Gathering Frost (Once Upon A Curse Book 1)

by Davis, Kaitlyn

  My voice rises to a shout as my blood boils, stings, races through my veins zapping my body acutely to life. My vision turns scarlet as my energy builds.

  I like the feeling.

  I don't try to suppress it.

  Asher cocks his head to the side, watching me, curious. A grin pulls at his cheeks as a spark ignites behind his indigo eyes—a challenge.

  "I'm not going to tell you," he goads.

  "Why?" My fists clench at my waist.

  Suddenly, the gray walls of this room seem small, more confining than I ever realized. I miss the breeze on my cheeks, the fresh smell of grass, the vastness of the sky. The outdoors call to me, and I am done with this artificial world, this concrete prison. Asher really must think me idiotic if he thought that pretty curtains could hide the truth of what this room is. A cell.

  I am hardly thinking anymore. The heart in my chest pounds hard against my ribs, as though it will jump free of my body. The thunder drowns out my ears as the heat under my skin begins to rise.

  I no longer have reason.

  I realize what I do have, what surges through my body as I watch Asher mock me. Fury. Anger.

  Without warning, I scream in frustration and charge, swinging a fist at Asher's face, feeling a little thrill as his mouth drops open in shock. My muscles shout with glee to finally be used, to stretch and pull once more.

  Asher catches my hand in his, so I punch with my left hand. He catches that one too and we are stuck, his back against the wall as I press into his frame.

  I cannot move my arms, but I still have legs, so I shift my knee to deliver a hard blow, but Asher anticipates the move and pushes me backward. I stumble over my feet, feeling blinded by the rage burning my insides. My brain cannot concentrate on the fight and it makes me weak. That in turn only makes my blood boil more.

  I charge.

  He pushes me aside again, but I clutch his fingers, dragging his arms to the floor with me, and Asher's body follows. We tumble, arms and legs fold together, fight against each other.

  Our arms lock, neither giving in. My hands grip his bicep, and his muscles harden as he grips mine. But I roll, gaining the upper hand and the higher position, pinning him as my legs tighten on his, constraining them so he cannot move.

  Below me, his body rumbles, starts to shake.

  My gaze travels slowly up to his face, knowing what I will find, and I am right. Silent laughter wracks his frame. I want to shake him, to hit him, but I can't move for fear of giving him the upper hand.

  "What?" I snap. My mouth is the only part of me that is free to fight back. I breathe heavily. But so does he.

  "You're angry." He smirks. "Really, really angry. It's fantastic."

  "No, I'm not," I growl.

  "Yes, you are. Trust me. I recognize real fury when I see it."

  Our faces are close together, I suddenly realize. His lips are just a few inches below mine, flushed pink like his cheeks. His eyes consume my gaze, pull it in, drag me closer.

  The heat in my veins shifts, just slightly, into something I do not recognize. An emotion I cannot place.

  Panic fills me.

  I must escape.

  The single thought consumes my mind. I am not ready for whatever is happening, for this new sensation sending shivers down my spine, for the promise in his gaze.

  Asher shifts below me. His grip slackens and his hands move slowly up my arms, over my shoulders, toward my neck. Gentle. Smooth.

  I cannot breathe.

  "I'm not," I gasp and roll free of him, standing quickly, walking to the far corner of the room, putting as much distance between us as possible. I gulp down air, shove it into my chest, calm my racing pulse. I pray for the freeze to return, for my limbs to grow cold, to grow familiar.

  This madness is not me.

  I am steady. I am a rock. I am not the storm that rages and spits fire into the sky.

  "What is happening to me?" I whisper.

  But a hand lands softly on my shoulder, and I remember that I am not alone, that my question had waiting ears. I turn, eyes drifting over my shoulder.

  "It's okay, Jade," Asher soothes.

  "It's not." I shake my head, step back, out of his almost embrace.

  "You're allowed to feel, people are supposed to feel," he urges, voice heavy and full of passion. I try to believe him, I want to, but the freeze is so much easier. I am used to winter. I am okay with it.

  I step back until I touch the wall, until I am cornered with nowhere else to go.

  "You're ready for the truth, and the truth is I felt like you do once," Asher says, following me to the wall, trapping me, enveloping me in the kindness in his voice. His hand comes to my face, cupping my cheek as his thumb runs gently over my skin.

  I don't know what to say. Speech has left me. But there are unspoken words surging up my throat, ones I know I should not say, a confession I know I cannot voice. My body yearns to tell him the truth, to tell him why I am here. But I can't, not now, not when he's looking at me like that. Instead, I tell him another truth. One I've owed him.

  "I know you're the queen's son," I murmur, but my voice is loud enough to cross the small space between our bodies.

  He stills for a moment, sighs while his shoulders fall just slightly. "I guessed as much. But that only means you know that I'm telling the truth. Jade, I lived in old Kardenia for the first few years of my life, surrounded by a populace that cannot feel, cursed with a mother who stole everyone else's emotions yet turned none of them onto her only child. And I know now, after living here for so long, that that is not how life is supposed to be."

  He shakes his head, lets it fall. I remain silent.

  "People are supposed to laugh and love. A mother should cry when she births her first child, she should not sit there silently, not bothering to ask to hold her baby. When someone dies, it should be a sad thing. It should tear your chest in two. Life is full of highs and lows, of passion and grief. It should not trot forward at a steady pace of nothingness. But my mother is a selfish woman, so she uses her magic to fuel her own heart, to experience everyone else's love and everyone else's sorrow, to fill the void in her chest."

  "How did you escape?" I ask. Freedom is all I want—it's everything. How did he grasp it? How can I?

  "On the day our worlds merged, even though I was just a boy, I felt hope for the first time. Armies came and I saw people filled with passion, filled with fear and love and drive, and I knew there was another way. So I ran, looking for these people who dared fight the queen. Wanting more than anything to join them."

  "But how?" I ask. "How did you escape her thrall?"

  Asher looks away, to the floor, and I realize I have lost him. He is hiding something. A secret he will not tell me. A sure sign that he does not trust me.

  But that is for the better.

  I shrink free of his embrace and he lets me go. The queen gave me an impossible task. Trust cannot be given to the heartless.

  But somehow, I don't feel so heartless anymore. Because I was furious. My blood burned. The rage in my chest now evaporates, like a ghost, disappearing rapidly as my body returns to its normal blankness. But it was there.

  "I think maybe I was angry," I confess, "but it is gone now."

  Asher's face lights up, excited, and I recognize that this is the hope he was talking about. "It's working then."

  "What?"

  "You wanted to know why I took you, why I captured you? Because of what you just said. I needed to know if it is possible for an adult to be released from the spell, to be freed from the queen, to learn to feel. You've crossed over beyond her reach, and it looks like maybe, the effects are starting to wear off."

  "You mean?" I trail off into silence, afraid to say it out loud.

  Maybe I am human after all. Maybe I can be free.

  But I don't need to speak the words, the hope, because I can see that Asher knows them already. That he felt them too, years ago in his own childhood. And I can tell that he believes them.<
br />
  I break contact first.

  I want to believe, I truly do, but part of me cannot. I dread that the queen is playing a trick on me, is dangling everything I've ever dreamed of before my eyes, waiting until the perfect time to snatch it all away.

  Still, I promise myself that I will try.

  "Jade?" Asher questions. I do not turn around. I'm not sure if I can face the steadfast faith in his eyes.

  "Yes?"

  "Can you promise me something?"

  I nod, still not spinning, not daring to even speak. We've just reached the end. The line rests before us, and I know Asher is going to cross it, is going to drag me with him. After his words, nothing will be the same.

  "No one here knows I'm the prince. They believe I was a servant in the queen's castle and that is why I know so much. If they knew who I really was, they would never look at me the same way. They would always doubt me. Please, I'm trusting you to be silent."

  There is that word.

  Trust.

  It shoves into my back, pushes inside of me, fills me up.

  I don't want to look at him, but I do. The stars in his eyes sparkle. His face holds no ounce of mockery, no smile, no frown, just an openness that welcomes me, that urges me to believe him.

  I want to tell him I do not deserve his trust. That I did not earn it. That I cannot have it.

  I want to tell him that the queen sent me for this exact moment, because she knew his gentle soul ached for someone who understood him, who he could save like he did himself.

  I want to tell him I'm a liar. That in the end I will betray him. That I can only bring him pain.

  All these things surge to my lips, but I silence them. Because there is a new flame sparking to life in my chest, a fire I do not want to put out, a burn slowly melting the ice encasing my insides. I don’t know what it is, but I know that if I tell Asher the truth, the fire will die and I will never find it again.

  "I promise."

  We have crossed over to the other side, to a world entirely new to me, one that scares yet also excites me. And I know we can never go back.

  Asher leaves without another word.

  I collapse onto my bed, drained.

  More than anything, I want to believe that I chose this, that I am worthy of the trust I was just bestowed, that I will live up to the hope in Asher's eyes.

  That I can be human.

  But a darkness lingers at the back of my mind, whispering in a musical voice that everything is falling perfectly into place.

  "Jade?"

  A voice I do not quite recognize interrupts my solace. I am lying still on my bed, staring at the wall, utterly conflicted. Mental turmoil has exhausted my body, a sensation I am unused to, but it is not entirely unwelcome.

  Still, I come alive at the sound of that voice, wanting the distraction. So I turn, surprised to see Maddy at the door.

  She is slumped against the frame, noticeably lacking the energetic bubble I assumed perpetually floated with her body. But her expression is muted, hesitant. Her voice was low, which is why I did not recognize it.

  "Hey." I sit up, nodding that she is welcome to come in. But she remains by the door. I search for fear in her eyes, worried she thinks me contagious, that the curse can spread.

  Maddy opens her mouth. Closes it. Shuffles her feet, anxious. Then four words slip through her lips. "Jade, I'm really sorry."

  I inhale, breath swelling with my heart, which seems to expand in my chest. Looking up under hooded brows, her gaze meets mine, waiting. I realize she is not afraid of me, she is afraid of being rejected.

  People do not apologize where I'm from. Years of being bullied by my peers, beat down by the boys, given no aid by the commander, and I have never once received remorseful words. I have learned not to expect them. I do not know how to accept them.

  My natural instinct is to disconnect, to ignore.

  I had already written Maddy off. She thought me a zombie, so I deemed her unworthy of my time. Done. Finished.

  But watching her now, I am unsure. And that is enough to make me want to hear more.

  "Sorry for what?" I question, trying to keep the steel from my voice.

  Her expression brightens just slightly and she steps free from the wall, moving imperceptibly farther into the room.

  "For what I said, I mean, calling you a zombie. It was stupid, and I didn't mean it the way it sounded, and I could tell that I hurt your feelings, which means that you totally have them, and that I was wrong, and…"

  Maddy trails off, antsy as she shifts her weight from side to side. The energy in her body starts to build, unused to being suppressed for so long.

  I'm not sure if Asher sent her to test me, to push on my newfound emotions, to see if she can ignite a different flare. But I don't care. This isn't about him, not completely. I promised myself that I would try to discard the monster, to act the human, to live up to the trust I've been bestowed.

  This is my first trial.

  Even though it is hard, I lick my lips, forcing unfamiliar words to my voice. "I forgive you."

  The mood in the room shifts, zipping to life as a smile widens Maddy's cheeks and she jumps closer to me. My mood follows, soaring higher, feeling lighter.

  "Thank you," she gushes, grasping my upper arm in her hand. "I was hoping you would say that. And just in case, you know, you forgave me, I had an idea planned. Just a suggestion, really, I mean you don't need to listen to me."

  "No, please," I say, feeling caught in her whirlwind but not bothered by it. The opposite in fact. Her energy bubbles over, teaching my calm body how to feel alive.

  "Okay, great." She tugs on my hand, bringing me to the floor where we both sit across from one another with legs folded. A stack of cards almost magically appears in her hands and she deftly shuffles, weaving the cards in an out with a grace I didn’t think her frenetic body possessed. But her fingers are nimble, focused.

  "Well, I was thinking," she says, not bothering to watch the cards and instead focusing her attention on me. "It's not so much that you can't connect with people, but more like you don't know how. I mean, Asher's told us about the way life was for him, how people didn’t seem to care about each other. But that doesn’t mean you can't, not really, more like you've just never been allowed to."

  "Okay," I say slowly, squirming a little, not sure I like where this is going.

  "Anyway, the best way to feel connected to someone is to talk with them and to open up, you know? At least, I think so. But you don't really seem like the sharing type." Maddy pauses, eyes going wide. "I mean, no offense."

  I shrug. "I'm not."

  A sigh rushes from her body as the excitement returns. "So basically, I thought we could play a game. All the girls used to play this when we were younger, you know, to try to get someone to confess to a secret crush or admit something embarrassing, you know."

  I don't, but I remain silent. Growing up, other little girls were not my friends, not my companions. We did not play together. I've certainly never whispered secret confessions into their ears.

  "But," Maddy continues, unaware of the way my thoughts have wandered, "we would play just to learn more about each other, to you know, get to know each other. Like friends."

  A twinge heats my spine. Nerves. They tingle as they travel through my body, and I recognize my own fear surging to life.

  "What game?" I ask, throat dry. After the fight with Asher, I'm not so sure if games are a great idea anymore.

  "It’s really simple," Maddy urges, cutting the deck and delivering half of the cards into my sweating palm. "Basically, we each flip a card over. Whoever has the higher card gets to ask a question, and the loser has to tell the truth. If it's just numbers, the questions have to be yes or no. But if you win with a face card, then the loser has to actually explain. And we can play for however long we want, I mean, it almost never lasts until the cards run out, cause someone used to get upset and run away."

  Maddy laughs suddenly, leaning in closer
, whispering to me. "We used to get so mad, as kids I mean. Because you would lose to a face card, and then there was always one girl who would make you confess which boy you wanted to kiss or, you know, some other nonsense and the loser would start crying. I think the adults wanted to ban it for a while."

  As Maddy shakes her head at the memory, I try to envision such a scene, of girls hanging out together, plotting to unveil each other's secrets. Torturing each other in a way only those with feelings could really be tormented. My childhood, emotionless as it was, doesn't seem so bad.

  But I watch Maddy, noting how her eyes crinkle and glitter with enjoyment, how they sparkle against her dark skin. None of my memories incur such a reaction, none since the earthquake anyway.

  My hands itch to begin, and at the same time, we both flip a card.

  I win, my seven beating her three.

  "Are you happy?" I ask. I'm not sure why, it is just the first thing that pops out.

  "Yes," Maddy says without hesitation.

  We flip. I win again—ten over eight. A smile spreads my lips as I get an odd pleasure at the sight.

  "Do you believe in the resistance?"

  "Yes." Again, not a drop of insecurity.

  This time I present a queen, overruling her four. Luck, it seems, is finally on my side. "What do you do for the resistance?"

  "Right now, I'm a little too young to really do much. I go to the surface to look for supplies. I scout sometimes. But I'm training to become a doctor, like a healer if you don't remember what that is."

  "Why?" I ask, curious. All my life, I've been a fighter. I've never once thought about keeping another person alive.

  But Maddy shakes her head, sly. "You have to win another card first."

  We draw. I lose, but not to a face card.

  "Do you remember your life, before the earthquake I mean?"

  I pause. Parts of it used to filter into my mind, hazy, distorted. But the longer I remain with the rebels, the clearer my memories have become. My mother's face floats before my eyes, more exact than I've seen it before, and I sort of remember her—the way being around her made life better, the way it used to feel like home. "Yes."