Frost Burn

by K T Munson

  Cheers and roars rang out as every fire wielder in the southern region took to the bridge. Thea spread them out, putting them in twenty-foot sections that she thought they could handle. They wouldn’t make it across the entire length of the bridge at this rate, but if the Frost Nation’s side washed away, maybe that would wake them up to the issue, and they could possibly fix the rest of the bridge later. It was better than losing the entire thing. Taking boats across the River Gora, especially when it was flooded, was no picnic.

  Waves and water pelted the fire wielders and constantly threatened to wash them into the river. To a fire nation native, that cold water would be deadly in two minutes flat. Their hair and clothes were soaked as they worked, but because their cores were still ablaze, the water that clung to their skin stayed warm, and couldn’t turn them to stone. They worked more diligently then any oxen in the farmlands during plow season. Thea was working on her own twenty-foot section and despite—or perhaps because of—the danger they faced, she felt her heart swell with pride for her people.

  An hour passed, and Thea couldn’t believe the reports that came in—the reconstruction was actually going well. The consensus on the solution seemed to be to melt the already existing stone foundation completely, and then press the molten stone downward six inches and let the water cool it. It shortened the bridge, making it more susceptible to flooding, but thickened and strengthened the foundation. The bridge felt slightly wonky and out of sorts as different sections shrank a little, but it was a small, temporary price to pay to save this bridge.

  Thea was nearly finished with her section when a chill ran up her spine. It was the kind of chill only a warrior would recognize—it happened when something was wrong but you weren’t quite sure what. She looked around her immediate area, not sure exactly what she was searching for, but she was certain she would know it when she saw it.

  All the sudden, every single horse they’d ridden here decided to bolt. In the same instant, every single bird in the area took to the sky. Thea watched with wide eyes as the sky to the north was filled, nearly black, with the silhouettes of birds in flight. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she knew it couldn’t be good.

  Seconds later, the ground started trembling.

  Suddenly, the bridge shook so violently, Thea was thrown onto her back. At the same time, a wave came up over the side and crashed down on top of her. Thea was pitched over the edge, but somehow managed to hold on to the side with one hand. Dangling helplessly, she was shaken so hard by the vibrations she couldn’t even see straight. Screams and splashes came to her ears as her people were pitched into the water and swept away to places only the Sun God would know.

  Above the screams and rumbling that filled the entire world, one sound stood out, the cracking of stone. Thea’s eyes went wide hearing the bridge breaking apart, and felt it start to sway amidst the shaking of the land. Another wave came down on her, threatening to push her into the river.

  Though she’d never faced anything like this before—knew nothing about what she was supposed to do—she did know one thing. She wasn’t going to die like this.

  Clenching her teeth, she brought her dangling hand up, and gripped the side of the bridge with both hands. Though the shaking made it difficult, she held onto the edge so tightly she felt her own fingers break. Ignoring the pain, she began to pull herself up. Just as she got one leg up on to the bridge, another massive wave came down on her. Thea ducked down, clutching the edge with her hands and between her legs to keep from going over again. She let the next few waves crash over her, nearly drowning, since she could barely take in a breath between them. Her entire body rattled with the rest of the land, and the inside of her skull ached from its violence.

  She heard the loud cracking of the stone again. Looking up, she saw the bridge breaking apart before her eyes. Thea gasped and scrambled to her feet, running as fast as she could toward the mainland. A loud groan came from behind her. Chancing a peek back, she saw another massive wave lift a large section of the bridge. Thea fell to the ground as it broke apart, but regained her footing as the section was completely washed away. Bodies went down with it, the bodies of her people.

  The stone Thea stood on began to crack and fracture right under her feet. She turned to continue toward the mainland, when she heard a scream to her right. Lord Guyus was clinging onto the edge of what remained of the bridge. Thea ran to him, the cracks still expanding under her. She grabbed his arm, put it behind her neck, and gripped the back of his robes in a fist, pulling him up.

  “Come on!” she screamed when he took a moment to find his feet. His ankle was broken, she realized. Keeping hold of him, he hopped while she practically dragged him toward the mainland.

  Seconds before another wave came up, Thea jumped off the bridge, landing hard on her side, just as the rest of it was washed away. Only after that final explosion of sound and water did the trembling slowly start to cease.

  Lying on the ground, Thea waited patiently and impatiently at the same time for the shaking to stop. She took a quick inventory of her health. The worst of her injuries were her hands. They were a disaster. She had several broken fingers, her tendons were stretched, some probably torn, and the skin was covered with cuts and bruises.

  Before the quake had even fully ceased, Thea was on her feet searching frantically for survivors. Anyone she found, she piled up next to Guyus. Of two hundred and fifty beings, only thirty-three remained; of those, only six were in good enough shape to help her search for other survivors. Fitzu was among the survivors, though he had a nasty head injury. Orn was alive, though terribly injured as well. Waik was lost, as were seventeen members of Thea’s scout team, leaving only eight.

  “Come here,” Fitzu said, once all the survivors were found. He took Thea’s hands and fired up her bones with his magic, fixing and reshaping them properly, and healing her skin. He met her eyes a little playfully, but Thea could see the incredible pain he was in. “Can’t have you unable to shoot a bow.” Thea reached up to heal Fitzu’s forehead, but he jerked away. “Don’t. I’m fine. Save your magic to make us a shelter; you might be the only one who can at this point. We have to get out of the rain right now.”

  Thea nodded and jogged toward the nearest rocks formations. Firing up her magic, she melted the rock, reshaping it into a cave large enough, and deep enough, to fit everyone left, including the injured. The six people in decent shape helped move the wounded into the cave so that they could get out of the rain before their magical energy was depleted. Once everyone was inside, there was nothing to do but rest and wait for their magic to replenish, or for the rain to stop.

  Frost: Chapter Five

  A harsh wind snaked through the trees as Kirill’s elk picked its way across the landscape, approaching the great wall. Underneath were passageways for the Frost Nation to navigate during times of war. It was what kept the Frost Nation safe. No warmth passed through this manmade barrier of snow, ice, and magic.

  This particular post was an unmanned outpost where a key was required to gain entry. If anyone tried to rush The Wall, or break down the doors, a collapse would be triggered. The under passage would flood with ice and snow that would take days to dig out, buying the Frost Nation time to muster a response to any threat that might occur. It had been created during the Cold War, long before the Second War, the war to end all wars.

  Kirill dismounted the elk. “Don’t go far.”

  The elk shook its head and meandered off. Kirill watched it for a few moments before adjusting the pack over his shoulder and facing the structure. He pulled the necklace over his head that held the key. The key in hand was made of the same material at the doors. If anyone from the Fire Nation touched it, the key would turn to water. As he inserted it into the lock, the ice almost seemed to ripple, but it was just a trick of light. Magic sung to magic and the door opened, swinging in and away from him. He stepped through, his boots crunching on long forgotten snow, and the doors closed silently behind him, sealing him i
nside. The ice hummed with a soft blue glow, lighting his way.

  The Wall was a hundred feet thick and over five hundred feet tall, spanning from east to west along the entire northern coast of their nation. It was their border, which had existed for thousands of years to protect them from the heat. Aradel told him once that there had been a time when they’d feared the spring, a time before The Wall. It was difficult to imagine, as he walked beneath its mass.

  Since he was a child, he and Aradel would look out the highest part of the palace and wonder what it was like beyond The Wall. It was only as adults that they realized it wasn’t safe. Aradel had only been in the Outlands once, in the dead of winter, but even then the heat had affected her. Her power was too great, and it weakened her against the warmth. The stronger the magic user, the more susceptible to the opposite temperature source he or she was. Aradel was very powerful with her frost magic, thus very weak against heat. A hot day could kill her in an hour.

  Kirill was a very powerful magic user, but not of full blood, because his mother did not have any magical abilities. That meant Kirill could resist heat better. It was that combination of high heat resistance and powerful frost magic that made him invaluable to Queen Vesna.

  The door at the opposite end opened, and he stepped out into growing warmth. Wrapping himself in a cocoon of cold, Kirill moved toward the River Gora. It wasn’t long before he had to stop and take a drink of water to replenish his powers. Members of the Frost Nation relied upon water to create their ice and snow magic. Without it they would perish, which is why most didn’t venture beyond The Wall. The heat was too much.

  The day was warming considerably. It did feel as though spring had come early. Yet it was odd to have such a thing come so early. The more he thought about it, the more suspicious he grew that the Fire Nation was somehow mixed up in it. They were always as greedy as the fire, wanting to consume anything and everything around them.

  He hurried along through the tree line, getting closer to the merchant town of Secille. During the winter months, many of the merchants traveled beyond The Wall for ease of trade. It was the oldest town with ancient homes that had withstood the ages. During the summer months, they moved behind The Wall to New Secille. Most people stayed behind the safety of The Wall, but those ambitious types, or desperate types, occupied it for as many months as they could.

  When he reached the edge of the river, he found a spruce tree, one of the tallest and oldest. Kirill dropped his pack before taking hold of the first branch. Hand over hand he made his way up to the top. Taking the telescope off his belt, he opened it up with a quick snap of his wrist. When he held it up to his eye, his eyes widened.

  The bridge was half submersed in water. Violent waves were crashing around it, and some even erupted over the sides. He saw members of the Fire Nation lining the bridge using fire on it. Kirill couldn’t believe they were trying to destroy it. The fools would suffer just as much as the Frost Nation if they succeeded. He started to count them, but abandoned his tally when he saw a woman, who seemed to be in charge, applying her abilities as well. His gaze narrowed, and he leaned forward watching her closely. He realized that she wasn’t destroying it, she adding a layer of molten stone to the outside foundation.

  Before he could contemplate that further, a bird squawked, and flew up by his telescope. Kirill nearly lost his hold of the branch as he jerked away from it. Suddenly, all the birds took the sky, an inky black cloud of feathers, and Kirill stared in awe.

  Suddenly the tree he was in started to sway violently. Kirill gave a startled cry and wrapped both arms tightly around the branch. The telescope slipped from his fingers, but he hardly cared about its departure as he desperately held on with both his arms and legs. His stomach rose to his throat from the violence of the shaking, and everything was a blur.

  Surveying the area below, he saw the ground begin to crack. He cried out as the tree he was clinging to was ripped from his arms and he began to fall. He let his power fly and landed roughly in a tall mound of snow. Most of the snow gave way, and he half struck the ground. His body arched in response to the pain and he rolled onto his side.

  He barely had a moment before the great tree that he had used as a lookout, tore free from the ground. It groaned and cracked loudly. Kirill gasped and rolled away as it dropped down toward him. He barely had enough time to reinforce the shield of ice around him before the boughs smacked against him laying him flat into the ground. His shield took the brunt of the hit, but his aching back told him he hadn’t escaped unfazed. The pain distracted him and a smaller set of needles raked against his face, forming three scratches as he pushed his way free of the branches. Blood dripped down his cheek as he tried to walk despite the shaking.

  “By all the stars!” he cried as he stumbled toward the shore like a newborn lamb.

  Kirill heard cries rising from the village. His people were suffering, people who needed him, and yet the unruly ground continued to tremble. He glanced toward the bridge and discovered it had been lost to the river. He stumbled again, ending up on his knees with his back protesting every move.

  Finally, the trembling slowed and Kirill got to his feet. He looked to the sky and saw the birds circling, clearly unwilling to land. He was unsure if that was a good sign or not.

  When he looked down again, he saw the ground splitting right across his path. He stumbled back and nearly fell again as dirt gave away at the edges like water through a sieve. He created a short ice bridge over it and hurried across, and found the old village in chaos.

  People were screaming for help, many of them trapped below the rubble of a once-standing building. He saw a little girl clutching a raggedy doll and crying for her mother. Her dusty face was streaked with tears.

  He began ordering non-magic users toward The Wall, while ordering magic users to search for survivors in the collapsed building. Another gentler quake made many cry out, but something told Kirill that the worst was over. Reaching the rubble of the building, he pushed a rock out of the way by rising ice spikes to lift it, and helped two miraculously uninjured people to their feet.

  As they thanked him, Kirill saw the woman do a double take and her wide eyes rested on The Wall. “Look!” she cried, pointing.

  Kirill turned. A massive crack had formed in the ice; a crevasse of nothing was before him. He stared in horror as people in the square moved slowly toward The Wall. Terror clutched their features because they could already feel the cold escaping. That meant the heat was seeping into the Frost Nation!

  Sparing only a few glances, Kirill moved farther into the village to help others. He vowed that if the Fire Nation was behind this, he would make them pay dearly.

  Fire: Chapter Six

  The din of the rain falling outside of the cave hadn’t let up at all in two hours. Thea and Fitzu tended the wounded as best they could, but they lost three more people while waiting for their magic to replenish or the rain to stop. Fitzu was the only magic user among them with any healing ability, but it was very minimal, and some of the injuries were fatal.

  Thea sat on a rock in the farthest corner from the entrance of the cave with her elbows resting on her knees, and her head bowed low between her shoulders. She’d never had a brush with death like that—not like that. Men and weapons and magic she could deal with, and had dealt with, but how did you fight nature that was trying to kill you? It was too big, and there was no weapon or magic that could kill it or even harm it. She was beginning to see what Darha was so afraid of, and was beginning to feel afraid too. She couldn’t admit that here, though. She had to be strong for her men and the survivors right now. She could curl up with Coor later when they were alone and no one else would see her fall apart. Her husband was the only person to whom she ever showed her vulnerability. Even Darha had never seen Thea fall apart.

  Coor was always strong for Thea when she needed him to be, and Thea was strong for him when he was vulnerable, like the time Darha was eleven and became so deathly ill they didn’t know if
she would make it. Coor, seventeen at the time, trembled and cried in Thea’s arms for six days until Darha’s condition improved. Thea had held Coor together then, and Coor had held Thea together numerous times since.

  Thea sighed thinking about her husband. He was more than she ever deserved in this life. She’d been nothing but a wretch from the streets, orphaned and abandoned first by her father, and then her mother, by the time she was eight years old. Thea had scrounged and scratched out a living on the streets for two years before the King and Queen stumbled upon her and took her in as their own. Coor was twelve at the time; Darha was six and heir to the throne of the Fire Nation. Thea wondered for years what any of them wanted with her, but they treated her like family from the moment she arrived. Over time, she came to love them with a fierceness she didn’t think a person could be capable of.

  When she learned that Coor had similar strong feelings for her, her entire world clicked into place. Everything made sense, right down to her parents abandoning her. Thanks to Coor, she could forgive them. Thea knew without any doubt, that if it hadn’t been for that event, she would never have known Coor or Darha, and none of her wonderful life since then would have happened.

  “Thea!”

  Thea’s head came up and she stared wide-eyed toward the opening to the cave.

  “Thea!” It came again in the distance.

  Panting, Thea was on her feet running toward the opening. “Coor!” She screamed.

  “Thea!” He was closer.

  “Coor!”

  Before she even reached the entrance to the cave, Coor came whisking in. Seeing Thea, he threw his leather hood back and, with one step, closed the distance between them and gathered her up in his arms. He kissed her neck, and cheek, and head multiple times without putting an inch of distance between them. He was covered from head to toe in leather pants, gloves, and a parka. The rainwater remaining on the leather made Thea shiver, but she didn’t care.