by Alex Bell
But then something swung down to hit the side of Jaxon’s head hard enough to practically separate it from his neck. Blood splattered across my face and chest and Jaxon’s entire body spun over in the air, limbs flopping loosely like a doll’s before he landed on his back on the ice with half his skull bashed in and thick streams of gore running down what was left of his right cheek.
I turned my head away and looked up to see Ben standing above me, his hand still gripped around the broken ice banister we had brought from upstairs. Then it fell from his fingers with a clatter and he dropped down onto his knees beside me.
‘Tell me you’re okay,’ he said, blood smeared across one side of his face where Jaxon had cut him with the knife. I found myself worrying ridiculously that it would leave a scar and mar his clean-cut looks. ‘Jasmyn—’ he said when I didn’t speak.
‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ I said, trying to smile, blink back tears and wipe Jaxon’s blood off my face all at the same time.
‘Thank God for that,’ he replied hoarsely, helping me to my feet.
I turned my head away, unable to bear the sight of Jaxon’s corpse sprawled out on the floor. My fingers wrapped round Ben’s hand, gripping it like my life depended on it as I wondered whether I’d ever be able to feel safe again after all that had happened.
But then Ben said, ‘What’s that blood on your snowsuit?’
I glanced down at the dusky red smears on the silver fabric and said, ‘Oh, that’s not mine, it’s Jaxon’s, from when he—’
‘No, it’s not!’ Ben said in a strangled voice, his fingers fumbling with the buttons, ripping them apart to reveal the pale-blue jumper I wore underneath, the tear in the fabric where the knife had gone through and the shockingly scarlet trails of blood making their way down from the stab wound in my upper chest.
26
Ice Dragon
I stared down at my bloody jumper in bewilderment.
‘But ... but I don’t feel a thing!’ I said.
Ben wasn’t listening, but was already hurrying me to a nearby table and chair.
‘Sit down,’ he ordered. ‘Keep pressure on it.’
I was still stupidly thinking that there must be some kind of mistake. I couldn’t feel anything! How could you be stabbed and not feel it? But no sooner had I sat down than a horrible sick feeling swept through me and - even though I was sitting on an ice chair in a room made entirely of ice in the Ice Hotel itself - I suddenly felt hot.
Ben struggled out of his snowsuit and then knelt down to tie it around my chest, under my arms and over the wound, pulling it so tight it made me wince.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We need to stop the bleeding. You’ll be all right, Jaz. I’m going to get you to a hospital. You’ll be fine.’
I said nothing. I had no idea when Jaxon had stabbed me. It could have been when we first crashed into the pillar together or it could have been during that brief struggle on the ground. But in the end it didn’t matter. We were miles away from anywhere with no car, no buses, no ambulances ... I was no medical expert, but it seemed highly unlikely that someone could be stabbed in the chest and survive if they didn’t get to a hospital pretty damn quick. Ben might have been a swan knight but he wasn’t Superman. And already I could feel the energy draining out of me, like water running through a sieve. I felt so tired - weighed down with weariness like it was a physical weight. If I could just close my eyes and rest for a moment, I was sure I’d get some of my strength back ...
I laid my head down on the ice table and it felt wonderfully soothing and cool on my skin. But I was only allowed a brief moment of bliss before Ben was firmly gripping my shoulders and forcing me to sit up.
‘You mustn’t go to sleep,’ he said, kneeling up and putting his hands on either side of my head. ‘Look at me, Jaz.’ His face was only inches from my own so that I gazed right into his brown eyes - and in that world of ice and starlight that seemed to surround us, they were the only warm thing that existed. He kissed me softly on the lips - a light whisper of a kiss, and then said in a calm, level voice, ‘I’m going to get you out of here. But I need you to stay awake for me, okay? Whatever you do, Jasmyn, don’t close your eyes.’
‘Okay,’ I replied. His voice was so warm and reassuring that it took the edge off my fear.
He stood up and it dimly occurred to me that he must be freezing without his snowsuit - wearing only jeans and a dark V-neck jumper without so much as a scarf or a hat ... What if he caught frostbite or pneumonia or some other terrible thing and died and I really did have to go to his funeral all over again?
‘Ben—’ I began anxiously, but he shushed me at once and leaned down over the chair.
‘Don’t talk any more, Jaz. Just put your arms around my neck.’
I did as he’d said, although the effort of lifting them shocked me - it was as if they were made of lead! Ben put one arm around my shoulders and slid the other under my knees to lift me from the chair. The simple action made pain blossom outwards from my chest, through my arms and down to the very tips of my fingers. I bit my tongue so hard to keep from crying out that I tasted blood. Every step Ben took towards the door jarred horribly and seemed to drive all the breath from my body.
When we were across the room at last, Ben opened the door. Somehow I had been expecting things to be normal outside. I had thought that the mere act of leaving the hotel would be to leave faeryland behind us as well. But there was no blue sky and no sun sparkling off the white snow. Instead there was star-spangled twilight, glittering like a mass of white diamonds against soft, indigo velvet. It made the snow stretching out as far as the eye could see almost purple in colour.
I could hear the rapid pulse of a heartbeat but couldn’t tell if it was my own beating in my ears or the sound of Ben’s where my head was pressed against his chest. He walked with quick, long strides away from the hotel and across the silver-purple landscape before coming to a stop facing the tree line of dark pines clustered together. I felt him take a deep breath, as if he was about to shout out. But then there was a noise from behind us - a low, drawn-out moaning accompanied by a strange shuddering in the ground. Ben went rigid as a board and - very slowly - turned around.
I thought at first that I must be hallucinating, it was such a startling, extraordinary sight. The Ice Hotel sparkled with all the starlight that had soaked into its bricks and there, right in front of the main doors, was the thirty-foot-long ice dragon we had seen the night before, only now it was moving, come to life like the rest of the sculptures. It looked pale purple in the twilight, its great clawed feet left deep prints in the snow, its unfurled wings glinted in the silver starlight and its lizard-like head was raised straight in our direction, gazing right at us with cold, blank eyes. A hostile, aggressive groan rumbled deep in its throat again and its long spiked tail swished this way and that through the snow.
‘Shit!’ Ben whispered desperately under his breath, his grip on me tightening.
Then a white shape I dimly recognised as the cat with the blue eyes I had seen playing in the starflakes earlier came bounding around the corner of the building, apparently delighted by all the snow, and completely unaware of the dragon until it was too late. The creature’s massive head twisted downwards and a great stream of what looked like white fire burst from its open jaws. But rather than roasting the cat where it stood, it froze it to the spot, covering the little animal in a thick layer of ice before it had time to take a single step. A bare second later, the dragon’s monstrous foot stamped down on the cat, shattering it to bits as it began to charge straight towards Ben and me, making the whole ground tremble beneath its great weight.
Ben spun around and started to sprint towards the trees, still holding me tightly to his chest. As he ran he drew a deep breath and roared so loudly that the sound almost seemed to split my head in two, ‘Kini! ’
His voice echoed back across the deserted landscape, but there was no sign of any black horse, no sound of thundering hooves - although it wa
s unlikely we would have heard it anyway above the din of the ice dragon behind us.
Ben stumbled suddenly in the snow and almost fell before managing to right himself but, this time, I didn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything - not the cold or the pain or even the fear. Just a numbness and a weariness and the certainty that we were both going to die. The only sadness I felt was for Ben, who had tried so hard to put everything right but was not going to succeed. His rapid bursts of breath seemed incredibly fast in comparison to my own slow breathing and I wished I could just find the energy to tell him how sorry I was for everything. And how much I still loved him.
Even though the dragon must be nearly on us by now, it sounded far away in my ears when it roared again and it seemed suddenly much darker than before ... a cool, soft blackness that crept right into my body. When I caught a brief, blurry image of a dark horse just ahead of us I thought I was probably dreaming it. I saw it drop to its knees in the snow so that it was only half-standing. But in another moment, Ben had swung his leg astride its back, the distinctive horsey smell I loved so much was filling my nostrils and Kini was on his feet and thundering through the surreal, dreamlike, star-studded faeryland for just a moment before there was another great roar from behind us. I could have sworn I saw a streak of white fire fly past, missing us by a bare foot, before Kini’s hooves were suddenly sliding on wet tarmac instead of snow, and there was a weak, grey light and rain splashing down all around us.
The next moment, Kini seemed to be gone - if he’d ever been there to begin with - and a door was slamming open, bright light assaulting my eyes so that I closed them tight and turned my face towards Ben’s chest. I wished vaguely that he would stop shouting. I couldn’t even make out what he was saying above the ringing in my ears. When I opened my eyes what felt like a bare second later, Ben’s arms were no longer around me and panic rose up in my chest until I saw him a few feet away, gesturing madly with his hands as he talked to another man in a long white coat. But then the thing I was lying on began to move backwards and I desperately willed my body to jump off and run to him so that they couldn’t take me away. But it was all I could do to raise my head a bare inch from the pillow.
‘Ben ...’ The word came out hoarse and soft as a whisper but he must have heard me for he turned his head and met my eyes for a moment before a door swung shut and he was gone from view. His expression remained clear in my mind, however - vivid and startling for the fact that it was the first time I had ever seen him look truly scared in all the years I had known him.
In another moment my head dropped back onto the pillow and a great darkness crept in, pushing everything else out, including even Ben.
When I next opened my eyes, my head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton wool. I was in a strange room I didn’t recognise, lit by the light of a single lamp, with rain pattering softly against the dark windows. I tried to think back to my last clear memory but my clouded mind seemed to contain only vague, half-remembered dreams and images.
I looked down and realised that there was someone in the room with me. The chair had been pulled up as close to the bed as was physically possible so that Ben’s knees were wedged against it and his dark head rested face down on his folded arms on top of the sheets.
I felt the drip in my wrist pull as I slowly reached out my hand to run my fingers through his hair. He jerked awake at my touch and lifted his head. A smile spread across his face when he saw me looking at him, but I was shocked by his appearance. The wound slashed across his cheek had been stitched and cleaned but there were dark rings under his bloodshot eyes, his hair was uncombed and a layer of stubble covered his lower jaw. He looked terrible.
‘You’re okay,’ he said at once. ‘The knife pierced your lung but they operated at once and you’re going to be fine.’ He gripped my hand and looked at me with a tortured expression I did not like the look of one bit as he went on hurriedly, ‘I should never have gone after the swansong, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t just leave you alone. I treated you so horribly too - Christ, you must have hated me - but I was trying so hard not to let on ... how I really felt ... And then I thought you were dead, Jaz. I thought I’d killed you—’ He broke off as his voice caught at the back of his throat and, the next moment, his shoulders were shaking with sobs and his head dropped back down onto the bed, hiding his face as if he couldn’t bear to meet my gaze any longer. He was still holding on to one of my hands but - with my free one - I stroked his hair and ran my fingers softly down the back of his neck. I couldn’t remember exactly what it was that he was so upset about but he was alive and so was I, so surely nothing else really mattered.
I think some time must have passed when I became aware of Ben by the bed again - standing up this time, but leaning down to gently take one of my hands in his and press a kiss softly to the palm.
‘Go back to sleep, my darling,’ he said quietly when he saw me looking at him. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you. Everything will be okay.’
He turned away towards the door and it seemed to me that he was unsteady on his feet. I wanted to call him back to reassure myself that he was all right and to ask him where he was going and when he would be back. But everything still felt so strange and dreamlike and before I could speak his name I had slipped back into sleep.
The sun streaming through my window woke me the next morning. My head was much clearer than it had been before but I groaned when I pushed myself up and pain spread through my body like hot needles. I gazed around anxiously for Ben but there was no one else in the room with me and the chair that had been by the bed last night was back in its original place at the table by the window.
‘Ben,’ I said - or at least tried to. It came out as a sort of gasping croak for my throat was so dry.
Perhaps he was in the bathroom. I pulled back the covers, remembered the drip when it yanked painfully at my arm, pulled it out impatiently and then swung my legs around to set my bare feet down on the floor. I was shocked to find how unsteady my legs were and stumbled like a drunkard to the bathroom, knocking things over as I went.
‘Ben,’ I said again as I opened the door.
But this room, too, was empty. Perhaps I had merely dreamt his presence last night ... The thought filled me with panic and I was about to leave to try and find someone who might know something when the room began to lurch sickeningly around me and the crippling wave of nausea was upon me so quickly that I bent over double to throw up where I stood in the doorway, not even making it to the toilet. Pain ripped agonisingly through my chest and when I tried to straighten back up I became so dizzy that I lost my balance and fell over. Fortunately a nurse came into my room then and found me before I could do any more damage to myself.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said hoarsely, ‘but I’ve been sick all over the floor and—’
‘Don’t worry yourself about that, dear, it happens all the time - side effect of the anaesthetic. Some people react worse than others. Let’s just get you back into bed before you rip those stitches out altogether. You’re not even supposed to be walking yet.’
It was only then that I became aware of the bandages around my chest, beneath the horrible hospital nightgown.
‘Where are my clothes?’ I asked stupidly as she helped me back into the bed. But before she could reply I went on, ‘Where’s Ben? Do you know where he is?’
‘You mean the man who brought you in? He left last night, dear. But he gave us the phone number for your parents and they’re on their way right now.’
‘Parents?’ I wrinkled my nose in confusion. ‘What country are we in?’
‘We’re in England,’ the nurse replied, giving me a faintly worried look. ‘I’ll go and fetch the doctor. He’ll want to look you over now you’re awake. And when you’re feeling a little better the police are going to want to have a word with you too.’
‘The police? But why?’
‘Because you were the victim of a horrible attack,’ the nurse replied, watchin
g me carefully. ‘Don’t you remember?’
Oh, I remembered. I remembered it very well. I could clearly see the murderous expression in Jaxon’s eyes as I desperately tried to fight him off with my hands before Ben struck his head with the thick stick of ice and blood splattered across my face ... I shivered involuntarily at the memory. But how could I tell the nurse or the police that if we were now in England? How could I explain that I had been stabbed in the Ice Hotel in Sweden by a ruthless thief desperate to make himself rich using a stolen swansong? I didn’t even know where the Ice Hotel was now - it could have been sucked right into faeryland for all I knew and I couldn’t very well say that I’d been brought to England by a magic horse. I had no idea what story Ben might have told them and I didn’t want to contradict his version, whatever it was, so in the end I just said, ‘I don’t remember anything about last night except for waking up here with Ben beside me.’
After the nurse left to fetch the doctor, my eye fell on the sealed envelope carefully propped up on the bedside table, my name written across the surface in Ben’s untidy handwriting. I grabbed at it and ripped it open. A plain ring of white gold fell out onto my lap. At first I thought it was Ben’s, but when I picked it up and slid it onto my finger it was a perfect fit. I didn’t know what to make of the fact that he had left it there. Was he returning it to me because he didn’t want it any more? Or was it because he wanted me to wear it again? Surely it had to be the latter. My memory of the night before was a little hazy but he had spoken loving words to me, I was sure of it. And he hadn’t left until he’d known I was going to be all right. The chances were he had just gone to buy some clean clothes or get something to eat, or get some sleep. He would surely come back at any moment ...
I looked hopefully back into the envelope and was relieved to find a note inside, but my relief quickly turned sour when I read it for it was uselessly brief: