Ice Burns
Ice Burns
By Charity Ayres
This novel is dedicated to so many people who will never realize that they impacted me and helped me become who I am. Some people who I hope know have impacted me, however, include:
My parents: Mommy, you are the best mother I could have ever wished for; Daddy, I miss you more every day and hope you never doubted how much you meant and mean to me.
My husband: Jason, thank you for understanding when I have work to do, bringing me coffee, and telling me you’re proud of me. I’m proud of you, too.
My babygirl: I love you, Alexandria. Chase your dreams until you catch them.
Taylor: Even when you don’t think you are, you’re still my daughter.
My Writer’s Group Friends (IRL): Sarah, Fiona, and Andie - thank you for drinking coffee and spilling your guts so I wouldn’t feel so rotten when I had to spill mine or risk exploding.
My online writer friends: Your support has been phenomenal. I never realized how great it could be to be part of a community of people who support each other.
My students: For wanting to know what it is like to be a writer, letting me be my goofy self, and laughing at (most of) my bad jokes.
Other Works by Charity Ayres Include:
Prologue
Prologue
In a time when no one remembered, magic found its way into the world of humans. To say humanity was not ready for such an evolution was an understatement. Men were still animals with the basest of instincts. Magic changed some it touched but could not control the warlike spirit of others. In humankind, the magic took root for good or bad.Those poisoned by darkness tore and snapped at the good and kind, but eventually the just of the light triumphed, and their shadowed brethren were forgotten.
Time continued for mortals; enough for them to forget that there ever was an evil that crawled across the lands other than the unholy actions of humankind. Peace held as much as was possible among the faulted two-legged race. It was not to last.
It could have been foretold that the dark children would surface again from the shadows in which they were exiled. Perhaps it was a desire to rule the land of magic they had never forgotten. Perhaps they had decided the darkness was too small to hold them any longer. There was never the opportunity to ask nor the ability as no one had learned the language of the shadowed ones.
When they came forth in a wave, a war arose and crashed onto the world of humans. Though the children of light were not as powerful as their dark siblings, the war raged for longer than most human minds are meant to fathom. Light and darkness continued to meet until eventually there was no more of either. Their magic was released once again into the world of humanity. Shadows were hidden in the heart of men while light lived in the beasts of the world, and none knew when darkness once again would rise.
With the light scattered to various shells of animals, who would stand and face the horde of pitch power that would taste the air of the mortal world again?
1
Chandra woke with the feeling that hands were dragging nails through her lungs. She sat up and coughed, but the sensation persisted. It poked sharply at her eyes, filming them and causing her to tear. She tried to see, but the room was a dusty haze as though the kitchen workers had doused a fire with water. This smoke was less clean and smelled like burned food and wet wood.
She crawled from her bed and fell to the floor, continuing to choke but finding some relief near the rough planks. Chandra lifted her head to below the fog that filled her room like low storm clouds. Her auburn hair clung to her face, and she raised one hand to brush it away, but the full, sleep-matted contents barely moved. Her hair stuck to her forehead and the back of her head where it had come undone from her long braid. Her hazel eyes wet with tears, drawing a line of moisture down her face as she struggled to recognize her surroundings. Chandra slid across the floor on her belly without direction. She tried to remember where she had landed and where the door was. Chandra felt the rough surface of the floor on her hands warm. A moment later, she found a low-lying crack on the wall and knew she had found the door. She ran shaking, slender fingers along the warm wood above the crack, tracing the etched wood to find the rising edge.
Her one hand placed flat on the door told her she might not like what waited on the other side. It felt warm, as though it were a spot on the dinner table where a pot of stew had rested. Chandra pulled her hands into her sleeve and tucked her chin into her nightshirt until it pressed against her nose and mouth. A hesitant touch found that the doorknob was not as hot as she expected, but she still paused. Her mind conjured pictures of flames licking the floor and walls on the other side of the door, waiting to be let into her room so it could consume it and her.
A shallow breath that ended in a cough made up her mind, and she turned the handle. The latch clicked, and the air pushed fiery breath against the new opening. The air huffed past for a moment, and Chandra dropped to the floor and did more of a slither than a crawl to exit her bedroom.
The hall was chaotic with sounds of cries, movement, and a dull roaring that filled her ears with pressure and pounding. She fought the urge to stop and raise her hands to cover her ears and continued to push forward. Boots rushed past her, and she felt the smallest edge of tread stroke her cheekbone. She pushed forward without any idea where she was moving or if she was going in a direction away from the chaos. The noises came at her from all sides which only added bleary misdirection. Chandra knew she needed to escape the fire but wasn't sure about the best way to go about it.
Ahead of Chandra and to the right, shouting echoed, loud and sharp. One sharp voice was too familiar to mistaken; it offered tentative security to her frazzled mind.
"Move now or find yourself on the street in the morning," the deep voice said, cutting like glass without emotion in its silky edge. Master Dreys was somewhere ahead, calling out commands and taking control of the situation. In spite of the choking cloud, Chandra forced herself to her feet, instinctively knowing that crawling to Master would be a poor decision.
“Master, I am here,” Chandra choked out.
"Apprentice, you need to vacate the estate with the others. I will handle the fire, and whoever caused it," Master's voice was an unfriendly lash to Chandra's frayed nerves. He was not angry so much as he was very direct: Master was telling her there was nothing she could do since she had not yet lived up to the title of an apprentice. Chandra pushed forward and away from the smoke with her head down in shame and resentment more than to keep smoke from her lungs.
Chandra knew she was important to him in a way that no other student could be, but had yet to earn her position in the Master’s keep. Despite being his apprentice, so named since he had taken her in as a baby, she could not successfully call her magic.Other students were nearby, battling the fire that seemed to have originated from the kitchen. She heard the young shouts and questions flowing around her. Mages of all levels were doing something useful while Master Dreys was instructing his apprentice to leave the building.
"Master, I can help," Chandra tried again. She met a steely gaze that cut through the haze like a physical slap. Master's dark brown eyes locked on hers, and for a moment, she thought she saw an unfamiliar reaction before they softened and she lifted her chin.
Master shook his head at her. “You are too valuable to risk. Exit the estate with Andre and stay away until I retrieve you.”
Andre stepped forward, ashy and stiff-faced. Chandra looked at the man before bowing her head and taking his arm as he led her away from the building and toward the estate gardens. She assumed, from the sky-high flames and smoke, that the fire must be near the servants' door where the kitchen hearth and woodpile lay. That meant lots of fuel which could quickly create a blaze that would be almost impossible to control.
As Andre steered her across the garden to a stone bench, she wondered if she would ever be able to stand at the Master's side as his apprentice. Chandra couldn't even do tricks to amuse the young children. Her power had only revealed itself a handful of times and in an erratic and mostly destructive manner. The first time, she had drawn fire to Master's sleeve instead of lighting a candle. The second time, she made a clay pitcher explode, or at least, they assumed it was her since no one else was trying to do any magic in the room. The other times were few and far between, most of which occurred when she was very young and almost nothing in the past two years. Chandra was almost the age of her power peak, but she had nothing to show for it.
Chandra stood next to a cluster of trees in the southern part of the garden where young children and various elderly members of the estate staff waited. The giant building seemed to glow in opposition to the darkness. The smell of burning flavored the air with an acrid tinge that was oily and lingered.