Page 11 of Burning Ice
Inside sat a low table, a carafe of water, a single chain set into the floor. Mirel’s breath caught. He pulled back on instinct. The cuffs cut deeper.
Vandor tightened once. Unyielding.
“Inside,” Kylix said.
Not bark. Not an order. The word slid into the room like a key.
Mirel’s body betrayed him, twitching forward before his mind caught up. Hunger hollowed him. Exhaustion pulled at his limbs. His heels scraped against the floor, a last act of refusal. A sound slipped out, rough and wrong, too human to be animal, too raw to be human.
Kylix turned. The movement was slow, deliberate. Ember eyes fixed on him, bright with curiosity and danger. He studied Mirel as if examining a relic found in ruin, testing what had cracked and what still held.
Light touched the jewel on his tooth. When Mirel flinched, Kylix set his thumb to the hinge of his jaw and pressed—not hard enough to bruise, only enough to remind him. The touch lingered, almost kind. Then it withdrew, leaving warmth that felt like ownership.
Vandor stood by the glass door, silent, a shape carved for duty. His stillness pressed heavier than the walls.
“Your display today,” Kylix said, voice calm and deep, “was almost beautiful. How long have you been able to do that? Who taught you to call frost like that?”
Mirel stayed silent. Shame and anger worked under his skin.
Kylix leaned closer. The space between them thinned until breath met breath. “No answer?” His mouth curved. “Then perhaps the old man will speak instead. Was he your father?” He let the words soften, smooth as cloth. “If you keep your truths from me, I’ll take his. When I’m finished, I’ll send you to the Aureate to learn what obedience means.”
He waited. His thumb brushed the air between them as if tasting the next tremor. “Tell me, little one,” he said quietly, “will you beg for him or for yourself?”
Mirel’s gaze flickered. His throat worked. He looked away instead of answering, terror bending close to something worse. Even now he could not ignore how beautiful Kylix was, howimpossible to face without wanting. Hunger and fear tangled until his chest hurt.
“Does your family live in the Wastelands?”
Mirel’s shoulders drew in. Breath caught sharp in his chest. He gave no reply, only a flicker of gold eyes before he looked away again.
Kylix’s hand caught his, the hold treacherously soft. His thumb traced the cuff mark at Mirel’s wrist as if testing where the skin would give. His gaze dropped to the chain fixed in the floor. The links gleamed faintly. He let them rattle once between his fingers, then released them.
“Answer me,” he said. “Every time you refuse, your fate knots tighter. You know what happens to doomed men? They disappear. Faces erased. Names struck clean. Bones fed to fire. Only the walls remember, and the walls never speak.”
Mirel gave a sharp huff he hadn’t meant to. To vanish into the Wastelands was no threat; he had lived there already. What froze him was the thought of dying slow, beaten until breath failed.
Kylix caught the sound. His eyes narrowed, amused. He inhaled, a low hum sliding from his throat, as if tasting it. “Yes,” he murmured. “I smell it. You’re not afraid of shadows.” His smile deepened. “You’re afraid ofme.”
Mirel shivered. A word caught in his throat and broke before it could escape. His heart pounded fast enough to hurt. The threat felt close enough to scrape bone. Kylix’s hand lingered a breath too long before it withdrew.
“This room remembers fire,” he said quietly. “Now then. What’s your name, little ghost?”
Mirel stared back. His throat worked. His lips parted, but nothing came. Silence was the only weapon he had left.
“Still nothing?” Kylix asked. “No words at all?”
He let the chain move once between his fingers, metal whispering over metal. “Vandor, chain him.”
Vandor obeyed—hesitation a single breath—then clipped the cuffs to the floor. The click carried through the glass, final as a closing door.
He looked once toward Kylix. “Perhaps he can’t speak, sir?”
Kylix turned his head. The look was enough. “Yes, he can.Can’t you?”
Mirel went still. The weight of the chain pressed through his skin. Years of running, hiding, striking when he had to, now erased. The sound of the lock had taken all of it.
No more flight. No more fight. Someone else owned the air now.
The Imperial Prince.
