Frost twins's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

The hound brought us down through the black pines and stopped at the lake's edge. The ice stretched flat and pale to the horizon. Wind cut across it in long white ribbons. The pale spired house we had seen from the ridge was gone from view now, hidden behind a swell of drift and cloud. He said we should walk straight out. She said the wind would blind us before we crossed a quarter of it. The body froze on the shore. Our fingers were already stiff inside our gloves. "We can't stand here," I said. "We can't wander either," she said. "Pick a direction wrong and we die on the ice." The hound sat down. It had brought us to the shore and would go no farther. Then the air on our left went warm. Not a little warm. A full breath of summer against our cheek, wrong as a bell in a graveyard. We turned. A fire fairy stood on the frozen creek behind us, one boot on the pale ice, the other on a dark seam of running water beneath. The ice did not melt under him. His hair moved like a lit match. He carried no weapon we could see. "You're the twin," he said. "The old woman sent word ahead. I'm Blazen Emberwing. I was passing." He looked at the lake. "Nobody passes here. I lied. She asked me to walk you out." He said the tribe's house sat two hours northwest, invisible from the shore because the drift hid the spires until you were on top of them. He said the ice grew thin in three places between here and there, and he could feel them the way she and I felt each other. He held out a hand. His palm gave off heat like an open stove. "Walk behind me. Step where I step. If I stop, you stop." She wanted to accept. I wanted to ask why a fire fairy owed the old woman a favor. The body stalled again, one boot lifted, one boot down. Blazen watched us stall. He did not soften his voice. "Argue on the ice and you'll go through it. Pick now." We looked at each other, the way we had looked at the empty bed. Two wills, one body, and a thin road under our feet. "Behind you," we said together. We stepped onto the lake. The hound stood, shook out its wings, and lifted back toward the ridge. Blazen walked. We walked. Twice he stopped without warning and we stopped with him, and the ice under our next step gave a small dry crack we did not test. Two hours later the drift thinned and the pale spires rose out of it, close enough to touch. He pointed at the door and said, "Ask for her. I've done my part." Then he turned back toward the creek, and the cold closed over the place his heat had been.