Page 49 of Burning Ice
Frost erupted, sudden and absolute, swallowing sound and breath alike. And then, everything shattered.
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Silence broke like glass. Ice shot across the floor, veining the marble white. He felt it pull from his hands without permission. The cold did not ask. It answered. His fingers stung and the room thinned to breath and distance.
"You know," the prisoner said, but a fear slithered behind his glower. "I heard of that little stunt you pulled off during the last Aureate. It was all everyone talked about in prison." He made a fake movement with his fists. "I'm not afraid of you, you puppet. How much did they pay you to be used in their fakery to scare the people?"
Mirel tasted metal. He set his feet. The chain at the man's ankle scraped, a hard, ugly sound. It was easier to hold the noise than the words.
"N-no puppet." Mirel’s pulse hit his throat. Disgust mingled with something far more primal. Something he couldn't name. He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring as he fisted his hands and stared the man down.
The prisoner bounced on his feet, fists ready to strike. His ankles were chained to the floor, but he looked trained, someone who knew his way around muscle. "No, that's right. You ain't apuppet. You are nothing but a Wastelander, isn't that right? A guy who's used to hiding in the shadows. A little ghost."
Little ghost. The name landed wrong. Sweet when Kylix used it. Sour here. Mirel swallowed, felt the old graveyard dust rise in his mouth, and refused it.
That was what Kylix called him. It sounded strangely sweet, despite the man’s lack of sweetness. But to have this criminal call him that was unacceptable.
Ice shot through his hand, uncontrollable, veining the air before he could stop it. A ripple went through the crowd. Chairs creaked, glass clinked too loud, a murmur like the stir before a storm. Theo still hung in his chains near the wall, eyes wide, as if he alone wasn’t sure whether to breathe.
"Good Light." The prisoner pulled back, catching a foot in his chain. He went crashing down on a curse, only to look up at Mirel. A flick of delight moved through the crowd, too quick to own. Mirel watched the man’s balance go and realized fear wore more faces than his.
Monster. Mirel could almost hear him say it. But if he was a monster, what was this criminal who had killed innocent people just because they were homeless?
"It's either you or me, crazy one." The prisoner dragged once on the chain and got back on his feet, squaring his shoulders. "And I have a wife and daughter at home who still believe I'm innocent."
"N-not innocent." Mirel's incisors itched. He took in another breath of sweet air. For a second, the world spun. His teeth ached. It came when the cold rose too fast. The taste in the air turned sweet from the puffers, then sharp. He steadied his breath on a count of three.
The prisoner laughed. "Good Light, you talk like a babe. Haven't they taught you anything in the wastelands? Oh, I see it. You truly feel pity for those whose life I took." Somethingflickered in his eyes and then his mouth hardened. "They were nothing. I took what I needed. You think anyone cares about gutter rats?"
The graveyard answered inside him. Names without stones. Hands he had held through the last hour. He had no words for what the man had taken, only the shape of it.
Mirel’s breath clouded. The world had gone too sharp. He could count the scratches in the marble, the grain in the leather of the man’s boots, the tiny white flecks of dried spit in the corners of a frightened mouth.
"They were better off dead."
A hush slid through the air, thin with ice. It crawled across the floor, slow and thin. The sound cut it clean.
"You think you're different?" The prisoner smirked. He swung and nearly hit Mirel. The punch cut the air close enough to lift a hair at Mirel’s cheek. He did not step back. Behind him, Kylix growled. The sound sat between them like a line no one crossed.
"Yes, I've seen you. Grave rat. Filthy, sleeping under statues. I know your face. Little homeless freak."
The word landed. Graveyard. The only place that had accepted him for who he was. For what he was.
He turned over his shoulder, caught Kylix's molten stare. The Imperial Prince looked furious, baring his teeth. His incisor flashed. Kylix stood where everyone could see him, his stance marking what was his. "Ignore his words. He's easy prey. An appetizer."
"Prey? I ain't prey." The prisoner snarled and lunged, chain snapping tight with the sound of metal tearing air. The movement came out of nowhere, desperate and wild. A flash of muscle, spit, and terror. The crowd gasped, a few laughter-breaths sharp as glass.
"Careful!" Cyprian cried.
The prisoner’s mouth twisted again, finding one last weapon. "You still smell like it," he hissed. "Grave dirt. Cold stone. You’ll always crawl back to it." The insult struck harder than the lunge, pulling the world sideways into memory.
It folded space and brought the smell of damp stone and rusted offerings, of winter mornings he’d pressed himself flat to the earth to steal a little heat. A tremor of ice burst from him then, spiraling out in thin shards that cracked against the marble, a breath he couldn’t hold back.
"Tell me, grave rat, do you still whisper to your dead? Do they answer you down there?"
He heard the winter he used to sleep in. Frost in his lungs. A bell somewhere, long ago, striking noon for no one. He blinked and the room returned.
The words bit deep, carrying him straight back into the graveyard. Its cold, its silence, the stones he’d pressed his face against to feel less alone. Perhaps the man was right. Perhaps that's all Mirel was. Grave dirt. But that didn't justify his actions. That didn't justify the broken families who'd lost loved ones. He'd seen them disappear, never to return.
