A Heart of Ice

by Phoenix Briar

  A Heart of Ice

  PHOENIX BRIAR

  Night and Day Trilogy: Book One

  A HEART OF ICE

  Printed by Createspace

  Charleston, SC

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2014 by Phoenix Briar

  Cover art © 2014 Phoenix

  Inked God font © Segments Designs

  ISBN 978-0-9905631-0-5

  Acknowledgments

  In all things, first and foremost, to God be the glory. This may not be a “Christian” book, but the struggles within this story are many that I have seen and experienced, and the lessons learned through them are ones that God has brought me through. This is His grace to me.

  This book would never have happened without my husband, TJ, to love and support me. All those times I said “I can’t” and “I’m not good enough” he told me “Yes you can. I’m right here with you.” He is my champion, my hero, and my beloved.

  I also couldn’t have done this without my incredible friends, particularly Sara, Derian, Jim, and Lizzy. You guys have always loved me, supported me, and beat my head in when I needed it. You are my treasure in this world and the next. I love you all.

  Lastly, thank you, momma, for always letting me be who I am and never being ashamed of me no matter how many houses I got kicked out of. You believed in me. That’s all I ever needed.

  For my daughter, Rhea.

  May you always chose love over hatred and forgiveness over revenge.

  A Heart of Ice

  Fire and Ice

  Some say the world will end in fire,

  Some say in ice.

  From what I’ve tasted of desire

  I hold with those who favor fire.

  But if I had to perish twice,

  I think I know enough of hate

  To say that for destruction ice

  Is also great

  And would suffice.

  -Robert Frost

  Prologue

  War would end if the dead could return.

  -Stanley Baldwin

  Chapter One

  Scarlet

  I stand before the pyre.

  Alone.

  And surrounded by people.

  The smoke gurgles from the top of the wooden alter like a fat, black snake slithering away from a fresh kill. It darkens my world with its decadence. The sky is a bleak soup of varying shades of gray, swirling around and collecting the ominous plume rising up. I have never seen anything in all these lands look so cold and unfeeling as that damn sky. It hovers there, soaking up what remains of the burning soldier, soaking up his soul, devouring it. Devouring me.

  Everything is burning all around us. I live in a land of fire, a land of smoke and cinder and ash and burning. Nothing that cannot survive fire lives here; even the trees burn. We live in a sea of fire and molten air, and never, never have I hated the fire. But looking at the pyre, engulfed in heady flames, for the first time, my eyes affix with hatred and loathing, and my stomach turns in utter rejection of the sight.

  We are behind the castle, behind that mighty and dark structure of hideous display. This is where the princes are burned. The kings and queens of old burned here in this place, in a pyre like the one that is now swallowing whole the last thing I had in this world.

  People are everywhere; everyone has come to witness this. Seas of red and brown and gold and orange and black are all around me. There is supposed to be singing—I cannot hear anything past the roaring hiss and growl of the fire, the creaking of the wood—but I know that at a burning, there should be soft, somber songs in the old language sung to Chelyah—our goddess, our goddess who let my brother die—prayers of protection for the lost soul. What does it matter—I think—he’s dead. What worse is there than death? I suppose…being the last one alive. I wonder if anyone will stop me if I jump into the fire with him?

  My father and I are closest to the flames. Around us are friends and family. The king and queen have come too; they are standing with the dancers who have come to offer blessings and prayers. Normally, I am among them, the dancers, but today, I am the one needing them. Today, I cannot dance. I do not have it in me. I do not know if I ever will again.

  I do not cry. I have forgotten how. My eyes are dry and my heart is sealed away in some vault to safeguard it from the nightmare before me. I stand stiff and still and watch, without moving my eyes, the way the dead smoke-snake swirls up from the wrapped body and into the sky, and I wonder if it carries my brother’s soul with it.

  Chelyah…keep him.

  How long have I been here? How long have I not? Has there ever been anything before this moment?

  I blink, and my eyes burn—ash and embers speckle my eyes, and they fill with tears that sting and ache. I breathe, and it is the first breath I feel in my lungs for what seems as though a very long time. With painful, agonizing clarity, I realize with the full embrace of my heart: I am still alive. My body reminds me that I am still alive. How cruel. The pain stirs me from my daze, and I blink and feel the dirty tears roll down my cheeks, traitorous. For the first time since they lit the fire, I turn my head, feeling as stiff and unyielding as an ancient, rusted crank being asked once more to move. I take inventory of my surroundings, look out with golden eyes at the clearing behind the palace.

  When did the sky turn black? There are no stars, no moon to be seen. Only a dark night remains, a rich shade of indigo. In this space, the roaring, flaming trees light up my world, each ember flickering up to the sky, reaching for something unseen before dimming out and falling to the hard ground, and I, standing here, had not noticed the bleak sky give way to an expanse of an abyssal hell. A shuddering breath slides down my upturned face, and my gaze falls from the black night to the ground where we Nephilim dwell.

  Almost no one is left. My father stands to my left, and he looks just as he had when they lit the fire. His hard, leather face is dark and gives away nothing. His lips are set in a scowl, deformed from the long scar running from the side of his nose to his chin, splitting his lip. His eyes are squinting dots, black like coal. I cannot even see them, so sunken into his face and shielded by his narrowed lids. His throat contracts, but it is the only motion to even indicate that he is still a moving, breathing thing. I cannot even see his chest fill and release with air. It is as though he is not even alive.

  “Night has settled in.” Jacob’s voice is painful to my ears.

  They grew up side by side, he and my brother. They played together. I overheard them many nights whispering, plotting some new venture sure to stir my father’s ire, bragging to each other of their recent conquests in pursuit of their betrothed Dai’lyn. And when they married, each took turns helping the other out of the many ditches they had dug for themselves. My niece was first to be born, and Jacob had been there to clap my brother’s back and make light of the tears that flowed freely that day.

  They are—were—forever inseparable. I will never forget the way Jacob held my brother when plague took his Dai’lyn and daughters. My brother screamed and raged and cursed the goddess. And Jacob, the only soul who could even reach my brother’s drowned ears, clutched him until it stopped, and then dragged him up and handed him a sword and shoved him out into the practice yard to fight until Sage couldn’t move and collapsed there in the dust.

  “La’centa?” I blink. Jacob’s face comes into focus again. Brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin. He could not be more plain. My red-headed brother used to tease him for having such a beautiful Dai’lyn. Cesera has yellow and red hair and
dark, dark eyes and golden skin; Jacob with his stale colors could not be more plain beside her. “What are you thinking?” he asks slowly, since I do not seem willing to answer him otherwise, I suppose.

  I blink again and look back to the pyre. There is no real fire now. Only blackened wood and glowing embers. “How plain you seem next to your Dai’lyn…” My voice, as though it has not been used in centuries, is hoarse and raspy from smoke and choked tears. My throat is swollen and strained. I swallow, but it does little to ease the ache. He doesn’t say anything for a short while, following my eyes to the gleaming embers. We just stand there—Jacob, father, and I—watching as if something might happen.

  Nothing does.

  “Sage teased me oft for such.” His name is a physical blow to my chest, and I suck in a breath and recoil. He sighs. Moving in front of me and past me, he bows to my father. “I will take the Lady Scarlet home now,” says he, but my father doesn’t even seem to see him. He just keeps staring at that damn pyre.

  Jacob rises with a heavy look, sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, and turns to me, taking my arm. “Come, La’centa… Cesera will make some hot tea for you.”

  “No.” I yank my arm away from him, and he lets me go. “I can’t…can’t leave him…”

  “La’centa…” He puts his hand on my back, something warm and strong. “He is gone. He is gone, sister. Come away now…please…” The ‘please’ is what catches me.

  He is probably wishing Cesera was still here. She took their children home…a while ago, I suppose. If Cesera were here, I would fight her and kick and scream and refuse to move. But Jacob’s face is more ash than brown, and his cheeks are jutting sharply out of his face. He looks pale and sick. And even though I do not want to leave…I cannot summon the will to torment my friend so as to make him drag me back.

  My head drops, and so with it, my will and my hope. “Very well…” He visibly relaxes, and he puts a cloak across my shoulders and leads me away from the pyre.

  That damn pyre.

  Chapter Two

  Scarlet

  There is a giddy energy in the house when Jacob pushes the old, wooden door in. His little girls are squealing and chasing each other through the living area, dodging furniture and a barking hound. There is something so offensive in the sound of their laughter, bright and happy. It slices through my empty despair worse than the sight of the furnace eating away at the remains of my brother. It is as though…nothing has changed. There is some comfort in my father’s mute grief and Jacob’s sallow face. Misery loves company, I suppose. But here, in this place, there is no trace of death or sorrow. These little girls do not understand the loss of something so dear. Far more interesting is their little game.

  Jacob moves inside and angles toward the sounds of a woman in the kitchen. Half way there, he pauses and realizes that I am still standing in the doorway. I have not yet taken a step into the house. “La’centa?” he asks, his voice softer than he has ever spoken to me. That soft coddling sparks a fire in me, and I snap my eyes to him and glare. I do not belong here. Here is a place of softness and light and laughter. Here is the warmth of a hearth-fire, and I feel like a violent fire storm ravaging the country side with merciless fury. I cannot step into the house.

  “Scarlet?” Cesera calls gently, coming around the corner with a dishcloth in her hands.

  I take a step back and away. No. Not yet. I am not ready yet. I turn and take off running, heading for the main road. It is late and everyone is probably in bed, mourning their dead or cherishing what is left of the ones who returned. I meet no one on the road, and Jacob’s call dies in the sound of the night. Everything hurts. I had gone from moving only in the barest motions to suddenly sprinting in my red and black gown. I trip over the hem and swear, hauling up my skirts and running harder, faster. I do not know where I am going. I just keep running. Out of the city. Past the fortress walls. I run and I run and I run.

  My legs begin to ache, and I pull at the strings behind me, loosening the dress before I take my Shift. My waiting lady is going to be angry that I destroyed this dress, but honestly, I do not think I ever want to see this damn thing again. The shoulders droop. The bust loosens. The hem drops even further. Running while Shifting is neither efficient nor intelligent. The Shift takes longer, and each strike on the ground sends a ripple of pain up my leg and into my body. But it feels good. Goddess, it hurts, but it feels so good. Muscles rip and bones pop, joints groaning in protest. I stumble, crash onto the ground, no longer capable of the coordination to run while my body adjusts. I lay on my side and finally roll to my hands and knees, panting. It shouldn’t have taken this long, but as I said before: running while Shifting is not smart.

  My scream stretches into an unholy sound, not quite animal or human, and as a tigress, my maw opens wide in vicious agony before snapping into place, the last of the puzzle to come together. Staggering, my mind slips from two legs to four, and I begin running again. I am eager for a hunt, a kill. But nothing seems to suffice. My mind is too hot and hazy to be the patient predator I need to be. So I run. I am no longer on the main road. I turned off that road a long, long time ago. It doesn’t matter. I can always find my way home. All roads lead to the Den. Instead, I jump over felled trees, dodge little rivers of lava, scatter slumbering phoenix and disturb the hunting foxes. They growl at me, but I do not linger long.

  At long last, my muscles are screaming and threatening to tear. My joints are stiff and swollen. My head feels heavy, and it bobs from side to side as I run, everything before me a hazy blur of blackness in a puddle of molten red. It all spins in my vision, and the next thing I know, I land with a heavy thud on my side. A rock embeds itself in my hip, and I give a small wiggle of protest, but that is all the effort I have for my discomfort. I lay there, panting, chest heaving and tongue lolling out of my mouth, tasting the dry earth beneath me. The flames are warm and offer some small comfort to my golden-red fur.

  Surely these are not the same flames that cannibalized my brother’s remains. Surely…they cannot be…

  I watch them. Like little serpents they are, winding and slithering up the sides of the trees. The tall towers do not mind. The fire for them is as natural as leaves and vines I have seen on other trees. The bark leaks a flammable oil that feeds the hungry fire, and the fire burns away the impurities and protects the trees. The one nearest me houses a firebird, and the mother glares at me before snuggling closer to her nest. Firebirds are not a part of my diet, but in a better state and in a more playful mind, I am prone to chasing them.

  She doesn’t like me lying here, but I don’t think that I can get up even if she does decide to act on her displeasure and threaten my eyes with her sharp talons. I watch her, and she watches me, and the fire sings a soft, cackling lullaby that rocks me softly. It sings me to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Scarlet

  “His name!” I scream, throwing Fahren back against the wall. He looks at me with great uncertainty, glancing from me to the rest of the room behind me. He’s not afraid. And why should he be? He knows that he is stronger than me. Without a bow and quiver of arrows, I’m not much threat against him. “Tell me his name, Fahren!” I have him by the collar of his shirt, and I yank him towards me and slam his back against the wall once more. The things hanging on the wall bang and clatter together, and the wooden wall makes an unhappy grunt of a sound. Fahren can easily push me aside. But he doesn’t. He lets me shake him and scream at him, and he knows that I know that he never would have been so accommodating of my outburst a month ago.

  I hate it. Everyone is afraid. The dancers coo and coddle me. The archers insist I rest. Father won’t leave his room; he hasn’t left since the burning. Hardly anyone will speak to me. Every day, all I hear is whispers in the quiet of the fire when the others think I cannot hear, soft warnings to their friends and to those passing by:

  “Poor dear…”

  “I wonder how she is…”

  “Don’t upset her…”

&nb
sp; “Give her time…”

  Fahren sighs uneasily. “Your father has given us all very specific instructions. We’re not supposed to disclose anything about your brother’s battle.” He gives a failing attempt at an apologetic smile. “La’centa…maybe you should—”

  “Rest?” I bark, letting go of him, practically shoving him away from me. I glare, my nostrils flaring with rage. “I’ve had enough rest. What I need is the name of the bastard who killed my brother!”

  “Claque.”

  We fall silent, Fahren and I, standing in the armory like two youths caught in a tryst. Blaze doesn’t even bother looking at us, standing no more than five feet away, and we had not even heard him come in. He fishes through the practice weapons, the wooden swords clunking on the sides of the barrel. Finally, he finds one suitable and draws it out. He takes it by the hilt and slides his gaze to us. He is missing one eye; the other is a vibrant orange. Sage always hated Blaze, said he was a sadistic sonofabitch, and looking at him and knowing his savage temperament, I cannot help but to agree with the assessment. Blaze continues quietly, “Claque is a general in the Crystalice army. He’s close to the royal family. He’s the one who cut your brother’s throat.” He looks back to the sword and flips it in his hand before taking a swipe at the air. Satisfied, he turns and, with thundering steps, prowls once more out of the armory and into the yard.

  For a moment, I just stand there, exactly where I had been moments before, allowing this knowledge to resonate in my mind. I am a military daughter. I was raised knowing the constructs of battle, of armies, of nations. I am familiar with every commander in every army in the neighboring countries, their battle plans and tactics, their remaining heirs, their available monetary contributions. I know the man he speaks of. My blood turns to ice. Claque. The Shadow Wolf.