by Everly Frost
“You’re strong,” he said, amazement seeping through his low voice. “Stronger than anyone I’ve ever fought. And that’s saying something.”
His stance changed. He came at me with such ferocity that escape became a fading idea and I was forced to defend myself. I blocked his blows easily, but the determination behind them was more than I was prepared for.
“C’mon.” He taunted me. “You’re faster than that.”
Yes, I was, but I was holding back. He didn’t know how easy I was going on him. I hadn’t used my fire or my shadows, but I didn’t want to because I considered them dangerous. If he thought I was a spy, I didn’t know what he’d think if he saw my shadows.
But it seemed he’d been going easy on me too. My moment of hesitation was all he needed and his approach changed, the aggression taking my breath away, as though he weren’t fighting me, but something else. I knew that feeling. I recognized it because it lived inside me too. With every blow I fought not my opponent, but myself. I fought my past and my memories. I fought the memory of Michael and his gentle smile, the one he reserved only for me.
I fought my own pain.
Raw and hostile, he rained blows upon me, none of them hurting me, most of them I could block, but the sheer force and ferocity of them took my breath away for the first time.
And for the first time, I wondered how far I would have to go to get away from him. My plan to lead him from the mountains was suddenly useless. Seth had come at me relentlessly too, and in the end I’d had to block his regeneration and almost kill him to make him stop. I’d had no other choice. I didn’t want to do that again. Not ever.
I fought back, matching his violence with my own, knowing that if I didn’t stop him, I’d have no choice but to use my power.
He tried to grab me, but I retaliated, upsetting his balance. He fell backward and I landed on top of him. It was so much like the moment before I stopped Seth that my heart jumped and doubt threatened to drown me.
I listened to his heartbeat and it pounded like drums in my ears. His breathing was fast, powerful, unstoppable.
I sought his eyes, hidden behind his goggles, wishing I could see into them, wishing I could know his intentions.
One thing was clear: he wasn’t going to let me go.
Like fighting the bears, I couldn’t fight him forever. I had to jump to extremes, let the wildness out. All I needed was a patch of his bare skin to connect and touch him. Once he was unconscious, I would have to ask the leopard to carry him. I could leave him at the tower and he wouldn’t wake up to tell anyone about me. Just like Seth.
Regret filled my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. “I can’t go back.”
All I needed was one bare patch of skin.
Before he could stop me, I concentrated fire into my fingertip and directed the spark at his goggle strap, burning the leather in a split second. Ignoring the burnt scent and extinguishing the flame from my finger, I ripped apart his goggles to expose his temple.
Now that his goggles were gone, the glow of his heartbeat was so strong that I struggled to focus.
I pressed my finger to his skin and for the first time he stopped fighting me.
He watched me with eyes that were the color of thunder and sharp flint.
Right before I let go of the energy inside me, I recognized him.
Michael.
Chapter Twenty-One
I SCREAMED.
The energy inside me exploded.
Just in time, my hand disconnected and the surge scorched the snow right next to his head. He flinched, rolling to the side as steam poured up beside him. Rising to a crouch, he blinked in shock, his eyes wide.
His heart glow pounded in my vision. It drummed and slammed through me. It told me that he was alive. I hadn’t killed him. But my relief turned to terror as the unstoppable force burned inside me, surging through my bones and my skin, seeking a target. If I didn’t contain it—fast—if I touched him now, I’d kill him.
Terrified, I launched myself backward and dropped into the snow, burying my hands in the ice, melting it around my fingers. I willed my hands to cool, to calm, willing my thoughts to slow down, desperately seeking control.
Michael’s gaze swung between the scorched earth at his side and back to me—and the puddles forming around my fingers.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him.
He drew himself to his knees and ripped off the rest of the facemask, flinging it aside. Beneath it, his face was lined and haggard, shadowed with growth. He pushed the hood back from his head, revealing his hair cut at all angles as though he’d cut it himself many times without a mirror. He’d told me once that his hair grew each time he regenerated—each time he died.
He’d died a lot.
My heart cracked in my chest and I gasped against it, struggling to breathe. He’d waited for the bears to kill him and when I stopped them, he’d tried to provoke me into finishing the job.
I almost had.
Without thinking, my hand reached for him, hovering in the air with nothing to hold on to. I’d been making my toward him and now here he was and I didn’t know how to say everything I needed to say. I didn’t know how to find the words.
He was the first to speak, his voice quiet for the first time as he asked, “Who are you?”
A cry began in the bottom of my lungs. I dropped my hand and clutched my stomach, doubled over, trying to suppress it, but it wailed out of me, a terrible, painful scream.
I was the only person who could truly hurt him. The only person who had.
As I cried, the snow around me lifted and danced, beating out a rhythm to my sobs, a storm beginning around my crouched form.
I wanted to say his name. I wanted to shout it across the distance.
His expression changed as he waited for me to speak. The stony lines that had hardened his features while he fought me melted away. His expression turned from perplexed to concerned as I sobbed into the snow.
His gaze flicked to the delicate snowstorm building around us. He lifted his hand into it as though he’d catch the dancing snowflakes.
“What is this?” His face clouded over. “I saw someone do something like this once. Except she did it with flame. She breathed it in and out, and it destroyed her…”
The snowflakes moved in time with my breathing, the same way Quake had drifted a single leaf into my palm. Icicles formed in the air and sparkled all around us, but I stayed doubled-up in the snow.
He asked, “Are you okay?” His voice was different without the mask, different, but the same as I remembered. He drew himself to his feet, one hand held out as he took a step toward me, careful now not to startle me. “Did I hurt you?”
No, but I could have killed you.
He took another step, turning his palm out. “Here, let me help you.”
“No,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended. “Stay back.”
I tried to swallow my sobs as I checked my hands. My dangerous hands. I couldn’t let him near me until I was sure I was in control. I tried to find the empty spot inside where I caged the energy, but it slipped away from me, elusive and slippery as water.
I tried again, but again I failed.
I’d created the cage out of loss. I’d created it in Michael’s absence. I’d created it because of his absence. I’d caged the energy by caging my deepest emotions. But I’d already opened the cage and now that Michael was here…
Now that he was here…
The snowflakes circling around me spun faster as I suddenly realized that he was standing right beside me. He dropped to his knees—close enough that I could touch him if I wanted to.
The snowflakes kicked up around us and suspended, pausing at the same time as Michael held his breath.
With a shock I realized that the snow’s movement was a reflection of Michael. Without realizing it, I was listening to his heartbeat and channeling it into the snowflakes around me. The sudden jump was in tune with the
increase in his pulse, the pause holding with his breath as he dared to kneel next to me. Careful, gentle. Just like I remembered.
Emotion so strong burned up from within me to have him so close to me after so long. I tore my gaze away from him to stare at my hands, waiting for them to burst into flame, waiting for the uncontrollable to happen. Because there was nothing I could do to stop the way I felt right then.
The snow and breeze swirled around us, growing in depth so that the entire slope was in icy motion, leaving us in a quiet spot in the middle.
I wasn’t in control.
But I also was.
I stared at Michael in confusion.
He rested in the snow with me, close to me. Too close to me.
He whispered again, “Who are you? You’re strong. Way too strong. You fight like nobody I’ve ever met. I have a feeling you could really hurt me, but you didn’t … I need to know why.”
He reached out to remove my facemask and I couldn’t stop him.
I didn’t want to stop him.
“I need to know who you are.” He paused. “Then I’ll leave you alone. I won’t make you go to the Council.”
I covered Michael’s gloved hand with my own, taking hold of my goggles myself. As my scorpion tattoo appeared again, he stared at it, daring to run his hand across it. As shivers raced through me, I unclipped my goggles, peeling them and the facemask aside. At the same time, I pushed my hood away with my other hand, drawing the protective material away from my eyes, my cheeks, and my mouth. I shook my hair out and it cascaded down my back.
My eyes met his.
“Michael.” I said his name aloud and the sound of it froze the world.
The snowflakes around us suspended like stars as Michael stilled. His eyes widened with shock. All of him—his hands, his shoulders, his whole body—became still.
For a moment, his heart glow dimmed and then his heartbeat slammed and the glow at his temple jumped. He said my name and it was almost too much for me to bear.
“Ava.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks. I couldn’t speak. I had no way to heal the pain in his eyes. No way to cure the disbelief.
“This isn’t possible. You died.” Utter despair bled from his eyes. “I died with you.”
I leaned across the gap between us, needing to be close to him, unable to wait another moment. “I’m alive, Michael.”
“This must be a dream.” His voice choked. “I can’t believe … The bears must have killed me. I must have died and now I’m with you…”
For the last two months, he’d lived with my death. It had eaten into him and he’d been alone the whole time. I had my brothers and my home, but Michael had nothing. No place to find comfort and friendship, no way to grieve and heal.
“Michael.” I reached for him. “I’m really here.”
A thousand emotions passed across his face. Disbelief, shock, even a moment of fear, and then finally … hope.
“Please,” he said, resting his fingers on the top of my jacket lapel at my throat, desperation entering his voice. “May I?”
I didn’t know what he was asking or what he needed, but I nodded, knowing that I trusted him.
He slipped the top button undone and then the next. His fingers were gentle, barely touching me. Opening the top of my jacket and pushing aside the material beneath, he exposed the skin above my heart. I didn’t feel the cold; the breath of icy air heated against my abnormally warm skin.
He paused another moment. Then he dropped his ear to my chest, resting his head against my heart.
He was quiet as he listened to my heart.
He was listening because he had to convince himself that there was a beat. That I really was alive. Fresh tears poured down my cheeks and I couldn’t stop the sob rising to my chest. I wondered if my heart thundered in his ears or if it was as quiet and subdued as he was. Or if it was shattering because we’d been through too much.
“You’re alive,” he said. His arms moved around me, pulling me close. He closed his eyes. As he listened to my heartbeat, his shoulders finally relaxed, the edge of tension disappearing from his body. He pulled me even closer. “You’re really alive.”
He hugged me close, crushing me up against him as though he’d never let me go again, and I melted into him until I didn’t know where I began or ended. All I knew was that he was here and that the empty, cold spot that I’d used to cage my energy was gone and in its place was something even more powerful.
Something even more wild.
I let it out, gasping against the force of emotion as I threw my arms around him.
“I’m here,” I said, dropping kisses to the top of his head, reaching for his face, urging him to his feet, filling every spot of skin from his forehead to his chin with kisses until I found his lips. “I’m here.”
He sighed against my mouth. “You really are.”
He drew us both to our feet and the snowflakes turned wild as I kissed him, swirling around us to an unrestrained beat.
Without letting me go, Michael tilted his head back to watch the snow drift. “How are you doing that?”
I smiled. “There’s so much I have to tell you.”
But his next question sobered me. “How are you alive?” He drew back far enough to see my face, taking it in both his strong hands. “The water hit you. It was everywhere and when it stopped, you were gone. They found your body in the drain. You didn’t make it. I saw you. I held you. You were dead.” Without waiting for my answer, he hugged me again, his voice muffled in my hair. “We have to tell Ruth. She was devastated.”
At that, I pulled back. There was no easy way to tell him the truth. “Ruth knows. She knew all along. All the Councilors did. They used a slumber plant on me.”
“What?”
“Michael, everything’s changed now. At first, I needed to stay dead because Starsgard would never forgive me for what I did at the festival—almost burning the tower like that. And Evereach nearly had a civil war over me. But now … the Council told Olander that I’m dead and if it turns out that I’m not…”
“He’s attacking anyway.” Bitter desperation entered Michael’s voice. “I can’t believe they sent you away without telling me.”
I reached out to him. “Don’t hate them, Michael, it doesn’t change anything. And now … The thing is, I was actually on my way to find you.”
“You were?”
“We heard you were traveling north and it was the first chance I had to contact you, the first time you were anywhere near a northern tower. We thought you were going to Tower 148, so that’s where I was headed.”
He frowned. “You heard I was coming north … But the only reason you’d know that is if you overheard Ruth talking about it, which means … you have access to Starsgard’s surveillance.”
“We do. We have access. And I’m pretty sure the Council knows we do. But Ruth said you’d be there and you’re not, so—”
He interrupted me. “Ava … you said ‘we.’ That’s the second time you said ‘we.’” He glanced around. “I’m assuming you don’t mean the bears.”
I swallowed my smile, not giving up on my question as I brushed my hand through his unruly hair. “Why would Ruth say you were coming north when you’ve obviously been in the mountains for a while?”
“Misdirection,” he said. “Olander’s hacked into our tower surveillance. Arachne’s been trying to kick him out of the system, but … we figured we could use it to our advantage to confuse him concerning our movements. The Council didn’t want him to know where I was going or why.”
“Which is?”
His eyes narrowed at me for the first time. “You haven’t answered my question.”
Suddenly, there were two very great questions between us. Where was Michael going and why? And who did I mean by “we”?
Michael was going to find out very soon because there were running footsteps across the slope far behind us. I could hear them, but Michael wouldn’t. Not yet.
T
he steps were light and super fast. Snowboy was on his way.
I said, “What the Council did to me was awful, but … If it wasn’t for the decision to send me north, I never would have found out that I wasn’t alone.”
With one more moment to spare, I leaned toward Michael and whispered, “Brace yourself.”
Snowboy burst over the slope so fast that he was a mere rush of wind in the icy air. He shot between us, ripping me away from Michael so fast that Michael exploded backward.
I attempted to draw breath as Snowboy skidded to a whip-lashing halt. “Ava! Pip heard you crying. He said you were in pain. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, Snow.”
He stared at Michael, who’d landed with a thump, but jumped straight back to his feet.
Recognition and understanding flooded Snowboy’s face as he set me back down on the ground. “Right. Pain. It can be complicated.”
I reached for Michael across the space between us as he brushed himself off.
“Michael, you need to meet my brother.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
MICHAEL’S SURPRISE was immediate. “Brother?”
“This is Snowboy. He’s mortal. Like me.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “Wait … Not that story Clara was talking about? The Snowboy in the Mountain?”
I nodded. “There are others too. But they’re back at the tower.”
Michael looked at me as though I was the only thing that made sense right then. “Ava, what’s going on?”
“I have a story to tell you, but first I need to know: Why are you here?”
Michael glanced upward, surveying the sky, as though he wasn’t sure who was listening. “So far, Olander’s only managed to tap into our tower surveillance. For a while, we were worried he’d launched drones high enough to spy on us, but the air print hasn’t detected anything. Since we’re in the middle of nowhere right now, I guess it’s safe to talk…”
As Michael spoke, I focused on our surroundings, seeking out anything unusual in the sky or around us. I sensed Snowboy do the same. Both of us spoke at once. “It’s safe to talk.”