by Everly Frost
By the Icy Wild
Mortality Book Three
Everly Frost
Contents
Prologue
Alone
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Threat
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Find out how the story ends…
Excerpt from Before the Raging Lion…
Also by Everly Frost
About the Author
Copyright © 2017 by Everly Frost
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead are purely coincidental.
For information, contact www.everlyfrost.com
[email protected]
Jacket design: Franziska Young zenagency.com.au
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Frost, Everly, author.
By the icy wild / Everly Frost.
ISBN: 9780995407350 (ebook)
Series: Frost, Everly. Mortality ; bk 3.
For young adults
Subjects: Science fiction.
Young adult fiction.
This book is dedicated to the outcasts.
Let the earth tremble,
the mountains freeze,
and secrets be spoken aloud,
when shadows reach beyond the veil
and sunlight drowns in fire.
Songs of Seversand, End Times
Prologue
PEOPLE SAY that I died.
They say that I was killed in Starsgard—the place where I’d sought safety—and when news of my death spread across the world, many people thought that the threat of mortality was finally over. Everyone could put away their fear and hatred of mortals, forget about a mortality war, and go on with their lives. But…
They don’t say that I’ve been banished to northern Starsgard.
They don’t say that Michael’s heart is shattered.
They don’t say that the icy wilds hide secrets more dangerous than anything anyone’s ever seen before.
They don’t say that the threat is far from over.
Alone
Chapter One
SNOWBOY’S WORDS broke through the ice that had formed over my heart.
I am proof of a terrible secret. That there are and always have been other mortals.
Fed by the light of hope in his eyes, a sensation of warmth blossomed in my chest.
“There are others?” I could barely speak. It had to be a trick and his expression held the first hint of fear I’d seen—fear that I wouldn’t believe him.
We stood in an icy tunnel in the wild mountains of Starsgard’s north. The tunnel wasn’t much more than a fissure between two soaring rock faces. Enough light filtered down from the gap high above us to reveal that the pathway ahead sloped upward. I’d left Councilor Naomi behind with her staff and the wreckage of the train that had carried me in a coffin this far north. She’d weighted the coffin and nailed it shut, keeping up the illusion that I was still inside it.
Snowboy’s hands were warm in mine. He didn’t smile, didn’t move at all, as though he was afraid the smallest movement would break my trust. The way he held me reminded me of when I was little, of crossing the road with my brother, Josh, when mom would call out to us from the car outside school. “Take care, I don’t want to have to pay for a recovery dome.” There was a way that Josh always took my hand in his, his palm turned into mine—just like Snowboy was doing now—as though he was watching, sensing, ready to pull me out of harm’s way.
Yet Snowboy was so quiet, so silent and resolute.
“Are you…?” I choked on the words I needed to say, trying to grasp at the ice that had protected my heart just moments before, trying to shield myself against his answer.
He waited for me to speak, unmoving, still holding me.
“Are you mortal?” Finally the words were free. “Are you like me?”
My words hovered in the air and all the breath in my body exhaled with them, emptying me of everything except a terrifying hope. I wanted to believe that he was telling the truth.
I wanted to believe that there were others. That he was one of them.
That I was not alone.
He said, “I am.”
A wild sob tore out of me, a maelstrom of emotion ripping up through my core. I shook with the force of it. The rocks, the mountain, the snow—everything around me became a blur except for Snowboy’s face. I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to smother the cry forcing its way toward my throat, a cry that carried everything that had happened to lead me there. My brother’s death, my capture at the Terminal, the dance with my would-be assassin, and Michael … Michael.
My legs gave way beneath me, but Snowboy caught me before I fell, hugging me like a long-lost sister. “You belong with us. We’ll show you how to survive. We’ll teach you how to stay alive. You don’t have to be afraid.”
I clutched his arms with my icy, blue-veined hands, soaking up the warmth I found there, unable to stand on my own as the force of everything I’d buried threatened to rise up and smother me. “I’m not alone.”
“You’re not alone.” Then he smiled. A light of pure happiness lit his pale eyes and it caught a spark and began to burn in me. I wanted to run back to Tower Seventeen and tell Michael that I’d found my people. That they’d found me. That he didn’t have to be afraid for me anymore.
But Michael thought I was dead. Other than Snowboy, only the Starsgardian Council—a mere seven people including Councilor Naomi—knew I was alive. They’d ordered me to go north to the abandoned Tower 177 on Starsgard’s northernmost peak beside the ocean. I’d begun my exile inside a maple-wood coffin only to discover that Seth—my dance teacher and the man who’d tried to kill me—had broken free and come after me again. I’d subdued him by ingesting nectar and releasing its energy into his body, sending him into a coma. Naomi, the Councilor charged with overseeing my train journey north, had nailed my empty coffin shut, each nail keeping the secret that I was alive. That’s when Snowboy came for me.
I searched his face, his eyes, for any sign of a lie. “How can this be possible? How can you be mortal?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Why can’t I be?”
“It’s not possible.” I shook my head. “Look at you.”
He wasn’t quite as tall as Michael, but he towered over me. He wore nothing from the waist up even though we walked through an icy tunnel formed between mountain peaks that were themselves immersed in snow. Yet he didn’t seem to feel the cold at all. His eyes were the barest shade of blue and his skin was the palest I’d ever seen. His hair was white and cut close to his scalp, but a single, long plait rested across his shoulder. The length o
f our hair was supposed to match our age and his was a contradiction—only a very small child would have such short hair while the length of his plait indicated he was older.
No mortal could survive the cold like he did, certainly not enough to turn himself into an urban legend. Starsgardians thought he was a myth: they called him “the Snowboy in the Mountain.”
His smile became secretive. “It’s the ones people think are weak who can be the strongest.”
Seth had said the same thing. He’d asked if the absence of fear was a weakness in and of itself. Still, I struggled to accept that Snowboy could be like me and also be this shimmering god-like boy.
His voice was gentle as he pointed out, “You don’t exactly resemble a normal human being right now either.”
My hands were iridescent in the dim light. I wondered if my face was the same. My skin felt like a frozen lake all cracked across the surface. Snowboy wasn’t the only one shimmering at the edges.
“There’s only one thing that could do that to you. It’s the same thing that keeps me warm when the world is freezing. But I’m trying to figure out how you got hold of it.” He peered at me. “You’ve taken nectar, haven’t you?”
When I gave a nod, he said, “But I didn’t give it to you and nobody else has a source. So … how can this be?”
My brother, Josh, had talked about a source of nectar in Starsgard—he’d said I had to find it, that I had to be careful with it, that it was raw and dangerous, but he said I’d need nectar to survive. Josh himself had died because the secret ampule of nectar implanted in his back had been taken from him—ripped out by the leader of the Bashers, a terrorist group back in Evereach. The day Josh lost his nectar ampule was the day he was doomed to die.
I forced my anger down. I’d used nectar not only to heal when Seth attacked me, but also to stop his ability to regenerate by passing the explosion of energy into him.
“Nectar’s the reason you’re like this? All glowing and stuff?”
He gave me a shrug and a nod. “I brought a supply with me.”
“Then you don’t know about the plants?” I asked.
He frowned as I pulled the rose from my pocket. It was one of the roses that had been placed inside my coffin as people said goodbye to me before the train journey. In the soft light, I could make out the shape of the petals, their spines, and the faint veins running through them. “I know it’s hard to see in this light, but look at these. Do you see the black veins all through the petals?”
He took the rose and his eyes widened at the fine threads running through it—so fine they were barely visible and even more difficult to see in the dark.
I said, “There’s nectar in this flower. And not just this one. It’s in other plants, too.”
“How many others?”
“All of the plants around Tower Seventeen. The fuel marsh and the trees too.” Even the walls of the secret data storage area that was hidden beneath the tower had been threaded with black veins.
Snowboy’s voice remained low. “We can’t stop moving for long, but this is important. The Councilors know something’s wrong with the moss that protects Starsgard’s border. In fact, the entire defense system has been going haywire lately. There’s a rumor that when you arrived, the deadly moss let you through even when you posed a threat.”
There was a question in his voice that I couldn’t ignore. The moss was engineered to attack anyone trying to cross Starsgard’s border who posed a threat. Michael and I had entered Starsgard while Michael carried a mortality weapon, but somehow I’d managed to calm the moss. I’d used the destructive acid the moss produced to destroy the weapon.
“It let me through, but I didn’t do anything to make that happen, I swear.”
A fleet of emotions crossed his face. He held up the rose as though it were proof. “The moss must be contaminated by nectar. And the nectar has changed how the moss operates. But if other plants are contaminated too, then it’s only a matter of time before the Council figures it out.”
He exhaled through pursed lips, hands resting on his hips as though he couldn’t breathe for a moment, as though something had snatched the air right out of his lungs. “It’s only a matter of time before they come after the source. They’ve been trying to monitor it for ages, but we haven’t let them. This will make them more aggressive. This changes everything.”
I jammed my hands into my jacket, not wanting to be reminded of my strange, cracked appearance anymore. “The rose is an ordinary plant. How did nectar get inside it?”
“I don’t know. Did you tell anyone else about it?”
“No, but Naomi saw me eat the rose petals.” I shrugged it off. “She probably won’t remember. There was a lot going on.”
He turned the flower over as though he were trying to understand it by glaring at it. “Let’s hope that’s what she thought. If they figure out that the problems with the defense systems are caused by nectar, then they’ll come after our source to destroy it once and for all.” He shook his head as if he were trying to shake off a thousand dreadful thoughts. “We need to get back to the tower as fast as we can.”
He handed me the rose and I was forced to remove my hands from my jacket to take it. I let it rest in my palm for a moment before putting it away, both glad and frightened to see that the blue veins in my hands were fading.
He said, “Keep the flower safe. I can give you nectar if you need it, but I want to show that rose to the others so they know what’s going on.”
He took a few steps down the path and reached behind a nearby boulder, digging into the packed snow. Within moments, he produced two backpacks. One he handed to me and the other he drew onto his back. I contemplated the bag. “What’s in here?”
“Food and extra clothing. I hid it here before I left. Don’t worry, the snow kept the food fresh. It’s just bread and cheese. A couple of apples.” He shrugged. “I assume you don’t need any extra warmth right now, but you may need the extra clothing soon. There’s a jacket and pants, gloves, mask, and goggles. Let me know as soon as you need them and we can stop for you to put them on.”
I was already dressed in warm leggings, a long-sleeved shirt, and a puffy, red jacket. I wasn’t cold, but I appreciated that he’d thought ahead, and there was no doubt that the nectar I’d taken would wear off eventually. Gloves would definitely help with that.
As he spoke he became still and alert, his head tilted as though listening. His hand landed on my arm. “Wait, there’s something coming…”
Fear lanced through me. I wondered if Seth had revived and regenerated, if he’d escaped from Councilor Naomi to come after me again. I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to subdue him the first time. If he ever awoke, he’d try to kill me again.
Snowboy was frozen beside me, his eyes unfocused as though he were looking at something far away. He didn’t seem to carry any weapons. He didn’t appear to need them, but I wondered how much of that was an illusion and whether he had a knife or a dagger—or more—tucked away in his pack.
He snapped back into focus, releasing me, but he urged me along the path. “Quick. I can’t tell if it’s got our scent, but it’s definitely headed this way. We need to put as much space between it and us as we can.”
I hurried along the tunnel with him. “What is it?”
“A mountain bear.” He glanced at me. His pace quickened and he urged me even faster so that I was hurrying along at a half-jog. I was surprised to see that he appeared genuinely afraid.
“It shouldn’t be this far south,” he said. “They never leave the snow belt.”
“Just a mountain bear?” I tried to smile as I exhaled some of my fear.
“Give me a regular eagle or a wildcat anytime. Mountain bears are the only animals we don’t take on. They were designed to be angry and violent. They also have a keen sense of smell and incredible speed.”
Ruth—the Councilor I’d lived with—had told me that Starsgard had used Tower 177 as a testing ground for weapons. While the
rest of the world went to war three hundred years ago, fighting over Evereach’s natural resources, Starsgard had remained neutral, declining to join either side in the fight.
Starsgard was located between Evereach in the west and Seversand in the east. It was cold, mountainous country. The Starsgardians had spent the duration of the war—a hundred years—preparing themselves for invasion by Evereach on one side and Seversand on the other. As a result, their defensive weaponry was unrivalled.
I’d seen what Starsgard had done with organic matter. They’d created the moss that poisoned and trapped, preventing anyone crossing their border without permission. They’d created bugs that tortured the person they were implanted into. Their underground infrastructure contained data storage areas where classified information was encoded into plants. Aboveground, Starsgard didn’t use electricity, which made it possible for them to deploy an electromagnetic pulse to annihilate enemy weapons. They lived under the bioluminescent lighting of plants and ate vegetables and fruit engineered to grow within moments. Snowboy’s use of the word “designed” didn’t escape me.
I said, “It’s not an ordinary bear, is it?”
“Far from it.”
I admitted aloud what had been coursing through my mind. “I didn’t think you’d be afraid of anything. Most people are never afraid.”
Not before I’d come along. Before that, I was sure I was the first person to feel fear. Then suddenly it seemed that everyone had something to lose. Michael too—who feared losing me. His fear had come true. And with it, I’d lost him too.
“Fear’s useful. It tells you when to run and when to stand and fight. There’s no such thing as cowardice in a moment of fearful choice.” He looked right at me, as though he knew all the times I’d thrown myself against my fear, throwing myself into danger. “Remember that.”
He urged me along the path and we hurried for the next hour. When we reached a fork—one path leading under the mountain and the other to the surface—he chose the one that inclined upward and we climbed further toward the sunlight reflecting off the peaks.