No More Frozen Bones

Chapter Ten

The entire left side of my body was freezing. The fingers on my left hand felt numb and unable to move. The fire was close on my right side and bit my cheek, stinging my eyelid. It illuminated my face in an orange glow. I scrunched my nose. Groaning, I curled up to protect the side subject from the cold. My cheek pressed into the cool stone floor. My consciousness ebbed away, and whispers of concern reached my ears.

"She's shivering," someone's voice broke through the underwater-like haze.

"Yes, that's how those not endowed like you endure the cold."

"But she is fire-blooded," they argued.

"No."

My heart beat in my ears. A sinking feeling gnawed at my gut. The facade I maintained at camp, the lie about my blood, was unraveling, leaving me raw and exposed. A lie I even started to believe. The weight of my true identity suffocated me with guilt, a sickening reminder of the truth I tried to bury.

Guilt can be an unusual thing. Whenever I wondered what I did to earn the ill feeling, I'd remember Dash. We were the same. Fake.

A warm hand rested on my arm. It burnt a trail to my elbow and then back up. The heat contrasted with the frigidness of my skin. It comforted me with each new pass.

"Then why was she burning up before?" The Advisor asked Lynn. Her voice broke through the water in my head due to her closeness.

Lynn's voice was grave. "I fear Baker found out her true nature."

"And hurt her?"

"I had a father just like yours, you know."

I jumped, whipping around to face the man responsible for the dread swirling in my chest. He eyed me, his sunken face making him seem uncanny.

A single tear rolled down my cheek. My siblings got away, and I was the one to blame. "Baker, I—"

"Don't worry, Mallory. I'm not mad." He bent down a bit so that he was level with me. His wide blue-gray eyes were too large for his small pupils, and I had trouble keeping eye contact. When he saw my discomfort, a small smile formed on his face.

"As a matter of a fact," he continued. "I was like you."

Ice gathered in my veins. I wrapped my arms around myself, shifting my weight back and forth.

His gaze narrowed, and he placed a veiny hand on my shoulder. "My family, too, expected me to be born with the blood that would save their lives. We commoners have to live a cold and harsh life, then we die. I don't blame them for hoping for something more."

Baker knew I wasn't fire-blooded. For how long, it didn't matter. He'd soon kill me, like the others in his path.

I wasn't scared anymore, either way. I was too tired to feel scared. Too numb. Even if death was nothing— a void of black— it was better than feeling the pain of losing everything.

My pupils raced over his face. His eyes had begun to water and shift, a far-off look washing over his features. The tents around us shook, scraping into branches and making harmony in their own right. The snow was beginning to paint the brown fabric white. If no one moved them, they would soon become blanketed, like what happened to my previous home.

"Mallory," Baker said, "I have a very important question for you."

Bracing myself for the pain of punishment, I didn't respond.

He scanned my features again and grabbed my hand. "Do you want me to make you whole?"

I nodded.