A Heart of Ice Page 5

  “I dare,” I snarl at him, clenching my hands into fists, my heart pounding. So this is him…the last prince. “If you doubt my words, haughty prince, then fight me!”

  He scoffs, glowering at me. “I do not fight my battles with women, certainly not girls.”

  I snap my teeth together and lunge, but my father grabs me and yanks me back. “Then do you refuse the duel, Prince Gabriel, and admit my daughter the superior fighter?”

  Gabriel’s eyes jump to my father with rage and disgust. “Never,” he howls and then glares back to me. “A duel then. In the wasteland.”

  “Empty our Den of your soldiers, and I will agree,” I hiss back at him, my whole body trembling in rage.

  He narrows his eyes on me, pale eyes in a pale face. “Very well. One man of your choosing. One of mine. They will be the only bystanders.”

  I smirk. “Do you not wish the world to see when I cut your throat, prince?”

  He narrows his eyes. “Mount at once.”

  “I do not take orders from you.” I am yowling now, baring my teeth. I can feel fur ripple on my flesh, eager, waiting.

  My father touches my shoulder once more. “It is agreed. You and your troops be gone from here. She will follow on horse.”

  Gabriel inclines his head and barks a few orders. Slowly, the streets begin to empty. A deadlock. If they attack us, they will lose, and they will lose not only their prince but most of their army as well. But there are civilians here. Many innocent would die in a battle. Neither side wishes to fight. All of this for a duel? All of this to take the life of she who stole his brother? I suppose I can understand…Still, he cannot possibly be much of a prince or future king to act as rashly as he has. Even if I am killed, I am convinced that he will not be capable enough of a king to continue this war beyond his reign.

  Slowly, the swarm of white and blue soldiers trickles out of our city, flanked by Inferno soldiers on all sides. There are few rules of war still upheld, but the yellow flag is one of them. Unless they attack us, we will not harm them. They will be escorted to the wastelands unharmed. I stand there, ramrod straight and locked in a battle of glares with Gabriel. He is lower than me at the base of the stairs, but sitting upright on his horse, he seems almost taller.

  He is like many Crystalice soldiers I have met, tall and lithe. His white hair is long, tied back at the nape of his neck. I make a note to be certain mine is pinned up in a bun and cannot prove to be a hand-hold. “Do you always stare at others?” he growls at me, drawing my attention back to his eyes.

  I glare but smirk. “Only when I am trying to decide where best to bury a knife.”

  There is no hint of amusement or anything but cold hatred on his face, in his eyes. He watches me, scowling. “Saucy wretch.”

  “You’re too kind,” I purr and laugh when he grinds his teeth. The man at his right turns and begins to follow the crowd of soldiers out of the city, and at long last, Gabriel breaks my gaze and follows after him.

  Beside me, my father releases a heavy sigh. “I will go with you,” he says.

  “No.” I look back at him. “You are needed here. Blaze will go with me.” I look out among the crowd and find him not far with his arms crossed and frowning at me.

  “Why are you signing me up for this?” he snips at me, mounting the stairs and bowing to my father and the king before looking at me. “I don’t want to go watch you get killed.”

  I glare at him. “You’re an ass.” He grins cheekily and I roll my eyes.

  “Now is not the time for games,” Jacob growls at us both, coming up behind my father out of the castle. He apparently had been inside watching the entire time. Jacob now lives in the castle with his family, his wife being one of the dancers in the castle, once one of my sisters, and his oldest daughter is the companion of the fire-borne prince.

  I look over at him and raise a brow. “Who is playing games? I am perfectly serious.”

  “Scarlet.” My father’s rumble silences us all, and I look up at his weathered and harsh face. He is looking down at me intently, watching me with those black eyes.

  I give a small smile and wink. “Do not fear, father. I’ve come too far to lose to such a spoilt brat. I’ll come home safe.”

  “You’d better,” Blaze mutters, calling to the man who is bringing out Chestnut. “I’ll kill you if you die after all the hard work I’ve put into you.”

  Hopping down the stairs, I take Chestnut’s reigns and pat his face. The horse snorts at me, as annoyed as I am about not being allowed the rest promised to us from our long journey. “Then I’ll just have to stay alive, won’t I?” I toss him a look and a smirk. He swears and mutters to himself. I call out, “Is someone bringing my suit!”

  “Here, here,” one of the dancers huffs, having run to get it. She is breathing a little hard and hands me the spare and last red-leather suit I own. She looks up at me and grins warmly. “Do well, La’centa.”

  I watch her for a moment, and then give a single nod. “Alright then. Let me change.” I hand the reigns to Blaze. “Jacob. Get your mount. You’re coming with me.”

  “I thought I was going,” Blaze barks.

  “I changed my mind,” I scoff, heading inside. “You’d break code and kill the prince if he killed me and forever shame the Inferno.”

  He rolls his shoulders. “Your point?”

  Jacob sighs and grumbles to himself, shouting for his horse while I disappear for a few moments into a spare room, among brooms and spices, to change out of my clothes and into my red-leather suit. The men are all barking at each other when I descend the stairs once more. I wonder if they would notice if I walk right past them and leave?

  I sigh and grab Chestnut’s reigns, throwing myself atop the massive creature. Once mounted, I begin pulling my hair back tight and fastening it out of my face. “Come then.” I sigh at them. “Mount already, and let’s go.”

  Jacob gives me a murderous look and then swears and mounts his black stallion, coming up beside me. When I begin heading for the gates, a slow sound begins to spread amongst the people. I pause, afraid that the Crystalice have gone against their word and are launching an attack. But it is not screams I hear. A slow chorus spreads, growing louder and louder, shouts and cheers and various other things I cannot—and most likely do not want—to hear. I pause, looking out at them. They are throwing up their hands, screaming. For what? For one more death? Prince or not, Gabriel’s death won’t change anything. Nothing will change. Nothing matters…

  Without smiling, I raise my fist to the air, and the sound intensifies for a moment before dying away again, and I move out of the city, Jacob at my side, following the mass of soldiers through our lands. On the main road at a steady run, we will reach the wastelands by dawn…maybe. I wish that I could be able to sleep on my mount and rest on the way, but I am far too awake to even consider sleeping. I can do nothing but stare straight ahead, watching the white and blue mass move through the burning trees towards the frozen hell they call home.

  Chapter Eight

  Gabriel

  Claque is silent the entire ride to the border, but his presence hangs as an oppressive weight behind me. He doesn’t need to ask the questions, for I know them already, and even if he did, I would not have an answer for him. What am I thinking? That woman back there is little more than a girl and clearly not capable of the sort of malice and cruelty that the rumors of Scar have displayed. Why is she doing this then? Protecting a brother? A lover? What sort of man allows a woman to fight his battles for him?

  All in all, that still doesn’t answer the question: what in the hell am I doing challenging her? Even if I had watched her slay soldiers with mine own eyes, to challenge a woman is…unheard of among my people. Perhaps it is remnants of the old matriarchal era, but women are meant to be sacred and protected. The punishment for murder is usually a few years in prison. The punishment for harming a woman can range from castration to being drawn and quartered. It is for that reason we have never been able to direct
ly fight with the Levosa, who boast a very large female population, all of whom are trained fighters. Thus, our alliance with the Flora.

  But again, I digress: what in the hell am I doing challenging a woman?

  I turn these thoughts over and over in my mind, but come to no clear conclusion. The only possible explanation I can concoct is that my actions are the effect of that saucy mouth of hers. Which proves me the fool, I suppose.

  Racing along the main road, our travel is limited to not even a day. The main road is very heavily guarded, surrounded in protection spells and soldiers and various other traps for the unwelcomed. Usually, an assault on the Den—a successful attempt has not yet been achieved—would take at least a month of traveling, taking shrouded, obscure routes.

  I wonder how the Inferno can even sleep. Even upon nightfall, the forest is completely alive and no less bright, only now, the bright, golden flames of the fire canopy also cast looming, dark shadows on the ground, making the very earth seem black and charred. The flames roar and flicker above us, dancing along the edges of the surprisingly brilliant green leaves. How do they sleep with all this noise? This light? I would surely go mad within days…

  “Up ahead.” Claque is the first to break the silence among us, riding beside and a bit behind me. Up ahead, the flaming trees grow scarcer and scarcer until there are none, and the ground gives way to the wasteland, a rocky, lifeless abyss that stretches about a mile wide between our world and theirs. Just beyond it, I can see a glimpse of plush white, and a breeze whispers promises of chill. Despite the sorcerers protecting the soldiers from flames, they cannot entirely protect us from the heat, and it is incredibly draining. I look forward to burying my hands in the sweet, cold froth of snow once more.

  “Carry on,” I call, bringing my horse around the army and to a stop, letting our troops trot past me and onward. Claque comes up by my side, his second leading the troops through the wastelands and into the cold. Looking back at the Inferno lands, I can see the ocean of fire-red soldiers waiting in the forests, bringing up the rear of my army with that woman in red and her male companion. Our eyes lock, she and I. Like staring into fire. I could have sworn her eyes were a brown back at the Den, but now they are red and seem to move with a life of their own, fire swirling in the depths of them, eager to devour me. And for just one moment, I can believe that she is the one they call Scar.

  Her mount approaches mine and stops several feet off, her companion up beside her. For half an hour, we sit on the backs of our steeds, mute and locked in some silent battle of glares until at last, she looks past me. I narrow my eyes before turning my head to see what she is looking at. My army. They stop not far from us, not yet descending into the frozen tundra. I expect an argument from her, but instead, she turns to the side and calls out, “Be gone!” My army has not left because of the Inferno escort which has not yet departed. They hesitate at her command, most of them looking towards myself and my army.

  She clutches her teeth and turns her horse full to face them. “Did you not hear me!” she screams at them, a powerful voice for such a little frame. “I said be gone or I will make my wars on you!” A ball of swirling flames appears in her hand, and she launches it towards her companions. The thing crashes into the trunk of a tree, and the great mammoth gives a loud groan as the veins of wood snap and strain, the tree twisting and collapsing onto its side. A few of the horses give a scream of alarm, snorting and stomping on the ground, and at long last, the Inferno begin to filter away from the wastelands. Behind me, the Ceruleans begin their march homeward once more.

  “She’s mad, this one,” Claque mutters beneath his breath to me. The red-haired demoness turns her gaze back to where we wait.

  I scoff. “It makes no difference.” Silence lingers longer still until the sounds of both armies are far from our ears. I pay little mind to the man beside her, just watching the one called Scar face me with scarce concealed rage. Except, I realize that her hatred has not found a target on me, but on Claque. “You know her?” I ask, glancing to him. He frowns, considering her for a moment, and then giving a single shake of his head. I sigh, looking back to her. “I do not make my war on women,” I say at long last, the reigns of my mount in my hands. “If you wish to return home, girl, I will not fault you.”

  “I will return home only when your severed head is in my hand,” she snarls, and the wrath in her voice is alarming. Even her companion seems unnerved by it, sitting calmly and collectedly beside her with his back straight and his head high, eyes slowly taking in everything around him while his charge looks straight at us, her gaze unswerving.

  I sigh. “Very well.” I dismount, handing Claque the reigns. She dismounts as well, moving with a fluid grace as if preparing for battle the moment her feet touch the ground. I do not launch outright into an assault, but instead take my time to meet her in the heart of the wasteland, my steps slow and measured, hers firm and hard. I cannot help but wonder at the leather she wears. It is unlike anything I have seen on an Inferno soldier before. Most of them, if given a choice, will wear armor that completely covers them. And it is most unseemly on a female form. She is covered all save her face, but not in armor. And there, I can see the black stitches loosely holding the pieces together. Ah. For Shifting…

  “Do you want to know how your brother died?” she asks, and my eyes flicker back to her face. My teeth snap together. She doesn’t know. She is only repeating what she has heard. She smirks at me. “I took him from the back of his horse in my tigress form.” She runs a finger from her throat around to her shoulder. “Right here is where I bit him.”

  My hand finds its way to the hilt of my sword without my reason to guide it, and I grip it tight. “Silence, wretch.”

  She looks back at me, fire in her eyes, but a deadly sort of calm through the rest of her body. “I was surprised,” she tells me. “His blood was so cold. So cold that it burned my tongue.”

  I draw. “Silence!” By the time I reach her, she has also drawn her bronze blade, and the two clash with an angry screech through the abysmal wastelands. Her face is right before mine, just beyond our swords. Those eyes of hers are red, and the irises shift and move like something molten stirring within them.

  “I slew him!” she screams at me, shoving me back and turning, evading my next blow and coming up at my side. For every one of my steps, she takes three, like the fire: always moving, turning, twisting. She never stays still, her body arching and swerving as if no bones hold her stiff. She moves like the fire, like a dancer, not like any Inferno I have ever fought before.

  First blood goes to her. She feigns a blow to my head, and instead sinks and plunges her blade across my side before I can withdraw from the burning touch of it. I hiss and snarl, but she gives me no time and is upon me again. It is then that our pace shifts. Every heart beat, there is another crash of metal to metal, another whine, another scream of the two swords hitting, sliding, scraping. Again and again. A furious dance between us. She puts me on the defensive, blow after blow forcing me back and back until I finally regain my foothold in battle and force her away.

  When I force her back, she throws out a hand, launching a blast of fire towards me. Magik drains us physically, and to use it in a fight is always a double-edged sword, not to mention that the Cerulean don’t burn well and water and ice turn to steam much too quickly to be much use against the Inferno. I dodge the attack, although only barely, and I launch at her, bringing up my other hand to throw sickles.

  She arches her back to avoid a slice across her face, and when I swerve back for her feet, she makes some unholy sound in the back of her throat, a yowl, and bends her back with impossible balance, pushing her feet up in the air and throwing her body away from me. She Shifts partially, just enough to evade my blow, landing nearby on one hand with her feet in the air, sword in the other hand; she pushes herself up again, landing on her feet. She crouches low, growling in her chest, a feral sound, and when her eyes meet mine, I can see that her pupils dwarf the rest of
her eyes, her irises nearly consumed.

  “You are a much better fighter than your brother was,” she tells me. Her voice is no longer female, but something else entirely, something warped and low and barely discernible as language. It gives her enough of an advantage to take the next few seconds for her own, forcing her body into a full Shift before I can start mine. The red leather bursts against her skin, and fur explodes across her body while her bones snap and her muscles pop. She screams. I throw myself into my Shift, tossing my sword aside and calling up the wolf inside of me. He snarls and howls in anguish, my body no longer my own, contorting to his form and his will. But before it is complete, her heavy form lands on me, and teeth sink into my shoulder. I howl in agony, but she has not been swift enough, and my Shift is complete. I throw her off of me, nearly twice her size when I stand to my full height.

  She catches herself easily and snarls, her lips curling away to reveal bloody teeth. I lunge with a roar; she dodges to the side before swatting at my head, hissing at me and dancing away from me before pouncing. We crash to the ground in a flurry of fur and blood. Her teeth sink into my haunches, and my back claws tear her stomach, throwing her off of me. She drops away, heaving a breath, trying to gather herself before my next attack. I swerve, my right side aching, and I throw myself at her with a snarl. She cannot evade me. Not like this. I freeze the ground beneath her to make her steps slick and uneasy.

  She turns to the side and jumps, for what, I cannot see. In the air, she Shifts once more before I can stop my attack to realize what she is doing. She grabs up her sword from the ground, lighting it afire, and thrusts it up at me, burying it in my shoulder. I howl, crashing my weight into her, the sword sticking out from my back. It is lodged tight, but not enough to save her. She is still holding on to the hilt, trying to finish me, her human form pinned beneath my wolf.