Shadow Frost (Shadow Frost Trilogy Book 1)

by Coco Ma

  “Náxos!” shouted Eadric.

  Orion threw a hand over his eyes as lightning erupted from the sky, snaking through the hole in the hallway and striking the wyvern right in its ugly snout. The walls shuddered with thunder, and the brickwork gave a wobble before caving inward. His gut lurched as he thought of Asterin and the others trapped above. Bracing one hand against the floor, he called out, “Reyunir!”

  Lines of gray light shot from his other hand, encasing the crumbling foundations and splintering wooden beams. He forced his breathing to slow as he began binding the ruins back together. Then his eyes snagged on the humongous, gaping craters in the wall from the missing brick. Almighty Immortals, he thought to himself. What am I doing? How was he supposed to support an entire disintegrating two-story building all on his own?

  As if sensing his doubt, Orion’s magic wavered.

  His heart missed a beat as a chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling, crashing into a stool not a foot shy of him.

  Orion’s cry for help died in his throat, however, when indigo filigree intertwined with his silver light like ivy and spread outward, reinforcing his spell and mending the damage enough to keep the structure intact.

  From across the room, Quinlan gave him a firm nod and Orion breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then, the wyvern opened its maw as if to breath fire. But instead of flames, a black smog spewed into the air, surging toward Quinlan and slithering across his body. The Eradorian let out a hiss of discomfort as the smog spread, encasing his entire body from the shoulders down before solidifying into jagged black rock.

  “Run!” yelled Quinlan, but it was already too late. The wyvern breathed two more swirling clouds of smog and entrapped Orion in seconds.

  Eadric raised his arms high above his head just as the third cloud swooped down over him. “Lumináxos!” he bellowed.

  The second blast of lightning nearly fried Orion’s vision. He heard a shrill of pain, the beating of wings, and then nothing.

  It took Orion a minute to recover from blindness, and bright spots still danced across the room every time he blinked. The acrid scent of smoke swirled through the room. When the dust finally settled, only a charred spot remained where the wyvern had stood.

  He hardly dared to breathe. “Did we kill it?”

  “I guess,” said Eadric, a thin wisp of smoke drifting up from the wild tufts of his hair. In the end, the smog had captured him, too, but at least the wyvern was dead.

  Orion whooped. “That was brilliant! Hey, Quinlan! Did you see that? Boom, lightning blast!” He tried to clap his hands before remembering that he was immobilized. “Now, how do we escape this stuff?”

  Quinlan squinted at the black mark on the floor where the creature had been, a crease forming between his brows. “Uh …”

  “What is it?” asked Eadric.

  “This might not sound great, but I don’t think …” Quinlan trailed off. “I don’t think we killed it.”

  They froze as a shadow peeled itself from the walls, gathering in a writhing mass of darkness. In its center glowed a pair of familiar yellow eyes.

  Quinlan began to curse, rocking back and forth within his restraints but failing to break free.

  The bodiless eyes regarded them with something like satisfaction before the entire mass glided away, disappearing through the hole in the hallway.

  “I’m still holding my tristone,” Orion declared victoriously, but when he tried to summon his powers, it felt like running into a brick wall. His rocky confines were somehow obstructing his magic.

  “We need to get to Luna and Asterin and Rose before that monster regains its strength and takes a corporeal form again,” said Eadric.

  “How?” Quinlan asked. “Everyone else has fled. Nobody is coming back to save us.”

  Orion’s breath hitched. They had failed, failed so miserably, and now the others were in danger. “Think of something, Holloway!” Desperation clawed its way into his chest, voice rising with each word. Asterin would die, and it was all their fault. His fault. “You’re supposed to be smart!”

  “Shut up! Can you keep your stupid mouth shut for ten seconds?”

  Orion let out an incredulous scoff. “My stupid mouth?”

  “It’s always open, blabbering away! I can’t believe you and Asterin—”

  “Me and Asterin what?” Orion asked, voice suddenly quiet.

  Quinlan bit down on his tongue, refusing to meet Orion’s eyes. The Eradorian’s ears flushed a bright pink. “Nothing,” he snapped. “Never mind.”

  Slow realization dawned on Orion. “Oh. You’re jealous.”

  “Shut up! Shut up, okay? We’ve got other problems right now!”

  As if on cue, a tremendous crash sounded above them, followed by a scream and a thump from outside.

  Eadric blanched. “That was Luna.”

  “I put a shield on the window, so it’ll take a little more than a few blows from the wyvern,” said Quinlan. “But I rushed it. The shield won’t hold forever. We’re running out of time.”

  “Do something,” Orion said, voice cracking. “They’re going to die. Do something. Please.”

  Quinlan shut his eyes, teeth gritted in focus. “I’m trying.” The veins in his neck bulged with effort, and he cursed for the umpteenth time.

  Panic shot through Orion’s every cell. “That’s it—this is the end.”

  In his head, he apologized to Rose and to Luna. He tried to remember the last thing he had said to Asterin. He prayed for her forgiveness for being the worst Guardian ever, a lump forming in his throat as he listed off everything else he wanted to apologize for.

  It was a long list.

  A second crash rattled the walls.

  And then, just when he thought that all hope was well and truly lost, his ears picked up the muted sound of paws thudding against the ground. No, not his ears. He heard it in his mind. Eyes still closed, he held his breath, heartbeat quickening.

  When he opened his eyes, daring to hope, there was nothing but darkness. Orion’s stomach dropped like a stone. It had just been his imagination.

  But then, as he blinked through tears, the impossible became reality. A shining silver wolf stood before them, casting a disdainful, green-eyed glare at him. Those eyes belonged to the Princess of Axaria—and the God of Ice himself, Lord Conrye.

  Quinlan’s eyes snapped open, his jaw dropping. “Is that—”

  “Just shut up,” Orion whispered, thanking all of the Immortals for this beastly savior.

  Like a silver arrow, the wolf shot toward Quinlan, lunging for his confines with claws extended. The black rock blasted apart, releasing Quinlan’s suppressed indigo fire in an explosion of rubble. With a hiss, the debris dissipated back into smog … and then nothing.

  Quinlan spared Orion a single glance. A question. Orion was her Guardian, after all. Not that it had made even a remote difference in the end.

  “Go,” Orion croaked. “Help them.” With his blessing, Quinlan and the wolf flew out of the room, gone in the space of a heartbeat. At that moment, Orion almost felt sorry for the wyvern, almost wished it a quick death, for he had seen the promise in Quinlan’s eyes.

  A promise to destroy.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jack and Hayley strode through Mess Hall, the clamor of the dinnertime rush rising around them. Jack rubbed his thumb and index finger together, a nervous tic he couldn’t seem to drop. A servant had informed them that the Queen of Axaria requested their presence at the head table, and Jack didn’t know whether to feel honored or petrified, so he settled for a mixture of both.

  In perfect sync, they stepped up to a table set atop a raised platform and bowed to the queen. The rest of the court paid little attention to the two of them, although one man who gave Jack an extremely suggestive ogle received a glare from Hayley so vicious that he spilled wine upon him
self. To the queen’s right sat General Garringsford, her steel eyes trained intently enough on them as she sliced her steak that Jack had to will himself not to shrink. Immortals, he was so glad Covington oversaw them. The man was a total hard-ass most of the time, but all of the Elites knew he had a soft spot for them. Garringsford was intimidating as hell, inside and out.

  “Your Royal Majesty,” Jack said.

  Queen Priscilla swirled a glass of wine in one hand, her fingernails painted in the same shade of blood red. “Elites. My apologies for stealing you away from your dinners, but I never had the chance to ask—which of the Guard did my daughter choose as companions?”

  “The Eradorians, Your Majesty,” Hayley said.

  “Interesting choice.” Priscilla tilted her head, waiting. When she saw that Hayley had nothing else to add, she frowned. “That only makes two.”

  Jack exchanged a glance with Hayley. “The third wasn’t one of us, Your Majesty,” he said, shifting. “I—I don’t believe she was a soldier at all, actually.”

  The queen’s glass halted midswirl, the liquid nearly sloshing out. “Do you remember what she looked like?”

  Jack hesitated, bowing his head. “Her Highness mentioned a name … Luna.”

  “Speak up, soldier,” Garringsford ordered, sharp as a whip.

  “Luna,” Hayley repeated for him, her gaze as flat and unflappable as ever.

  Queen Priscilla set her glass down unsteadily, hands resting on the table. “Luna? But … why?” she murmured to herself, staring into the liquid as though it might give her an answer.

  Jack and Hayley stood there in silence for a long, awkward minute before Jack finally gathered the courage to break the tension. Garringsford hadn’t stopped staring at them, and it was seriously creeping him out. “Is there anything else we can help with, Your Majesty?”

  The queen startled, resurfacing from her trance. “Oh my. I’m so sorry. Yes, of course. Thank you for your time.”

  They bowed again before making their way back to their table. As Jack slid into his seat, he turned to Hayley, both of them ignoring Casper and Gino’s attempts to interrogate them about their little trip. He had to force himself to look away from Laurel’s pleading expression, because damn, if those wide hazel eyes weren’t irresistible. Silas flicked peas at Alicia, and one hit Hayley in the forehead. She sprang to her feet, wrestled the big man into a headlock and dumped a fistful of peas down his collar.

  Jack stretched his legs beneath the table after Hayley sat back down. “So, what do you think that was about?”

  Hayley glanced back up to the head table, where Queen Priscilla had stood to leave. Garringsford rose alongside her, but then the queen said something and the general lowered herself back into her seat, her eyes sullenly following the queen’s retreat. “I’m not sure.”

  “Who’s Luna, again?”

  Hayley shrugged. “Isn’t she Princess Asterin’s lady-in-waiting? Anyway, it hardly matters. Judging by the queen’s reaction … I doubt she’ll make it out of that forest alive.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Orion nearly wept when the silver wolf trotted back down the stairs, maw dripping and fur stained black. Up until a few seconds before, when their confines had disintegrated to dust, they had been utterly, excruciatingly helpless. Quinlan trudged down the steps right behind the wolf. Blood trickled from a large gash on his forehead, but other than that and a small collection of claw-shaped slashes that would easily heal, he seemed mostly unharmed. Rose and Luna tottered down the stairs last, holding Asterin upright between them.

  Orion wrapped all three of them in a bone-crushing hug, but eventually Rose and Luna untangled themselves from the hug to give him and Asterin some space.

  “I’m so sorry,” he croaked, blinking away the sudden onslaught of tears.

  Asterin exhaled into his shoulder. “What for?”

  “Everything.”

  She lifted her face, eyes blazing. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  He closed his eyes, the reassurance of her physical presence washing over him. He stroked her hair. “I … I almost lost you. And it would have been all my fault.”

  She nestled closer. “Not true.”

  Orion felt Quinlan’s scalding glare before he saw it. Jealous? he mouthed.

  Quinlan gifted him an obscene hand gesture in response.

  Orion smiled, and then said to Asterin, “Also, can we talk about the random wolf that showed up out of nowhere?”

  She reeled back, eyes wide with disbelief. “Random wolf? Are you joking? You don’t recognize him?”

  Orion chuckled nervously. “No? I mean, yeah, I guess. He looks like Lord Conrye’s wolf form, but all wolves—”

  Asterin groaned. “That is Lord Conrye’s wolf form, moron.”

  “What?”

  At that moment, Lord Conrye padded up to them, and Orion suddenly realized how huge he was. Even sitting, his ears came level with Asterin’s shoulders. And yes—there were those little half-crescent tufts marking the wolf’s brow in ice white, and of course, the eerily luminescent green eyes that matched the paintings and sculptures around the palace, but … somehow, though Orion and every other child grew up learning about the legends of the Immortals and the origins of magic, it was hard to believe that they actually existed somewhere—even in an unreachable dimension, like the Immortal Realm.

  Conrye dipped his massive head, brushing his muzzle against Asterin’s curled fingers. She smiled and scratched him behind the ears.

  Orion didn’t know what to do, so he got down on one knee. “L-Lord Conrye. An honor, Your … Godship.”

  The god only yawned at him, revealing a flash of razor-sharp fangs. Suddenly, his ears perked and then flattened, lip curling back. He regarded Asterin for a moment before bowing his head, as if to say, I must go.

  And then, just as quickly as he had come, he was gone, swifter than wind on silent paws, racing out of the hole that the wyvern had made in the wall.

  Rose and Luna reappeared at Asterin’s side, and Orion watched them help her out of the demolished building. Quinlan trailed on their heels, shooting Orion a final vehement glare on his way out.

  Only now, when Asterin was safe, did the bitterness begin to seep in. Orion wanted to hate Quinlan for being stronger, for being Asterin’s hero when it should have been him—but how could he, after the Eradorian Prince and Lord Conrye had just saved them all, when he had been trapped and useless?

  “Orion,” said Eadric from behind him.

  “Isn’t it hard to believe that after everything that just happened, meeting an Immortal wasn’t even the craziest?” Orion said, trying to grin, but it felt like his face was cracking. Then he caught sight of Eadric’s own downcast eyes and realized that he didn’t need to fake his usual optimism.

  “It’s over,” the captain murmured. “Asterin is alive, we’re alive. That’s all that matters. Let’s go.”

  Luckily for them, Aldville was a large town, and they found alternative lodging without much difficulty. After resettling the horses, Eadric sent a messenger to the palace to request a clean-up crew, and they all gathered around the hearth in the commons—save for Asterin and Quinlan. Asterin retired to her room to rest, and Quinlan accompanied her so that he could monitor the toll that using so much magic had taken on her body.

  And to guard her, Orion thought to himself. That little reminder stung like hell.

  Orion shared a pot of tea with Rose, pouring and passing cups across the table in silence. Luna dozed on Eadric’s chest on the couch facing the hearth, the snoring captain’s arms wrapped around her. Orion tried to match their slow, unified breaths as he drank. Rose drained her cup and curled her knees up to her chest, giving a soft sigh before letting her eyes slip shut. Orion reached for the teapot, only to remember that he had emptied it on his last cup. The slumber he had found so easily in the even
ing eluded him now, leaving him restless and jittery. He drummed his fingers on his knees, gaze lingering on Eadric and Luna. A small coil of envy expanded in his chest. They looked perfect together, like two halves forming a whole, content in their own little world.

  Orion sometimes wondered if he would ever be able to find that kind of happiness—not the fleeting moments in dark, hidden corners or behind locked doors tangled in silken sheets. He never kept track of those, not really. No, he wanted something more. Someone more. Someone who he loved and loved him back, more than anything in the world. You love Asterin, a voice in his head reminded him. But not in that way. He doubted he could ever be happy in a romantic relationship with her.

  Eventually he did manage to drift asleep to the soothing crackle of the hearth, empty teacup still in hand—but after what felt like no more than a few minutes, he awoke to a shout, his cup shattering on the floor. His clothes were drenched in sweat, and his throat hoarse. He realized the shout had come from him. Heart thundering, he gradually came to his senses. Still panting, he licked his cracked lips, tasting salt. He must have had a nightmare, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it had been about—although even now he couldn’t shake the sensation that he was falling down a bottomless hole.

  A hand gripped his shoulder. His hazy vision sharpened to find Rose crouched at his side, face grim.

  “Hey,” she said gently, offering him a glass of water. “Hey, you’re here. It’s all right.”

  Orion clutched the glass like a lifeline, stomach roiling with nausea. His eyes darted around the room. Eadric and Luna had vanished from the couch. “What time is it?”