Ice Burns Read online

  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 fla
me 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.

  Later, Chandra would remember standing on the table and the howling roar that burst from her. People came to stop her, and they fell like a child's bone game. Niaz and another man were behind the first through the door, and she reached out to them. Her fingers curved as though she called for their hands when instead she was asking them to burn. Fire poured from her eyes to her hands, and she called them out.

  The words tore across her tongue and her voice. The intent of the phrase was judgment though she could not have broken them into specifics. Blood dripped down her chin from any number of incisions, furthering the monstrous appearance their torture had created. She pointed with her flaming hand, and both men screamed as heat left them. Their bodies released their burning souls from their mouths, eyes, and nose. They ran while others arrived to gape in horror or swat at them to put out human infernos that had more fuel than needed.

  Chandra's body turned and jumped to the window as something landed on her back. It moved across her skin, stinging and biting as it went despite the battered fire mage scrabbling at it. She ran as though whatever it was would dislodge from where it clung to her body. It had other intentions.

  The unwanted passenger continued to move across her like a gargantuan spider until it wrapped a tendril of silk around her neck. It choked her as it fought to control her or feed on her. Chandra's body rejected the creature's intent and cauterized the affliction by setting her skin ablaze; her body burned and the creature with it. It shrieked as her body lit up in blue and orange that devoured even black soil at her feet. The mage stopped and let the flames roll across her skin like water. The creature shrieked for so long it seemed a part of the night's music.

  The flaming creature could not hold her and dropped to the ground. The magic in Chandra reached out to touch the transgressor with one finger where it writhed and tried to crawl away.

  It wasn't a spider, though very close in resemblance with a massive inky body. Two long tendrils like antennae or pincers protruded from its head. At the tip, they were pointed. The tortured remembered the agony of the invasion she had felt in her veins and knew the creature was the source.

  Chandra hissed and reached down to place her burnt palm on the top of the thing that crawled, intent on returning the favor. She wrapped flaming fingers around the body and dug her nails into the upper part of its shell-like covering as though it was wax. New sounds came from it that she recognized from having made them herself. The vibrations of its agony shook her arm. With flexed fingers, the creature tore apart, sparking and burning in the dewy grass of the night forest.

  Chandra stood. Ghosts of torture and the eyes of the men who had disregarded her existence other than the magic they stole. She raised her hands and eyes to the sky, howling her hatred into the night. Flames that continued to cover her like a second skin flared brighter. Under them, her mortal eyes teared, but blinking did not block her vision. Eyelids protected her eyes but did not stop her from seeing as though her skin had created a new protective membrane from the fire.

  Chandra's body continued to light the night, but she felt no pain. The hair on her body turned to ash, and her wounds cleansed before being closed with new skin. Scars from her abuse at the hands of captors smoothed away as though the magical fire melted and reformed her skin. Chandra held out her hand and reveled in the flame that caressed her flexing fingers. Her left hand that had not called the fire seemed to glow blue under the skin.

  The power was incredible; it warmed her blood and made Chandra feel stronger. It energized her as though she was made new. Her body shook with it and made her want to run, so she did. She raced through the forest like a glowing fallen star, hot and fast. Flaming Chandra turned back in the direction she had come, running on emotional intent. She let her fire guide her as though it could smell the evil that had been done and wanted to purge it.

  When she found the inn, the howling rumble came out of her throat as though she were a wolf at the door. The barbed movement of the strange sound was quelled by the fire that drove her. A couple of men came out and raced at her to die. It was as though Chandra had ignited the air, and the moment they breathed it in, it suffocated them.

  A few servants fled when they saw her, but they were not her concern. The guards who came out all thought they could take her and died for their arrogance. When no more guards came to die, Chandra walked forward and stroked the wood of the doorframe. It was as though her finger were a match on the dry wood of the building. Tiny flames, much like the one that had come away from the candle, now danced up the doorway.

  "Deakon!" Chandra roared in her screeching howl. "Deakon!" she screamed again as she stepped inside the burning inn. The flames did not touch her, and she knew they would never hurt her. They were hers.

  Inside the inn, the only sound was the puffing sound of the spreading flames. They crawled along the walls like a horde of insects. They ran along the floor, spreading out from her burning feet as she walked.

  A sudden sound broke the silence, and Chandra turned. She heard a shriek, much like the one she had given, and cocked her head. The screech came again, and a name entered her mind: Frostwhite. She walked toward a closed door, and before she could touch it, it exploded from the middle out, scattering debris to either side of her that was quickly eaten by the flame horde. She stepped through the doorframe, burning footprints a testament to her path.

  In the corner of the room was the cage that held Frostwhite. The magic on the bars glimmered like a heat wave. It was probably the only thing keeping the flames out. On the floor beneath the cage were two body-shaped ash piles. Chandra reached a fiery hand forward to the cage, and her friend shrieked again. She paused and looked at her flaming hand. She cocked her head to the side as she looked at the cage. Her rage continued to fire her blood, but part of her that remained separate from that dark energy pushed into her mind.

  The hawk was her friend.

  Frostwhite

  The name cooled her tongue. He was her friend and had reached out to her at a point when she was friendless and alone. She looked at the ashy remains on the floor and reached over to pick up the cage from the top, where her flame-licked fingers would be farthest, and she carried it from the house.

  Outside, she ran one finger gently down a single bar of the cage, melting it away as though it were a line being erased. After the bar had disappeared, the rest of it stopped glowing and crumbled to dust. The hawk shook his feathers and looked at her. He reached out to her mind. Through his eyes, she saw herself.

  Standing before Frostwhite was a towering flame in the shape of a woman. Instead of hair, flames flickered in the wind behind her head like a massive mane of gold, red and yellow. Her nudity only ascertained by shape in the flickering flames and shadows, but her form waved with a fire that rose and ebbed with the direction of the wind.

  Her face was frightening and feral. Her eyes were no longer hazel but orange-red like the last burst of light from a sunset. It was the look in them that brought Chandra back. That first glimpse showed hatred edged with glee for destruction. When Chandra saw this and felt her friend's fear, the flames died away. Without the hot energy, Chandra dropped to her knees. Despite the recession of the fires, the hunger for revenge still burned and she felt the sting.

  Chandra lifted her eyes. Frostwhite had not moved despite her fearful visage. He stood stalwart; watching. She reached out for him and saw a new hand covered in soft, pale skin. Her brow furrowed at the normal-looking hand as it stroked the feathe
rs of the great hawk. The bruises and scars from her treatment in the torture nowhere were gone. Her skin looked healthy and young. She met her friend's eyes and reached out to him; asking him to see her.

  She was rewarded with the clear, full view from hawk eyes. In front of her friend knelt a naked young woman with pale alabaster skin, unblemished by sun or injury. It was smooth as though newly birthed. Her nails were long and clean but red tipped and hands that were soft and unlabored. Her face was the same as she had always known, though pale as the rest of her, and unmarked by life. Even the scar crossing her chin that she had gotten from falling out of a tree was gone. Her face was where familiarity ended, however.

  Her hair had regrown and fell the length of her back, but instead of the golden brown it had always been, it was now a dark blood red. It looked like a fountain of spilled blood that had started to dry. Her eyes were the most striking change, however, in that they had not changed when her body had returned to flesh.

  Her eyes continued to burn and flicker with the orange glow of flames.

  She released the connection and nodded at her friend. Frostwhite called softly, and she stood. Even though she wanted to curl up and moan over it all, Chandra knew that she would need strength now. The change had happened because of terrible things but also because she let it burn her. It was time to put it all back together again and figure out what happened next.

  "I don't want to know where you found these clothes," Chandra sniffed at the garments with her face scrunched up at the stench. "I don't care. I'm glad not to be naked."

  Chandra said as she buttoned an oversized tunic over leather pants and a tight pair of thin boots. “I’ll need to find a new cloak and better shoes as soon as we can, though.”