Veins of Ice

by Melissa Kellogg

  “Karena, I was hoping to talk to you alone,” Tristan said. “Vince has overstayed his welcome in your company.”

  Karena ignored him.

  “Best party idea ever, Karena,” Rose said, having drifted over. She was one of Hadrian’s cousins.

  Karena looked at her and smiled. Like the oddball that she was, Rose stood out. Her sunset-like gown started off as a fuchsia color at the thin straps and faded to coral-orange at the bottom. It was delicate and simple, but on Rose, it was stunning and showed off her natural beauty. She didn’t care that everyone else had elaborate and full-bodied dresses.

  Camelia asked, “Do you have any ideas for my party? It’ll be coming up in a month. I’ll be turning twenty-three.”

  “I’ve run out of ideas. I’m not sure if I will be doing another birthday party because of that,” Karena said.

  Julia crossed her legs, and the slit in her dress revealed even more of her leg. “What about you Vince?” Julia said. She blinked at him, and pretended to fuss with her dress.

  “I don’t hold themed birthday parties. I only have private ones and invite those that I know best,” he stated. He took Karena’s empty plate, and stood up to dispose of it in the dirty dishes bin.

  Tristan made a move to take Vince’s spot, but Hadrian barked at him. Startled, Tristan reconsidered and watched to see if Vince would return, which he did.

  With a whimsical smile, Rose said, “I like how romantic this party is, and I’m still guessing who some people are. But I like roses, so I’ll be sticking to rose-themed birthday parties.”

  “I’m surprised you like roses,” Hadrian said, sarcastic as ever. “It’s not like we have like…. oh, I don’t know, a hundred rose bushes in the backyard. It’s a wonder those butterflies and bees make it out of that war zone alive.”

  “War zone?” Julia asked.

  “Rose bushes have thorns. That’s what I was referring to.”

  “Oh,” she said, her facial expression still blank.

  Hadrian sighed.

  “It’s minutes from midnight, everyone,” Rachel called, and everyone stopped to listen. “It’s time for the birthday girl to have one last dance, and then afterwards, the unmasking of her selected beau of the night.”

  Karena’s mouth gaped open. “It’s already midnight? Surely, it’s ten o’clock at the very latest,” she said.

  Vince stood up, and offered his hand.

  “But, but,” Tristan protested.

  Karena took Vince’s hand. He guided her onto the dance floor, and twirled her around, but this time, he reeled her in before she could make the full turn. Her back settled against his chest. His hand still held hers, and so his arm rested around her waist. She barely breathed. Her heart fluttered, while her skin tingled. His breath softly blew against the side of her neck. He pressed his cashmere lips against her neck just below her ear. All of her senses heightened, and she felt her head buzz from pleasure. She breathed in his spicy scent.

  Vince stepped back, and pivoted her around to face him. Lightheaded, she stood there, every part of her numb, but electric. Every cell of her body was sending out a charge, seeking to reunite with him and make lightning, even though that wasn’t even her element. She ached for him. A glittery mist shrouded her. It sparkled due to her emotional state, but didn’t freeze anything.

  The music began, and they swayed to it. It was a slow dance. Her hands were supposed to rest on his upper arms, but she had them around his neck. Soon, she would see his face. She anticipated it more than anything else, including the presents on the table.

  Vince was mysterious. Questions swirled around in her mind. Would he stay in Archelm for long? What would their next encounter be like? What elemental was he? An Earth, a Water? Where did he come from? They had talked for so long, but yet, she still didn’t know much about him. He was deeper and more complex than anyone else she had met, and so vague on some subjects like himself.

  When the music died, her parents came onto the floor to give a short speech. Her cheeks warmed, and the sparkling mist around her vanished and was replaced with an agitated, cold breeze. The people around her rubbed their arms and inched away.

  “I’ll be right back,” Vince whispered in her ear.

  He disappeared into the crowd of people listening to her parents talk about how proud they were of her. She figured he needed a drink from the table. When her parents wrapped up their speech, it was Karena’s turn to say something. Vince still hadn’t come back. Fear prickled in her. Everyone’s eyes focused on her.

  “I want to thank everyone for coming to my party,” Karena started, turning around to look for Vince, but couldn’t locate him. “I hope everyone had a good time. Everyone feels like family, and I feel blessed to know everyone here. I hope this year, not only for myself, but for everyone, will be a good one. Thank you for the presents and your friendship over the years. That’s all I have to say. Thank you again for coming.”

  Everyone clapped. She scanned the circle of people around her. Vince didn’t break out of their ranks to return to her. He had been at her side the entire time of the party until now. She wiped her sweaty hands against her dress. Ice flecked off of where she rubbed her hands against the fabric.

  “Now it’s time for Karena to unmask her mysterious beau of the night,” Rachel said with a wave into the air.

  Hadrian shoved Tristan forward. Taken by surprise, Tristan froze for a moment. He quickly recomposed himself and strode over to Karena. He tugged on the bottom of his vest. A smile crept across his face and remained plastered there. He nodded to those looking, and held his head high as though he was royalty. He wasn’t at all troubled by the fact that he wasn’t the one who Karena had spent almost the entire party talking to or hanging out with. Tristan stopped before her and waited. His eyes searched into her soul a little too eagerly.

  Karena could tell from the mutterings and concerned looks that people were wondering where Vince had disappeared off to as well. They had been curious about him, but because it was midnight, everyone was too tired to worry or speak up. She didn’t waste any more time, or try to call out for Vince to come forward. She took off Tristan’s mask, which didn’t cover much of his face. His flimsy mask was at risk of being crushed in her trembling hands. It was a lame way to end her birthday party. Disappointment sunk her spirits into dark depths. Her lip quivered, and she blinked away tears that threaten to spill onto her face.

  “And there we have it. Now it’s everyone’s turn to take off their masks,” Rachel said.

  Everyone did so. Karena wasn’t surprised by who she saw there. Where was Vince? He had just ditched her. A sneaky suspicion of being conned stole into her, but more than anything else, a sense of abandonment and confusion.

  “I’ll take you to the limo,” Tristan said, holding up his arm so high, it was as though he was a waiter.

  Karena had no choice, but to take it. He escorted her out. Hadrian and Rose followed them on their heels.

  “I don’t see him,” Hadrian said behind her.

  “Same,” Rose said, referring to Vince.

  With a malicious sneer, Tristan said, “Good riddance to him.”

  “He vanished. Something isn’t right,” Rose said as they exited through the front doors of the Blue Ballroom and waited for the limo to pull up. The stars twinkled above them, merry as always.

  “Maybe he’s sooooooo ugly that he can’t be seen,” Hadrian said.

  Karena couldn’t resist a laugh, even in her distressed state of mind. “That would be very ugly,” she said.

  “So ugly we would all die,” Hadrian said.

  “Then it’s a good thing he left,” Rose said with a dismissive note to her voice.

  Beside her, Tristan loudly inhaled the fresh night air. Karena dug her fingernails into his arm, irritated by him.

  “He was such a stiff anyways. No one wants to be around someone like him,” Tristan said.

  The limo pulled up and the driver opened the door for Karena.

/>   “Might I come with you, Karena, to make sure you get home safely?” Tristan said.

  “For goodness sake’s, she lives under the same roof as us. She’ll be fine. We’ll meet up with her in a few minutes,” Rose said and shooed him away. He sulked and finally left.

  “Thank you for that,” Karena said. “I don’t have the patience right now.”

  “I figured. We’ll meet you over there after we’ll gather up your presents,” Rose said.

  “He’s so ugly that the sun refuses to shine when he gets up in the morning,” Hadrian continued.

  Rose rolled her eyes, and Karena shut the car door on Hadrian’s chatter. The driver smoothly pulled out of the parking lot and onto the shadowy streets.

  She had been riding high on pure joy the entire night, but had come crashing down at the end. As high as she had risen, she had fallen. Why had he deserted her? The question couldn’t be answered, except by the obvious fact that he hadn’t wanted to take off his mask. Maybe Hadrian was right, he was so ugly that they were better off not knowing what he looked like. Karena shook her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. It didn’t seem right. For a man to be that confident, there couldn’t be anything wrong with the way he looked. It didn’t matter if Vince was as ordinary looking as Tristan because it was Vince’s personality that melted the ice inside of her, and made her want to know more about him.

  Karena stared through the window at the sleeping city. Street lamps, afire in halos, were beacons of light and strength in the darkness. Tired and upset, she leaned her head back against the head rest. Maybe love just wasn’t for her.

  Chapter 6

  A week after her birthday party, Karena was still mulling over why Vince hadn’t stuck around long enough to take off his mask. Even as she soaked in her bathtub, her musings wouldn’t allow her to relax. The lavender scented bath water soothed her, but she wanted to smell him again. His scent, which she had pinpointed to smelling like apple cinnamon, invigorated her, and that’s what she desired instead. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Annoyed by the endless, cycling questions and speculative answers of why he had deserted her, she grabbed one of the chunks of ice floating on top of the bath water and broke it apart in her fist.

  Vince had acted like he had been interested in her. She had seen his eyes light up when he had talked to her, and his body lean closer to her. He had listened to her stories just as intently as she had to his. Never had he come across as self-absorbed or as though he possessed an ulterior motive. He hadn’t flirted with any of the other young women present, and nor had he really looked at them. He hadn’t strayed from her side until after the last dance. She couldn’t figure it out. It aggravated her. She wanted to know why.

  He was unlike all of the other guys she had met over the years. She hadn’t yet encountered a guy that could make her feel so alive, happy, and complete as Vince had. It had felt as though the rest of the world had faded far into the background. Several hours with him had only felt like half an hour. And then, he had vanished. It felt like she had been teased by love itself, or possibly betrayed.

  There was a knock on the door. Her thoughts scattered.

  “Are you still in there, Karena?” Rose called through the door.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been in there for hours, and you haven’t gone out at all this weekend like you usually do,” she said, stating the obvious.

  Karena frowned, and pushed the mini icebergs on the water around with her mind. “I don’t feel like going out,” she said.

  The door creaked open and Rose popped her head in. Her pale, green eyes somehow didn’t clash with her hair, which, depending on the day, deepened or lightened its blushed color.

  “It’s Vince, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not Vince.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Karena shifted her gaze.

  Rose continued, “He’s not worth your time or sanity, so stop thinking about him. If he can’t stick around, then he’s not going to in the long run. He’s got issues, end of story. Move on. It was a few hours with him, and thank goodness for that. I can’t imagine you having a few dates with him because then you would really be devastated when he performs his disappearing act.”

  “He was different than all the others.”

  “Mysterious, masked, muscular-looking, a recipe for trouble in my opinion. I haven’t dated a lot of guys, but I do know that when some guy comes across as mysterious, it means he’s hiding something.”

  “He listened to me.”

  “They all do at first, and after a while that changes and it becomes all about them. Of course, that’s if they’re a rotten apple.”

  “You’re just trying to polarize me against him so that I’ll feel better about what happened.”

  “If it’ll get you to stop moping, then sure. By the way, you’re making the house really cold. Hadrian is contemplating starting a fire in the fireplace.”

  “Oh no.”

  “I already hid the matches.”

  “Good. Him and matches don’t mix well, just like my taste in guys. I’ll get out of the bathtub and consider going out.”

  “You have mail too. It’s on your bed. There’s a package. Someone probably forgot to give you their birthday present at the party.”

  As soon as Rose left, Karena forced herself out of her bath and into her robe. She padded into her bedroom and sat on her bed to examine the envelope and the package that had come in. When she shook the parcel, something rattled inside. Before she opened it, she checked the envelope. It was from City Hall.

  She tore it open and unfolded the letter inside. Her request to peruse the shelves of the Ancient Library had been denied. A repeal was possible, but only if she met with the Council to explain why she needed access to the Ancient Library. Her eyebrows furled together. Her reason was self-explanatory. There wasn’t anything else to say, besides what she had included on the initial permission slip. Hex locks were of a sinister and unknown origin. Not even Tristan had known much about them, or why they had been placed on some of the coffins underneath Oaksvale Cemetery.

  All of the other times she had made a request to use the Ancient Library, she had been granted approval without needing to elaborate why to the Council. So why was this time different? As government leaders of Archelm City and overseers of most of went on in the Sundarin Nation, the Council were busy with making important decisions. So this matter seemed trivial at best, and she should’ve been approved without incident.

  On the letter, it gave the day and time for meeting with the Council. Paperwork had been included in case she needed to reschedule.

  Karena set it aside, and turned her attention to the package. It probably was a late present. She still had a pile of presents in the corner of her room that she needed to figure out what to do with. Most of them she had yet to unwrap. She considered putting the box with the rest and opening it later. But when she noticed that there wasn’t a return address on it, she reconsidered. It was simply addressed to her, that’s it. Curiosity tugged at her, begging her to open it.

  Karena plucked at the brown wrapping around the box, tossed it away, and lifted up the box’s lid. Inside, gold glinted. Her eyes traced the feather design of the object inside, and realized that she was looking at two wings. She reached in, and held up the object to see it better. Her breath shuddered inside her chest. She stared at it in disbelief. It was Vince’s mask. Her fingers ran over its smooth surface and along its open eye sockets. Who had sent it? Had he? Why?

  She peeked inside the box and found a note. It read: “I apologize for disappearing. I didn’t intend to stay as long as I did, and nor did I expect to have feelings for you. I couldn’t unmask myself in front of you for reasons I wish to explain. You will see for yourself why. If you would like to see me unmasked, I will be under the wisteria pergola in the Sageburrow Gardens at nine o’clock on Saturday evening next week.”

  Karena knew where the wisteria pergola was. A
t night, it was softly lit by artificial light, which would be ideal for someone like Vince if taking off his mask was such a big deal. Maybe he was as ugly as Hadrian had suggested and been joking about ever since the party.

  Karena held the mask in her hands and touched where his face had met the inside of the mask. She oscillated between going and not going. Her need to know why he had forsaken her on her birthday outweighed her hurt and anger. But then seconds later, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, and her hurt and anger stomped down on her intentions to see Vince. If he could vanish, then so could she. She set the mask down.

  Sounds of a commotion happening downstairs flew to her ears. She detected angry voices. She dressed, and ventured downstairs to see what was going on.

  In the living room, a gathering of people she loosely knew argued and threw their hands around. Materializing bruises on the men’s faces told her it had something to do with the feud.

  A burly man named Leonard fumed. He was saying, “Those damn Fires, they have a monopoly on car parts, jewelry, and most metals. What are we supposed to do, import everything from other towns?”

  “They jack up the prices on everything and that’s if you can find them in a store. Most stores don’t even carry what they make,” Charles said. He was a close friend to both of her parents and Hadrian’s.

  Hands on her hips, Anna said, “The Volcanis and Blackash family are to blame.”

  “What happened?” Karena asked, and they all looked at her, having not noticed her arrival until just then.

  William, a wisp of a man, explained, “We went over to try to see if we could settle an argument and set some fair trading guidelines.”

  “I see that didn’t go too well,” Hadrian said, and feigned surprise when they glared at him.

  Leonard tossed up his hands. “First, it was peaceful, but the arguing led to shouting. Once we were told to leave, they decided to try to prevent us from getting into our cars,” he said.

  “Several of the guys who went with us are in the hospital,” Charles said, and Karena noticed his bloodied knuckles.