I considered my options. From what I’d heard from the other prisoners, most of the Firebloods in the kingdom had been killed or driven away. Some were probably rotting in prisons, as I was. But sooner or later, the executioner would come.
I could likely escape from these men with greater ease than I could escape from the king’s prison.
I set my jaw and nodded.
The older man bent toward the keyhole and blew into it. Ice spiked around the opening, followed by a loud click. The door swung inward.
“And my chain?” I asked, motioning to my ankle.
He stepped close, leaning on his stick, and sent out another breath. Ice formed in the keyhole of the ankle cuff but melted a second later. He tried again, and again the ice melted.
“Your resistance to cold is too strong. Can you repress your ability, girl?”
I shook my head. Grandmother had died before she could teach me.
A low groan echoed down the corridor from the guardroom.
“The guards are waking,” said the one called Arcus. “Stay back.”
Before I could blink, he exhaled a blast of freezing air at the chain, pulled a sword from behind his back, and swung it down. I gasped and jerked away as the brittle chain cracked in half. The air echoed with the rending of iron, followed by another distant groan.
“Hurry,” urged the old man.
I tried to stand, but a mutiny of pain in my joints pulled me back down. My muscles had grown too weak to support me.
“Carry her, Arcus.”
Arcus bent down, his hood stopping inches from me. The scent of soap and horse and leather filled my senses.
“If you try anything,” he said, leaning close to my ear, “I’ll break your skinny neck.”
I glared and held myself still, wishing I could see his eyes instead of shadows. Only his chin and lower lip were clearly visible. Both were strong, well formed, and puckered by a thick, ugly scar. “If you hurt me, I’ll burn you so badly even your mistress will run in terror.”
He snorted softly, then slid his arms under my back and legs. As he lifted me, the weight of the cuff pulled against my ankle. I grunted in pain and was surprised when he set me down again, pulling a piece of cloth from his robes. He wound it around my ankle under the metal so it wouldn’t chafe. Then he scooped me back up.
When my thigh touched the cold skin of his bare arm, he sucked in a loud breath through his nostrils, but he moved quickly and quietly, even with my weight in his arms. As we mounted the crumbling stairs, Bragger stumbled into the hallway, blinking and wide-eyed at the sight of a prisoner being carted away.
Frost fogged the stone corridor and smeared the floor in glittering, interconnected webs. Ice clacked like a thousand chattering teeth as it rushed over Bragger’s legs and up his midsection to cover his arms and neck. He opened his mouth, but his words were blocked by the sudden appearance of a mouthful of ice.
I stared at the older man’s raised hand, ice crystals shining on his fingers. But I had no time to marvel at the strength of his gift. More guards were grumbling into wakefulness, their voices carrying into the hallway. Arcus strode past the frozen figure to a door propped open by a thin board, the older man following quickly.
As the heavy door clanged shut behind us, I trembled with the reality of escape. My lungs filled with the sweet, clean air of outdoors, my eyes dazzled by the almost forgotten sight of stars, like torches in a darkened room.
Beneath my thigh, Arcus’s arm was bitter cold. His breathing had grown shallow.
“My skin burns you, doesn’t it?” I asked, noticing his furrowed brow and clenched jaw.
“It is your stench that burns my nostrils, Fireblood, and nothing else. I hope Brother Thistle has enough soap in the abbey to make you bearable.”
If he was averse to being near me, that was fine. The feeling was mutual.
“Are you Brother Thistle?” I asked the old man, who was taking labored steps toward a carriage and driver waiting in the shadow of a building across the street.
“That I am, girl. And what is your name?”
“Ruby,” I replied. “Ruby Otrera.”
“Ruby,” he repeated, smiling. “How fitting.”
THREE
I HAD FORGOTTEN THE BONE-RATTLING experience of a journey by carriage. Arcus sat next to me, with Brother Thistle in the seat across from us. As we bounced over the rutted tracks that snaked away from the city, I tucked myself into the corner farthest from the younger Frostblood and his icy skin. Even though I was wrapped in blankets, my joints ached with cold, and the waves of frigid air coming from him didn’t help.
Arcus gave an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t know Firebloods were so susceptible to chills.”
I glared at him. My heat had kept me alive when other prisoners had coughed themselves to death or frozen in the night. But over the months, my inner fire had dwindled to the point that I was cold all the time, even if I still felt warm to the touch to Arcus. I doubted he would understand, and with the pain I was in, I didn’t care to explain. After a couple of hours, the moans I couldn’t stifle irritated him to the point that he agreed to a brief rest.
We rolled to a stop on a deserted stretch of road. The driver stretched his legs while the two hooded Frostbloods trudged off to speak under a large tree, its skeletal branches silhouetted by a bright crescent moon.
“She’s a weak little thing,” Arcus said, just above a whisper. “I question whether she’ll even survive the journey.”
“Indeed,” said Brother Thistle in an equally hushed tone. “But she survived the prison. She may have hidden strength. And perhaps she has other gifts we have not anticipated.”