Frostblood (Frostblood Saga #1)

by Elly Blake

I looked up at him, taking in his stiff posture and tight jaw. “I’m not scared of your scars.” He took a shuddering breath and I held mine, waiting, wondering what he would do. Slowly, his hands went to the edges of his hood and pushed it back just far enough that I could see his deep blue eyes and ravaged cheek. My heart kicked into a gallop, its echo throbbing in my temples. He was trusting me. Choosing to let me see. “Is that enough?” he asked, his voice endearingly uncertain. I nodded and he exhaled a deep, relieved breath. “No part of you is frightening or unappealing to me.” I paused to let that sink in. “But I understand that’s as far as you are comfortable.” His hand gripped the quilt on my bed, the other hand squeezing the cloth that now dripped, forgotten, in his other hand. “You don’t know the effect your words have on me, Lady Firebrand. It took years to build up this ice. You will melt it and then I will be broken.” He stood abruptly and paced the room. I shook my head. “Just when I think I understand you, you say something to confuse me. First you seemed to detest me, then you treat me with kindness. Then you

tell me you wish me dead. Now you fear I will somehow break you. Which is it?” He paused. I stopped breathing, half regretting that I’d pressed him. I wasn’t sure I could handle being pushed away again. “I promised you a secret,” he finally said, his eyes glittering in the candlelight, “and I can’t think of any way to tell you plainer than this.” He took two strides toward me, fell to his knees, and turned my face up to his.

“Power matters,” the king agreed. “All other qualities are merely decoration.”

“Why?” I felt a muscle twitch in my neck. “Why would you do that?” “I told you. To show you that you can trust me. And that if you give me what I want, I’ll continue to reward you in return. There is no reason we can’t find ways to benefit each other.” I was off-balance, confused, distracted. I had let my guard down, sat and spoken with the king as if I were any willing guest and he my cordial host. Anger at myself and him erupted in my chest, needing an outlet. I whipped my hand down and sent a thin blaze of heat at the table. It sizzled for a second, and when it cooled, a dent was left behind. The crack ran down the center from the head of the table all the way to the end. In the thick silence that followed, I met his eyes, my chest heaving. He glared back with blazing darkness. If he expected me to sputter an apology,

he would be disappointed. I was glad I had cracked his table. I wanted to break it in half. He lifted a hand. I braced myself for a blow, but he placed it on the table and shot a thin line of ice into the crack, sealing it instantly. Then he grabbed my hand and placed it on the table so that my heat melted the surface. My skin tingled at the contact. I yanked away, and the king placed his own hand on the table again, refreezing the water. The surface was flat and perfect as if nothing had happened. “You see?” said the king. “Frost and fire can work together. Perhaps that’s a lesson.”

“What are you doing?” he hissed from behind me. “We come from the same place,” I answered while the tiger paced back and forth, its blue eyes blazing with fury. “That means I fight with you.”

Did you ever have to fight an innocent? I had asked Braka. Well, the captain was no innocent. He had the blood of countless people on his hands. And yet … to kill him in front of his wife and daughter. I didn’t want that. I’d been raised to value life, to preserve it. I couldn’t put the captain’s daughter through the pain of witnessing the death of her father.

Now was my chance. I could finish him off and be done. My mother’s killer would be dead and I would finally be free of him. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of two people leaning over the edge of the railing: the captain’s wife, her face pinched and strained, her hair covered in a kerchief, and their wide-eyed daughter, her long braid falling over her shoulder. I paused. His daughter would be just like me, plunged into grief, her only thoughts of vengeance. She would hate all Firebloods forever. There was no end to the cycle of revenge.

“I’m sure you’re right. But you’re too important to give up,” she said, squeezing my shoulder before letting her hand fall away. “What’s in your heart, Ruby? Is it only fire? Or is there something else?” My mouth opened and shut several times before I managed to speak. “What do you mean?” “I think you know. In the arena. Something helped you defeat your opponents. And that is the key to what we both want. Do you understand what I’m saying?” “No.” “You know more than you’re admitting. But perhaps this is a bad time.” She bent and straightened with the discarded mask dangling from her fingertips. “You don’t need to wear your mask with me, Ruby.” The words were teasing, but her eyes were serious. “I see right through it.” She laid the mask on the bed and left with a graceful swish of her perfumed skirts.

“You look even lovelier tonight, Ruby.” I stiffened at his familiar use of my name. He eased back in his chair. “I fulfilled my end of our bargain,” he said evenly. “I gave you the captain. Aren’t you grateful?” “I didn’t want to kill him. Not like that.” “‘Not like that,’” he imitated with a dismissive wave of his hand, his eyes sweeping my straight-backed figure. “You’re very finicky, Fireling. You wanted to kill him and now you have. That’s all that matters.”

“You’re hurting me,” I said, trying to twist away. “Your touch hurts me, too,” he replied, his voice as rough as his hand as he pulled me closer. “But it’s a pain I enjoy.” Arcus had once told me that my touch unsettled him, made him uncomfortable because it penetrated his defenses and made him feel things he didn’t want to feel. But this was different. The king’s touch hurt me and mine hurt him. If it gave him pleasure, it was a twisted one.

“Together, you and I will be like gods.” “I don’t want to be a god!” I twitched my chin from his fingers. “I want to be a healer like my mother.” It was a truth I hadn’t known until the words were spoken. I wished I had been given a healer’s touch, a healer’s gentle patience, instead of the rage of emotions that went with a power that killed and maimed. “You deny it, but killing gives you pleasure. It allows the darkness to seep in further, merging with you more with each death.”

I hated the king. Hated him to the depths of my spirit. And yet he’d woken something in me: a thirst for mindless power I couldn’t control.

“There is always light in darkness. It may only be a pinpoint, but it is there. Follow it and you will find your way free.”

“Then let me tell you something that might change your mind. Your opponent today, Kane. He was one of the soldiers who raided the abbey.” I spun back to her. “What?” She nodded. “I inquired about him for you, hoping I could discover his weaknesses, and I found out that he was assigned to Captain Drake when they went to Mount Una. I heard he was merciless. It was carnage, Ruby. And … the young man with scars was killed, too.” “Arcus?” I breathed. She nodded, her eyes full of sorrow. “A fierce Frostblood warrior that fought madly to protect the abbey, despite the impossible odds. He killed a dozen soldiers before archers brought him down with flaming arrows.” A haze blurred my vision. The burning arrows wouldn’t have been

enough to subdue his frost, but he would have been terrified of those flames. It would have knocked him off guard, weakened his focus. I could see it clearly in my mind, the moment when he had been overcome. I didn’t realize I had doubled over until I felt Marella pull me up into a tight hug. “I’m so sorry, Ruby,” she whispered into my hair. “I wasn’t going to tell you. But now you know why Kane must not leave that arena alive. He deserves this death.” I gasped and shuddered, feeling myself falling into a million pieces but helpless to stop it. “You can do this. Destroy Kane. Destroy the throne. Otherwise, there is no end to the darkness.”

I was too powerful already, bright as a piece of the sun. I was sure I could kill him with my fire alone. But I wanted the oblivion only the Minax could give me. “Come, darkness,” I whispered. “Use me to kill this murderer.”

The throne still pulled at me, and, despite myself, so did his soft words. “I’m already strong,” I said, “just in a different way.” I took a breath, remembering that I was a healer’s

daughter. “Perhaps there is a chance for you. He always wanted me to heal you.” His eyes narrowed. “Who?” I made a helpless gesture. “Arcus. He wanted me to break the curse and heal you. I don’t know how we can do it, but maybe we can find out.” He moved closer, slowly, like one would approach a wild dog. His voice shook, his eyes shining like polished onyx. “The way you say his name, Ruby … I felt you rip yourself from the darkness, from me, to protect my brother when you should have killed him.” Hurt flashed in his eyes, swift as lightning, leaving them darker than before. “Why didn’t you kill him?” I spread my palms. “I never wanted to kill anyone.” “You killed before. Why not him, Ruby?” I felt as if I was being backed into a trap. “He’s my friend.”

Rasmus took my chin between his finger and thumb in a bruising grip. “Why wouldn’t you kill him?” “I would never hurt Arcus,” I said, shoving him away with all my strength, any thought of healing gone. “I would die first!” There was a thick, pulsing silence before he spoke, his voice tempered steel. “If you refuse the throne, you refuse me. You’re not strong in the way I need you to be. And I detest weakness.” He flicked his hand at me, and I was covered in ice up to my waist. I willed my skin to grow hot, but the ice thickened...

“Ruby,” said Arcus, sitting up, bloody and panting with exhaustion. “Help me.” “No,” said Rasmus. “He must die so we can take his power, and together we’ll be unstoppable. Do it, Ruby. Show me your strength.” A rush of anticipation filled me. Hesitating for only a second, I raised my hand and let my fire explode at Arcus. He met it with frost. As the two columns merged, they sparked into white-and-blue fire that flowed toward the ceiling like a geyser. “Frostfire,” Rasmus breathed, laughing delightedly. “The fire that can burn through anything. It was said only a divine being could create it, but here you are, making the stuff of gods. I knew you were special.” He turned to gloat. “Even you’re no match for it, brother!”

I remembered how he’d kissed me and the things he’d said about wanting to protect me, not wanting to let me go. He’d shown time and again how much he cared, whether he’d meant to or not, and I had grown to see the depths of him, so different from my initial judgments. He felt things deeply and so did I. He had become vital to my existence. He had offered to die for me. And I would do the same for him. I knew deep in a place that was still purely me that I wouldn’t hurt him for anything in this world. The rush of feelings helped me gain control, to find a little of myself again. I found a sense of hope, something warm and bright that I’d held on to when things looked bleak. I wrapped

that feeling around me and I shifted position, inching toward Arcus so I could bend the frostfire toward Rasmus. The blue center moved in his direction. “What are you doing?” Rasmus asked, his eyes wide. “Melting your throne.” With every second, I felt my mind gaining control, shaking off the influence of the Minax. This was what I had come to do. Destroy the curse. “No!” Rasmus used his frost to knock me back. I hurled a blast of heat at him that sent him careening across the room, his head hitting the wall before he slumped to the floor. I turned back to the throne, letting my heat build. But the throne clawed at my heat, trying to pull it away from me, its very nature designed by Fors to weaken and destroy Firebloods. “You can do this, Ruby,” Arcus said. “Don’t hold anything back. Let go!” There was a moment of terrible doubt, when every past failure came back to me: my village, my mother,

my early attempts at harnessing my fire, how I’d let the Minax control me, the fact that it had persuaded me to kill Arcus just moments ago. But I was stronger than that. I hadn’t let it rule me. Even as I felt the shadow presence in my mind, I was in control. My gifts, w...

“I wish I could help, but as you said before, I’m not loved in these parts.” He smiled crookedly and touched my cheek. “You are, by some.” Something painfully joyful and light flared through me. I closed my eyes on an overflow of feeling and pushed my cheek into his palm, pressing his hand there with mine.

My eyes fell on the empty space where the throne had sat. The Minax had hovered there, triumphant, and said it would come back for me when I was weakest. When everyone I loved was gone. Hadn’t enough been taken? My mother, my home, months of my life. All that was left was Arcus. No matter how I had tried to close myself against him, he’d become a necessity to me. Losing him was too horrible to contemplate. “What’s that?” said Arcus, his fingers feathering over the tender skin

near my ear. “It looks like … a heart. A small black heart.” “It must be a burn.” But I knew that the Minax had marked me. Sickness twisted my stomach. I couldn’t think about that right now. All I wanted was to bask in comforting arms. Arcus sucked in a breath as he touched my cheek, drawing his fingers away quickly. “Ruby, you’re burning up. Even for a Fireblood, you’re wickedly hot. We need to get you into water.” I nodded and pushed up to stand. But the world tilted like a spinning top, and I was pitched from its surface and sent into the black sky.

“I will watch her for a while, Brother,” Arcus said heavily, closing the door behind him. “The coronation isn’t for a few hours yet.” His eyes widened as they settled on me. “She’s awake!” “You can talk directly to me now,” I pointed out. “Ruby,” he breathed, moving his broad-shouldered frame so carefully toward me that I wondered if he expected me to fly away like a startled bird. It both touched and amused me to think that after everything I’d survived and everything I’d done, he could still think of me as fragile. He slid his cold hand under my palm. I shivered, but it was the sensation of his touch, not the cold, that ran up my arm and brought goose bumps to my skin. “How do you feel?” he asked softly. I tried to pull my hand away, sure it must be uncomfortably hot in his. He tightened his grip.

“Like an overcooked rabbit,” I answered. His eyes crinkled with amusement, making him look closer to his own age again. “You’re the fire. Muffle your flames.” “Ah, but that requires self-control. And we both know—” “You have very little of that,” he completed with a crooked smile that did nothing to lower my temperature. Despite his light words, there were signs of tension in the line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders. “Are you all right?” I asked. “Brother Thistle has been hovering over me like a mother hen. If he persists, I’m going to lock him in the keep.” “He loves you.” “And I love him, too.” His face grew serious and I wondered if he wanted to say something more, but then his eyes flicked to Brother Gamut, who sat grinning happily from his perch on the brocade chair, and he seemed to think better of it.

“You are very kingly when you give commands,” I said, unable to keep my lips from twitching. “It makes me want to defy you, just for the sake of it.” His eyes danced. “And risk the charge of treason? Do you want to end up back in a cell, Lady Firebrand?” I mocked his stern look with one of my own. “That is nothing to jest about.” He grinned and put a hand to his chest. “Your eyes scorch me. I wish I were half as frightening as you when I get angry, my little inferno.” “You’re plenty frightening when you want to be.” His grin softened. “Not to you, I hope.” My pulse reacted to the tenderness in his eyes. “Only when I thought you were going to sacrifice yourself for

me. How could you?” I looked down, then back up, fighting shyness. “It would kill me never to see your handsome face again.” Suddenly, he was crushing me to him, his chest rising and falling on a deep breath, before he put me gently back against the pillows. The once-cold blue eyes simmered as they met mine. “Thank you, Lady Firebrand,” he said, and his voice sounded as if it were coated with rust. “I will take those words to bed with me every night to comfort me.” Images of his bare chest covered by a sheet brought heat to my cheeks. He planted a kiss on my forehead and started to rise. “Arcus,” I said, still keeping one of his hands captive. “Someone told me that affairs between fire and frost never end well.” I didn’t say more, but he seemed to understand the question I wanted to ask. Would our end be as tragic as that of the Frost King who married a Fireblood queen?

He paused, and my heart stuttered. But then he sat back on the bed next to me, looking more thoughtful than concerned. “I doubt our kind have been together often enough to answer that question. I’m convinced the throne had a hand in the death of the Fireblood queen. I don’t fear your heat and you don’t fear my frost. And besides …” As he leaned in, I slid closer and lifted my chin. He dipped his head and pressed a kiss so blistering in intensity to my lips that his cold burned hotter than fire. It didn’t hurt, but it did burn, and not in a way I minded. My blood woke up and my fever spiked and my mouth went bone-dry. Little shivers ran from my lips down to every part of my body. He was gentle but unrestr...

my hands on his cheeks and in his hair and on his beautiful scars that I needed him in ways I was no longer afraid to share with him. When we were both breathless, he broke away and smiled. I smiled back. And then he put his lips gently back to mine, his fingertips und...