She didn’t answer.
Those shards of his heart cut deeper, making him bleed on the inside.
So, this was how it was going to be. Fine. They had played this game before, the huntress and the soldier. They could work together just fine and still hate each other.
He stuffed one of the bandit’s hats on her head and took the jeweled knife from her. The blade was far too dull for any practical use, but it was sparkly. “Don’t throw it. You can use it to buy food if you ever get to civilization again.” He brought it close to his face to inspect the gems. “Are these real sapphires?”
She shrugged.
“Was this a gift from your beloved Turullius?”
She snatched it from his hand. “Say his name one more time and see what happens.”
He studied her eyes, the same green of the forest, of which she was the queen. “Were you really going to marry him?”
“They forced me to become Lady Isabella.”
“Maybe, but I’ve never seen anyone succeed in forcing you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
“But I ran away!”
That was the part that didn’t make sense. If she had abandoned Kelan to the Flameskin Army, if she had never loved him, if they had offered her a prince, why had she smashed through her window and jumped into his arms?
But then, nothing Sol ever did made sense. Why had she said she loved him when he was fully possessed? Sol would say she hated him, then kiss him and look at him with those green eyes, and then hit him and curse his name.
He was tired of it. He was tired of everything. These blasted mountains, the snow, the cold. Beautiful, cruel, heartless Sol. The ice in her heart couldn’t be melted, buried deep as it was beneath the mountains.
“You let them dress you up and put you in that carriage and parade you through the streets as his new bride. Don’t tell me you didn’t want that.”
She scowled. An admission. At least she was being honest.
“Why are you even here if you’re afraid of me?” he demanded. “Go back to your prince.”
She stomped her foot. “Because of you, the Flameskins will destroy Hillerod.”
“Because of me? I’m not the one who jumped out of a window.”
“I trusted you!”
“You deceived me.”
“You promised you would never hurt me.”
“You knew what I was when we first met. You’ve always known what I would become.”
“But you were supposed to resist!”
“I tried. I tried and I failed. Why did you take off my emberstone? Why would you turn me into that thing?”
“I had no choice.”
“Did you mean what you said? That you love me?”
She fell still, hesitating. He looked down at her small mouth, puckered with uncertainty, her cheeks and nose red with the cold, those green eyes the color of spring and better days.
Those better days had never included him in them.
She was right. She was always right.
There was no future for them.
Sol was like the mountains, an unchanging part of the land. Eternal and unbreakable. And he had broken himself against her, smashed himself to pieces trying to change her, to bend what could not be moved, to change nature itself.
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
He clenched his fists and exhaled heavily. He should’ve known she could never return his love. Loving Sol was like loving the wind that cut through him, chilling him to the bone. Or loving the sky that was too far away to touch. Or loving a river as he drowned in it.
He sighed and slumped against a tree. “Go back to your mountains, Sol. I’m done with this.”
She breathed in sharply. “What?”
“Go back to your life. I don’t want any part of it.”
“You don’t want to come with me?”
“Why would I? You hate me. You’re afraid of me.”
She was breathing heavily now, with the jeweled dagger tucked under one arm as she wrung her hands. “But I left Olisipo because of—But I—But where will you go?”
He shrugged. There was a place Flameskin deserters could go, at least, there were rumors of such a place. Really only something to give hope to those who didn’t want to fight anymore.
Maybe it would’ve been better if Sol hadn’t saved him from the cliff. He already felt like he was falling. Maybe it would be easier for him to slip into an abyss and be forgotten.
She was pacing now in the melted snow as rivers of water ran beneath her boots. She looked like an unraveling ball of yarn. “We’re just exhausted. We just need some rest and food.”
He shook his head. He was spent, a candle guttering out. Maybe rest would help with that, but it wouldn’t do anything to fix his shattered heart or her fear. It would do nothing to change unbreakable Sol.
“I’m not going without you,” she said. “I’m not letting you give up like that.”
“Don’t pretend like you care.”
She stepped in close and curled her hands into fists. “Stop it, Kelan.”
“No, you stop. I’m done with your games. I’m done with your lies.”
“I’m not lying!”
“You pretend we’re friends, but we never were.”
“We are friends, Kelan. More than friends.”
“How can we be friends if you’re afraid of me? If you hate what I am?”
She was silent, and he stood over her, shivering. The hate and the rage curled and grew, and there was no pyra to consume his anger and turn it into fire. Instead, it welled up inside him, making his whole body quiver with the deep, erratic note of his pulse.
She reached a hand toward him, and he lurched away.
“Kelan—” She turned and faced the tracks they had left in the snow behind them. She went absolutely still, and Kelan could hear the wind blowing through the pines in the silence. Then she grabbed his hand. “We have to hide. Soldiers are here.”
The trees here were sparse, and running away through the snow would leave tracks.
She pulled him toward the bandits’ bodies and scooped at the snow. The drifts were in deep layers here, and she used her emberstone to carve out a tunnel for them in the snow. She pushed Kelan inside and crawled in after him, then dragged a body over the hole in the drift.
“I don’t think this—"
“Quiet,” she whispered.
She rested her head against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. The tunnel glowed a bright red with the light of his emberstone, and he buried his hand in the ice to smother it.
He closed his eyes to block out the walls of ice and snow around him. It was too much like being trapped by the avalanche, with the snow closing in around him. He struggled to keep his breathing even.
Outside their hideout, the snow crunched, and the murmur of men’s voices filtered in.
“Look!” a man shouted. “There’s someone in the snow!”
Kelan’s blood turned to ice as the soldiers’ footsteps pounded toward them.
Chapter 37
Sol
Sol held her breath as the soldiers crunched through the snow and the river of frozen meltwater.
“More bodies,” Commander Jahr said. Sol squirmed at the sound of his voice. “This is the work of that demon. They’ve all been burned.”
The footsteps came closer and stopped just outside their tunnel. “They’re Cassians. Do you think they’re some of Turullius’?”
The voice was so close it made Sol’s pulse thrash in her ears. Kelan shivered and exhaled shakily. She clamped her hand around his arm, willing him to be silent.
“They don’t have uniforms,” Jahr said. “Looks like they’re travelers.”
“That monster.”
“Isabella’s body isn’t here. Do you think she’s still alive?” another man asked.
“If we haven’t found the body yet, then we have to hope,” Jahr said. “We continue on. No time to waste.”
The foo
tsteps retreated, but Sol didn’t dare breathe again until they were far in the distance.
Kelan shivered and rested his head against hers. They both exhaled and relaxed against the chilly ground. Sol brushed her fingers against the emberstone in her pocket and warmth filled her body once more. Kelan pulled her in tighter. She pushed more warmth out until her tiny emberstone went empty. It wasn’t large enough to hold much fire.
“Is it safe to go out now?” he asked.
“I don’t know. That was Commander Jahr from the Tokken Army.”
She shivered as the cold encroached again. Her eyes were drooping. She was exhausted. They couldn’t continue on like this. Her empty stomach gnawed at her, and all she wanted to do was rest.
They were smashed together in the tight, dark tunnel, and he had to twist his arm to get it out from around her back.
“Here,” he said. He held out the glowing emberstone and she put her fingers on it. Warmth flooded their little ice cave, and water dripped from the ceiling onto Sol’s face and down her neck. The emberstone bathed the icy walls in red light.
“When we get out, we’ll find the bandit’s camp,” Sol said. “There were extra bedrolls and packs there.”
“And food?”
“No. But I set up all those traps when we were camped out here. They’ll still be there, and I think at least one of them will have something in it by now.”
Kelan pressed his icy cheek against hers. They were both soaked in meltwater and sweat, and covered in snow, but at least she was warm.
Kelan would always be cold. “Where will we go now?” he asked, his teeth chattering. “There’re rumors I’ve heard about a place called the Hivid Wood. They say it’s a refuge for Flameskins who want to live in peace away from the world.”
“But I have to go to my family. I have to warn them about the coming Flameskin raid.”
He nodded. “We’ll go to Hillerod, then.”
She bit her lip. “And maybe there’s a way you could . . . we could find a way to keep an emberstone on you so people couldn’t see it . . . .”
“If the people from your village knew what I was, they’d kill me.”
“They won’t find out. You could live there in Hillerod. You could be safe there.”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes searching her face. “How long would that last? And what happens when they throw me out or try to kill me? You would never leave the Ulves to be with me.”
“That’s not—That’s—” Her cheeks burned because she couldn’t deny it. Leaving the mountains was unthinkable. “I’ll find a way for you to stay.”
He shook his head and closed his eyes, then shivered again.
She pulled off her glove and put a hand to his face. “You’re freezing.”
“To death.”
She pushed a gentle wave of heat toward him, and he winced as he placed a soggy glove over her burning hand. “Do you remember when I showed you how to draw on my pyra?”
She blushed, as memories of his kisses flooded her mind. “Yes.”
“If you take off my emberstone—”
“No.”
“If you absorb my pyra it can’t possess me. The fire will pass through me and make me warm, but I won’t be able to use it.”
“I’m not taking off the manacle.”
He shut his eyes again. “You don’t trust me.”
“I do, Kelan. I trust you. Just not your pyra.”
He slid the knife from her belt with shaking fingers and put it in her hand, then guided its point to his chest, holding her gaze as he did it. “If my pyra takes me, you can just kill me. Then it will all be over.”
“Stop being an idiot.”
She tried to tug the knife out of his hand, but he resisted. When she let go, the knife point jerked toward him and pierced his coat.
She gasped. “Kelan!”
He winced and let her take the knife from his hands. Then she unbuttoned his coat to find a small spot of red forming on his tunic. The knife had cut a small gash across his sternum.
“Are you going to heal me?” he asked through gritted teeth.
She swore as she unfasted the buttons of his tunic and took the key from her pocket.
“If you kill me, I’m going to haunt you,” she muttered.
“You already do haunt me. Every waking hour all I can think about is you. And at night I dream of you.”
She paused with key in hand and looked up at his face and his glazed eyes.
Cold sickness?
Neither of them were thinking straight at this point. Especially not her. Hours after he had tried to kill her, she was already unlocking his manacle again.
She put her hand on his chest over the cut and unlocked the manacle. The tingle of fire sparked beneath Kelan’s skin the moment the emberstone fell away. She pulled on that fire, her whole body tense, and it flooded her body with warmth, the same way an emberstone did.
She used the flames to heal his cut, and Kelan let out a long, long sigh and gave a small smile. A real smile, not a demon’s smile.
Then the flames inside her started taking shape like they had before, wrapping themselves around her heart.
There was a wave of relief, not hers, and then anger and grief and hopelessness, but it was blunted. He was still angry at her, too, and she didn’t want to feel it.
She tried to retract her hand, but he caught it and pressed it to his chest. “Don’t. If you let go, my pyra will come back.” His eyes were earnest now.
“You’re angry at me.”
He sighed and let his hand travel over the side of her body. “I’m angry at myself.”
The warmth and the tingling fire made her drowsy and she struggled to keep her eyes open.
“We can’t stay here,” she said, mostly to herself.
He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing tighter, and brushed his lips against her temple. She shivered, not because she was cold, but because she wanted. She wanted Kelan, and she wanted to stay here where it felt safe, even though she knew it wasn’t. She wanted to hide away from the world and stay in these mountains where they couldn’t be found.
She was just so tired of fighting and struggling. They both were.
She rested her head against his shoulder and was lulled to sleep by the soft hush of his breathing.
Chapter 38
Kelan
Kelan woke to the metallic snap of his manacle closing over his wrist. The fire in his body sputtered and died. He opened his bleary eyes and saw Sol lying next to him, her face tense.
“We fell asleep,” she said.
He nodded. It hadn’t been enough sleep. He could sleep for a week without waking. The sun was going down and cast long shadows across the white snow.
She frowned, her lips pinched tight. “You weren’t wearing your manacle.”
Now he was awake. “Ashes, Sol. I’m such a fool.”
“What would’ve happened if you had woken first?”
He shook his head and shuddered.
She squirmed out of the tunnel, pushing away the snow that had fallen in around them and shoving aside the frozen bodies.
When he crawled out, she was already stripping one of the bandits of his boot laces. “Help me make snowshoes,” she said.
And just like that they fell back into their old rhythms.
They pilfered packs and supplies from the bandits’ camp and found food waiting for them in Sol’s traps.
And just like that they were traveling the mountains, but now their journey was a frantic flight. And it was overshadowed by the uncertainty of what waited for them at the end of their journey in Hillerod. These were cold nights for Kelan, and he was warmed only by the kisses they shared. But these kisses felt like wishes.
That’s what Kelan was doing, wishing. But he couldn’t stop. Not while Sol held his hand as they walked, her fingers woven through his, or their pinkies linked like a promise. Not while his fire flowed into her and she knew how he felt. He couldn’t hide it and he didn’t
try.
It was dangerous to have him free of his manacle, but Sol insisted they travel like that so he wouldn’t freeze. Most of the day he was free of his manacle, though he never again slept without it. His fire flowed into her, and he was warm without the taint of his pyra.
They traveled north along the Cassian border. Sol pressed them hard and ran them ragged, leading them through streams and across craggy hillsides where their footprints were easier to hide.
They were taking a different path through the mountains back to Hillerod, one which Sol had assured him the Tokken soldiers wouldn’t be able to track them on. But they had to move quickly, sometimes traveling past sunset with a flame in Sol’s hand to light their path.
They traveled a week this way, hand in hand. And at night when she lay beside him, he would ask her the questions he was afraid to speak in daylight under the harsh gaze of the mountains.
“What will happen when we get to Hillerod?”
“I don’t know,” she would whisper back. “I just don’t know.”
Sol knew how he felt, and he was too full of wishes to risk speaking them aloud. His wishes were fragile things, and he knew when they got to Hillerod, his wishes would be crushed by the reality of what he was and the cruel, unyielding mountains.
He didn’t belong here in the Ulves. And he could do nothing more than hold Sol close and wish.
Their path led them to a Nordese village near the border of Cassia called Vodskov. Kelan had clipped his emberstone manacle onto his wrist long before they arrived, and he had pulled the long, furred coat sleeve over top of it. The coat Sol wore, the one that had once belonged to Kelan, was in tatters. The sleeves came only to her elbows and the edges were singed, an obvious sign it had been worn by someone playing with fire. They looked like they felt: travel-worn and exhausted and hungry.
“We can stay here for a couple days if we’re careful,” Sol said.
“What do you mean by ‘careful’?”
“I mean, if no one recognizes who I am or sees the emberstone on your wrist.”
Firefrost: A Flameskin Chronicles Novel Page 18