Stellan Aphelion's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

The knife meant for the Queen never reached her throat. Stellan Aphelion caught the assassin's wrist and felt something cold break open inside his chest. He had guarded the Queen for seven years as her finest blade, loyal and silent. He had never told her he loved her. He had never told anyone about the ice. Now the ice answered. Frost raced down his arm and sealed the assassin's hand to the blade. The man screamed. His fingers turned white, then blue, then still. The Queen stood behind Stellan, one hand at her mouth. Guards flooded the chamber. They saw the dead assassin, the sword locked in ice, and the frost spreading across the marble at Stellan's feet. They saw their captain's eyes gone pale as winter glass. "Stellan," the Queen said. Only she dared speak his name. "What is this?" He could not answer. The cold would not stop. It climbed the walls and cracked a window. He pressed his palms against the floor and tried to pull it back, but the power did not obey. It poured out of him like water through a broken dam. If he stayed, he would freeze the whole room, and her with it. So he ran. He ran from the palace he had sworn to protect. He crossed the cold country to the one place that was his, a tall stone tower that rose alone above the pines. Inside, his wolf waited, a great beast with a silver coat and eyes like frozen lakes. The wolf pressed its head to Stellan's chest. Where it touched him, the frost calmed. Stellan climbed to the top room. His hands still trembled. Frost bloomed on everything he touched. He could not go back to her like this. He could not guard a queen he might kill with a touch. In a locked chest under the window, he found what his mother left him before she died. An amulet, oval and pale, carved with snowflakes and set with blue crystal. She had always said it was meant for the day the cold woke inside him. He had thought it a story. He lifted the chain over his head. The crystal grew cold against his skin, then warm. The frost on his hands drew inward, down his arms, into the stone of the amulet. For the first time since the knife, his breath came slow and even. He opened his palm. A single shard of ice formed there, sharp and clean. He willed it to melt, and it melted. He willed it to return, and it came. The power obeyed. The wolf lifted its head toward the window, toward the capital he had fled. Stellan followed its gaze. The assassin had not acted alone. Someone wanted the Queen dead, and that someone still breathed. Stellan closed his fist around the amulet. He would learn to master this gift. Then he would go back, and he would find whoever sent the blade.