Icebound (Legends of the Shifters Book 2)

by J. B. North

Where is her prince?

  Will he come to save her?

  The truth is he won't,

  for he's the pied piper,

  coaxing the flame, the cold-blooded viper.

  He'll steal her inheritance,

  he'll steal her throne,

  but what he doesn't know is that the princess isn't alone.

  Fire is ruthless,

  and Fire is his fate.

  He tries to get out,

  but it's just too late.

  Their spirits leave their bodies,

  their earthly lives have ceased,

  but one flies skyward,

  above the flame and to the feast.

  The other is dragged below where he dances,

  an agonizing dance with the Fire Beast.

  I shuddered and closed the book. The bed was starting to look really comfy. Just looking at it made my eyes droop shut. I stood, lumbered across the room, and crawled under the covers, letting myself drift slowly away.

  My subconscious took me back to Lochlan’s house. In the dream, instead of Brent being the only one glaring at me threateningly, all of Roland’s family gave me accusing looks. Even Sir Lochlan. I backed away, just like I had in real life, but this time, my foot bumped into something. I looked down to see Roland’s pale, cold face staring up at me lifelessly.

  I wanted to scream, but couldn’t, and when I looked back up at Roland’s family, they were all closing in on me. There was no one there to stop Brent this time as he wrapped his calloused hands around my neck and…

  Bang, bang, bang! I jerked awake as soon as I heard the deafening sound of a heavy fist slamming into the door. My heart beat furiously in my chest. I rushed to open the door only to be met with the sight of Sir Lochlan’s livid expression, highlighted by the lantern he held in his white-knuckled fist.

  -Chapter Ten-

  I narrowed my eyes and turned away as I went back to sit on my bed.

  “What do you want?” I asked, bracing myself for whatever Sir Lochlan had come to say.

  He barged inside, leaving the door open. “How dare you run like that!” he snarled. “I couldn’t even stay to comfort my family because I was too worried that you hadn’t returned. Do you know what the king would have done to me if I failed to bring you back? The future you would leave my fiancée and me?”

  I paled. “You didn’t have to worry—”

  “How would I know that?” he broke in. “All you’ve wanted to do since we took you from the conservatory is get away from everyone. You went on a walk and got attacked by bandits. You decided to fly up ahead this morning, which made me have to keep an eye on you the entire time to make sure you stayed with us. And now, you run away at the slightest hint of aggressiveness from my brother? He wouldn’t have even hurt you, nor would he be able to. If you’re not immortal, you’re nearly there!”

  I balled my fists at my sides. “You of all people should understand why I want to be alone. You intimidate everyone, and push them away with your miserable attitude.”

  “It’s my job to intimidate people!” he shouted.

  As soon as I picked up the scent of smoke, I stood and looked back at the bed. Sure enough, there were two holes burned through the quilt where my hands had been. I shook with rage as I turned back to Sir Lochlan. “Get out of my room,” I said, eyes flashing.

  He took one look at what I’d done to my blanket and stepped back, the ire slipping from his features. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” he said warily, and then strolled out the door, shutting it loudly behind him.

  I sighed heavily, and crawled back in bed. It took a while for my anger to calm down, but after what seemed like an hour, I started to drift off again.

  And then I heard three more pounds on the door. I threw the covers off and stomped across the room, ready for another round of arguments with Lochlan. I flung the door open only to find Grix there. And his face was ashen.

  My anger melted away like the snow. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a fire. T-the entire inn is on fire.”

  Only then did the rippling roar of an insatiable blaze register in my hearing. I nearly tripped over Grix when I rushed out the door, into the smoking hallway. “Where is Alyss?” I asked.

  “I made sure she was safely outside,” he said.

  “And the prince?”

  We stumbled backward as one of the support beams suddenly crashed down, exposing the fiery inferno of the third floor. Grix swallowed hard. “Upstairs,” he said, pointing.

  “Make sure everyone on this hallway and downstairs gets out safely. I’ll go upstairs for the prince.”

  He nodded, and before I could see where he went, I sprinted to the end of the hall and bounded up the steps. Already, I could feel the heat getting more intense. I burst through the door at the top. My eyes and mind focused as the flames circled around me. All of a sudden, through all that heat and fire, I could see a figure crouching at the end of the hallway, their arm covering their face as they tried to get to my end of the hallway. I walked forward, clearing the way through the flame. Sir Lochlan squinted up at me. Several burn marks were seared into his hands, and the tips of his hair were singed.

  “Ivy...” he coughed out. “The prince...he’s in the room at the end of the hall. We have to save him.”

  I looked at the large flaming door. There was no way that Lochlan could save him now. Only I could. I looked back at Lochlan. Even after everything that he’d put me through, I couldn’t just leave him in the hallway to die.

  I grabbed his shirt and hauled him over my shoulder.

  He shouted in surprise. “What? Put me down!”

  I cleared the path to the door, and pushed the flame away from it, so that it wouldn’t hurt Sir Lochlan when we ducked through the frame.

  I turned the scorching-hot handle and swung the door wide. The entire room was ablaze. My eyes searched the room for Prince Matthias, but all they found were his empty bed. The blankets, dragged to the other side as if someone had fallen off. I hurried over and set Lochlan down on the ground. He glared at me through tired eyes. I could tell he was doing all he could to stay awake after inhaling so much smoke.

  I hurried to the other side of the bed, tossing aside the covers to see Matthias hidden partly under the bed, a bloody gash in the side of his head.

  “Oh, no,” I said as I tossed the blanket away. Just outside the door, I heard another crash and the entire building jolted as if it were on the verge of collapse.

  I didn’t have time to check the prince’s pulse to see if he was alive. All I could do was lift his unconscious body and place him next to where Sir Lochlan lay, now barely conscious.

  I knew we had to escape fast, or else go down with the fiery building. Hurriedly, I grabbed a blazing chair and swung it at a stained glass window. The glass shattered on impact, and the firelight twinkled over the surface of the shards as they fell to the ground. It was simple to shift form when I was surrounded by flame already. I gripped Prince Matthias with my claws, and pulled his limp body down to the window. With a great heft of my wings, I dove through the opening, trying not to catch Matthias’s body on the glass shards that still stuck up in the frame. From down below, a collected gasp sounded. It seemed like nearly half the city was up, watching as the greatest building in their midst burned down in flames.

  I sunk down and dropped the prince to the ground at the edge of the crowd, and a few people rushed forward to help him.

  I circled back into the window and spiraled through it, landing heavily next to Sir Lochlan, who had lost his battle to stay conscious.

  I gripped his shoulders tightly, but before I could lift him up, the ceiling above us collapsed. I stretched my wings out over Sir Lochlan just before a flaming support beam crashed down on top of me. Had I not had unnatural strength, Lochlan and I would’ve both been crushed.

  The flames burned hot along my back. If I didn't find a way to get Sir Lochlan out soon, he would die. I gathered all my strength and threw the bea
m off of me. It shifted and rolled to the side, the flames finding the blanket that the prince had been wrapped in just moments before. I grabbed a hold of Lochlan's shoulders once again, and pulled him out of the building with me.

  The crowd stared in awe as I came back down, carrying yet another body. I laid Sir Lochlan next to where I had laid the prince.

  When I looked over at Prince Matthias, my heart sunk with dread. A gray blanket was covering his body, the sure sign that there was no hope for him. That his heart had stopped.

  I shifted form, tears already staining my face. "He's dead?" I asked the woman that stood over him protectively, her face grim.

  "I'm afraid so," she said as she moved over to help Sir Lochlan.

  I stifled a sob. "What will the king do to Sir Lochlan when he learns of his death?"

  The woman gave me a strange look. "He'll probably just replace the man he lost."

  "What?" I asked.

  "I'm sure this soldier was a good man, but the king will just put a new one in his place. When they go to serve the king, they knowingly sacrifice their lives for him.”

  The meaning behind her words began to dawn on me.

  I reached for the blanket and peeled it back to expose the charred and bloodied face of one of the guards that had helped escort us on our journey.

  I still felt sadness and horror, but there was also guilty relief. The building behind me creaked and groaned as more of the roof caved in to the flames.

  "Where was--" I paused and gritted my teeth as a few of my bones snapped painfully back in place. Slightly out of breath from the pain, I repeated, "Where was the prince taken?"

  "He was carried off a few moments ago to the healer's house a few blocks from here," she said.

  “This is his personal guard,” I said, gesturing to Sir Lochlan. “He should probably go to the same place.”

  She beckoned to a strong-looking man in the crowd who came forward willingly. “Take this man to Madam La Clair.”

  I nodded a thank you to the woman and then followed the man through the crowd and past several houses. When we reached a stone building with a small sign that swung in the wind, the man turned abruptly into an alleyway, and entered through a green door.

  Only seven beds in the clinic were taken so far. The prince was in one, Grix in another, and the last five were taken up by men and women that I’d never seen, all of them victims of the fire.

  A woman wearing an apron was bent over the prince’s face, a damp cloth pressed to a nasty burn that scarred his cheek.

  I let the burly man carry Lochlan to a bed while I checked on Prince Matthias. His eyes were closed, but his breathing was steady, if a little raspy sounding. I sighed in relief. The woman looked up through her long gray hair. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “When will he be awake?” I asked.

  She paused what she was doing briefly to study me. “And who is asking?”

  The man called over from Sir Lochlan’s bedside. “That’s the girl who saved him.”

  The woman nodded her head. “So you’re the fire bird,” she said as she went back to tending the prince.

  “When will he be awake?” I repeated.

  She dropped the dirty cloth in a bowl of reddish brown water and wrung it out again. “The damage of the smoke to his lungs was minor. He’ll probably have a raspy voice for a few days, but the only real injuries are the burns on his face and hand. And the bump on his forehead where it was smashed in.” She paused. “Tell me, how did that happen?”

  “I don’t know. He was like this when I found him lying on his back beside his bed.”

  “Hmm. Sounds like the fire might not have been an accident,” she suggested, raising an eyebrow as she went back to bathing the prince’s wound. “He should be up in an hour, and we can ask him if he remembers anything. I gave him some medicine to keep him under so that we can get him clean and comfortable without feeling much pain.”

  I looked away when a few coughs and a groan sounded in Sir Lochlan’s direction. His face was screwed up in pain.

  I left the woman tending to Matthias and approached Lochlan’s bed.

  Another woman had come over to take care of him, pushing him back down into a laying position softly, while setting a cloth and a bowl of steaming water on the table beside them. Sir Lochlan pushed her away, and swung his feet over the side of the bed. “I’ll be fine,” he growled. On unsteady feet, he limped over to the prince.

  I put a hand on his arm, but he jerked it away. “Don’t touch me,” he rasped. “You’re probably the one who set the fire anyway.”

  I dropped my hand to my side, hurt that he would think that. “I did not start that fire,” I said, trying to keep my voice from rising.

  “How can you be sure of that? You don’t even know how to control your power.”

  I blanched, knowing he was right. After all that had happened last night, I was an emotional mess.

  What if I was the cause of the fire?

  -Chapter Eleven-

  I stepped out of the hospital into a smoky, lantern-lit street, crowded with people like it was market day instead of after midnight. Some were headed back from the fire, returning to their homes, while others were headed toward it, eyes wide at the wreckage down the street. I followed the newcomers, back to the inn which had collapsed in a giant heap of burning rubble.

  Some people were crying, some stood stock-still, and some glared at the remaining debris. Drawn to the fire, I brushed past the onlookers and almost didn’t recognize Alyss with her hair pulled back and her face darkened with ashy soot.

  She’d noticed me before I noticed her. “Ivy!” she called. She dodged around people to get to me. “Have you seen Grix?”

  “He was in the infirmary,” I said, pointing back to the sign above the building.

  Her eyes widened. “Is he okay?”

  I bit my lip. Why didn’t I go check on him before I left? “I think so…You’d better go see for yourself.” I gestured to a burn on her arm with a grimace. “Get that seen to while you’re at it.”

  She nodded and took off. I watched her until she opened the door and slipped inside. That’s when I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Excuse me!”

  I turned, surprised to find a man who stood eye to eye with me, his mouth turned downward like a toad’s. Usually, men towered over me. “Yes?”

  He scrutinized me. “You are the fire bird? The one who saved the prince?”

  I nodded. “I am.”

  His toad frown became a smile. “I’d like to offer you and the prince and…whoever accompanies him…a place to stay.”

  I tried, and probably failed, to return his smile. “The prince and his personal guard might stay in the infirmary until we leave, but I’m sure the rest would be very grateful to you.”

  His smile faltered slightly. “A shame, since I would gladly show a member of the royal family my hospitality. But the offer still stands.”

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  He looked down the street, thick eyebrows raised. “Not far from here. Just around the corner.”

  “Would you show me?” I said, glad to have something to do.

  He puffed out his chest and led me away from the fire. “This way.”

  I followed him closely, and when we turned the corner, the street ahead was much clearer, but not as well-lit as the last. We came upon a row of tall, connected houses, gray and looming in the moonlight. The last on the row was the only one with a sign plastered to the front and glowing windows like cat eyes.

  The man walked up the steps and opened the door, inviting me in. The fireplace lit up a large common room with three plush sofas, some armchairs, and a long dining table. A woman and two young girls sat on one the sofas in their nightclothes, but all three had shoes on. They’d obviously come from the fire.

  The woman looked up when we entered. “You found her. And what about the prince?”

  The man gestured for me to continue in the hallway while he talked to�
��I assumed—his wife.

  The little girls watched me with big eyes until there was a wall separating us. There were four doors in the hallway, each of them open to empty bedrooms. Two of them were crowded with bunk beds, while both of the others held a larger bed, plenty of room for Alyss, Grix—if he was well enough—the remaining guards, and me. The quilts were old and the furniture worn, but it would do.

  A rickety staircase led up to the second floor, but before I could get up the first step, the man called from the other end of the hallway. “Upstairs is where we sleep, but all the downstairs rooms are open to you.”

  I looked back at him. “This is very kind of you. We’ll gladly accept your hospitality.”

  He smiled and let me brush past him on my way to the front door.

  “My family and I are headed up to bed, so make yourselves at home when you get back,” he called before I shut the door behind me.

  When I returned to the scene of the fire, it didn’t take long for me to round up all the guards, especially since after I’d found the first one, he helped track down all the others. Most had been mourning over their fallen comrade, and when they heard of the place to stay, they followed behind me with the dead body in tow. The innkeeper probably won’t like that.

  I was about to check in the infirmary for Alyss and Grix when they walked out. I waved them over, and they joined our ranks, faces grave when they saw the body. A couple guards departed from our group and headed into the hospital, no doubt to check on Prince Matthias and Sir Lochlan.

  Grix’s entire arm, which he held against his chest, was bandaged up and the ends of his hair had been singed in the fire.

  He noticed me studying him and lifted his eyebrows. “Where are we going?”

  I looked down at my feet as we followed the cobblestone road. “Another inn. We’ll probably be staying there more than one night so that everyone can recover.”

  He waited a while before he asked, “What happened after we separated?”

  I explained finding Sir Lochlan and the prince, adding that I’d found the prince already wounded and tucked halfway under the bed.