Soul of Ice

Chapter Thirteen

Dummies were scattered throughout, most surrounding the perimeter of the training room. She imagined each with the smug face of Pascal as he watched her sign her life away and then when he watched the whipping of Luria. She remembered she'd been on the verge of feeling guilty when she'd shoved that lantern over his head and set his head aflame. That had been before, when she thought he was just another city guard following orders. Not any longer. She was glad of it. Glad that the guilt hadn't come after all and that her heart was hard and cold.

The magic came easily after days of not using it.

The first ice dagger she summoned slammed into the dummy across the room, slashing it open diagonally from temple to hip. With a twitch of her fingers and a fleeting thought, the dagger disintegrated into vapor. Straw spewed outwards from the huge tear, and she could almost imagine them as Pascal's intestines spilling forth.

That ice magic in her pulsed once, so cold that it almost felt warm. The ice had settled into her veins, slowing down her heartbeat, focusing her hate. She summoned a core of ice, shaping it into another sharp knife before she sent it flying. It slammed into a second dummy so hard that it flew back against the wall.

She'd escaped from Pelosia only to be caught by the Varalians, molded into their perfect little special agent. Astra spun, flinging a third ice dagger. It impaled the head of a dummy to the hilt, where the left eye should have been. Escaping the Varalians only to be enslaved by the Auxerrans, now stuck day and night underground in a concrete box. She stalked to the dummy and wrenched the dagger out. There was no peace for the wraiths, so what was next? Escaping the Auxerrans only to be nabbed by the Solasians? That would be ironic. And then she stabbed the dagger down. Wrenched it out. Stabbed. Again. And again. And again.

There were screams and sobs and hisses in her mind, but the room was utterly quiet and silent, save for the sound of solid ice slicing into straw.

"I hope that's not what you do with real people." Deftly, Astra flipped her knife in her hand as she turned. Riviera with her omnipresent smirk leaned against the training room door. She pushed off the wall and kicked the door closed again as she walked in. "Didn't even hear me coming. Can't tell if you're a good fighter or if you just have anger management issues—" she nodded at the mess in the room "—but I hope you're not getting rusty."

That icy core of magic pulsed one last time and then released its hold on her, smoothing out the focused rage and leaving behind the fatigue of using so much magic at once and surprise that Riviera was up so early in the morning. She definitely wouldn't be throwing any more ice daggers any time soon. Astra slowly settled back into a calmer version of herself, but she stayed silent. That icy knife in her hand started flipping, blade over handle.

"Are you mute now, too?" Riviera sighed dramatically. Again, she surveyed the damage Astra had created. Straw was strewn everywhere, and Astra was pretty sure her hair was covered with it. Despite the mess, there was no evidence that it had been caused by her magic, except for the ice dagger still in her hand, which she immediately dropped. It evaporated into water vapor before it even hit the ground.

"I always knew you were just another fuck up to add to our roster of fuck ups," Riviera concluded, tacking on another dramatic sigh to the end. "Good thing it's usually fuck ups that end up changing the world." She waved a hand at the general mess of straw. A moment later, a magical wind swept up the mess, disposing it all in a huge trash bin at the end of the room. "You can thank me later." Astra sneered.

The wind wraith swaggered up to her—she was shorter than Astra by nearly a head. "You know, I don't want to be here either. But Iker is quite adamant about me checking up on you. Don't know why he keeps picking me and not Jesper or even Rousel, you haven't pissed them off yet." She paused. Smirked again. "Or have you?" Astra moved to walk past Riviera, already tired of her presence.

"If Iker wants to tell me something, I'm sure he has a mouth he can use to tell me himself." She was almost to the door when a thick wall of air stopped her from moving forward.

"That's rude. I'm not done talking yet," Riviera purred silkily. Astra turned around. The wind wraith folded her arms, and she was more serious as she said, "Iker wants to know if you've thought about our offer."

"Yes."

"And?" she nudged.

"I want to know what the end goal here is. Kill all the guards? Find the entrances that lead aboveground?"

"The end goal is freedom. And we'll do whatever it takes to achieve that goal." She thought of Timothy and his newborn sister, born and raised in this fraction of a life. The violence had dulled the edge to her guilt, but it would never take it away.

"Tell me exactly how you plan to achieve that goal. And I'll tell you my answer." Riviera's smile was razor sharp.

"Twelve o'clock tonight. I'll find you."