Amber Frost

by Suzi Davis

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded, shifting beneath his jacket as I spoke. I had momentarily forgotten about my arm and winced in expectation of the searing, blistery pain. The pain exploded down my arm and side, my skin throbbing with a sharp, stabbing ache as if it had been badly sunburnt and then cut by a hundred shards of acid-soaked glass.

  “Do you want your arm to hurt still?” Sebastian asked curiously. I frowned back at him, annoyed by his sarcasm and how he had avoided my question.

  “Of course not. But what – oh!” I gasped. As soon as I said the words, the pain instantly left my arm and my side, evaporating like mist in the air. I sat up, shoving Sebastian’s jacket aside and inspecting my arm, wiggling my fingers and flexing my muscles. The dark tattoo was still there, dancing on my skin as my muscles and ligaments flexed beneath its intricate, twisting pattern. I stared at it almost admiringly, disbelievingly.

  “It stopped hurting once I decided I wanted it to,” I gasped, speaking my thoughts out loud. “Am I… am I like you now?” I held my breath as I waited for his answer. He leant closer to me so that his face was right in front of mine, his eyes full of a thousand years of sadness and bright with his hesitant joy.

  “You’ve always been like me,” he answered with a soft smile. He leaned in even closer and slowly kissed me, his lips soft and smooth, his mouth warm and welcoming. My head began to spin dizzily. It took some effort to break apart from him even for air. I certainly didn’t want our kiss to ever end. “You don’t remember yet how to control your ability, it’s going to take you some time to learn. Just now for example, you couldn’t want the pain to stop enough for it to work, until you were near your breaking point. And though you’re infinitely more powerful than I, your abilities are also that much less predictable. You’re like me but different; you’re like no other. No one has made you this way Gracelynn, it’s just who you are. Your power was not given, it is your own – that is the ultimate difference.”

  “I don’t understand,” I objected, my head still spinning with my disorientating thoughts. “Why was I aging then? Why haven’t I always been able to make what I want happen? Why now? How is this possible?” He smiled patiently, lightly kissing my forehead and erasing my confused frown.

  “The magic has always been there inside you, Gracelynn, lying dormant, waiting. Just like the Binding between us has always been there though now it’s doubly strong. I was already pulling strength from you through the Binding – that’s why I started to remember things after I met you, why I gained so much control over my ability, why my power increased. You couldn’t remember your magic in this life though, maybe it seemed too impossible to you and so you never tried. But then, after I took your memories, you wanted to remember who you were enough that you did. And you remembered not just who you are in this life, or who you were in the past but who you truly are, just as I remembered my true self. When the memories came back to me – it was too much, I couldn’t handle it. Hundreds upon hundreds of years of memories, experiences and emotions… I nearly lost my mind, nearly lost myself to my past. When you recast the Binding spell between our souls, it reaffirmed the connection between us. You were like an anchor tying me down, a lifeline for me to cling to as you lent me your strength and your will for me to survive. You saved me, Gracelynn, as only you ever could. And in Binding your soul to me again, and bearing the mark of our connection, you came into your true self, you reaffirmed who you are. The magic has been inside you all along, and now you’ve reawakened it,” he solemnly pronounced. Chills ran up and down my spine at his words. It took me a moment to recover myself enough to speak. I was so overwhelmed, I just spoke aloud the first thought that popped into my mind.

  “I suppose that explains breakfast this morning then,” I commented. It was a weak joke and ill-timed, I couldn’t quite manage an accompanying smile. Sebastian arched a curious brow at my tone. “It was the strangest thing – all of the eggs had double yolks and no one could really explain why, but I guess I’m going to have to get used to strange things happening around me now.”

  “What did you just say?” Sebastian demanded. His hands were suddenly on my arms, squeezing me roughly, urgently, lifting me up off the floor.

  “At breakfast this morning, all of the eggs had double yolks,” I repeated as I scrambled to my feet. His eyes went wide, his expression shifting to one of horror and sudden fear.

  “They’re here,” he gasped, his face going pale. A wave of cold dread swept over me as I instantly understood what he meant.

  “The Others?”

  He nodded, staring at me aghast.

  “How can you be certain?”

  Sebastian’s eyes darted about wildly. He began scrambling around his room, searching through his few unpacked belongings. He distractedly answered my question as he moved.

  “The strange things that happen around me are a direct result of my ability to twist fate to get what I want. When I twist fate, it’s like throwing a pebble into a pool – it causes ripples that flow outward, their direction and rhythm are beyond my control,” he explained. “But my ability was never the same as yours, it was only an echo, a similar power that you gave me but one that I could never fully understand or control because it was never truly meant to be mine. As I said, your ability wasn’t given to you by anyone, it was yours – it is yours. It’s a natural part of who you are. You don’t cause any ripples because you don’t twist fate like myself and the Others do; you change fate, you will it to be different and it is. The strange, uncontrollable events only occur around me, Gracelynn, me and the Others.”

  “Walter,” I gasped as the realization hit me. It seemed so obvious now, I couldn’t believe I’d been so blind. “When I left the house, he said something about you protecting me. He knows Sebastian – he must be one of them.”

  “Tell me exactly what he said,” Sebastian instructed urgently.

  I nodded, quickly thinking back. “He wanted to see my necklace, he tried to make me give it to him but I wouldn’t. He became angry and I could have sworn the sky outside darkened. Then Clarke arrived and – well, you know what happened next. Walter tried to stop me when I was leaving, or rather, he tried to get my Mother to. He said something about you protecting me – he knew I was going to you. He said I was going to ‘ruin’ them all,” I quoted. Sebastian’s eyes widened though the rest of his expression was one of sudden deadly calm.

  “I’ve met Walter – I don’t remember him. I know I’ve never met him before,” he told me. “That means some of the Others must have given him his abilities, and recently I’d bet. The Others aren’t as strong as you or I; it would have taken several of them to give Walter even the smallest ability, which means that there must be at least three here, in Victoria – four including Walter – maybe more. Once I met you and started to remember that there might be others like me, I started to want them to know me, to find me… I must have caused them to remember me.” His face was ashen as he spoke, his eyes hollow and black. “I’ve brought them down upon us. And if Walter was asking about your necklace, that means he knows who you are, he’ll know the power you’re capable of. They’ll want to keep us apart, to stop you from regaining your full powers, to stop you from making me more powerful. They’ll try to kill us both,” he pronounced, his voice hushed with his own building fear. “If they see your arm, they’ll know you performed the Binding again and they’ll assume you’ve regained your full ability. It could scare them enough to band them together. United in their fear and by their wants, they could kill us quickly and easily.”

  I stared back at him in silence, reading the building fear in his beautiful eyes. “What can we do?” My voice came out quiet and monotonously calm.

  “We run. If there are only four of them, we should be able to get away. If there are five, we’re dead.” Chills ran down my spine at his cold pronouncement. “You’re not strong enough yet, you don’t remember enough, you don’t have enough control – five could want our deaths enough that it would
be so.” I nodded, trying to calmly and rationally consider his terrifying words.

  “If we run, can’t we just not want them to find us?”

  Sebastian shook his head with a slight frown. “If only it were that simple. All of the Others will want to find us now, not just the ones who are already here. They will all remember, and they badly outnumber us, Gracelynn. Our only hope is to stay out of their clutches for long enough for you to regain all of your powers and for us to decipher my tattoos. And then we’ll have no choice but to hunt them. Only you are powerful enough to stop them, to take away their ability – it’s the only way to ensure our safety. I’m so sorry Gracelynn. I’ve given you the added burden of fixing my mistakes.”

  The responsibility was overwhelming. Everything he was telling me was just too much to take in, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it yet. I felt numb, like I was in shock and unable to properly react until I’d had time to process all of this information. There was no time.

  “How many are there?” I asked quietly. He hesitated before answering.

  “There were twelve Others. The last to join us was over three hundred years ago – there could be more now, though I doubt there would be many. The Others often fought amongst themselves, always wanting different things, never working together. I’m surprised they even managed to combine their wants clearly enough to change Walter, but obviously they have.”

  “Obviously,” I echoed mutely. Sebastian looked at me sharply, hearing the glum, defeat in my voice.

  “It’s going to be okay, Gracelynn. We’re together again, that’s all that matters. I will keep you safe,” he promised feverently.

  “I know,” I assured him, and I did. I trusted him more than anyone or anything else. I could feel the bond between us – and not just the magical Bond that tied our souls together, and not the bond from our shared pain and loss, or the strange mirrored markings on our skin, but the bond of our friendship, of our love and faith in one another.

  “Tell me what to do,” I instructed him, my voice coming out clearer and more confidently than I had expected. He quickly took my hand in his, raising it to his lips to briefly kiss the amber ring on my finger.

  “We’re in grave danger. Our only hope is to run. We’ve got to leave today – now.” He squeezed my hand gently as he spoke, trying to soften the harsh fear lurking behind his words.

  I closed my eyes, a dozen images flickering behind my lids. My home was here and all of my possessions. I was only two short weeks away from graduating high school. I’d be leaving all my friends, my mother, my memories behind. I nodded calmly. The brief moment of hesitation had already gone and passed. I was leaving nothing behind for everything I needed, everything I truly wanted was right here, in my hands. As incredulous as it all seemed, as terrifying and overwhelming and impossible, there was no choice, there was no other option for me. From the very moment I’d remembered Sebastian, the instant I’d realized how miserable and meaningless my life was without him, I’d known the only choice for me was to be with him, whatever that might entail.

  I could sense the building urgency in every tensed muscle in his body as he silently waited for my response. Fear, uncertainty and mystery radiated from Sebastian and yet there was still the glowing sense of comfort, the promise of his love, the power of his commitment. My choice was made; there was no choice.

  “Let’s go,” I agreed.

  And so together, we ran, for our lives.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Suzi Davis is a British-born Canadian writer and artist and has been writing stories and poetry for as long as she can remember. Her current focus is on writing young adult novels whose genre allows her to explore the relationships between families, friends and young lovers. Interested in the paranormal, there is always an added element of magical fantasy to whatever tale she spins. Suzi lives on British Columbia's Vancouver Island with her husband and young son.

  AMBER FROST is her first novel. Find out more about her at authorsuzidavis.com