Page 4 of Burning Ice
Above, holo screens replayed the Imperial wedding. Moargan’s smile. Cyprian’s vows. The thunder of applause. The speeches promised stability, but down here rumour moved faster than light. Devotion tangled with dread.
The killing had been spectacular. And suspicious. Kylix knew power when he saw it, and that hadn’t been his. Cyprian couldn’t summon frost. No, he had heard of this ice-ghost through the shadows. It had saved Helianth and Cyprian from the rebel organisation Attica. Had sealed multiple crime scenes before Kylix arrived.
Was he chasing his ghost right now?
The thought was thrilling. He had wondered who could make such ice. How they did it.
Kylix stepped forward. The streetlight caught his eyes, narrowing his pupils to slits. His murmurs brought heat to his chest. It was the same hunger that never left him. It changed shape, but it never left. Tonight it pushed him forward, steady and sharp, as if something unseen waited ahead. His jaw locked. His breathing shortened. The air tasted of metal and fear. Around him, hearts beat in the same rhythm, his guards, the crowd, everyone holding their breath as he passed.
Oil slicked the stones. Every step had to be precise. Arches crowded the sky. A shadow shifted wrong. The heat under Kylix’s ribs sharpened. The silence before pursuit always lasted one breath, longer than mercy. He drew it in, steady, the city waiting for him to move.
He ran. Boots struck stone in perfect rhythm. The sound filled the street, echo answering echo. Fear scented the wind, bright and metallic, mixed with sweat and smoke. His pulse matched the cadence of the chase. The noise from the guards behind him folded into one sound, pursuit.
Vandor stayed close, a dark line at his side. If Kylix was fire, Vandor was the metal that kept it shaped. Kylix had pulled him from the academies, a student with more discipline than pride, and made him commander of a small unit. He had learned fast. Obedience came easily to men who admired power up close.
A cart toppled ahead. Scales spilled across the cobbles. Kylix vaulted the wreck, salt cutting his lungs. The glow from the arena still burned on the horizon.
Slowly the noise began to fall away.
They passed under flickering signs and broken billboards where Imperial slogans still glowed half-dead. The walls peeled with old paint, names of vanished shops, families erased by taxes or raids. A cat darted through refuse. Every sound echoed longer than it should have.
Kylix slowed, studying the hollow street. This was what the Imperial family called stability, a city that gleamed at the center and rotted at its edges. He had hunted enough men to know that rot never stayed quiet. It always reached back for the light.
The streets narrowed. The air cooled. The hum of the city thinned to static. His body knew before his mind did. The pull had changed. The chase no longer led forward but downward, as if something was drawing him out of the light.
He didn’t understand why he had run this far. The thief was nothing, a loaf of bread, a name already forgotten. Yet the ache in his ribs had turned to command. It pulled at him, a voice without words, something that wanted him to find it or be found.
“Are you sure you want to go ahead with this search, sir?” Vandor asked, breath calm despite the pace.
Kylix didn’t answer. The ache spoke for him. It belonged to something that didn’t want to be found.
They turned past the last row of neon. Pavement gave way to dirt. The scent of the river faded. In its place came iron and ash.
“The graveyard,” he muttered.
The word landed like a command. The Luminary slowed. Vandor raised a hand, signalling the rear line to halt.
Ahead, the ground broke into uneven stones and leaning fences. The city lights dimmed behind them, swallowed by fog.
Kylix moved first.
The graveyard spread out like a scar, black markers tilting toward the soil, iron fences bent low to the earth. The air turned colder, carrying rot, rust, and the faint sweetness of damp flowers long dead. Beyond the stones stretched the hovels of those who lived too close to death.
“Sir,” Vandor said quietly, scanning the mist. “We’re outside the quarter. No one’s supposed to live out here.”
Kylix crouched. A crust of bread lay broken in the dirt, crumbs scattered near a tilted stone. He touched them. The frost of night bit his fingers. The cold wasn’t ordinary. It felt aware.
It slipped under his skin, not surface but depth, an echo that wasn’t his own. The shock steadied him. For an instant he thought the earth breathed through him, drawing his warmth away.
Vandor’s voice broke the quiet. “Commander?”
Kylix looked up. “He’s been here.”
The other man frowned. “A thief leaves crumbs, sir.”
Kylix didn’t reply. He pressed his palm to his chest. The ache behind his ribs pulsed, deep and hot. He could feel it, something that wasn’t human had brushed this ground.
“Pull most of the men back,” he said. “Hold the perimeter. No one enters or leaves.”
