Veins of Ice Read online

  “Those Fires won’t listen to sense, none of them will,” Anna said. She swept back her long, mahogany hair, and settled her pointy hat back down on her head as though she was ready to go outside again.

  “Have you tried talking to the Airs?” Rose asked.

  Charles answered, “They’re just as combative and uncooperative as the Fires. They told us to reduce our trade sanctions first. We refuse to do that because the last time that happened, they did absolutely nothing to remedy the hostility or keep their end of the bargain.”

  “At some point, this feud is going to spiral out of control,” William said, wringing his hands.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t,” Karena said.

  Leonard sighed, but it was more like an angry puff. He said, “It might. Nothing gets through to them, so something has to. I’m tired of words. They want us to make the first act of benevolence. We’ve been down this road how many times? And of course, they bring up how we started the feud because one of them was found dead in a pond in the backyard of an Earth centuries ago. That was four hundred years ago!”

  “And what about the murders they have committed?” Anna said, looking shocked.

  “Oh no, for them, it’s all about the first one and how we started it. We didn’t start anything. No one was convicted. No one I know of would commit murder; it’s unthinkable,” Charles said.

  “Knowing them, they probably did it themselves to make it look like we were at fault. Those Fires enjoy conflict,” Leonard said, crossing his arms, and scowled to the point his eyes were overshadowed by his eyebrows.

  Karena listened to them vent. She felt just as angry about the issue as they did. The Fires had a monopoly over most anything that required metal. Every time her car needed maintenance, she couldn’t find car parts to fix it unless she called the next city over and paid them to ship the parts over, all of which was costly and time consuming. Metal housewares were out of the question too. They were reused until they broke. Even doorknobs were difficult to find, least of all matching ones. But at least they had their own means of retaliation. They withheld from the Fires and Airs almost everything that was woodworked, fished out of the Ranarra River, and picked from their farms.

  As the group expressed their anger, she did so as well. Their opinions mirrored her own. If only the Fires and Airs just disappeared, there would be peace at last.

  Chapter 7

  Karena paced her room. She paused at the window to look out at the shadowed backyard, but then she returned to her circles, unable to stand still for even a moment. The wood floor creaked under her steps, but went mute when she crossed over her wool rug in the center of her room. It was Saturday evening. The hands on her clock read fifteen to nine. She was dressed to go out, but couldn’t decide whether she would go out.

  Should she stand Vince up, or not? He had stood her up. He had walked out of her party, refusing to show his face. Did she really want to know his identity? She didn’t want to get wrapped up in someone who might have issues. He had charmed her, only to leave her devastated and confused.

  Dating as it was, was murky at best, filled with subtleties, possible hidden agendas, hopes, expectations, and drama. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but so far in her life, that had been her experience. Vince had enticed her. He had been charismatic, attentive, and exclusive to her, but her past dating experiences nagged at her that it was too good to be true. It must’ve been an act, but it could’ve been genuine as well. She didn’t know anymore.

  Her indecision about whether or not to go to Sageburrow Gardens had been eating away at her for the past week. Every time she had decided she would go, she promptly convinced herself not to. The reasons to go were as numerous as the ones not to. She stopped at her oak dresser and picked up the mask. Her fingers glided over the wings fanning away from the cheeks and slid over the forehead. Wasn’t it better to cut her losses now?

  Karena looked at the mask, and past it at what else was on her dresser. A chunk of transparent rose quartz sat next to a dried up lavender rose, and a pink, melted stub of a candle with the word “love” etched all over it. All three had been chosen to attract love into her life. Though she had long since given up on lighting the candle, or refreshing the rose, she still thought about what she felt was missing from her life. It wasn’t like there was a hole to fill in her life or any loneliness she desperately wanted to remedy, but rather a wish to experience something more, which didn’t involve friends and work. The emotional risk of being let down had to be taken. What if Vince was that special someone she had been waiting for?

  Karena took a last look at herself in the mirror. Her glacier-blue eyes anxiously searched her outfit from her knee high boots to her pants, and across her loose tunic for flaws. She considered changing into something else, but dismissed it. Her anxiety was getting to her. Before she could drive herself any crazier, she wrenched herself from the mirror and from her room.

  In her car, she yanked the keys in the ignition, and drove towards the Earth district, determined not to flake out. The little clock on the dashboard read two minutes to nine. She would be late, but at least she would be there and not back at home. She drove a bit too fast, but the streets were forgiving at that hour because almost everyone was either enjoying an evening stroll, a late night dinner at a restaurant, or inside preparing to sleep.

  Karena turned onto the twisty road that led to the Sageburrow Gardens. Her vehicle’s headlights flooded the lonely asphalt with light. She wound her way up the road and parked just shy of the parking lot. She got out, and stood there in the darkness. Above her, a star crashed through the sky in a blaze of green. Was it an omen? It faded as quickly as it had materialized.

  Instead of taking the main footpath to the wisteria pergola, she took a lesser used, narrow one. Ferns and full-bodied bushes quickly swallowed the road and her car from sight. Her feet pattered on the stone, quick, but still not yet in a jog. Her breath came in shallow pants.

  Karena sweated, but not from the exercise. Frost stiffened her clothes. She cursed, and willed herself to calm down before she began to create snowflakes. Her emotional state triggered her elemental powers, hence, it was easy to tell when she was angry, or in this case, very nervous. But she wasn’t the only one, other elementals were the exact same way.

  Like a passing phantom, Karena whisked past the flower beds. They teemed with silhouettes of buds and early spring flowers. Lights strewn from oaks and ash trees cast a fairy-like ambience of peace and innocence. She passed under several metal arches, and darted over a bridge that spanned over a fish pond.

  After ascending a stone stairway of shallow, wide steps, which traversed the slight hill that the garden was situated on, she entered the wisteria tunnel. The pergola wouldn’t be too much farther. The heavenly, sweet scent of the wisteria flowers filled her. Light filtered through their interwoven growth from electric lanterns above. She crept through the tunnel. Not a soul was around. The sides of the tunnel opened up at regular intervals to allow access to different areas of the garden. Her destination though was dead ahead.

  The tunnel ended at the pergola. She stepped under it. She noticed how uncomfortably warm it was in there. Her eyes scanned the wide area, but she was the only person there. And here it was, she was late, and he was even later. It soured her mood, churning her anxiety into a mush of disappointment.

  With nothing to do but wait, Karena studied the pergola. Wisteria vines bubbling with purple flowers dripped from the silted roof. The sandstone under her feet radiated outwards in lighter and darker grey rings across the space. Benches lounged near the outer perimeters of the pergola, cushioned, and comfortable to sit on and chat with someone for hours on end. Off to the side, a round, tiled table with two bright, lime-green chairs tucked under it held a chess board and a game suspended in motion until the next day.

  The sad reality that all the indecision and emotionally charged days had been for nothing roared in her head, like waves crashing on a rocky beach. She walked in
to the middle of the pergola. Her throat tightened, and she lowered her eyes to the ground. With her feet, she swept invisible dirt across the sandstone.

  A whisper of a sound floated to her ears. It probably came from some forging, nocturnal creature. She looked over, and finally saw the dark form of a person standing where the light couldn’t quite touch at the far reaches of the pergola. He stood half-hidden behind one of the supporting posts of the pergola, which explained why she hadn’t seen him earlier. The wisteria growth was particularly unruly there.

  Anger rose in her. Her iciness dulled the unusual warmth in the pergola. A cold cloud collected around her.

  “Why are you hiding? You’re already a coward for not exposing your face at my birthday party,” Karena said, her voice injecting venom into the air.

  He didn’t come forward. The darkness shadowed his face, and she couldn’t make out his features.

  Sorrowful, Vince replied, “I have been a coward as of late. I admit it, and I’m not happy that I’ve been this way. Thank you for coming out here to meet me.”

  “You could step out of the shadows. You’re acting like a child.”

  He sighed. “Do you recognize my voice? That I am Vince?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “You’re going to be upset no matter what I do. I just want to let you know that I do have feelings for you,” Vince said, and he paused, “I wish I knew why though. I’ve been thinking about you all week and how absurd it is to like you of all people. I should’ve ignored my feelings, but I couldn’t, not when they tormented me as they did.”

  Still peeved, and wanting to know his reasons, she said, “Why would I be upset? I’m upset because you won’t show your face. What do you have to hide? Did you lie to me about something I should know about?”

  Karena tapped her foot, and her upper lip curled and pressed against her bottom lip. If he didn’t come out of the shadows in the next minute, she would drag him out of them. She watched his darkened form, and calculated the distance between she and him.

  “I lied to you about my name, but nothing else,” he said.

  He stepped out from behind the post, revealing who he was. Light washed onto his face. Her stomach heaved, threatening to vomit her dinner and her dignity with it. Rage flashed through her.

  “You! How dare you!” she shouted.

  He winced.

  “You’re not Vince, you phony liar! You’re Asher,” Karena said and grappled for words to express her shock.

  His eyes roamed her face, and he turned them to the ground before her feet. He recomposed himself and drew his shoulders back as though preparing for her coming onslaught of harsh words. His chin tilted upwards, exposing more of his ridged, muscular neck. He stared at her with a hunted look on his face, as though this was the end. He stuck his hands in his pockets and waited.

  “How dare you come to my birthday party! Fires and Airs aren’t invited. They’re pieces of dirt,” she shouted at him. The air swirled around her as it dropped in temperature. “You’re a piece of dirt.”

  With a certain heaviness, Asher said, “So now you know why I wouldn’t take off my mask. I also dyed my hair to throw anyone off who might have recognized my voice.”

  “What an awesome surprise this is, not! I shouldn’t have come. What a waste of my time. I was better off thinking that there was something wrong with your face. I can’t believe this. What sick twist of fate is this?”

  Karena put her hands to her head. The truth caused her to reel, or were her surroundings doing that on their own? Though ice embalmed the wisteria above her, rolled across the sandstone floor, and draped the surrounding benches, Asher didn’t counter it with his own elemental abilities.

  “If I had a different face, would you like me better?”

  “No. You’re a goddamn Fire.”

  “You seemed to have liked me.”

  “Yeah, because I thought you were a decent human being. You’re a Volcanis too, which makes it even worse. They’re murderers, as are you.”

  His eyes smoldered, flashing gold for a second, but they softened. “Are you done berating me?” he asked.

  “You probably lied to me the entire time we were talking at the party.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Prove it.”

  Asher unbuttoned his shirt. Just when she was about to tell him off even further about how the last thing she wanted to see was his body, she saw the ragged scar across his chest. It was like the winding course of a river. She remembered what he had told her about his first love, and how she had faked her love for him and had tried to kill him because of the feud and the fact that he was an opposing elemental. But it didn’t do anything to calm Karena down or evoke trust in him.

  “I can see why she did that. I would’ve done the same to you too. You don’t deserve to live,” Karena said, glaring at him. She hated him, she hated everything about him. He was disgusting to her. And to think she had fallen for him. She concluded it must’ve been trickery.

  “You think you know better in your little world, where you and the Earths are so righteous. I guessed wrong that there was hope. You’re as bad as the rest of them, stuck up and stupid.”

  “You’re delusional to think that there was ever any hope I would like you.”

  “Are you angry because you’re disappointed that your dream guy didn’t meet your stringent criteria? Or is it because I’m the only guy who will listen to you?”

  “Argh! I can date anyone I want, and they’ll listen to me. They’re better than you by far.”

  “I don’t think so if I’m getting such a reaction from you. You’re disappointed that I’m a Fire. If I wasn’t, then you wouldn’t be like this. It’s a label, Karena. Don’t you get it?”

  “Say what you want, and believe what you want. I don’t care,” Karena seethed. “And what were you intending to do at my birthday party? You had a hidden motive, other than to ruin my life.”

  “I was planning to burn the building to the ground.”

  Thoroughly repulsed by him, she shook her head and pointed at him. “Stay out of my life. I’m going home and I’m going to pretend that I never met you. I can’t believe I came out here to talk with you. It’s bad enough I have to see your face at work, however brief that is. I wish you would die,” she spat. “You got my hopes up for nothing. I should’ve known.”

  Karena stomped out of the pergola and back the way she had come, through the wisteria tunnel. Her vision became obscured as ice particles misted before her. Ice raced ahead, coating everything into a frozen prison. Her emotions bled freely from her. She cried and howled into the air. Her mystery guy had been a Fire all along. He had lied to her, gotten her hopes up, deserted her, and then revealed to her that he was a damn Fire. It was cruel. Why had she fallen for him? How was it possible to do so? He was as undesirable as the most grotesque monster on the planet. She wouldn’t ever be able to forgive herself, or him.

  At home, she stormed into her room, and threw his mask into the trash, and tore up his note. She whipped around, unable to sit or stand still. She went from the window to her bed, and finally left to go practice her abilities at the practice range. When the next duel came around in a year, she vowed she was going to kill him and not even try to make it look like an accident.

  Chapter 8

  For days, Karena was still shaken and fuming about how Vince had actually been Asher. It wasn’t possible to fall in love with a Fire. She continued to berate herself for being so gullible.

  To ease her guilt, she had talked to Hadrian and Rose about it, confidents who wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone about it. If word got out, everyone would see her as a traitor, even though she wasn’t the perpetrator. Hadrian and Rose had been just as shocked as she about Vince’s true identity.

  At work, Karena sat at their usual desk while Captain Valmar went over the more notable tasks of the day before handing them the folders. When it was all said and done, at least so she thought, she ditched her teammates, a
nd headed to the garage to get a helmet and a motorcycle. It was either Tristan’s or Hadrian’s turn to drive the truck. She looked forward to riding a motorcycle and hearing it roar when she twisted the throttle. Recklessness eased some of her anger, like a valve releasing pressurized steam.

  Someone tugged on her shoulder, and she spun around.

  Taken by surprise, Hadrian stepped back. He said, “I was calling you, as were Tristan and Amarine.”

  “Aren’t we going to the garage?”

  “No. Our first assignment is to locate several nests of giant scorpionflies in this building. It’s speculated that they got in through one of the chimneys over the weekend. Most of the nests are located around the entrance, the receptionist desk, and the surrounding rooms.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said, and she went back to their table with him.

  Amarine was looking over the report. Karena glanced at those leaving for the garage and spotted the back of Asher. Her hands clenched.

  “Karena!” Amarine exclaimed.

  Karena snapped back into the present moment and realized that she had frozen over the desk. The ice on it glimmered like a satin gown.

  “Do you mind?” Amarine said.

  Amarine pried the report from the ice, tearing some of the papers in the process. Irritated, her lips flattened as she rearranged them so that they read correctly.

  “Are you not feeling well?” Tristan asked. “I might be of service. I know of several good potions and—.”

  “No, I’m fine. Thank you for the offer. I just want to get this over with without being stung.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, all we need to do is smoke them with noxious gas and keep a net pole ready in case a few try to escape. It should take twenty minutes or less.”

  They got up, gathered the needed supplies, and retraced their steps back to the front of the building where they usually entered after parking. The receptionist lady, Mrs. Leafborne, looked at them and then back to the ceiling where several nasty looking, teacup-sized flies with scorpion-like stingers were buzzing around their newly made nest. She had a hand gripped around a rolled-up newspaper in case she needed to bat one away.