Ice Burns (40 page)

Chandra opened her mouth to question, but Alphonse surmised her query.

"Almost a month. The princess disappeared first and then the queen. The King was found dead in a chamber locked from the inside." Alphonse shook his head. "I don't know what killed him, but it did a very thorough job of making sure he had no hope of surviving." Alphonse looked grim. "My desire is to put you on the throne, but I am not confident it would matter. Not only are you a stranger to these lands, but you are also the legitimate child to the two most feared and hated rulers these lands have ever seen. There would be protests from all sides over your legitimacy or if you are fit to rule after everything the populace has endured."

Chandra shuddered at the image of her sitting on a raised dais as a monarch. She felt as though it would only be a new form of incarceration and unreasonable expectations.

“As though that weren’t enough of a deterrent, I have a much direr trial for you to endure as the prophecy comes to an apex.” Alphonse watched her, awaiting her response.

Chandra wondered what she had done in a previous existence to justify this life. She wasn't sure how much more she could endure but decided there was no point in turning away if she hoped for things to get better. She swallowed. “What do you want me to do?”

Alphonse closed his eyes and exhaled before opening them. Relief radiated from him and his hands gentle as he reached out to grasp her shoulders. "Dear Princess, one of the beasts has awoken and can only be overcome by Winterbourne magic. Your magic."

“Mine? I don’t have much control over my magic.” She shook her head. Even though she had discovered the focus of her magic, she had no idea what it meant to her ability to wield it.

“Sometimes the best control comes at the worst times,” Alphonse told her gently, and Chandra almost laughed at the truth in that statement.

“The beast must be beaten back into its cavern and sealed in. Once that is done, we can return you to the throne and prove that it is your rightful place.” Alphonse nodded and smiled. The little man's face was lit up with expectation and hope.

She turned away from his beliefs and closed her eyes. She had found out the truth, but hadn't found what she thought she would. No matter what this man or Edvard or even Matta said, Chandra didn't belong here. There was nowhere she seemed to fit because everyone had plans for her even if she couldn't do what they wanted. She wasn't anything anyone expected: not an apprentice, not a mage, not a student, and certainly not a princess.

“No,” Chandra met his eyes with her blazing ones.

His eyes widened, and he gaped like startled cat. His mouth worked, but he did not speak for a moment.

“What do you mean?” he finally sputtered. “You cannot say no!”

“I already have,” she told him, raising her chin and looking down her nose at him. “I'm not a game piece you can send off to war or set to look pretty on some dais. I've been running for my life after committing a murder. Several actually.”

She paused to watch his mouth work again without sound and felt satisfaction at his bewilderment.

“I’ve crossed from the forest lands on the edge of the dessert where I was apprenticed to a cruel man who tried to make me a killer and died for it. I was chased by his unacknowledged son for vengeance and tortured for my useless death harbinger magic. You have no right to ask me to sacrifice myself for a land I know nothing about after telling me I'm the child of some cruel, twisted monsters who killed their people. My answer is no."

37

The heat made her face glow red and moved into a flush across her body. She ripped the makeshift gloves from her hands, and her clothing began to smolder. Inside her, the injustice at the world she lived in spun with memories and disappointment.

“I wish they had succeeded in killing me at that wretched inn. If they had, I wouldn’t have this mark or have killed them all." She thrust her right hand forward, flames licking along the edge, highlighting the blackened palm and mottled skin on top, now reaching her knuckles. "What has any of this gotten me but more misery and hardship?”

Alphonse made a choking sound and fell backward into a chair. He shook his head at her and looked up, his eyes bright and staring.

"Child, you must stop now," a rasping voice said from behind her, and Chandra turned. In the doorway, with Frostwhite on her shoulder, stood Matta. "Though he knew the urgency of the task he needs, it's the only thing he thought. Alphonse's manners seem to be lacking as much as his brother's. Even so, you must stop."

Chandra's lips curled back. Anger caressed her skin and licked at her borrowed clothing, leaving burned holes in their wake.

"Chandra, you cannot let your magic consume you this way. You are the Master, not the other way around," Matta took a step toward her. "If you are to be angry at anyone, it is me. I failed you as a baby just as I failed you as a teacher."

Chandra frowned but listened.

"I was a hired guard at the home of your mother. You were important to the queen and king as a continuation of their hold on the kingdom but for little reason else. Both of them knew of the prophecy."

Chandra cocked her head. She watched Matta and the dark part of her mind wondered if she would burn like the trees she loved. Something pressed her to listen despite her fiery urges.

"You were to be very powerful. The most powerful mage to have come along in many generations. So powerful that you would destroy their enemy without a fight and be a weapon of great magic to whoever controlled you. Without that prophecy, I doubt they would have bothered to have a child."

"But they did not know that there was another prophecy told to their worst enemy. This Lord who heard his prophecy had been building an army of mages to destroy the King and Queen. Suddenly, he was told there was a child who would destroy him if he did not possess another child of immense power. This other child would be nearest the equal to the princess and would be the only one who could stop her from killing him.

"The girl was born to a poor hunter on the lord's lands. He found the man and told him he would kill his entire family if he did not give him the child. The poor man relented but sought out the seer who had given the Lord the prophecy to find out what could be done, and they came up with a plan to switch the hunter’s child with that of the princess

“The hunter, though poor, was a strong mage who had hidden his powers to keep his family safe from the lord. He decided to protect his child by putting her in the possession of the two most powerful magi on the planet.”

“Why?” Chandra asked. “Why not kill the man or run?”

“We suspect some of his family members might have already been captives to the lord. It seemed the hunter believed keeping his daughter safe would be his last act,” Matta told her with a grim smile. The flames that were Chandra flickered in a nod.

In her mind, Chandra saw this man carrying his baby to some house and escaping with the other child. She thought he must have felt fear, anger for certain, but fear for the child.

“How do you know all this?” Chandra asked. The heat of the magic faded as she thought about the desperation of one man facing the power-hungry nature of another.

“I was there when the hunter switched the babes,” Matta told her with a smile. “I was not strong enough or fast enough to stop him from taking you away. I almost died trying. His magic was so strong though. I had never seen someone have such control.”

The quiet girl inside the dark force whispered that the hunter could have been her father. With him, she might have been safe.

“If he had been, you would not be here now. You would not have ended up in the hands of Master Dreys,” Matta nodded. “Yes, Master Dreys is the one who killed the hunter and his family. He is the lord who drove the hunter to steal you from your mother’s house and destroy me. He is the lord whom you killed and completed the first part of your prophecy.”

Chandra felt suddenly cold. The fury left her like a flame extinguished by a gust of winter air. Her skin turned to normal flesh that pimpled in the icy breeze that found the holes in her clothing. Matta stepped forward and put one hand on her shoulder. Chandra felt ice trickle down her cheeks.

“You knew who I was?” she whispered.

“Not right away, but by the time you began your journey, I was certain, yes,” the old dryad told her. Matta’s eyes glowed green and luminescent. “My forest was close to where you were taken, and I was there waiting for you. We hoped that when you found your way free, we could help you.”

Chandra shut her eyes and leaned into Matta’s rough robes. The dryad wrapped her arms around Chandra and waited while she cried.

She could hardly breathe through the sobs as she accepted Matta's comfort; She didn't care what Chandra had done. Matta understood what had happened and accepted more than Chandra accepted herself. Tears flowed like torrents through the broken dam around her spirit. The dark shroud that had settled on her shoulders from the first moment she had seen Master Dreys do something cruel to the point when she killed at the inn, lifted a little. She was still afraid, and the guilt was like hot water over frostbite, but knowing that someone understood made Chandra think she might be able to overcome it.

Chandra stepped back from Matta. “Thank you.”

“We’ve some ways to go before you should think of thanking me, child,” Matta said. “Alphonse was right in that we’ve a bigger issue to address.”

“Blessed seer gods, could you cover the girl up before you get into that? I’m too old to see so much young flesh!” Alphonse said, his gnarled hand to the side of his face with his body twisted away from where Chandra and Matta stood. Matta chuckled.

“Don’t get your robes twisted, Alphonse,” she said as she wandered over to a closet to pull out some things for Chandra to wear.

“How are you here, Matta?” Chandra asked when the woman handed her a woolen doublet and leather breaches to put on.

“Well, the loss of a Winterbourne on the throne has caused a thaw that has reached the edge of the frost lands, opening a path from my forest. ‘Tis a bad sign.” Matta’s opaque eyes glistened. “If dryads can cross into these lands, other things can come into this side or away from this side. The balance is shifting quickly.”

“What other things? The beast Alphonse mentioned?” Chandra was digging through the closet Matta had pulled the clothing out in an attempt to find boots near her size. Giving up, she stuffed rags in a larger pair and buckled them on.

“The dark beast is one, yes, and probably the most dangerous. There are others like the ones that ran through the city, which will awaken.”

Chandra looked at the dark eyes and grim expression of the old dryad. Turning, she saw a similar expression on Alphonse’s face. She knew when she was beat.

“I make no promises... Honestly, I can almost guarantee failure, but what is it you want me to do?” she looked at Alphonse as she said it and saw him nod.

“You must beat it back with the Winterbourne magic,” he said simply.

“Okay...” Chandra said, expecting a bit more out of the man who instead took her reply as assent. He bustled about the room, talking loudly to himself.

“...need armor, of course. Provisions! I will have to gather up something, though the journey won’t be long...” his voice drifted away as he immersed himself in some shelves, knocking boxes and wooden tubes filled with parchment around.

“Control, child. You must control your magic. You must not be afraid to use it. It is yours to call. You must always remember that,” Matta told her with a stern look. “You cannot doubt yourself, and you must do this alone.”

Chandra opened her mouth to protest, shut it at the woman’s glare, and then opened it again. “How in the world am I supposed to do this by myself? I don’t have the foggiest idea what I’m going to do!”

“The--” she paused and looked in the direction of Alphonse “--hawk cannot go underground. I cannot travel in the caverns, they have not been breached yet, and Alphonse is seer only with no other magic to offer. There is no one else.” Matta almost sounded apologetic. “You are not only the only option, but the best we have. Your ice magic marks you as a member of the royal line, and it is the only magic that can restore the balance in this land. I cannot make you, but I will say that you can do more than you tell yourself you can.”

Chandra looked at Matta, her eyes studying and flicking between her and the hawk. She was almost afraid to touch him because she thought he would reject her touch again. Her arm slowly raised and he didn't hesitate. Frostwhite quickly jumped to her shoulder and plucked at her hair. Chandra reached up her left hand and stroked his feathers, closing her eyes as she did so.

Within, she reached out to her friend and felt his warmth. He showed her clear skies, and she felt warm winds ruffling along his feathers as he soared. He was showing her one of the singular joys of his existence. Chandra took it as encouragement and an attempt at comfort.

“Here’s water and a bag with a few things you might need. We’ll gather up a cloak and some heavier items for the trip. Do you know how to use a sword?” Alphonse asked, his eyes expectant.

Chandra closed her eyes and fought the urge to ask, do I look like I know how to use a sword? Instead, she shook her head to answer. Alphonse sighed, and Chandra opened her eyes to see him shrug.