Embers of Frost (Frost and Fire #1)

Chapter 1

ONE

Eirabella

"Eirabella, you're on fire!"

My feet instantly freeze in place, the crunching of my boots on the frozen ground silencing as I glance up, startled. Janus, my neighbour, jumps back and stares down at the hand that he’s just dropped as if it’s a hot potato. The empty wicker basket he was taking from me when our fingers grazed topples onto its side in the fresh snow at our feet.

"Prayers to Morath! You’re burning up, Eira! Are you okay?" Janus asks, his voice laced with concern as his brow deeply furrows.

I stare up at him for a moment, rubbing the patch of skin where our hands briefly touched. My light teal eyes meet his deep dark brown ones in silent surprise. He holds my gaze until, unable to stop himself, his face breaks into a wide grin, and he bursts out laughing. I manage to hold my own serious expression for a split second longer before joining him in a fit of giggles.

"Oh, you think that's funny? Let's see if you think this is funny!" I threaten as I reach out with both hands and squeeze his grinning cheeks between my palms.

He tries to duck away to no avail and lets out a loud shout as if he's being burned alive.

Probably because he is.

Mother always said that if there were one thing I’d be known for, it would be that I’m always inexplicably, unbearably, incurably hot.

Or, in Janus's opinion, comically so.

Rain, hail, sunshine, or snowstorm, my blood always feels mere degrees from its boiling point, every inch of my skin exuding that searing heat.

"Please, someone help me! I'm being cooked alive!" he shouts, still laughing as he grabs my forearms as if to push me away. But if I didn’t know better, I’d say it feels suspiciously like he’s actually pulling me closer.

"Stop moving!” I sputter between laughs. “Just a bit longer, and we’ll have a nice roast Janus cheek dish to go with our buttered cabbage for dinner tonight!"

We both stumble to the side of the road to dodge the cart and horse rattling past us, arms tangled in a standoff, neither willing to let go. Our breaths come in laboured pants between bouts of almost painful laughter. Our years of being friends have been filled with such moments; so many I can’t count them, nor can I even begin to try. Slowly, though, the laughter fades, and my eyes find his again amidst the steam rising from our panting breaths. Sobering, his gaze focuses on me, those deep chestnut brown irises I know better than my own, reflecting something I’m too scared to explore. Sliding down my slim forearms, his fingers interlace with mine as my hands drop from his face.

"A-Are my hands still h-hot?" I ask, looking down at where we're joined.

"Your hands aren't the only thing hot about you, Eirabella," he says, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You know I’ve always thought that about you.”

Well, that’s quite the admission for what I thought was going to be an innocent Saturday morning walk into town with my best friend.

"I, er, I..." I stammer, unsure of what to say.

My nervous stammer makes his lips twitch again, and his fingers tighten around mine as he leans in so close I can taste his breath. Warm and sweet from the cup of juniper tea we’d shared in my kitchen before our walk. My heart forgets its regular beat and takes on an erratic rhythm as his lips brush against my cheek while he says, "Eirabella, I need you to know that I—"

"Janus! Wait for me!" a voice calls from up the road, cutting him off.

Janus curses softly under his breath, pulling his hands from mine and shoving them into his pockets. Giving me a sheepish look, he then turns toward the voice. "Kahlia! Slow down, we'll wait for you!" he calls out to his little sister as she runs towards us as fast as her little legs can carry her. "Sorry," he murmurs to me, "I forgot I told her she could walk into town with us today. Her birthday’s next week, and Grandmother sent her some coins. She’s got her eye on a pink hair ribbon, apparently."

"It’s no problem," I reassure him, grateful for the distraction as I bend over to pick up the discarded basket. The shift in our relationship over the past year has been increasingly confusing. "I’d much rather spend the walk with her anyway. At least she can keep up with my witty conversation," I tease .

He doesn’t take his eyes off his sister as he rubs his chest, his jaw dropping in mock offence. "Ouch. That hurt worse than those burning hands of yours."

"Mission accomplished," I retort, glad the strangeness between us has broken. Whatever we were each about to say is probably best left unsaid, at least for now. "Hey there, Kahlia," I greet his sister with a wave when she finally reaches us, her cheeks flushed from her run.

"Hi, Ei-ra-bell-a," she says, sounding out my name slowly, her toddler lips still having trouble navigating the four syllables of my name. I’ve known her since the day she was born, heard her first cry as I stood with Janus in his front yard, his hand clutching mine in terror, as we waited for news of her birth. "Horsey?" she asks her brother, tugging on the sleeve of his worn jacket.

He immediately drops to a squat, and in a practised move, Kahlia lifts her chubby leg onto his bent knee and clambers onto his back, her little arms tightening around his neck as he straightens up, giving me a secret wink as he does.

I ignore the slight stirring in my chest.

"We better get a move on, or we’ll be late for Collection and I won’t get to make my Offering. We’ll be stuck with just leftover lentil stew and cabbage for dinner this week," he says.

"Don’t forget the roast Janus meat as well," I add, following alongside the siblings.

He grimaces. "On that note... let’s get out of here, Kahlia!" Grabbing hold of his sister’s swinging legs, he takes off at a jog, bouncing her up and down, drawing squeals of delight.

Chuckling, I follow at a more leisurely pace, taking in the scenery of the season’s change.

Winter has come early again this year, unfurling over the land in a canvas of soft whites and quiet greys. It seems over the last decade, each autumn has been shorter than the last. I could’ve sworn it was just yesterday we three were racing each other to finish our shaved ices before they melted down our arms under the scorching sun. The ground, only recently alive with autumn’s fiery hues, now lies dormant under a thick blanket of snow, the trees standing bare and graceful like silent skeletal sentinels against a pale, endless sky. Crisp and pure, each breath of air I draw in tingles inside my lungs, each exhale blooms into a delicate mist that quickly fades into the white stillness.

I’m not in as much of a hurry as Janus to reach town, having only agreed to accompany him on the walk to stretch my legs—and because I always enjoy his company. When he knocked on my door ten minutes ago, cheeks as flushed as Kahlia’s, asking if I would "honour him with the pleasure of my mediocre company" on his walk into town to make his monthly Offering, I couldn’t say no.

My generations-old cloak is pulled tightly around me as I tie a knot in the belt, not for cold, considering I’m never cold, but to ward off the inevitable unease that grows with every step we take toward the village. Truth is, I tend to avoid the town centre on Collection Days—when King Halford’s Collectors come to our village to accept the villagers’ Offerings of their magic to the realm. For compensation, of course. With historic levels of scarcity of work and the winter months already freezing the ground, rendering the private produce gardens all but useless, our villagers need those coins now more than ever.

Since the Winter Fever tore through the kingdom almost fifteen seasons ago, leaving me with barely a breath in my body, let alone any trace of magic, Collection Days are just a reminder of what I have lost. That and… considering the numerous petty and less-than -petty crimes I’d unknowingly committed in my younger days, seeing any of the King’s Guards sets my instincts on run .

" Fucking Samfer ," I curse my former guardian under my breath, a slimy, unpleasant chill trickling down my spine at the mere thought of him, and I tug my cloak even more tightly around me.

"Kahlia, do you think Eira is trying to lose a race with a sloth?" Janus yells loudly from fifty metres down the road, pulling me out of my reverie. Little girl giggles float through the crisp air to me, and I rock back on my feet for momentum before dashing forward, catching up with them in seconds.

"You should’ve picked me as your horse, Kahlia! Yours looks a little lame!" I shout over my shoulder as I pass them, swinging the basket in my hand, relishing the chilly winter air on my burning cheeks.

As we all turn the corner in a gallop, the village square comes into view. A spacious quadrangle upon which the village church sits, lined by clusters of rundown buildings huddled together as if to shield against the cold. Smoke rises from the chimneys, mingling with the snow that is starting to layer atop the rooftops. Despite the cold, the square is bustling with activity, crowded by long lines of bundled-up bodies moving with a sense of urgency that matches the season’s harsh turn. Nobody wants to miss their turn to make their Offering. Their food parlours depend on it.

"Busier than I thought it would be," Janus mumbles to me as Kahlia slides down his back and onto her feet.

"Not surprising. No one’s giving up their coins today."

Janus grasps Kahlia’s tiny hand as we stop on the edge of the square. "We’ll meet you back here in half an hour?" he says, eyeing the crowds.

Gratitude makes me smile. He knows that I might have agreed to come into town with him today, but I would rather be as far from the Collection lines and the King’s Guards as possible .

"Sure, unless I find someone else I’d rather spend my Saturday afternoon with," I joke.

"Well, there are some bulky men in armour standing over there that look like they might be able to string together a sentence," he jokes, gesturing to the guards standing in the middle of the crowd.

I stifle a giggle; as wary of the King’s Guards as I am, Janus and I have shared many a private joke at how we’ve never heard the guards express more than a grunt or two at a time.

Giving the siblings a wave as they leave to join the end of the line, I wander across the busy street to the food stalls lining the village market. The produce stalls’ offerings have been meagre lately, having been carted in from who knows how far away. But even so, as I eye the small piles of winter vegetables, the prospect of a hearty soup for dinner sounds divine. I make a mental note of what looks good so that after Janus receives his coins for his Offering, we can come back and quickly pick up supplies for the coming week. Over the past few years, we’ve developed an understanding, especially as times have gotten tougher for everyone. We simply share everything between us. He covers most of the cost of groceries, and I prepare meals that can nourish and sustain us all through each season.

Once I’m happy that we can procure enough to make a decent amount of meals for the next week or so, I wander over to Larriver’s Library, the small, familiar stall where a solitary bookshelf sags under the weight of the worn, well-thumbed volumes. About fifty books line the shelf, each bearing the marks of time and use. I’ve read every single one, over and over, their stories so familiar they feel like old friends.

Samfer hadn’t left me with much except for the scars, the claustrophobia, a criminal record, and a never-ending thirst for books and learning. As a passing vagabond-cum-healer, he’d taken me under his wing when I’d awoken from my week-long, Winter Fever-induced delirium to find myself an orphan and magicless, but with my family’s one-bedroom cottage to my name. He’d swiftly moved in under the guise of providing me guardianship and taught and taunted me in equal measure.

On days he felt generous, he taught me to read and write, knowing that since I didn’t have any magic to speak of, I’d have to either use my body or my brains to earn a livelihood one day. On other days, he showed me basic healing tasks to help me nurse the wounds he himself inflicted. Regularly keeping me captive in the cottage for weeks on end, he’d then surprise me with trips to nearby towns to visit a never-ending list of second cousins and for “supply trips.” What I hadn’t realised then was that the supplies he had me carrying back were less paid for and more “borrowed, payment pending… never”.

After six years of being his stolen goods mule, and oftentimes whipping post, I woke one day to find Samfer and almost everything in the house that wasn’t bolted down gone, and the King’s Guard banging on my door with a hundred questions I couldn’t answer. Janus and the other villagers quickly came to my defence, swearing blue in the face that every single time Samfer had been seen in the nearby towns with a “young girl with black and blue hair”, I had been having breakfast/lunch/dinner/sleeping at their houses.

Eventually, the King’s Guards left, with no small amount of threats that if they ever acquired evidence that I was involved in Samfer’s dealings, they would be back for me.

Why they didn’t arrest me for the unmissable striking blue streaks I had in my hair alone, I may never know. But I wasn’t about to ask them.

“Nothing new for you, Eirabella,” Larriver says with an apologetic shrug from his stool, pulling me out of my reverie. “Holly did say that she’d be sure to bring over any books forgotten in the inn after everyone goes home after today’s Collection. Check back next week, I promise to give you first read if there are any.”

The smile I give him is wide and appreciative. Ever since I mused to Larry once that I wondered what it would be like to open a brand-new book, its pages crisp and untouched, we always treat the second-hand books he gets in as if they are. Oh, but to own a book, one that I can call mine, to place it on a shelf in a space of my own.

Someday. One day.

“Chilly day, isn’t it, Eira!” Bonnie calls from her hot cider stall at the end of the row, barely visible behind the giant plumes of steam wafting from her cauldron each time she dips her ladle into it to pour another cup.

“I’ll have to take your word for it, BonBon!” I say, making my way down to her.

She lets out a loud laugh as she reaches over her table and hands me a steaming cup. “One day, Eira, you’ll know what it’s like to feel cold again. And you’ll know what the rest of us have been whining about all these years.”

I gratefully take the cup and rummage around in my pocket for some coins. But when I hand them to her, she just waves them away. “Oh no, your coins are no good here today, dearie. My Farrow told me how you bandaged him up and helped him home last week after his fall. I can’t thank you enough. Who knows if he’d have been able to get home without you. I was worried sick as it was.”

I sip my delicious drink as Larry comes over to join us, BonBon filling us in on the latest town gossip. With half an ear on her chatter, I watch while Janus and Kahlia slowly make their way to the front of the Collection line as the last of the straggling villagers. A King’s Guard summons Janus forward, gesturing for Kahlia to stay where she is. Janus reluctantly drops her hand before he steps forward toward the Collector .

Draped in a long, dark coat with silver embroidery along the edges, the high collar frames the Collector’s cold, stern face in shadow. Black leather gloves cover his hands, giving him an air of cold, mechanical precision as he handles a glass bauble the size of an orange and places it in Janus’s palm. There’s a short pause, and Janus readjusts his position. Soon, a thin mist begins to swirl inside the ball, faint at first, then slowly darkens and thickens, churning as if it’s a contained thunderstorm. The mist glows with a muted light that feels almost alive, pulsing with the rhythm of Janus’s heartbeat. Janus’s Strength is Earth, so it’s no wonder that his Offering swirls light brown and green in the bauble. From my vantage point, I can see the light sheen on Janus’s forehead as his eyes squeeze shut, the effort put into his Offering clear.

It’s hard to watch; it seems as if he’s syphoning away a part of himself.

Or maybe it just feels that way to me because if I had any magic at all, I wouldn’t want to give even a whisper of it away. But I understand too well the desperation that drives the Offerings—when the need is to put food on the table, sometimes one has no choice. And the magic does benefit the realm as a whole, if the King’s decrees are to be believed.

After a few minutes, the churning mist settles, and the Collector lifts the bauble from Janus’s hand with a practised motion, weighing it in his palm as if assessing the value of Janus’s very being. The Collector’s eyes are cold, calculating as he says something to the nearby King’s Guard, who reaches into a velvet bag and pulls out some coins, dropping them into Janus’s hand. Whether it’s because I know his expressions so well, or because it’s so pronounced, it’s impossible to miss the way Janus’s jaw tightens. Anger rolls off him in waves as Janus says something inaudible from so far away, but the meaning is clear as he points to the meagre pile of coins in his hand .

The Collector spares Janus a quick look, and then gestures with a single wave toward a lone tall figure standing behind the line of Guards.

I glance over, surprised that I hadn’t seen him there before.

And now I wonder how that’s even possible.

A shiver runs through me, though I can’t tear my eyes away from him. The figure looms, imposing, the dark blue-almost-black armour he wears seeming to swallow all light around him. His face boasts a sharp, chiselled profile that’s both striking and unnerving. Everything about his expression is cold, hard, almost inhuman, as if carved from stone. Metal cuffs don the forearms folded across his chest, his eyes dark and unreadable, watching the scene in front of him with a detached intensity that sends an unprecedented shiver down my spine.

“Bonnie,” I say, cutting her off, “who is that man standing behind the row of King’s Guards? Is he the captain?” I ask, knowing if anyone knew who he was, it would be Bonnie.

“Oh, him? I don’t know. He just started appearing on Collection days recently. Talks even less than the other Guards, apparently. Scary-looking fellow, isn’t he? We all call him Sir Scary amongst ourselves. I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.”

I turn back to him. There’s something indescribably commanding in the way he holds himself, a silent authority that demands respect, even as it fuels the quiet fear curling in my stomach. He’s terrifying, yes, but there’s also something about him that draws me in. In the stillness, I find myself both fearing and revering him, a strange mix of dread and awe that I can’t quite shake.

Janus apparently is having the same response, as he glances at the figure and then, hesitantly, bows his head. Without another word, he grips his coins in one hand and reaches for Kahlia with the other .

“I’ll be back in a minute, BonBon!” I say, cutting off the stall owner mid-sentence, and make my way over to the town square. “Well, that’s a happy look,” I say with a raise of my eyebrow as I meet Janus and Kahlia at the square’s edge.

Anger still ripples off Janus’s face; he opens his mouth to say something but then glances down at Kahlia, and then back up to me.

Getting the message, I lean down to the little girl and say, “Hey, Kahlia, why don’t you go over to Bonnie’s stall? I bet she has something delicious for you. Tell her I’ll be back in a second.”

She instantly drops her brother’s hand and, without sparing us a look, takes off toward the stall.

“Thanks,” Janus says, his voice tight and gruff. “They lowered the compensation for the Offering again. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have given as much as I did.” He presses the coins into my hand and runs a hand through his hair, sighing. I don’t even need to look to know that it’s less than usual. Much, much less. “I should’ve kept most of my magic for work this week. It’s going to be hard enough with the snowstorm this week, let alone having to recover from the Offering.”

Dabbing at the sweat on his forehead, he huffs as he yanks his jacket off, handing it to me while he tugs on his wrinkled and worn shirt and buttons the cuffs at his wrists, every movement infused with anger.

I pull on the jacket even though I’m far from cold, and I tuck the coins into the pocket. Trying to keep the worry from my voice, I say, with a light punch on his shoulder, “Hey, don’t worry. It’s a good thing I know how to stretch out a potato, then. You haven’t seen what these hands can do yet,” I say, wiggling my fingers at him.

Just as the words leave my lips, a sharp crack echoes through the square, followed by a whoosh that seems to suck the very air from around us. I turn towards the sound just in time to see flames burst from Bonnie’s stall where Kahlia had been standing moments before. Among the flame and smoke, I can just make out the cauldron lying on its side, hot cider pouring out onto the road, fire tearing up the wooden posts of the stall with terrifying speed, the heat so intense it warps the air around it.

For a heartbeat, the world freezes, then chaos erupts.

The orange flames leap from stall to stall, devouring the thatched, ancient market stall roofs in seconds. Screams saturate the air as villagers scatter in every direction, their panic feeding the frenzy of the fire. Panicked, stall owners desperately throw water, blankets—anything to stop the blaze—but it’s useless.

The fire is too fast, too hungry.

“Kahlia!” Janus’s voice somehow cuts through the noise, raw with panic. Without a second thought, he bolts towards the blaze, shoving past the frenzied crowd. My heart lurches in my chest as I see Kahlia trapped in the stall, behind a line of fire, the flames curling around her like a snake ready to strike. Her scream is high-pitched, piercing, and filled with terror, and it slices through me like a knife, her tiny hand coming up to rub her smoke-seared eyes.

Slipping on a sheet of ice, Janus falls in the middle of the road, knees sliding, tearing. But he’s back on his feet in seconds; the desperation in his voice as he yells out his sister’s name feels ragged even in my throat. There’s a deafening crash, and part of the blazing wall of the stall falls, and suddenly, I can’t see Kahlia anymore.

Janus reaches the stall and bounds directly into the flames without a care for himself. Following a few steps behind him, I see him scooping her up in his arms and holding her close, his body shielding her from the worst of the flames. For a brief, hopeful moment, I think they’ll be okay. But then I see a remaining piece of roof above them, the thatch already engulfed in flames, groaning as it begins to give way.

“No…” The word slips from my mouth, barely audible, as the scene unfolds in slow motion. I’m frozen, rooted to the spot by a fear so intense it’s paralysing me. The roof starts to collapse, burning debris poised to crush them all. Helplessness crashes over me, as a desperate, burning need to do something screeches through my veins. The reality of what is about to happen presses down on me, suffocating, as I watch the fire consume everything in its path. It’s too much. I’m too small, too… powerless to change any of it.

My heart pounds, the world narrowing to just this moment.

Gritting my teeth, I take a deep breath, as beneath the panic and the fear, a spark of defiance that refuses to be snuffed out flares to life. Fury builds in my chest, and my hands move before I fully understand what I’m doing. Without a conscious thought, I fling my hands out in front of me as if I can somehow push back the fire with sheer willpower alone.

Nothing happens. Of course, nothing will happen. What did I expect?

But then my chest squeezes so tight, I feel like several ribs crack inside me.

And the world stops moving for a single second.

My breath catches as the air around me shifts, the temperature plummeting so fast it steals the warmth from my lungs.

“No!” This time I scream the word, feeling it tear from my throat with every ounce of desperation I feel.

Then, pain streaks through my body, like a thousand knives slashing at my skin, all along my arms and the soft pads of my fingertips. A blast of icy wind surges from my outstretched hands, so powerful it’s as if I’ve summoned the very heart of winter. My eyes widen in shock and horror as frost begins to form in the air before me, spiralling in an almost unworldly pattern. The frost instantly thickens, turning into shards of ice that shoot forward, faster than I can comprehend, like an unstoppable force.

The ice forms into a wall, glistening and sharp, curling upwards to form a dome over Janus and Kahlia. The shield spreads, expanding outward to arch over them like a protective canopy. It’s breathtaking and terrifying all at once, shimmering and glistening in the firelight. The flames hiss and crackle as they meet the ice, steam rising in angry clouds, but the ice holds. It’s a barrier—solid, unyielding.

My heart races, fear mixing with confusion as the realisation of what’s happening crashes over me. How is this happening? How am I doing this? My hands are trembling, cold sweat breaking out on my skin, but the power doesn’t stop. It’s like a raging river inside me, one I have no control over, and it’s pouring out in a torrent of ice and snow.

The burning roof finally collapses, the burning debris crashing down, but instead of burying everyone beneath it, the ice holds strong, deflecting the worst of the flaming debris. The impact reverberates through the shield, cracks spidering across its surface, but it doesn’t break. Instead, it strengthens, the frost spreading out in all directions, extinguishing the flames wherever it touches.

My chest heaves with the sheer effort of breathing, but I can’t lower my still outstretched hands, as if I no longer feel as though I can control them. The pressure in my chest dissipates, and my knees buckle, all strength draining out of me as quickly as it had come.

What just happened?

Around me, chaos continues to ensue as everyone is screaming. But it’s all muffled to me. I stare down at my hands, fingers still splayed, the pain in them almost unbearable. I almost expect them to be covered in blood. But they look the same as they always have.

How can that be?

I gasp, still struggling for breath.

The world suddenly blurs, the ice shield still glistening, but the edges of my vision darkening as I lose sense of everything.

The last thing I hear is someone shouting my name.

I think.

I’m not sure.

I’m not sure of anything anymore.