FrostFire (25 page)

Y
ou have a choice to make,
the flaming voice – the Mother’s voice – said.
Your father gave you life, but the price of that life was the curse you bore. For many years now, the strength of the Wolf has been all that allowed your father’s spirit to cling to you. I can release the Wolf and return him to his master – but if I do, it will also release your father’s spirit. And without that, your body will die.

“No,” my father growled.

The other choice is to continue as you have been. In that case, the control of the beast will fall to your father, just as it always has.

I stared up into Da’s grey eyes that were almost identical to my own. “What kind of choice is this? If I ask you to break the curse I’ll die, and abandon my friends, and everyone I love. But if I ask you to let me live, I will be binding my own father’s soul to suffering, and I will still be a monster.”

Da’s face twisted. “Hush! You are nothing like a monster. The rage isn’t your doing, it’s mine. The beast feeds on my anger and fear. Perhaps My Lady can help me to be stronger, to control myself better.”

“Da, you can’t wish to be trapped in this … this half-life. My mother is waiting for you in the next world. It isn’t right.”

He hesitated for only a second before he answered. “You are my daughter. It’s no torment to be with you.”

“You’re as bad a liar as I am,” I muttered.

How could I choose the fate of another person’s soul – my father’s soul? How could I choose between life and death? This was a dilemma that no mortal should ever have to face.

I didn’t want to die. Never, even in my darkest hour, had I longed for death. I just wanted to live freely, to be like everyone else.

I saw Luca’s face in my mind. The beautiful hope and strength in his eyes. The anguish as he had reached out to me before I fell into the fire. When I thought of leaving him like this, wounding him with my death, my heart felt like a ball of ice.

“What if…” I said, finally, speaking to the Mother. “What if you released my father, but left the Wolf inside me? Could I live then?”

The spirit of the Wolf is powerful and tenacious. It would be enough to keep you alive. But you would have to be equally strong. Strong enough to fight it alone.

Garin said eagerly, “I can teach her. I can teach her how to fight the Wolf, if you give us time.”

Within the Sacred Flame, there is no time and all time. You may teach your child, Garin Aeskaar. But, Saram, remember this. If you confront the spirit of the Wolf, and lose, the Wolf will suppress your will and take your body for its own. You know what will happen then. Are you sure you wish to take that risk?

I hesitated. There would be no turning back after this. Was there some other way, some less perilous way?

But where had running from my fear ever got me? Where had doubting myself ever got me? I had never been able to run far or fast enough to escape the Wolf. I had one chance to free myself. I had to believe in my own strength, as Luca did.

I took a deep breath. “Yes.”

Then go, child, and fight with my blessing.

The blue and gold ring of fire began to sink down, and the solid, comforting weight of my father’s arm around me faded with it. I cried out, trying to hang onto him, but he was already gone, slipping through my fingers like mist.

I stood at the centre of a great, frozen plain. The star-gemmed bowl of the sky curved overhead. Wind whistled across the plain and sent up a veil of fine snow. Wolf song echoed through the night.

It was my nightmare.

Terror took hold of me. My mind went blank. I did the only thing I knew how to do.

I ran.

The howling echoed behind me, singing of the hunt, singing of blood spilled on snow, singing of their prey’s fear on the wind. I was their prey. And they were getting closer.

The plain blurred past my eyes. The only things standing still were the stars. My heart was agony, punching against my ribs as if it were fighting to escape too. My limbs were already heavy and numb. How much further could I run?

They were gaining on me. I couldn’t run fast enough. They always caught me.

They always caught me…

I stumbled to a halt, sucking in a breath that made me choke. My legs quivered with the instinct to flee as I always had. But I could not outrun the Wolf.

I had to stand and fight.

I turned to face the dark shapes that flowed across the plain towards me. “I won’t break this time,” I said. “I won’t run from you any more.”

A familiar weight came into my hand. I looked down as my father’s axe rippled into being.

“Da,” I called, watching as the far-off wolves drew closer, their long black bodies streaking through the snow. “You said you would teach me.”

“And so I will,” my father said, suddenly beside me. His smile as he looked down at me was proud. “Give me my axe now, Saram.”

A little reluctantly, I lifted up the weapon and handed it over. Da took it with a sigh, closing both hands on the haft, then swinging it in a whistling arc through the air. “It’s been too long since I held this. Stay behind me, child, and watch what I do.”

“But—” I began to protest. Surely I was meant to do the fighting?

Da waved me to silence. “Look!”

The pack of wolves let out a great howl, voices mingling into one. Their dark forms seemed to melt, coalescing, running across the snow like blood. Then there was no wolf pack any more, only one giant wolf, as broad across the shoulders as me.

My Wolf.

Its massive paws sent up a powdery spray of snow as it ran. It raced towards us and began to circle, forcing me to turn to keep it in sight. My father pushed in front of me, axe ready. The Wolf howled again, and as before in my dreams, I heard words in the cry. Words spoken in Garin Aeskaar’s voice. It made sense now – how else could a wolf speak, but by borrowing the voice of the human spirit that was tangled with its own?

You have summoned me, daughter. Are you ready to accept my strength at last?

“She is no daughter of yours!” Garin shouted. “This is my girl!”

Deep, mocking laughter reached my ears.

It is my strength that keeps her alive, my spirit that keeps her breathing. You are only mortal. Thanks to me, she is so much more than that. She is as much my daughter as yours.

My father opened his mouth, but before he could speak again, I called out, “You call yourself my father. Why have you brought me such misery, then? Why have you blighted my life, and forced me to run from everything I cared about?”

It is your own weakness that has made you sorrowful. All that matters is the hunt. The kill, and the taste of blood. Drive the weakness from your spirit, and you will be the greatest hunter, the greatest warrior, that ever lived. I will make you so.

“Silence, beast!” Da bellowed, face flushing with rage.

“No, Da!”

It was already too late. My father’s temper had overwhelmed him. He lunged at the Wolf, his axe slicing down. The creature seemed to bend its spine in two to avoid the blow. Da’s axe buried itself in the snow. The Wolf lunged at his throat.

Letting out a shrill battle cry, I dived forward and tackled the beast, jamming my forearm under its jaw and wrapping my other arm around its powerful shoulders to hold its head away.

The immense body bucked and writhed, trying to escape my hold. The powerful back legs raked at me, opening up lines of burning pain on my belly and sides. Its claws were like iron. We rolled over and over in the snow, the Wolf’s hot, copper-scented breath blasting over my face. The great crescent teeth snapped half an inch from my nose.

I managed to wrestle my way on top, digging one knee into the creature’s stomach and bracing the other in the snow beside it. Behind me, I could hear my father shouting my name, but he came no closer.

I will devour you,
the Wolf snarled.
I will rip you apart with these fangs. I will feast on your human heart, weakling cub!

My fingers dug into the thick fur like claws. If I let go for an instant, it would be over. I stared down into the Wolf’s blazing eyes, focusing every fragment of my will to keep myself from blinking.

“Submit.” My voice emerged as a low, vicious growl. “Submit to me.”

I am the Wolf.

“Submit!”

The beast began to howl. The eerie sound reverberated through my body, through the plain itself. Distant mountains quaked. The earth rumbled beneath us. From the corners of my eyes I saw the stars flare blindingly and begin to fall, streaking across the sky with tails of white fire.

The wolf struggled more desperately than ever, kicking at my ribs until I was sure they must have snapped. I dug my fingers deeper into its pelt and held on. I did not blink.

“This is my soul! Mine! You do not command me. No one commands me.
Submit!
”

The star-bright eyes flickered away, for just a second.

The Wolf went still beneath me. Then its giant, foam-flecked muzzle lifted up until the moist nose just touched the very tip of mine.

You are my daughter, after all.

The Wolf dissolved in my grasp, and a cloud of darkness curled around me. It caressed me with icy tendrils, like smoke, or black down, or the softest and finest of fur coats. Then it seemed to sink away – sink into me – and disappear. The earth shuddered and trembled, gave one last heave, and settled, like a restive animal that feels the hand of its master.

Da skidded to his knees next to me and jerked me into his arms.

“She held me back,” he whispered, hoarse and uneven. I could feel him trembling. “The Mother would not let me help you.”

“I had to defeat him myself, Da,” I panted. “Don’t you see that? I had to know I could do it on my own, or I would never have been able to live without fear. Power and ruthlessness are all the Wolf respects. As long as he knows I am stronger than him, I will be his master. The moment I give into fear, he will drag me down and crush me beneath his paws.”

“My brave girl. My brave little girl.” Garin rocked me backwards and forwards, then drew back, looking down at me. “There’s something I must tell you, Saram. It’s about your mother. I know she wasn’t kind to you – and I can’t ask you to forgive her for the way she was. But she didn’t know the real reason your life was spared. Edel thought that she had given away your soul, and she could not forget it, or ever shake herself free of the fear that she had damned you. The guilt tormented her. She believed everything that happened to you was her fault. It made her hard and cold. It made her hurt you when you were already hurting more than any child ever should. But she did love you, Saram. She did. She would have given up her own soul if it would have saved yours. Remember that. Remember I love you too.”

He embraced me again. I leaned on his shoulder. Every part of me was throbbing with exhaustion, bruises and scratches. But I was at peace. Beyond the mountains, the sun began to rise, casting out rays of red and gold into the sky. The falling stars faded one by one.

The arms around me began to glow silver-bright, sending out rays like the sun. I was enveloped in a strange floating sensation as Da’s human form began to fade, disappearing into a shape of pure light.

“I will always watch over you,” he whispered. “My frostfire. Always…”

There was a gentle, ghostly touch on the frost mark on my cheek. Then the silver light that was my father’s soul flowed upwards, stretching thin and pale until it disappeared into the gold of dawn.

Tears dripped slowly down my cheeks.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for letting me meet him.”

The landscape around me began to dissolve just as my father had done: snow and sky becoming gently rippling flames of blue and gold and purple.

After a while – and it might have been a very long while – I realized I was lying on my side in the bottom of the camp firepit, ashes and charcoal gritty under my cheek, with the tranquil peacock flames burning all around me. The moment my eyes focused on them, they died down, leaving nothing but ashes.

“Frost?”

It took me a moment to recognize my name, and another moment to know the voice.

“Arian…?”

I coughed, and then coughed again more violently, as ashes caught in the back of my throat. I tried to push myself upright, but my arms felt like limp pieces of string. In a sudden panic I squinted down at them, and sagged with relief when I realized they weren’t burned to a crisp. I didn’t feel much different. There was only one change, other than the fact that I wanted to sleep for a week.

The gnawing, guilty ache of fear that had been my constant companion since I was eight years old was gone. I wasn’t afraid any more. What did I have to be afraid of, after all?

I was free.

“Frost?”

Arian’s voice was closer now. I forced my head up – I felt as if I wore a crown of lead – and saw him kneeling at the edge of the firepit, hands clasped as if in prayer. He looked terrible. His jaw was unshaven, his hair was standing up in messy peaks; his clothes were rumbled and grubby. He looked as if he hadn’t slept or washed in days.

“It’s all right,” I rasped out. “I’m still Frost. I’m still me.”

He carried on staring as if he expected me to start barking like a dog at any moment.

“Arian, are you going to help me out of here or not? It’s not comfortable! At least give me your hand!”

His eyes squeezed shut, an expression of profound relief crossing his face. “You got yourself in there on your own,” he said, eyes still closed. “Maybe I should make you crawl out by yourself too.”

“Then I’ll just get Luca to help me,” I retorted.

His face spasmed. Uneasiness prickled the back of my neck. I looked around. “Where is he? Where’s Luca?”

Arian opened his eyes. The expression there made my stomach turn over.

He said, “I don’t know.”

A
rian told me the message had come only an hour after I had toppled into the fire and disappeared from view. As Luca had sat by the firepit in the dark – distraught and fearful, not knowing if I were even alive within the raging blaze – a ragged little Rua boy had run into the camp, begging for help. His sister and mother had been taken by three Sedorne men as they guided the family’s small herd of cattle down from their grazing pastures for the night.

Even in the midst of his own sorrow, Luca could not refuse a call for help like that. Within a few moments, he had armed and mounted himself, picked a force of five hill guards to accompany him, and left, ignoring Arian’s pleas for caution. He had insisted Arian stay to guard the firepit. To guard me.

The following morning, three of the five hill guards Luca had taken returned. One of them had died shortly after. The two survivors told Arian that his worst nightmare had come true.

Luca had walked into a trap.

The tracks of the kidnapped women and their captors had led the small hill-guard force not to a bandit group of three, but of over twenty, concealed up and down a narrow valley. Luca had shouted at his men to run. They obeyed. Two fell to enemy swords in the valley, and another had caught an arrow in the back. They hadn’t seen what happened to Luca.

Arian had sat by the fire for the next three days, held prisoner by Luca’s orders, waiting either for Luca to return or for me to emerge. Under Hind’s command, the rest of the hill guards had combed the mountains, searching for any sign of Luca or the men who had ambushed him. They had found nothing.

The captain of the hill guard had disappeared.

“Is he dead?” I asked Arian bluntly as I sat in Luca’s tent.

Arian stared at me as if his doubts about my sanity had returned. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. You said before that you always know if he’s in trouble, if he needs you. Does he still need you?”

He let out a long, shuddering breath. “I think so.”

“Then he’s still alive,” I said, fixing my eyes on his and letting the strength of my conviction burn through my voice. “We are going to eat. We’re going to pack. Then we’re going to go out there and find him – do you understand? We are going to find him.”

I watched the terrible lines of strain and worry on his face ease a little as he slowly nodded. “What happened to you in that fire? You’re different.”

“No. I’m the person I was always meant to be.”

“The sun’s almost down,” Arian said quietly.

“There’s plenty of light left,” I said, straightening from where I’d been bent over, squinting at a scuffed mark in the dry dirt. I rubbed my stinging eyes with the heels of my hands.

On the hillside above, in the far distance, I could see the dim figures of another party of hill guards moving downhill, probably intending to go back to the camp for the night. I looked past them to search the shapes of the mountains as if they might offer me some clue.

At the core of me, where fear and self-doubt had always lurked, there was … something new. I didn’t have a name for it yet. I didn’t really understand it, or its limits. Maybe it was the courage that Luca had always told me was mine, though I didn’t feel particularly brave. I just knew it was up to me to find him and bring him home.

“They’ve already searched here,” Arian said, sounding frustrated. “I’m sure they wouldn’t have missed anything.”

“Maybe not. But look – the ground is rough here, and there are so many patches of undergrowth and trees, they couldn’t have searched all of them. And these landslides were recent. I’m betting all these rocks would be nearly impossible to get over without turning an ankle or taking a tumble.”

“I don’t understand—”

“If you were Luca, if you knew these hills like the back of your hand, if you were … maybe injured and running from an enemy, you’d come here. This is a perfect hiding place. Come on.”

I plunged past him into a stand of thick bushes. Leaves slapped my face, branches tore at my skin. I tripped, and only Arian grabbing the pack on my shoulders kept me upright.

“Luca!” Arian yelled. “If you’re here, answer me!”

There was no reply.

“Frost—”

“Just a little longer,” I said. “I’m sure we’re going to find something.”

Arian muttered under his breath, but did not argue. I had the feeling that he didn’t dare to. If he argued himself out of hoping, what would he be left with?

A moment later I nearly fell out of the thick cover of leaves. This time Arian didn’t catch me in time, and I went down on my knees, hard. I barely noticed. Above us was a towering pile of great, bare rocks that ended in a sheer drop. I could see the midnight-blue glitter of the river below. Above was another thick stand of trees. Perfect cover – and just what Luca would have been looking for as he made for home.

I tried to distinguish marks in the dusty soil, but I could barely see anything now. The red-gold light of the setting sun was shining on top of the rocks, but down here it was twilight.

“Up,” I said. “We have to go up.”

Arian didn’t bother to argue this time. We scrabbled and grunted our way up the thin strip of earth next to the rockfall, sending pebbles and earth cascading down behind us.

“What are we looking for?” Arian asked me, stopping to wipe sweat and dust off his face.

I looked up at him – and froze. My finger trembled as I pointed. “That.”

There, on one of the rocks next to Arian’s shoulder, was a smear of dried blood. It was the shape of a hand. A large, long-fingered hand.

Arian whispered something under his breath. It might have been a curse, or a prayer.

My eyes skittered over the rocks until I found a gap between two boulders a few steps to Arian’s right. I pointed again. Arian fell down on his knees and tried to crawl inside, but he was too broad. “I need light. I can’t see anything in there. Luca! Luca, can you answer?”

“Get out of the way.” I nudged Arian forcefully aside, wrenched my pack off my back and squeezed myself into the gap, my shoulders scraping painfully on the rough rock on either side.

“Luca?” My voice emerged as a croak. There was no echo in the tiny, damp space.

I groped through the moist dirt, stretching out my hands blindly. My fingertips fell on cloth, then the unmistakable shape of a muscular wrist.

“Luca.”

“What can you see?” The rocks couldn’t muffle the urgency in Arian’s voice.

“It’s him. Help me.”

Luca’s skin under my hand was ice cold, and the only sound I could hear in the tiny space was my own shallow breathing. I clamped my fingers down and pulled, inching backwards. The angle was wrong. I couldn’t get my legs under me. Arian caught hold of my waist and dragged me. I grunted as my joints protested against the strain.

There was a ripping noise. I skidded backward in a cloud of dust as something gave way in the dark space. My burden came with me, sliding out of the cave into the last light of the day.

Arian let go of me and turned away with a deep, hurt noise, one hand slapping against the nearby rock to keep him upright.

It
was
Luca. The fine planes of his face were unmistakeable, even swollen, bruised and caked in blood, even with his glorious golden hair shaved painfully short, so that his scalp glinted through the ragged fuzz.

His uniform was in rags. Deep bruises showed on his arms, chest, and in a choking necklace of fingerprints around his neck. Blistered burn marks formed precise cross-shapes on both of his cheeks. The traitor’s mark.

He lay still, limp and lifeless.

Something – a sob, a scream, I did not know what – caught in my throat and choked me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. The world came loose of its mooring in the heavens and wheeled crazily around me as the sun sank behind the horizon, plunging us into darkness.

No.

No.

No.

Luca let out a faint moan.

Air flooded my chest in a dizzying, painful rush. The world steadied. Impenetrable blackness became dusk. “He’s alive. Arian, he’s alive!”

Arian whipped round, his face a staring mask of disbelief, of hope. Then he scooped up Luca’s body, lifting the taller man in one movement, as if he weighed nothing. I leaped to my feet, snagging my discarded pack.

We ran.

The journey back to the camp took an agonizing eternity; moments stretched out into hours. The harsh sound of my own breathing deafened me. I slid and slipped down the slope ahead of Arian, holding back tree limbs, stamping down roots – not for his sake this time, but for Luca’s. Whenever I glanced back, I saw Luca’s head rolling bonelessly against Arian’s shoulder, his face a merciful blur in the dusk. Arian’s face was turned down, always. I didn’t think he was even looking where he was going.

Finally, I caught sight of the orange flicker of torches through the trees. I pushed through, breaking into the clearing and leaving Arian behind as I pelted through camp to the small tent pitched next to the makeshift infirmary. I shoved up the tent flap.

The torchlight revealed Rani in a tangle of pillows and blankets, with Livia curled next to her. Both healers jerked upright, instantly alert. Livia’s hair stood out around her head like a silvery mess of straw.

“What? Who –
Frost
?” Rani’s eyes narrowed.

“We found Luca. He’s hurt. He needs help.”

Rani was flinging back the covers and dragging on a pair of breeches before I had finished speaking. “Light the lamps. Hurry!”

Livia rushed to comply, fumbling with her still-bandaged bad arm. I went to help her, and in a moment the tent was flooded with golden light.

“It’s really him?” Livia asked.

I looked up and met her eyes. Whatever she saw in mine made her tanned face go pale.

Before we could say any more, Arian walked in. He gently laid Luca down on the spare bedroll in the healer’s tent. Both Rani and Livia gasped as they saw his face.

Livia ripped open her healer’s bag.

“Go outside now,” she said, eyes not leaving Luca. “Go out and wait. We need space.”

Arian stood motionless, staring down at Luca’s bloodied form. Livia jerked her head at me. I caught hold of Arian’s hand and tugged at it, and he followed me. Outside, the camp lay still and quiet.

The moment I let go of Arian’s hand he folded up on himself, dropping to the ground as if his legs could no longer support him. Slowly, I sank down beside him, drawing my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.

“He’s going to be all right,” I said, not sure if I was talking to Arian, or to myself. “We got him back. He’s going to be fine.”

Arian didn’t answer. I doubt he even heard.

It seemed like a whole night had passed before Rani finally poked her head out of the tent flap. Arian scrambled clumsily to his feet. I stayed on the floor.

“It’s bad,” Rani said, without waiting to be asked. “His wounds … they’re appalling, but they aren’t serious in themselves. They must have wanted to keep him alive. The burns on his face, though … the marks…” She paused, hands clenching on a piece of bloodstained bandage. “They’re infected.”

“What does that mean?” Arian demanded roughly.

“I don’t know if – it’s possible he might not make it through the night.”

I clutched at my ribs, rocking gently. “He’ll make it. He will. He wouldn’t leave us like this.”

Arian turned silently and walked away into the camp.

“Go after him,” Rani said. “There’s nothing you can do for Luca now.”

She made as if to slip back into the tent, then stopped. Her eyes met mine squarely for the first time since I had attacked Livia. “Thank you for bringing him back. For not giving up. If you hadn’t found him, he would probably have been dead by tomorrow. At least now he has a chance.”

I sat on the ground for a long time after Rani had gone back inside, trying to deny the stomach-churning pain. Trying to force the feelings away into that dark ball under my ribs like I always had before. But I couldn’t. I had changed. There was no empty, cold place where I could huddle up hope and fear within me any more. No way to isolate myself or run away from these feelings to make it easier. I had to accept them, and I had to do it without breaking. I had to, because Luca needed me. He needed me to be the person he had always believed I was. Brave and strong. Strong enough to get through this, and bring him through it too.

Slowly, slowly, I got myself back under control again. I was able to breathe, to uncurl myself from my tight ball of misery and sit up straight. I got creakily to my feet and just stood there, dazed, for a little while. Then, leaving my pack in the dirt, I went after Arian. Rani was right. Luca wouldn’t want his brother to be alone.

I found Arian in Luca’s tent. When I pushed the flap open I saw him sat on my bedroll, clutching the bedding to his face. As he looked up, the moonlight silvered the lines of moisture trailing down his cheeks. I let the flap fall closed so that darkness blocked out the sight.

“He’s all I have,” he whispered, his voice as thin and frightened as a child’s. “He’s all I’ve ever had.”

Moving through the shadows on memory, I knelt down on the bedroll next to Arian and reached out, embracing him tightly.

“Not any more,” I said, staring into the night, dry-eyed. “It’s going to be all right, Arian. You’ve got me now.”