Page 131 of Burning Ice
Mirel lowered his hand. The ice shimmered, then melted into a thin frost bloom on the grass.
The remaining prisoner’s eyes had widened. He looked in horror at his friend, who sat like an ice sculpture, forever carved in a horrific grin behind frost. He turned back to Mirel.
“You’re a freak. But I remember how small you were back then. Some things don’t change. I remember how you begged. P-please s-stop…” He chuckled. “Yeah, those were your words.”
Mirel’s breath hitched but he didn’t speak. Frost left his mouth in small circles.
“Little darae?” Kylix asked, unsure of his voice. Fury simmered through him, a storm of fire building under his ribs.
The second man turned to laugh at it.
The prisoner huffed. “Is that what the prince calls you? There wasn’t much light in your eyes when I had you bent over?—”
The words landed like a blade drawn slow. The garden seemed to tilt toward them.
Lantern light trembled in the air, every flame bending toward Kylix as if heat itself were listening.
He didn’t breathe. For a heartbeat his eyes were black glass rimmed with gold, and the crowd felt the temperature climb.
Kylix moved before the sentence finished. The sound he made was not a shout but a low growl, the kind that starts in the bones.
The air around him warped. Glass hissed, the nearest lanterns flared white.
When the fire came, it came narrow and perfect, like a seam of molten gold rising from the marble, swallowing the man whole.
The scream tore out of him and was burned away mid-breath. Heat rolled across the terrace, carrying the taste of metal and ozone.
For a heartbeat the garden held two ruins. One sculpted in ice, one collapsing into ash. The crowd froze with them.
Ash fell in slow spirals, soft as snow.
The smell of burnt stone and iron drifted through the cold air.
Kylix’s hand still glowed faintly, light pulsing under the skin until he forced it closed.
No one moved, even the music had forgotten itself.
The applause started, first hesitant, then swelling.
Kylix crossed to Mirel, eyes still burning. Mirel looked up, frost fading from his hands.
They met in the middle, the space between them shimmering with the last of the heat.
Kylix’s palm found his cheek, thumb tracing the chill there. For a breath they stood close enough that the glow from fire and frost blurred into one color.
Their foreheads touched, breath mingling. The roar of the crowd fell away, only the sound of their breathing filled the space.
Kylix’s voice was rough when it came. “Why didn’t you finish him?”
Mirel’s lips moved against the edge of his jaw. “I…couldn’t.”
“I know,” Kylix said softly. “My love.”
He brushed his mouth across Mirel’s temple, the gesture more vow than kiss. “No one will ever hurt you again. I’ll make sure of it.”
The words lingered between them, heat caught against cold, before they turned back toward the lights and the watching city.
Milanov lifted his glass. “Justice.” The word rolled through the air, echoed by the guests like a prayer.
