Veins of Ice Read online

  Her thoughts focused. No more running her blood hissed. She called upon her elemental powers, willing them to permeate through her skin and coat her. Thick, snowflake-shaped plating armored her body, and framed her face. Snow rained down on her.

  “Asher better do something quick, because Karena is up to something. But then again, Karena better act fast. There’s three minutes to go before we reach the five-minute marker. Asher just has to bide his time or try to claim a victory,” the announcer blared.

  A glacier-blue aura wreathed her hands. Anything they touched would turn to ice. Her uniform creaked and crackled as it stiffened. She ran out from her cover. Asher was waiting only a short stone’s throw away. He was crouched on the ground with his hand flat against it to turn it into the equivalent of molten lava. Taken by surprise, he hastily stood up, stumbled back, but regained his composure. Fire erupted across his body. She charged towards him. Using hand-to-hand combat, she jabbed, kicked, and lunged at him. He fended her off with a punch that sent her reeling, but she recovered and came at him again.

  She strengthened her moves with her elemental powers. By concentrating on the power inside her arm as she struck Asher, and then in her legs when she did a high kick to his side, her strength and impact force tripled. He blasted her with heat, and she shielded herself with ice, refusing to give in to the discomfort and fear.

  Even though Asher began to retreat away from her cold fury, she didn’t let up and followed him, refusing to allow any distance to grow between them. One of his fiery fists slammed into her stomach. She doubled over, and he kicked her down to the ground, and held her there with his foot. She grabbed his boots. Ice shot up them. He cried out and jumped away, but not without pelting her with sizzling embers. She snuffed them out and repaired the areas where they had seared through her ice armor.

  Confused by her attacks, which were different than what others had employed against him, he ran away towards the seesaw. From across the distance, he glared at her. Due to his lack of aggression and motivation to engage in another confrontation with her, it was obvious that he intended to waste as much time as possible and not risk her scoring a win.

  “One minute to go!”

  Time was slipping from her. She sent out another torrent of ice at Asher who met it with his own blast of fire. She ran into the torrent. The site of impact loomed ahead of her. It was a throbbing mass of extreme power and temperature. If she slipped in concentration for just a second, all of what he was projecting towards her would hurdle into her with nothing to stop it. She would be burned alive inside that furnace.

  Karena reached the seesaw, and couldn’t go any further. She stepped to the side, which shifted the flow of ice. The seesaw became caught in her current and was ripped from its foundation. It was carried along for a second until it came to the collision zone, where it was flung upwards into the air by the fire and ice raging against each other.

  Karena broke off her attack, rolled to the side, and threw several discs of ice at the seesaw to try to make it fall either close to, or onto, Asher. Asher saw it, and redirected his attack to blast the seesaw away and step backwards. In that momentary lull of distraction, she sprinted forward.

  The seesaw crashed onto the ground in a crumpled heap. It took Asher a second to see her and react. By the time he had focused on her, she was a couple yards from him, and closing fast. Fiery whips of white fire snaked from him. They struck forward and evaporated any remaining ice on her. She bombarded him with a quick burst of hail, which stalled his efforts to stop her.

  Now so close that she could see his eyes, she witnessed the confusion in them. In all previous duels, everyone had wanted to get away from him, not close to him like she was. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t stopping and what she was up to.

  His body flared up, and flames consumed his body. In those final moments, she summoned up a coldness inside of her that only the most winter-bound of places would know of. She leapt at Asher, and latched onto him in a sudden and stiff embrace. She caught his scent of burning logs in a fireplace and cinnamon spice.

  Upon meeting Asher’s hellish heat, the arctic chill she had gathered inside of herself detonated. They were plunged into a white blackout. Asher wasn’t able to counteract it. His heat had been too low to neutralize the frigid temperatures. The fire around Asher snuffed out.

  He stumbled back, and tried to rip her off of him. The sudden drop in his body temperature made him shudder and gasp. She let go of Asher, and he fell down to the ground. His lips turned blue and his skin tissue began to die. He stopped shivering, which meant that he was close to dying. All it would take was one final cold blast down his throat, and he would be dead. There would be one less Fire elemental in the city. Though tempted by the thought, she was horrified by it and stepped back.

  “Medical team! We need a medical team now! Asher is down!” the announcer screamed through his speaker horn. “Karena is standing back and observing proper dueling etiquette. There’s no need to be alarmed, folks.”

  Asher stared up at her with normal, coffee-colored eyes. They didn’t glow anymore now that he was too cold to use his powers. He couldn’t muster up any of the elemental essence inside of him. The seconds ticked by. 10…9….8….7, and Karena kept counting, 6….5….. Asher moved as though to get up, but he couldn’t even bend his arms or legs. He stayed on the ground. 3….2….1.

  The announcer said, “And Asher is down. The victory goes to Karena Oceania!”

  An instantaneous roar ruptured the air. “RA-RA-RAAAA. KARENA!!!! KARENA!!!”

  She looked to the Fires and Airs on their side of the stadium. They whispered and shook their heads.

  After clearing his throat a few times to get everyone to lessen the din so that he could be heard, the announcer spoke, “Four minutes and forty-nine seconds! Let me repeat, four minutes and forty-nine seconds. Karena has won the match against Asher. She has beaten the undefeated champion of the Chaos elemental category in Archelm City. Because she scored a victory in under five minutes, the Waters have earned fifteen points, bringing their total points to sixty-seven. The Airs have received forty-three points. The Earths have fifty points. And the Fires have seventy-three points, and have scored the most and have won this competition.”

  But it didn’t matter, it was the Earths and Waters against the Fires and Airs. Sure the Fires had won, but in total, they hadn’t. She returned the smirk Asher had given her before the duel had begun. His face snarled into hideous rage. She laughed at him, and turned on her heel to face her cheering crowds in the stadium. The Waters and Earths were on their feet, clapping and shouting. Her arms went up, but then she winced and remembered her burned arm. Her adrenaline had helped her mind forget about it, but the pain from her injury was making a comeback and a vicious one at that. Every move her left arm made, no matter how slight, caused a searing pain. She looked at it, but turned her head away, unable to bear the sight of it. Her skin had turned into goo.

  Because she was the victor, she didn’t have to use the elevator to make her exit. She walked towards the huge, double doors that only the victor could leave through. They began to open for her. Flower petals showered down on her. Their sweet, luscious fragrance whisked away the smell of charred leather, burnt flesh, and smoke.

  Triumphantly, with head held high, Karena walked through the doors. She strode through the lit tunnel and to the medical room. Inside, she hopped up and sat on one of the paper-lined, medical tables. A healer soon got to work slathering lotions onto her burned arm. Karena gritted her teeth against the pain. Thankfully, her arm would be healed in less than a day. She looked forward to it.

  Her family and friends were quick to find her and swarm around her. Karena smiled as she soaked up their praise, knowing there would be a week-long celebration of her victory against Asher and their victory against the Fires and Airs.

  Chapter 2

  Even after a week had gone by, the celebrations and the nonstop chatter about her victory in the dueling compe
tition hadn’t lessened. Karena was relieved to focus on what was next in her life. Her twenty-second birthday was coming up in a month’s time. But she didn’t have a clue as to what the theme of her birthday party would be. She gazed out the backseat window of her parents’ steampowered car. Her parents and sister had insisted on going with her to meet the party planner, which in turn had led to her parents picking her up to take her there as though she was a kid again who couldn’t drive.

  Outside, the clouds hung like black, pot-bellied cauldrons. It was only a matter of time before their contents spilled out in the form of rain, hail, and lightning. The previous day, her elderly neighbors had come over to offer white willow tea for any weather aches they might have. According to them, due to the degree of joint pain they had been suffering from, the storm was going to be a big one.

  People were hurrying as they walked on the sidewalks, rode their bicycles, or drove through the streets. Most of them were getting off of work early, running errands, and getting prepared for the arrival of the storm. No one wanted to be caught outside when the storm hit. Karena estimated that they had about a couple of hours until it did. Due to the twilight that the storm clouds had created, the street lamps remained lit in the daytime hours. Their blazing cores and cheery light were a source of comfort to people.

  Every so often, her eyes spotted a gonfalon hanging on a building. They only reinstated that they were in the Water district. The gonfalons were squared flags with three, swallowtail-like streamers at their bottom. They were blue and purple with the water symbol on them, which was two wave outlines that crested three times. The flags strained against their ties, and their ribboned ends flapped in the gusting wind. Even without them, it was clear to see that they were in the Water district. Rain chains dangled from every roof. Water fountains, miniature waterfalls, water walls, and water gardens decorated store fronts, courtyards, and front yards, making the whole district look half-submerged. But that’s what happened when there was a large concentration of Water elementals and bloodlines in one area.

  Buildings were painted in soft shades of blue, sand, coral, or pastel purple. As a reminder of the faraway ocean, sea shells had been glued onto the sides of buildings, and artistic had used glass stones to create murals.

  However, the Water district wasn’t the only one filled with artistic touches. The Earth, Fire, and Air districts had their own style that correlated to their elemental affinity. It didn’t matter what district it was, people took pride in crafting a beautiful city.

  Due to a slight increase in pitch, Karena’s ears picked up on what her parents were talking about in the front seats.

  “And not only that, the Summers threatened to do harm to them,” her mom was saying to her dad.

  “Threatening to do harm is vague, but they have no right to say that in the first place,” her dad said. He slowed down before an intersection and let another vehicle enter the lane.

  “It could mean anything. It could mean harm to their dog, to her family, or anyone who visits. They’re neighbors, so anything could happen and it could escalate very quickly.”

  “Margaret is as stubborn as the rest of her family. She isn’t going to move from the Fire district.”

  Shaking her head, her mom said, “I understand that piece of property has sentimental value to her, but you have to know when to let go.”

  “She’s proud of the fact that it’s been passed down from generation to generation since the Vampire Regime ended.”

  “That’s five centuries ago. Move on, go to better and greener pastures for goodness’ sake. Anything is better than staying in the Fire district. Her sense of pride is going to be her undoing, and the death of us all from worry. I wouldn’t place value on something that is in the Fire district, even if it was a rare dragon bloodstone. She would be smart to move, and relocate to where there isn’t such hostility. She’s one of the last to leave. There’s seven other families that live in an opposing district. That to me would be a living nightmare.”

  “They’re probably hoping that this feud will end, or that something good will happen. They’re holding on to hope, however foolish that is.”

  “Ha! The feud won’t end, not with those brutes and murderers. As if that will happen. Think about—.” But her mom didn’t finish her sentence. Karena knew what she was referring to, the death of her dad’s older brother.

  Her dad took his right hand off the steering wheel to wrap it around her closest hand.

  Her dad said, “The Azures should know when to quit though. This feud isn’t a child’s game; it never has been. There have been deaths, hurt feelings, threats, and overall escalation to the point that every Water and Earth I know of try to avoid Fires and Airs altogether, whether socially or in business. As it is, we don’t venture into their districts unless absolutely necessary.”

  Her mom’s shoulder heaved a little. Next to Karena, her sister, Isabel, nudged her and pointed her eyes at mom, who sat in front of her in the car.

  “Hey, Mom, what are your thoughts about the theme of my birthday party?” Karena said in an effort to distract her mom from the depressing topic. If she didn’t, Isabel would continue to bug her, or talk about something sparkly or pink.

  It did the trick because her mom perked up.

  “I like mermaids,” her mom said.

  “We did a mermaid-themed birthday party when I was twelve.”

  “I still remember the lake monster party for your fifteenth birthday. The costumes were hilarious.”

  “I want to do something different this time.”

  “Anna had a crystal birthday party. That was a beautiful one. Maybe we could do a sapphire one.”

  “Nah,” Karena said.

  Everyone liked an excuse to celebrate. Sometimes there were so many events and birthdays, all she could do on her work days was work, go home to change, head out and attend the event or birthday, come back, and sleep.

  “And we’re here at the Blue Ballroom,” her dad said with a cheerful voice.

  He made the turn into the parking lot, and parked. When her dad flicked back the key in the ignition, the car hissed as surplus steam escaped from the exhaust pipe.

  They got out of the car, and walked up to the old brick and plaster building. They pushed open the ornate doors and strode into the ballroom’s grand foyer. The high, arched ceiling above her was adorned with wavy, glass tiles. A soft motor-like sound bounced off the walls.

  Seated on a bench by the coat closet, the party planner petted her black cat’s long fur. Her cat, Mambo, had his eyes half closed, clearly enjoying it. The motor-like sound came from Mambo purring.

  “Rachel, how are you?” her mom greeted.

  “Oh, my goodness, I was lost in thought for a second. Where are my manners?” Rachel said. Mambo leapt off her lap to greet them, his duster-like tail held high in the air. Rachel sprung to her feet too.

  They exchanged greetings and hugs.

  “I’m so glad you brought your parents, Karena. We need ideas,” Rachel said. She crossed her arms, and leaned back a little to study them.

  Family bonds were valued, so this didn’t bring any embarrassment to Karena.

  “I want something original,” Karena said.

  “That’s a tough request,” Rachel said. She retrieved a thick notebook from her satchel, flipped through it with her long nails, and handed her several sheets of paper.

  On the sheets were lists upon lists of all the kinds of birthdays Rachel had planned. Karena looked at them and quickly became overwhelmed. Other people had done birthdays with all sorts of themes. Popular themes were underlined. The lists traveled down the paper in columns, front and back. They included themes like princess in the woods, cupcakes galore, and one as obscure and strange as a mushroom and insect wonderland. Karena was glad she had missed out on that one. An Earth must’ve come up with something like that. They were always a bit looney. Karena gave her back the sheets.

  “Now you’ve been to the Blue Ballroom before, corr
ect?” Rachel said.

  “I have,” Karena said. Rachel planned so many events and birthdays that she couldn’t be judged for not remembering that she had planned every single birthday party for Karena since she was little, and that they were always held in the Blue Ballroom.

  “Good. Then you’re familiar with the fact that it’s very spacious.”

  They strolled down the hallway. All five of them were able to walk side by side with room to spare. They came to an intersection. On the right were the restrooms, straight ahead was the kitchen area, and to their left was the Blue Ballroom itself. Rachel had already opened the engraved doors to encourage fresh air to come in.

  They stepped onto the wood flooring of the ballroom. Their footsteps echoed in the vacant space. Tiered chandeliers dripped from the ceiling. Rachel flipped a switch and they shone with radiant, golden light. Due to the light striking them, the crystals winked and released rainbows.

  Karena’s eyes strayed further upwards to the frescos of merpeople, merkings holding tridents, and merqueens with harpoons in their hands. Pearls dotted their hair, and pieces of seaweed held their wild braids in place. They looked down on them with solemnness, as though she possessed an infant’s knowledge about the world. The rest of the ballroom wasn’t as interesting. The sky-blue walls, elegant light fixtures, and ocean wave baseboards were a stark, boring contrast to the scenes painted above.

  Karena walked a short distance away from Rachel and her parents, who were chatting about recent gatherings, and Isabel, who was petting Mambo the black cat. She soaked in the vastness of the ballroom. The floor itself was bigger than the house she shared with Hadrian and his cousin Rose. She thought about the list.