Page 10 of Burning Ice
Then, louder, “Take him. Careful, he’s weak.”
They obeyed, closing in. Mirel thrashed, shame and panic burning through his chest, his body too weak yet still fighting.The taste of iron lingered on his tongue. Cold metal bit into his wrists, cuffs grinding tighter with every jolt. From the graveyard’s edge the residents cried out one last plea as the Luminary dragged him toward the waiting hover car. Their awe and fear tangled in the air. Mirel’s fight was wild, electric, scratching, biting, nothing like submission. Over and over he cried the only word left to him, “No! No!” His voice cracked against the night.
From the shadows of the graveyard the residents stirred, voices rising in protest. Geron surged forward with desperate fury, but the Luminary moved as one, shields flashing, keeping the people at bay. The riot of sound pressed in, a tide of anger against the Imperial Prince’s cruelty.
They dragged him across the graveyard, his heels scraping stone, each step tearing him farther from the place he had called home. The cries of the residents echoed behind, growing fainter with every pull of the guards.
They shoved him inside the car, the metallic scent of oil and steel pressing in, the floor vibrating beneath his knees. Frost still clung faintly to his cuffs, cold biting his wrists, a reminder of the power that had slipped beyond his control. Through the narrow slats of the window he glimpsed the city passing in streaks of light, alleys he had run once, roofs he had slept beneath, now rushing by beyond his reach. Neon signs and glowing spires bled their light into the cabin.
A faint thought drifted. Had he ever sat inside a hover car before? He couldn’t remember. Another thought pierced sharper. What was Cyprian doing now? Did his brother think of him as he thought of him? Geron’s plea still rang in his ears, ghosting over the hum of the engine. The vibration rattled the cuffs and made his fingers go numb. His head lolled once against the cold wall before he forced it upright. Shadows slid across his face as lights flashed by.
The hum filled the cabin, a low, constant pulse crawling under his skin. Metal walls breathed heat; each tremor carried through the cuffs into his bones. Mirel fixed on the small window, the blur of lights sliding past. The world moved and he did not. His breath left faint fog on the glass that vanished before he could see it. Across from him, the prince’s gaze didn’t move. It pressed harder than words.
The guards’ eyes lingered, one muttering, “Grave-rat,” as he shoved Mirel’s shoulder. But it was Kylix’s silence that weighed the room. The Imperial Prince sat still, gaze unreadable now, stoic as the world believed him to be. Yet Mirel felt that stare like a brand, chest tightening. He could not explain it, only that danger pooled more in the quiet than in threat. Fragments of dread pressed in, but disbelief too, that he was still alive at all. Weakness blurred his vision. For a heartbeat he reached inward, straining to find the thread that might lead to Cyprian, the only tether he knew. His eyes fluttered, heavy, the link slipping before it could form. Too weak. Too far. Only silence answered him.
When the hover car hissed open, night air rushed in. The lieutenant stepped forward, hesitated, then bowed his head. “Sir.”
Kylix’s command came flat and final. “He’s not going to the cells. He’s coming with me.”
Mirel felt the words burn through him, clear and merciless. He would not be tossed into some nameless file or chain, but kept close, studied like prey still twitching. Whatever waited, it would not be mercy. It would be fire, waiting for him.
Guards pulled him out, cuffs biting his wrists. The estate loomed ahead, black stone veined with gold light, gates yawning wide. Towers speared upward, windows glowing molten, balconies jagged. The smell of scorched stone and smoke hung heavy, heat pulsing from the walls. Every step toward it madeMirel’s chest tighten, dread knotting deeper, until the mansion rose above him.
Some part of him still couldn’t believe it, that he had dreamed of Imperial Kylix once, from the safety of shadows, the face that haunted every poster and broadcast, the man he’d imagined only from afar. And now that same man had found him, hand closing around his life.
For a fleeting instant he wished he could beg for his miserable life, if only it meant seeing Cyprian again, but the words refused to form. His throat stayed closed, his silence unbroken, as the gates shut behind him.
Kylix’s voice carried, calm and commanding. “Vandor. Bring him upstairs.”
Mirel’s knees buckled again, panic tearing through his chest.
Upstairs. He had no idea what waited above, only that whatever it was, it could not be mercy. The air inside was hotter, thicker, perfumed faintly with smoke. The staircase loomed ahead.
There was no escape. No voice. Only fire waiting.
4
The estate swallowed sound. Stone and glass took it in and gave nothing back. Mirel’s ears rang with the quiet, with the way boots clicked softer here, deliberate as heartbeats. Behind him, locks turned. Ahead, the echo of fading guards reminded him he was trapped.
On the streets he’d heard whispers of rooms in the Imperial Prince’s houses where voices never came back out. Walls that remembered screams long after the bodies were gone. Now every breath tasted of those rumours closing around him.
Lamps burned inside glass cylinders, gold filigree wrapped around each one. Their light touched the polished floors but left the corners dark. Mirel hated that he could see himself in the tiles. Pale, bound, blood drying where the cuff had cut. His eyes caught too bright in the shine.
The ceiling pressed low above him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been beneath a roof. The weight of walls felt like another set of cuffs, air too thick for someone who had trusted only the open sky.
His knees still weak from the climb, dread hollow in his stomach, they hauled him upward until the glass roof openedaround him. They were inside a waltr. Mirel had heard of them. His foster family once had one but never let him near it.
Bad boys didn’t deserve such beauty.
Now, under Kylix’s gaze, he was being dragged inside. The tall guard’s grip didn’t loosen, something almost gentle in his eyes, before duty locked it away again. The others flanked, expressions trained to stillness, rifles slung easy but ready. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Silence carried its own kind of order here.
Kylix led without looking back. His black cape absorbed sound. The air thinned as Mirel followed, a current he couldn’t resist. Each turn came sharp, the squad falling half a beat behind, their discipline bending to his pace.
Shadows stretched long at each lamp. Kylix’s form cut across the glass like a predator testing the cage. His hunger showed in small things—the tilt of his head, the pause before a step, the stillness that waited for weakness.
They stopped at a door that looked grown from stone, oval and seamless, light veining its surface. At Kylix’s touch the seams pulsed, then split. Panels slid apart without sound. The hum of machinery vanished the instant they stepped through.
Glass walls curved high into dark. Beyond them sat the unbroken night. It felt like the house had stolen a piece of sky and locked it behind glass. No curtains. No disguise. Just darkness pressing close.
