Plus, I kind of had started the fire.
No one would believe me that it was accidental. And certainly no one would believe me when I told them it was an intuitive reaction to a monster who breathed winter and blood.
Proceed directly to psych ward. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, and do not bother stopping at anger management classes.
“Help!” I yelled, darting back to the beach. And then I yelled the one word I tried never to say.
“Fire!”
Chapter Nine
Ethan
“Ethan,” Justine prodded after Justin had pricked his finger and I just stood there. Her mouth was pinched. We were in one of the clearings Dad was proudest of, with marble benches in a circle around a fire pit made with Sarsen stone, the same kind Stonehenge was built out of. “It’s your turn. The Cabal expects—”
I twirled the dagger by its handle, the blade glinting. “I know what the Cabal is, Justine,” I said. “And, trust me, I know what they expect.”
“Well, as the eldest son, you need to lead us.”
“I’m not the oldest,” I reminded them. They looked away. “Summer was the oldest.”
“And this is how we remember her,” Colt said.
“Not me,” I said sharply. The dagger in my hand was topped with a small gold crown motif set with a pale blue sapphire. “Not like this.”
But they stared at me as if I was betraying them. And I really couldn’t stop Colt. It was midnight; he’d had the blessing, the feasting, and now our own version of a blood oath. He was so pumped he was practically snarling. I jabbed at my thumb. There was no ritual to my movements, just frustrated duty. I wiped a drop of my blood on Colt’s brow, between his eyes. “Don’t be a hero,” I said flatly. “It’s not frickin’ worth it.”
Then I tossed the entire dagger into the flames. The antique slid into the embers, the gold already pockmarking. I felt better than I had in months. Justine squeaked.
“Dude,” Justin added. They still cared about their ritual daggers, about the symbolism. The Cabal.
I walked away.
I still had my basic weapons kit, a hunting knife in each boot, and my tranquilizer gun on my belt. The dagger I’d burned was ornamental. Dad gave it to me the night I killed the Harpy. I’d thrown it in the back of my closet, but the other parents thought it was such a great idea they had one made for each of their kids as well.
I moved quietly among the trees, scouting for tracks out of habit. There were prints of deer, wolf, moose, and the divots in the ground from the dragging gait of a troll. I saw coyote scat and heard the rustling of a rabbit in the undergrowth. The usual.
Until Kia’s voice cut through the familiar darkness. “Help!”
I was running before I fully realized what I was hearing.
“Fire!”
I found her at the edge of the lake, oblivious to the danger lurking under the waves. She was scooping water into a compost bucket, her eyes wild. I grabbed the full bucket from her, dumped it over the fire and then ran back, tossing it to her to refill. Some kind of bird screeched, circling above us. At least the fire would keep most of the creatures at bay before Kia discovered what really lurked in the woods. It would be too late for her then.
Grimly, I went back to the hungry fire. It wasn’t long before Tobias arrived with another bucket, and then Justine’s dad shot past us into the forest. Abby dragged a hose through the gate, spraying an arc of well water at the fire. Dad was there, too, of course, with two of the security guards, but they followed Justine’s dad. They’d been drinking brandy in the castle, feeling proud that we were in the woods following their tradition. Waiting for Colt to come back triumphant.
The fire was finally out, and for a long time the only sounds were the water dripping off the branches and our ragged, desperate breaths. Kia was soaked, covered in mud and wet ashes. When her teeth chattered, I shrugged out of my jacket and put it over her shoulders. She tried to say thank you, but she was still shivering too violently. Finally, Abby dropped the hose and turned to Kia. Her expression was stark. “Kia Alcott,” she asked sharply. “Did you do this?”
“No,” Kia chattered, glaring at her.
Abby ran a wet hand over her face. “I want to believe you, Kia.”
Kia lifted her chin, refusing to look away. “Believe what you want,” she snapped. “But look at me. I don’t even have any pockets in this stupid uniform, so where would I keep a lighter or matches? And hello? Why would I be trying to put it out?”
“She couldn’t have started it, Abby,” I agreed, standing close to her. Something in Kia’s expression made me feel as protective as if there’d been a Hydra looming over her. “She wasn’t even at the fire pit, and that’s where it must have started.”
Abby stared at Kia. “Is that true?”
She sighed wearily. “Does it matter?” She handed me back my jacket and walked away, delicate shivers rippling through her.
Abby said something under her breath and dragged the hose back to the house. I would have helped her, but the last time I’d tried, she’d accused me of treating her like an old lady. Kia had a smart mouth, but Abby’s temper was the stuff of legends. She could put fire-breathing manticores to shame.
I went back to the fire pit, where Dad was frowning at the scorched and muddy ground. “The fire didn’t start here,” he said in lieu of a greeting.
“What do you mean?” I looked around, water dropping from the nearby trees. “Where else would it have started? We had a bonfire going.”
“Jed thinks it started by the pine trees there.”
Colt’s father used to be a firefighter, so he’d know what he was talking about.
“Someone should ask Kia what she was doing out here,” Justine said flatly, coming up behind us.
“She was taking out the compost,” I answered, just as flatly.
“There are rumors about her,” Justine insisted as Justin joined us, dropping down onto one of the benches. “And the burns on her elbow.”
I slid her a warning glance. She should know better than to suggest something like that around my dad. “What?” she asked. “It’s true. And her own grandmother asked her if she did it. What does that tell you?”
“Justine,” I whispered. “Shut up.” When Dad glanced at me, I made sure my expression was neutral and uninterested. “I’m going to sit the vigil out here,” I said to change the subject. The adults would do their own thing in the secret trophy room while waiting for Colt to return. I’d rather be outside.
“Sara sent me with fudge,” Tobias interrupted, ambling out of the woods with a bag of Sara’s famous fudge in one hand and a book in the other.
“I’ll leave you kids alone,” Dad said quietly, thoughtfully, before walking away. That tone never failed to send a shiver up my spine. I remembered it from countless lessons on how to hunt, how to saw through spinal cords to claim a trophy for his wall.
Justine frowned at me. “Why are you defending her?”
I shook my head. “Leave it alone, Justine.” I had no intention of telling her that Kia occupied more and more of my thoughts. That I wished I were still cold and wet by the lake with her instead of here with anyone else. Admitting that to Justine would be like admitting to my dad that I was born from a dragon’s egg. Neither was capable of letting things be.
Tobias sat on a patch of dry ground and leaned against one of the benches to read his book. Justin started a new fire, poking it with a long stick but not saying much. Justine kept watching me, her cheeks red.
I wondered how Colt was doing, if he was close enough to even know about the forest fire or if he was already miles away. I tilted my head back and counted the stars, trying to find the constellations I’d read about. When I was twelve, Dad made me spend the night out here alone and I’d climbed a tree and counted stars to stay calm.
I was searching for Cassiopeia when the red streak of a flare gun shot up through the branches, exploding sparks of red over the moon.
<
br /> Colt.
We hurtled toward the flare, taking different routes. It was deep in the forest, north of the castle, east of the lake. I raced through withered ferns and climbed over huge boulders when they loomed in my path. I ran for a full ten minutes, until my lungs felt like sandpaper and all I could hear was my own labored breath in my ears.
The first evidence I found of Colt was a broken branch, then gouges through the undergrowth. I turned on my flashlight, swinging the light slowly over the ground. It glinted off the metal grommets on Colt’s boots as I grabbed for my cell phone. “Found him,” I barked at whoever had answered the castle’s security line. “He’s down. Get help!” I activated the GPS on my phone before pushing through the branches to Colt.
He lay still as a broken statue, draped backward over a fallen log, blood and frost staining the moss. Frost.
“Colt!” I searched for wounds. His legs dangled uselessly, but they didn’t look broken. I couldn’t tell the state of his ankle under his boots. The blood was dripping from a jagged tear in his side, the torn flesh reaching around to his spine. I saw the gleam of bone. His skin was white, frostbitten. Ice glittered in his wound.
When Summer’s few remains were found, they’d been covered in frost.
“What did this to you?” I asked urgently. He groaned, eyelids fluttering. “Colt, stay with me.” I ripped off the rest of his torn shirt and wadded it over the gash to stem the bleeding. His spear was on the ground beside him, the shaft splintered. The spearhead was matted with a chunk of oozing greenish flesh. “Is that goblin?” I asked. “There’s no way a goblin did this to you.” They could be vicious, but they traveled in packs. One goblin couldn’t have done Colt this much damage, and a whole group wouldn’t have left this much of him behind.
“Nearly had three, then something else came.” He finally looked at me, gaze fiery and strained. “Hurts.” Blood oozed from his split lip, which looked bruised with cold. “Don’t know what it was. I’m freezing.” He blinked rapidly. “Didn’t get my trophy,” he slurred through the pain. “Didn’t finish.”
“Screw the Trials,” I said, pressing harder on the material. It was already soaked with blood.
“Son of a bitch,” he whimpered.
“Sorry,” I said, but I didn’t ease off the pressure on his wound. I didn’t like the way he was lying, the way he was shivering. Ice melted slowly off his boots and glistened in his hair. “Colt, where did it go?”
He tried to turn his head, hissed out a curse instead. “West.” His teeth chattered. He was going into shock. “Don’t know what it was.” His eyes rolled back in his head, and then he passed out.
“Shit, shit!” I braced against the log to prop his weight up without letting go of the makeshift bandage. “Where the hell is everyone?” I hollered at Tobias, emerging from the pine trees.
“Damn,” he breathed before leaping to grab Colt. “He’s freezing.”
I nodded, not looking up from the blood oozing between my fingers.
“Is that ice?” Tobias asked. “Ethan,” he said when I didn’t answer.
Justine and Justin found us at the same time, and it was only a few more minutes before Colt’s parents roared toward us on an ATV with an emergency stretcher and enough medical supplies to outfit a military medic field tent. Colleen, Justine’s mom, was there, since she’d been a doctor in an emergency ward for nearly a decade. Colt’s dad was so pale I thought he might pass out, too. His eyes glistened as he got down on his knees. He tried to gather Colt into his arms.
“Don’t you touch that boy,” Colleen said, her tone sharp enough to draw blood. It was one of the few times Justine actually resembled her mother. “I need to assess him.”
Colt’s mom wrung her hands, looking queasy. “What can I do?”
“Get my kit,” Colleen ordered. She was tiny but extremely proficient and calm. She nodded at me. “Did you move him?”
“Only enough to get material to stop the bleeding.”
“Good boy.” She peeled it back to look at the wound. It started to bleed almost immediately. She replaced his torn shirt with clean gauze. “That’s going to need stitches.” Her frown dropped as she examined the wound and the odd tilt to his spine. Her expression went carefully blank. “He needs a hospital,” she said briskly. “Now.”
“Ethan’s dad is already waiting on the path with the van,” Justine said as she relayed the information to my dad through her cell phone.
“We need to get him on a backboard, but he needs to be moved as little as possible. Do you understand me?”
Tobias and I raced to grab the board from the ATV, then brought it back. Jed moved Colt so slowly and gingerly that sweat popped out on his forehead. Colt didn’t respond at all. His mother wept silently as Colleen strapped him into the stretcher, securing him tightly. “The rest of you stay here,” she said as they rumbled by in the ATV. “If anyone asks, he fell out of a tree.”
And then they were gone, and we were left with Colt’s broken spear, melted ice and blood on our clothes. Like hell I was going to wait around.
Whatever had attacked Colt tonight had also killed Summer.
And it was finally within reach.
For the first time, I had a trail to follow. It wouldn’t last long—the ice was already melting away. I had to focus to catch the faint glisten of water on the fallen pine needles, in the dirt, on the autumn bushes already losing their leaves. My favorite hunting knife was heavy and comforting in my hand, though I had to wipe Colt’s blood off on my pants so my grip wouldn’t slip. I walked steadily but softly, careful not to crack twigs underfoot or leave my scent on low-hanging branches.
I’d been tracking the vanishing frost for nearly twenty minutes, until I was just looking for water where there shouldn’t be any. It was time-consuming, delicate work when adrenaline made me want to tear through the woods. I forced myself to breathe deeply, to stay in the moment. By the time I reached the first clearing, there was a distinct chill to the air.
It was a different kind of cold, a freezing bite that tasted like salt and metal. It made me shiver deep in the marrow of my bones, as if something foul was nearby.
A shadow lurched between two trees on the other side of the meadow, and the moon cast it toward me, long and misshapen. Footsteps, ice cracking, the stench of rotting flesh.
I circled around, keeping to the edge of the woods for cover. I was desperate for a fight, but I wasn’t stupid. I caught a brief glimpse, an impression of long white scraggly hair and blackened lips. I still didn’t know what kind of monster it was, didn’t know how to kill it or what kind of secret weapons lurked inside.
I only knew that when I saw a ring of silver matted into its hair, I was so furious I actually snarled. The creature paused, tilted its head. And then it sprang back into motion faster than I would have thought possible. It swiped at me with long clawlike fingers, dark and ragged with frostbite. Its arctic breath formed frost and icicles on the branches.
And then the fickle moon disappeared behind the clouds, and I was left battling fleeting bits of winter and fury. I managed a hit, the tip of my dagger dragging through its thin, skeletal arm. Blood congealed on the blade, and frost crackled up to the hilt. I sacrificed the knife and whipped it so that it slid between ribs and stuck there. Icicles shattered in the trees, pelting into my bare hands and arms and leaving welts. The creature stumbled back, howling, but not before swinging a stiff-elbowed arm at me with such force that I flew through the air, crashed through a thick tangle of pine branches, and landed breathless and bleeding.
By the time I’d fought free of the welter of trees, I was covered in deep scratches and pine resin. The creature had already slipped away into the forest. There was no trail of ice this time, no frost or even water, just a silver ring in my fist, and a long white hair.
Summer’s silver ring.
She’d never had a chance to wear it, so I’d buried it next to the standing stone marking the place where she’d died. I hadn’t even known
it was missing.
Chapter Ten
Kia
I couldn’t have seen what I thought I saw.
And I couldn’t have felt what I felt.
It was that simple.
There was no silent frostbitten creature in the woods. Ice hadn’t encased me and hadn’t shattered off me like frozen daggers because I was made of fire. And Ethan hadn’t looked at me like I mattered. None of that was possible.
Which left me two explanations: I was hallucinating or I was crazy. Or maybe a third: hypothermia. But it didn’t feel right, either. I’d been cold, covered in water and soot, but not that cold. Not until after…after whatever it was that hadn’t really happened, because it was impossible. I was going to have to start calling it something else, something that didn’t make it feel so insanely complicated. Maybe the incident. That sounded official and not crazy. The Incident.
The Incident where I was almost frozen to death by an ice monster.
It had a certain ring to it, I supposed.
My hair was still damp, the ends stiff with cold. I was wrapped in blankets, perched on the couch near the woodstove in my room, and I was still shivering. No part of me tingled with warmth. There was no chance that I might accidentally set fire to anything, even a match, right now.
I stared out of the window into the dark woods and beach behind the garden wall. It was quiet, with the odd billow of smoke drifting under the motion-sensor security lights. I could smell it on me, over the faint traces of iron and salt and blood. “Stop it,” I told myself sternly when I started to shiver again.
I was perfectly safe in my castle tower with every single lamp switched on to its brightest setting. I refused to leave my post, even though I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. I saw Abby in the garden, and a few minutes later, I heard her footsteps on the stairs. She didn’t knock. “Kia, I want to talk to you.”
I didn’t turn around. “I figured.” Her reflection in the glass showed hair falling out of its braid and mud on her shirt and boots.
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