Ice Burns Read online

  She focused on calling the moisture in the air around her. The sun was reaching the mid-day point and the forest was sweating in the heat. That water was in the air and happy to come to her so she could put the vapors back together as they were meant to be. Chandra felt the warm droplets of water floating around her, around Matta, around the cottage, and into the forest. She called the water and gave it a task as Matta had said.

  Chandra opened her eyes and kept her connection to the water that was happy to help. Between the grouped droplets and those still trapped in the hot air, they were able to float and form a moving surface. On that airborn river flow floated the pitcher that Chandra filled from the well several times a day. It ran the river out of the cottage and refilled in the depths of the well before being brought back and set down beside Chandra and Matta.

  The droplets celebrated their achievement with a mini waterspout in the air between Matta and Chandra. Both women laughed at the antics and rainbow of color the vapors created.

  “Excellent! It's as though the water is dancing for us!” Matta said, clapping her hands.

  Chandra’s eyes locked on those of the blind woman who smiled and clapped at the water spout.

  “You can see!” Chandra accused. She was shocked to watch Matta’s eyes follow the water without that unfocused look Chandra had grown accustomed to from her.

  “Not in a normal sense, I can’t,” Matta told her with a smile and shrug. The waterspout gave one shudder and the droplets exploded in a million different directions as they were returned to their previous states. Matta looked at where the pitcher sat, reached over and poured them each a cup of water.

  “I don't understand. What do you mean?" Chandra couldn't fight the bitterness on her tongue as it formed the words. She felt as though she had been lied to by the first person she had chosen to trust.

  Matta lowered her head for a moment, though Chandra could not tell if she was embarrassed or thinking out the best response. After a few moments, she lifted her head and stared directly at Chandra.

  “I am blind,” she began and lifted one hand to ask Chandra to let her finish. “At least I am in the normal sense. My vision only picks up one thing."

  Matta paused and continued to watch Chandra as if waiting for her to solve the puzzle. The answer came into her mind, but Chandra shook her head at it in disbelief. It didn't seem possible that Matta could see...

  "Magic?" Chandra whispered.

  “Magic,” Matta agreed. She met Chandra's gaze with a soft smile that lifted her entire face up to her eyes. “I could see you long before you reached my cottage, Chandra.”

  Not for the first time since being in Matta’s presence, Chandra found she did not have a voice. For that matter, she didn’t have a response she could offer to what she had been told. She felt as though she had been doused with river water. She stared at Matta for several heartbeats, wondering how it was possible.

  “When you have regained your ability to speak, please let me know,” Matta said in a soft voice as she rose to her feet. She picked up the pitcher and carried it to the kitchen. The old woman went about her routine of cleaning up as Chandra watched.

  Distrust warred inside her. In many ways, Chandra had been waiting for something to go amiss and tell her what her situation really was. She felt there had to be some sort of motivation for Matta she hadn’t yet seen or surmised. She hadn't hoped that Matta would simply accept her because that seemed like something that didn't happen. Trust, though given, was watched carefully for the moment it would be proved misplaced. Instead, Chandra came to a different realization: she realized Matta was not unlike her. Here was an old woman, blind to anything but magic, alone and unable to do more than accept the "gift" she had been given.

  Matta’s movements were slow and measured. She moved as one who knew her surroundings as intimately as she knew herself, but her emotions marred her normally lithe actions. Chandra stood up and walked over to her. Without uttering a sound, she took the items necessary for tea out and set them on the table before turning to pull the pot down so she could go fill it from the well. When she had returned and put the pot on to boil, she pulled out a chair near where Matta was standing and let it rest against the side of Matta’s leg before sitting down opposite her.

  “Is that how you knew about my companion, then?” Frostwhite had returned and drawn the gaze of both women. Matta turned away from the bird and looked at Chandra as though she was afraid to speak.

  Chandra felt thoughts of betrayal melt away to bare nubs of what they once were at the vulnerable look in the older woman's eyes. Meeting the colorless glance to acknowledge eye contact was not the most comfortable feeling she had ever experienced. Matta’s opaque eyes were like looking into a cumulous cloud. Prior to today, Matta had ever really looked directly at her, and Chandra knew she was focusing exactly on her forest hewed eyes. She didn’t know what Matta was seeing, but she knew Matta was looking at her.

  “I saw you and the bird coming, though I didn't really know where either of you were at first,” Matta told her. She did not lower her gaze from Chandra’s face, though Chandra noticed that Matta twisted her hands around in her lap. “To start, you were blurs of color moving through the trees. The color would get brighter or darker as you moved, which made me wonder if you weren’t calling power as you went.”

  Chandra shook her head slowly before stating, “No. We were watching for followers, but I was not using any sort of magic.”

  “You were communicating with the ancient one?” Matta asked.

  “Yes. He would warn or direct me, in his way, on our journey.”

  “Ah, then you were using magic though you didn’t realize it. When you spoke to him without using your voice, you were using magic to send the message.” Matta smiled a tiny smile. “In time, when your connection has been further established, you won’t need to think about reaching him, it will just happen.”

  This too, was a revelation. She had assumed the ability to communicate was purely an ability of Frostwhite’s. She had never imagined she had control over their connection.

  Frostwhite roosted in the rafters. She knew he had been drawn by Chandra's fear and feelings of betrayal when their discussion had become intense. For him, it had felt like an alarm and he sought to stay close to Chandra.

  Chandra nodded but did not speak for several moments. Her mind sputtered and restarted several times as it processed the new information. It was as though a storm were brewing in her mind, tossing the familiar and making new shapes within her for her to study and comprehend.

  “May I ask you a question?” Chandra said after long mental debate.

  “You may,” Matta replied, the smile on her face gentle but encouraging.

  “What exactly do you see?”

  “Well, that would be hard to explain to someone who has never been blind,” Matta told her. “Fortunately for you, I was not always blind.”

  The kettle whistled over the fire, and Chandra rose to remove it. She poured the hot water into the teapot on the table before returning the kettle to rest beside the fire on the hearth. After she had poured them both a cup of tea, she sat down and waited for Matta to continue.

  “The only thing I see is magic. That does not mean I can see clearly that which is magical,” Matta told her. She sipped from her cup, watching Chandra with her milky gaze over the tea cup. She returned the cup to the table and smiled.

  “With people, it is different. I see the shape of them and swirls of different color like smoke trapped inside a giant glass bottle. Sometime the smoke flares if they are using their magic or sometimes their whole form seems to glow if it is strong magic.”

  “So, I’m a figure to you without any form of distinction?” Chandra asked.

  Matta paused and did not speak right away.

  “Most people are,” Matta said, raising the glass again to her mouth for a long draft. “Not you. If you hadn't spoken, I would not have thought you to be human at all, but an ancient one in a large bod
y.”

  Chandra blinked rapidly, her heart running wild in her chest. She heard the words, but didn't understand how what Matta was saying could be true. What made her different?

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, Chandra,” Matta said with a tiny shrug. “I only know that, up close, I can see you as clearly as if I were not blind. At first, I thought it was a trick or my mind going the way of the feeble. I realized that there was something different about you and knew that I couldn't turn away.”

  Chandra frowned. “Why did you pretend to be blind with me, then?”

  Matta took a sip of her tea, smiled, and said, “If a giant mythical creature came walking out of the forest and looked at you, would you wave your arms around and shout to get its attention, or would you maintain some form of caution until you knew what you were dealing with?”

  Chandra nodded. “Point taken.”

  They sat together, sipping the tea for a long time. Doubt and questions floated in the air with the steam from the cups.

  Frostwhite called softly from the rafters. In her mind, she had an image of the great bird flying down in front of an image of her and disappearing. She was left with the initial outline of the bird blazed but transparent across an image of her as if he weren’t there at all. Chandra shook her head. She closed her eyes for a moment and sent a hazy image of herself, as if walking through a dense twilight fog, followed by the hawk swooping down. As soon as Frostwhite swept across the image of herself, she became clear and almost glowed. Chandra heard the hawk rustle his feathers and did not need an image in her mind to understand his frustration toward her.

  “What did he say?” Matta’s soft voice snapped across the silence like a whip, startling her. Communicating with her friend made her forget she was not alone for a moment.

  “That he has nothing to do with your ability to see me so clearly,” she replied.

  Matta chuckled.

  “He has a glow all his own,” Matta told her. “It took me a while to figure out what he was, but I could see him and feel his strength. When he approached me in dream state, I knew the truth.”

  “Do you mean as a hawk or as an Ancient one?”

  “I knew he was an Ancient One,” Matta said after another sip of tea. “But I only realized he was a hawk after he called to you a few times and then landed on my work bench, about knocking it over with his weight.” She chuckled again. “The large rodents and small game he keeps leaving in the yard were a hint as well.”

  Chandra smiled, hearing a mix of exasperation and resignation in Matta’s voice. She had to understand the nature of Frostwhite despite his status as an Ancient One in her eyes. Of course, perhaps that one aspect is what made her accepting of his behavior?

  Chandra sipped from her tea before asking the question she had meant with her previous query. “Do you see a person, a smile, a face? Do you see something else but identify it as me?”

  Matta drank from her tea cup, holding the sip in her mouth for a few moments as if it would imbibe her tongue with the ability to give the best answer. “I can tell you that I do see your face and expressions,” she began. “But it is as if I see the heat of the magic within you instead of the normal tone and texture of a human.”

  She took another sip, holding it again, looking for further wisdom or perhaps courage, though the thought that Matta ever lacked in courage was not easily accepted.

  “You do have a different appearance though, aside from the fact that I can see so much of you,” Matta began again. “It is as if there is another shape over you, like a shadow that is tangible. I’m not sure what it means.”

  “A shadow? You mean you see my shadow on me instead of created by me in the light?” Chandra creased her brow in concentration.

  “No. Your form is perfectly clear. This is a different form that seems to cloak you.” Chandra was amazed that these little revelations were so difficult for someone who had seemed formed of pure metal since the moment she had met her. She faintly remembered something about a shadow that nagged at her consciousness and wondered if Matta wasn’t seeing more than she realized.

  “It is the form of a beast, of the like I have never seen, that wraps you in shadows,” she said. The steel was in her voice as if she were angry she had to say it. “I don’t know what it means, but it is a sort of reptile.”

  Chandra’s eyes went wide. The idea of the shadow fled her mind and something scarrier tugged at her, trying to make her remember. A sudden image of a beast shot through her mind like lightening. She was again agonized by the feeling of her body shifting and changing. The storm of memory overtook all other thoughts, tossing them heedlessly away. Sweat formed along her spine and fear clutched her throat like a hand, choking her.

  “What is it, Chandra?” Matta asked, reaching forward to grasp Chandra’s hand. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing,” Chandra said, not untruthfully. “It's so much to take in,” she finished in a soft voice.

  It wasn't a lie; it just wasn't the whole truth. Matta seemed to sense there was more to it but did not press. No doubt she believed it was at least partially true as she herself had not wanted to share the information.

  Both women sat in silence for a while. Matta had not withdrawn her hand and made no move to do so. The touch was not as uncomfortable as Chandra might have imagined. Matta’s hand was warm and felt strong on hers, steady. She sat still and waited for the moment to break and the world to dive in on them.

  Matta stood and stepped away from the table. She lifted the kettle from the hearth and stepped out of the cottage. Chandra thought about everything the woman had told her. It was a lot to try to understand, but it didn't mean that Matta wasn't her friend. There was a good chance that Chandra would have thought the old woman crazy if she had started their first conversation with talk about seeing colors in Chandra.

  She snorted at the idea and pictured Matta waving her arms around, talking about rainbows and mythical creatures. Chandra shook her head and rose to go help Matta refill the pot from the well. She knew the old woman was capable, but she also knew that helping would show her that Chandra was okay with what had been said. She walked to the doorway of the cottage and saw Matta lying on the ground beside the well with a man standing over her, with a sword and her neck.

  21

  “Old woman, I asked you a question!”

  His face turned red as he shouted down at Matta’s cowering form. The man was some sort of guard from the looks of the insignias on his vest. He wore no armor, but had chain mail covering his chest and formed into partial sleeves like gauntlets on his forearms. His mail and clothing were streaked with mud and foliage, showing he had been wandering through the forest for a while. He had scrapes on his on his whiskered face and his cheeks radiated with heat. There was some sort of crest sewn on his clothing, but Chandra did not recognize it. His clothing, though dirty, looked much better than hers had when the forest spit her out.

  “I told you, sir, I’m naught but blind auld woman,” Matta's voice sounded weak and heavy as though she had been running. Chandra's heart sped up until she took in the way Matta spoke; the rolling sounds bespoke of country life and were not the old woman's normal way of speaking. Matta was pretending to be harmless and feeble.

  “You are on his Lordship’s land. How did you come to be here?” the man swung his leather-clad arm back to strike Matta, and Chandra reacted.

  She reached forward one arm as if to grab the man’s, and he froze. The guard turned as he struggled to lower his arm, looking for the source of his sudden impotence. Seeing no one behind him, he tugged again at his arm, trying to free it. He turned his head and saw Chandra. She realized that he was barely older than she was under the uneven whiskers and sunburnt skin. Recognition dawned in his unfamiliar mud-colored eyes, and Chandra knew she was in trouble.

  “You! You're the murderess!” He tugged again at his arm, suddenly eyeing Chandra’s raised arm, her hand clenched as if grasping something, and und
erstood. “Mage, you'll burn for this! You murdered your guardian and use magic besides! Reward or not, it will be worth it to return you to face justice for your actions.”

  Guilt punched Chandra in the gut and she lost her connection for just long enough for the guard to break free. He turned his sword and moved toward her at a fast walk. It took Chandra a moment to break free of her emotions, though the guard seemed confident she would stand there and wait for him to capture her. His arrogance removed any remaining fear that sought to tether her.

  Chandra raised both hands as if to ward of the anticipated blow and the man jerked to a stop. She could see him struggling to move forward, but it was as if he were trying to walk while being tied to a rope that had reached its end.

  He snarled at her. There was no fear in his eyes at the fact that she had used magic to stop him, just anger that flickered over her through narrowed eyes and mouth crooked in a sneer. He was either incredibly sure of himself, or stupid. Chandra watched him press against the magic that had formed a barrier between them. His eyes darted around and the wheels in his brain spun to find a solution to the impediment.

  His brown eyes lifted to hers and glittered as he took a step backward. Before Chandra could react, he rushed Matta and raised her from her position on the ground by her silver hair. He shifted his sword so he was holding it like a scythe across Matta’s neck.

  “Give up, or I kill the hag,” the guard jutted his chin toward her.

  Chandra thought for a moment of protecting Matta by pretending she didn’t know her but could see that the guard didn't care. His eyes showed, despite his age, that he would take what he wanted no matter the destruction he caused. He would kill his hostage even if he would lose his one possible bargaining chip to get Chandra.

  Chandra lowered her arms and stepped forward. Her mind was frantically running through scenarios as she tried to figure out how to at least save Matta. The guard's white teeth showed between chapped lips and scraggy brown facial hair. Heat settled on Chandra and she noticed Matta glared at her from under the sword.