (ePub)
www.walker.co.uk
