Fireblood (Frostblood Saga #2)
Elly Blake
FOR MY MOM, NANCY, WHO TAUGHT ME TO LOVE WORDS
ONE
I CIRCLED THE FROSTBLOOD WARRIOR, my boots kicking up dust from the drought-dry earth. One little mistake, one little lapse in focus, would mean defeat.
His left fist twitched before his right came out with a cyclone of frost. But I knew all his favorite tricks, his feints and false moves. I twisted to the right, throwing a plume of fire from my palms.
My vision clouded. A sudden memory took me: my hands, red with fire, stretched toward the icy throne of Fors—the timeless symbol of Frostblood rule—its wicked, gleaming shards mocking my paltry fire. I couldn’t melt it. I couldn’t defeat the curse inside it.
But then another’s frost joined my fire, not extinguishing but creating a blinding blue flame that poured toward the throne, softening its edges, dulling the sharp points, making the ice weep in defeat. I could hear King Rasmus’s delighted laugh as the Minax broke free from the throne’s dying heart, as the shadow creature crept against my skin, seeking entry, promising the joy of a thousand sunbursts and the absence of pain or weakness ever, ever again.
I snapped back to the present, stumbling as an icy blast hit me in the chest. I rolled and regained my feet, but my sight remained foggy, the memory far too real. The skin near my ear where the Minax had marked me burned, and I cried out.
“Ruby!”
Hands cupped my shoulders. I had an urge to knock them away and run.
Arcus’s voice murmured, deep and even, designed to soothe but sharpened by a hint of distress. “Slow your breathing. It will pass.”
It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real.
My heart pummeled my ribs. My throat thickened. “I can’t breathe.”
Arcus’s hand moved to my sternum, pressing gently, his long fingers splayed against my neck. “Slow and steady. Everything is fine. I’m here. You’re safe.”
Gradually, the soft words and touch made their way past the fear. I blinked until the royal gardens came into focus and I smelled the perfume of roses and summersweet. Tapered yews stood sentinel around the wide clearing, and beyond that, taller leafy sycamore and birch trees bowed over the evergreens like gentlemen over the hands of ladies. The heat of the late-summer sunrise calmed me, along with the occasional rustle of leaves brushed by the hand of Cirrus, the west wind.
I turned my head and was ensnared by icy-blue eyes under a brow drawn tight in concern. Arcus’s skin had lost some color. I reached up and slid an unsteady palm along his cold cheek, smiling when he didn’t flinch as my fingertips touched his scars.
“Your episodes are growing more frequent,” he said.
I shrugged, the movement jostling his hand, which still rested over my collarbone, the heel of his palm against the upper curve of my breast. We both seemed to realize it at the same time. A flush scorched my cheeks. His lids fell, hiding his eyes as he moved the hand to my upper arm.
There were unspoken boundaries we hadn’t crossed yet, though I hadn’t decided if that was due to Arcus’s self-control or the fact that our moments alone were brief and often interrupted.
“Have you found out anything more about the curse?” he asked.
“Not yet.” Brother Thistle and I had spent many hours in the castle library combing through books on the Minax—the haunting, shadowy creature that Eurus, god of the east wind, had trapped in the frost throne. Eurus’s curse corrupted any ruler that held the throne, inciting war and tyranny, which fed the curse further. The more violence and death, the stronger it grew.
The Minax had found an easy target in Arcus’s younger brother, Rasmus, a young man who was too fearful and too angry to fight it. Under the influence of its silky promises and opium-like alleviation of pain and fear, King Rasmus had sent his soldiers to hunt and kill Firebloods, and most of my kind had been murdered in raids. The strongest were brought to the capital city, Forsia, where they’d died in the king’s arena. As far as I knew, I was the only Fireblood in the kingdom who’d survived, and with help from Brother Thistle and Arcus, I’d melted the throne. We’d assumed the curse would be destroyed as well.
We’d been wrong.
Now Brother Thistle and I were trying to find a way to stop my visions and stop the creature itself.
I absently rubbed the carelessly stitched line on my little finger. It itched when I was upset, a reminder of my time in the Frostblood arena, what I’d had to do to help Arcus take his rightful place as king. But with the Minax still out there, inhabiting other bodies and biding its time, I wondered if destroying the throne had done more harm than good.
Arcus watched me for a minute, then took my hand and drew me through a barely perceptible opening between evergreens and onto a winding path. “I want to show you something. Close your eyes.”
I let him lead me over what felt like flagstones and spongy pine needles until the path changed to gravel that crunched under our boots.
“All right. You can open them.”
He kept hold of my fingers as I opened my eyes to see plants, flowers, shrubs, and small trees surrounding us. “Everything is white,” I breathed, moving toward a planter bursting with alabaster-stemmed flowers, petals aglow with reflected sunlight. I reached out and my finger felt biting cold. “They’re made of ice!”
Arcus came up behind me, his chest lightly touching my back. His hand brushed mine as he cupped the flower I’d touched. “Do you like them?”
Petals like white wood shavings rose above gently curling stems, and shrubs flaunted leaves in the most delicately crocheted lace. Tall, feathery fronds drowsed over tightly woven packs of icy rosebuds, like parents watching over a bed full of sleeping children. Miniature trees with translucent trunks etched in a frosty wood-grain pattern sported flat, veined leaves and peach-shaped globes. Ice crystals hung like frozen tears from every branch and stem. The twisting, ethereal shapes clinked together in the morning breeze.
“It’s lovely.” I turned to Arcus. Some fierce but gentle emotion sparkled in his eyes.
“I hoped you’d like it,” he said softly. “Though it’s not the most logical gift for a Fireblood.”
Vulnerability hovered in his expression, and the reason for it hit me. “You made all this?” I examined the garden with awe. There were layers and layers of swaying flowers, carefully rendered shrubs, and elegant trees, all surrounded by a curving, four-foot-high ice wall. “By yourself?”
He nodded, lips twisting in a slight grimace. “It frustrates Lord Ustathius to no end to find me here instead of in the council chambers. I told him this helps me think.”
“And does it?”
“Yes. It helps me think of you.”
His tenderness softened the last of the tension from my body. His arms came around me and mine curved around his back, our lips touching with careful pressure, as if we were made of the same gauzy frost as the ice petals and could crack if we pressed too hard.
My Fireblood skin gradually warmed his, and the shocking cold of his lips gentled mine into cool softness. The kiss was smooth, seeking. His freshly shaven jaw was like silk, lightly scented with his soap, with hints of his own unique scent that I found more heady and pleasing than a handful of fragrant wildflowers.
Moments were lost in feeling, the tinkle of ice making strange music all around us. Arcus’s hand came to my cheek, his other arm pressing me closer, his mouth demanding more. He tasted of the mint tea he drank every morning, and his hair was thick and satiny under my fingers. My control unwound like a spool of fabric rolling across the floor. Heat flared, and drops of water rained from the trees onto our cheeks. He smiled against my lips, his fingers brushing droplets from my brow and nose.
I pulled away just far enough to meet his eyes. “I’d have been happy with a single flower.”