Page 2 of Burning Ice
No.
Not his brother.
Not by this man.
Something inside Mirel snapped. He felt Cyprian’s mind flare, a voice brushing against his thoughts.
Davon-tus.
Cyprian looked up, confused, golden eyes wide.
Ludo struck again, shouting, blade flashing toward him.
The fear hit first, then the frost.
Frost veined from Mirel’s palms into the stone. For a heartbeat it slid farther, into him. Then he sent it to his brother. Even from the distance, he saw Cyprian flinch at the sudden pressure in his hand. His brother’s wrist trembled, but Mirel steadied it. His first touch, hidden.
Then his frost burst.
His eyes flashed cold blue. The rail filmed white. The sand under Ludo’s boot slicked fine as breath-glass. Frost glazed a spear handle. The guard’s grip slipped.
Ludo went down on one knee, looking up at the stars. Eyes wild. Frozen to eternity. Mirel saw his father’s face slacken, saw the terror creep through arrogance, saw every bruise that man had ever left behind mirrored in his own body. It should have been satisfaction, yet it hollowed him raw.
Mirel’s palms leaked frost into the stone. His breath rasped. Inside the pit Cyprian stood over the cage, gold burning his veins, chest heaving. Mirel’s breath caught as he whispered into the air, into the bond that had cracked open between them.
Cyprian’s hand did not falter. Mirel felt it too, the death rattling through his own bones, an ending he had begged for and dreaded all at once.
He loved him then. The thought cut through him like mercy turned to blade.
For a moment the arena breathed in a hush.
Then the crowd erupted.
“Long live the dead!”
The chant crashed over Mirel, binding him in triumph and shame at once.
Guards forced back prisoners, some dragged to their cages, others torn down where they stood. Stones hurled from the tiers had become weapons, and blood stained the sand in streaks. Mirel barely saw any of it. His gaze locked on the pit where Ludo knelt frozen, ice crawling up his lashes, eyes wide and terrified.
Cyprian leaned close, voice low and certain. “May you never live again.”
The old man blinked once more. Then the frost sealed him. Breath stilled.
Davon-tus,Cyprian whispered, the word rising not from his mouth but from the bond that burned cold between their minds.Who are you?
Mirel’s throat closed. His answer cracked through the unseen link, softer than breath.I’m sorry. I can’t.
Cyprian’s head lifted, golden eyes raking the tiers as if he might catch the voice with his gaze, searching shadows and rafters, finding nothing.
Please?he pressed into the silence.
Our secret,came Mirel’s last word before he tore the connection away.
He looked down at his worn-out clothes and thin frame, then back at his brother, so handsome and powerful and everything he wasn’t. He could never show Cyprian who he was. He was no one. He could barely talk.
Then the horns blared again.
The ceremony shifted. The Imperials swept down to claim their spectacle.
