Ice Burns (36 page)

The door opened, and in walked the tiny old man. He nodded at her and put down a tray of food. She wanted to cover herself, but she was also suddenly ravenous. Chandra’s mouth watered at the smell of the soup and fresh bread.

“Time to eat!” the old man told her with a smile. He moved the tiny table holding the tray closer to her and brought a stool from across the room to sit in front of her.

“Open up!” he lifted a spoonful of soup to her mouth, and Chandra eyed him with her mouth closed.

“Come now, you must eat,” he said, waving the spoon around a little and gesturing with his other hand.

“Where am I, and who are you?” Chandra asked through clenched teeth.

“I am Niaz,” he told her and returned the spoon to the bowl. He placed one hand on each knobby knee and looked at her. “I’m not to tell you where you are, though. Nope.”

“You must help me get away, Niaz,” Chandra told him.

“You are a prisoner,” he told her simply. “That young man said you’re a murderess. Said you’ve killed many men.”

Chandra lowered her eyes.

“I didn’t...” she began and stopped.

Didn’t what? Kill? She had killed. Didn’t do it on purpose? Hadn’t she decided in that room with Master Dreys that she would either kill or be killed? Chandra let out a heavy sigh.

“He’s right. I have killed men, and I cannot change that.”

Niaz nodded at her and said nothing.

“Don’t you want to know why?” Chandra asked him. Niaz shrugged and smiled at her.

“I’ve no right to judge. Who am I but some old man?” Niaz told her and shrugged again.

Chandra shook her head and stared at him. “I didn’t want to kill them. I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t control it.”

“Hmm,” was all Niaz said as he reached again for the spoon and brought some soup to her mouth. Chandra smelled the heavy stew thick with onion and garlic, and her mouth watered. She opened her lips, and Niaz fed her a spoonful.

“Seems you need control. Gotta figure out where the magic is hiding then?” Niaz told her as he fed her several more spoonfuls of stew. Chandra nodded, not wanting to speak if it meant she had to stop eating. “Never heard of magic that didn’t answer the caller. Can’t imagine power being called without meaning to.”

Chandra nodded again, swallowing another mouthful of stew.

“I’m not sure the magic was ever mine,” she told him, voicing the fear that had nagged her from the moment Frostwhite had entered her room, and she found herself able to find power that she had never known. Her mouth went to speak again and tell him of her friend but something stopped her. In her mind, she again heard Matta warning her against speaking the Ancient one’s name. Part of her brain whispered it wouldn’t matter since her friend was gone, but still she withheld.

“Gotta be yours. Who else’s it gonna be?” Niaz chuckled as though he had made a very clever joke. Chandra shrugged and ate more soup. “Focus though. Focus is what you need then. Maybe you need a reason?"

"Oh!" Niaz set the bowl down, slopping some over the side in his rush. "Brought you your friend,” Niaz said, shuffling to the door and bringing in a shining golden cage that held Frostwhite, and Chandra let out a heavy sigh of relief. “No touch, though. Cage won’t let you!”

“What do you mean?” Chandra’s eyes widened, and she wondered if Niaz wasn’t a bit off.

“The cage bites.” Niaz chuckled. “Wanted to make sure birdie didn’t get out.”

Chandra stared at the cage and saw it shimmering a little too brightly.

A sharp pain tore across her bare thigh, and Chandra screamed. She looked down to see Niaz at her leg with a long, jagged knife, smiling at her.

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“Angry? Sad? Afraid?” Niaz watched her expectantly.

She was confused but mostly it just hurt. She didn't know what this simple old man was doing now that she had finally found hope that she might not have to die yet.

"Well? Can't wait all day." Niaz shook his head at her, a bland smile on his old, simple face. He dug the knife in a little deeper, and Chandra clenched her hands, fighting the scream that filled her throat like a terrified bird. At that moment, with the fire beginning to heat her core, she reached out to Frostwhite's cage. The shock that came from it was painful, but she fought to keep her fingers on the bars despite Niaz's protests. She concentrated on the bars, allowing her anger to build and flow through her, wrapping the cage in fiery magic. Her power ate away at whatever was on the cage until it was smoldering. Her eyes gave her a quick split view with Frostwhite, and she saw tiny flames lick across the cage and fade before someone struck her.

Chandra felt her head turning lead weight, and Niaz's voice seemed to come from somewhere else. She turned her head and looked into those warm brown eyes and saw them flash red, then blue then turn pitch. Her head lolled back and forth, and she tried to tell him no, but her movements came too slowly as though her brain were no longer connected fully.

“What...” she began, that one word slurred and heavy in her mouth. “What...” she tried again.

“Focus,” she heard Niaz say in a whisper as he stood up and walked out of the room. The door closed behind him with a sound like a thunderclap from far away.

Chandra found that though her head was seemingly unattached, she was awake. Colors floated around the room as though she could see the breeze that came in through the window in vibrant blue and lavender. The colors wrapped around objects: tables, chairs, a lantern. As they touched things, they changed. The hues deepened or the color changed altogether. When the blue crossed the fire in the lantern, it flared to orange then smoky white. Chandra watched the white tendril lift and curve through the air as though it were alive. It rose up and slowly swayed from side to side as if it were looking back and forth to decide which way to go next. Stretching thin, it inch-wormed its way toward the ceiling far above where Chandra now noticed other white tendrils floating, curling and twisting about.

She heard a tiny whispering sound. Chandra saw ripples form in front of her mouth in the color-streamed air and realized the whispering was from her. She laughed again. This time, she could almost see the gaiety as a color of its own, silver and shining as it dissipated in the air the farther it went.

Her head fell back onto the chair she was bound to though she didn't feel her bindings anymore. She was so wrapped up in the colors spinning and swirling around her in the air she almost forgot where she was. As she turned her head to watch a brilliant orange swirl move past her, she was annoyed to find she couldn't turn to see it continue through the room. Chandra grunted and yanked to try to turn and see the color swirl, and the bindings sliced into the cut on the back of her wrist. She gasped, and red colors swirled around her.

She looked at the binding, and the danger of her situation came back to her in a rush. The beautiful colors of the room faded, replaced by bright red and bruised purples that covered her eyes like a mourning veil.

Death.

That one word swam through her mind, cutting and gouging painfully as it went. Emotion rushed through her. She saw the slow movement of the curved, handle-less blade as it floated across the room into Master Dreys' chest as though it were happening right then. The memory swelled like an infected sore in her mind. Pressure built as it expanded and spread to every part of her. It was as though she was being crushed. The swirling lights shifted with Chandra’s conscious mind and allowed no shadows in her brain. Her thoughts and emotions were so vivid and luminescent no part of her could hide.

Death.

The word struck her and stabbed with a white, hot blade. It echoed in her skull, heating her bones and burned through her eyes. The heat built inside her as though it would take her from the inside out, like the men. Men on fire. Men she had burned with her magic.

She closed her eyes on the colors, but the images were inside her. Chandra felt guilt grow into anger. She hadn't been given choices or allowed any form of freedom. Master Dreys had taken her freedom and tried to take more from her. He wanted her dead, and she stopped him. He turned her into what she had become. All she'd wanted was to be part of something; important to someone. She wanted to live. Instead, she killed and had to run. Then, when she was running, she was taken, and they hurt her.

The rage in Chandra became stronger than any fear. Her desire to be safe turned into hate and loathing. Her arm lifted free from the binding as though it had never been there. Chandra saw black colors swirl in the air as the magic welling up from that raised limb.

The colors shifted away, but liquid formed on her skin, like perspiration but black like ink. She tried to draw it back to her, to prevent death, but rage ruled her memory self, and there was no turning back. As the magic flowed away from her, she discovered the secret that had been beyond her for so long. Chandra wished she hadn't learned the hidden truth as her body tried to heave, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Blood,” she whispered. “The source is by blood.”

Chandra sobbed, but it wasn't in solitude. At some point, she discovered she was no longer alone in the room. The whistling came from so far away. It took her by surprise when warm hands touched her wrist, and the whistling became louder.

"Drug almost done. The mind will come back slowly." The voice was warm and familiar. Chandra recognized Niaz.

"Find focus, yes?"

Chandra found herself nodding, and Niaz chuckled at her.

“Too bad,” Niaz told her and pressed a cold cloth to her head.

Chandra frowned at him. She couldn't speak because her tongue was too large for her mouth. Niaz tsked at her and shook his head as the door opened behind him. A woman came in holding a box that she quickly placed on the table beside Niaz before almost running from the room. Chandra could hardly see her through her muddled eyes and didn't think enough to ask for help before the woman was gone.

The heat from the fire on her exposed skin was unbearable. Chandra panted, and her magic tore away from within her. She tried to turn away; to protect herself. Chandra knew the sensation. She had felt it before. In the forest with her hands tied to the gemstone, it had hurt, but it was so much worse this time. It was as though a worm had been set loose in her veins, feeding and pulling itself through at a wrenchingly slow and painful pace. The sensation was so cold and disturbing while her skin burned as though with fever. It was piercing as though she were being cut open from inside out.

Rivulets ran across her bare skin like rain, sometimes slow and tracing through the fine hairs, sometimes a river that ran across her with a hot fury that seemed never to end.

Chandra was thankful she couldn't connect to Frostwhite through the magical enclosure he was in. She couldn't imagine sharing the torment with her friend who didn't have that numb stupor to lessen the agony. His rage, though, was a hot breeze off the desert.

When the things on her hands moved or were drawn away by the unassuming little man, spasms racked her body. At that point, any use of magic would have been involuntary, but little would come after exposure to the creatures placed over her hands. Instead, she remembered lying on the table with a million points of acute torment on her body, wet and oozing while she tried to breathe in gasps. Someone came to clean the wounds and apply healing salve, but she hadn’t been awake for it. She had been overwhelmed to the point of passing out.

Chandra woke in a state of sharp unreality. Her muddled brain found distraction and her gaze slid away from the stark vaulted ceiling. There was a pinpoint of light over her shoulder from a single candle. She thought to look around, but her focus held only on the tiny flare. It flickered back and forth, a testament to an unfelt breeze coming from either door or window. The imperceptive hiss of the fire burning wick and melting wax was a siren song.

Chandra remembered a little and fought the drug in her system, denied the memories of pain as the beacon danced and waved. She knew she could reach it somehow. It whispered that she could. The flame's sparse heat reach out to her naked form and opened something inside of her.

Harsh sounds, guttural and cavernous slipped across her throat and tongue like barbs. Her tongue tasted blood as sounds came out: hisses, clicks, and rumbles. It meant nothing to Chandra but spoke volumes to the tiny pinpoint of fire.

The flame pulled away, breaking off from the wick. Riding a growing cascade of wax, it slid down the candle. This tiny insect of destruction moved across the plate at the bottom of the candlestick and seemed to float from the table to touch the tip of her middle finger. Chandra stared at it. She knew it waited, and that she didn't have long before it expended whatever fuel source remained. She called it to her. The spark of flame burned her finger and pushed the remaining fuzziness away. Her eyes widened, and she pulled against the bindings on the table. She focused on that flicker chewing the skin on her finger to keep lit. Within her, something welled, and she spoke one guttural, rumbling word.

Her hand lit up as though she had doused it with kerosene

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Chandra roared a howling scream that echoed with a sound that rose up with her like the grinding of heavy stone. The table rattled and the bindings burned away as the door swung open.