Frost Arch (44 page)

“No! No! I will not leave until I get Hawthorne back!” My eyes were beginning to mist up again.

Elvira Frost stood up quickly from her throne and hissed at us, “You’re precious Hawthorne has no idea who you are, you silly girl.”

“Avalon, if we don’t leave we will die here.” Jack muttered pleadingly with me.

“You go then.” I was trying to hold my sobs back, “Go, Jack.”

I could see in Jack’s eyes that he wanted nothing more than to run from this place and never return but as always he stayed by my side. I turned to Ræven, “Please, just go. I don’t want you to get hurt here.” But beautiful Ræven merely took my hand in hers and left me wondering how I had gained such lovely friends.

“So it looks as though you don’t want to leave.” Frost’s sharp face glared at us, “Then perhaps you will answer a question for me, seeing as you know so much about my feisty friend here.” She indicated towards Hawthorne who had not relinquished his glare.

“What?” I hissed through gritted teeth.

Elvira breathed deeply and I saw a flicker of annoyance flash across her face. Clearly there was an issue to be resolved that no one could figure out.

“Why does he not fly?” She said slowly.

I felt my brow relax involuntarily, yet somehow I was not surprised. It had been a question that had baffled us for a long time, and I think I finally realized the answer. I felt my heart swell with love for Hawthorne.

“Well?” Frost pressed, angrier this time, “Why does he not fly? His wings are strong and adequately sized but he cannot lift himself from the ground. Whenever I order him to fly he goes crashing to the ground as though he were bound to it by some invisible force. We have tried everything. He cannot fly alone, nor with myself or anyone else upon his back. There is no logical explanation for it and I want to know the answer.”

A strange sound filled the ice room. It echoed around the walls and sounded a hundred times louder than normal. My laughter. It reverberated and multiplied, carrying all the way up to the extremely high ceiling. I laughed and laughed, and could not stop myself for a long time. I was positively hyperventilating. My shrill laughter lasted for ages and no one in the room spoke a single word during my odd outburst. When I had finally calmed down I was wiping my eyes which were watering due to pure happiness. Jack and Ræven were looking at me as though I were utterly mad, which was probably the case. After everything that had happened to me lately of course I had gone a little mad.

“Ava …” Jack couldn’t find the words, “What?”

“What? What is it? What is so funny?” Frost demanded. Her fists were clenched into balls. She was humiliated, “Tell me why the creature won’t fly!”

Correcting my face into a more appropriate expression I turned to Elvira Frost. I took a deep breath and said in a rather unsteady voice, “Because, Mistress, Your ‘Vulmessian’ was designed to fly for one person, and one person only. His true Master. I suppose your ‘very powerful Mage from Concord City’ did not expect a mere peasant like myself to have control over such power. So you see, Hawthorne will never fly for you, because his heart belongs to me.”

“Ridiculous.” Some colour seemed to have returned to Frost’s cheeks for she was so angry, “Nonsense! I am the master of this beast! He obeys only my orders! Does he not ignore you when you call his name? Is it not you he is ready to pounce upon? Perhaps we should release him from his shackles and see who he chooses?”

It was true. Hawthorne’s red eyes were filled with hate and bloodlust. He clearly did not recognize me at all and would surely rip me to shreds. But how could I make him remember?

I was broken from my thoughts when Frost reached towards the enormous ice chain holding Hawthorne back from attacking us.

“No!” Jack and I cried in unison. We both knew our fate if he were to be released. Yet to our horror she grasped the chain and we watched it begin to deteriorate before our eyes.

What happened next seemed to be instinct for Ræven. One second she was her Mage self standing next to me, but as soon as that chain began to fade away she had exploded into a bird. At first I thought she might be trying to escape the oncoming slaughter but I was shocked to see her flying straight for Elvira.

“Ræven!” I cried at my friend who was heading straight towards danger.

Elvira Frost looked up just in time to see sharp claws and a beak a mere meter from her very face. She was startled and cried out as Ræven pecked and scratched at her. The chain remained unbroken for the time being but now we had to worry about Ræven.

Jack and I watched in horror as the scene unfolded before our eyes. Ræven ripped at her flesh as much as possible before Elvira raised her pale, thin hands and let out a burst of freezing air that would be sure to stop any living thing in its tracks. Sure enough the sub zero temperatures hit Ræven with such force she was sent flying backwards.

“No!” Jack and I cried as she spiraled towards the ground. As Ræven fell she transformed into her Mage form and hit the ice with a sickening crunch.

“Jack!” I cried, grasping at his clothes.

“Right!” Jack sprinted towards Ræven, intent upon healing her wounds. Elvira Frost was panting, standing at her throne and holding her ruined face. When she saw Jack running towards Ræven she scowled and raised her hand again.

“I think not!” She screeched at him.

“Jack!” I screamed.

Before Jack had a chance to reach Ræven, Frost pointed one long, cold finger at him. From her fingertip she created a long, thick spear of solid, slick ice. It rotated slowly on the spot, taking shape; the tip becoming as sharp as any weapon. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. It was still for only a moment before Elvira sent the spear shooting directly towards Jack. I watched as it flew across the room; so fast it would be impossible to avoid.

The impact of the Ice spear plunging into Jack’s chest was so great that it sent him flying from Ræven’s side. He skidded across the slick ground and only came to a halt when he hit the back wall mere meters from the door where the Creeley brothers stood watching and laughing. Jack went limp against the wall unable to hold up his own weight.

I ran to his side, my legs shaking so much that I feared I would simply crumble to the ground into a million pieces. I fell to my knees beside Jack, my hands fluttering around him uselessly. I watched as his clothes became damp and red from the blood oozing from the wound where the ice spear was still plunged into his chest.

“Jack,” I said breathlessly, “You have to heal quickly! You’re bleeding everywhere!”

Jack was panting hard, his eyes slightly unfocused but he somehow managed to prop himself against the wall properly. More blood soaked his clothes.

“Right you are.” He muttered, his top lip beginning to perspire. His face had gone quite red.

Jack grasped the ice spear with both hands and tugged at it, but he merely cried out in agony. The spear remained embedded into his chest, vital fluids pumping from him heavily.

“I can’t heal while it’s still in me.” He was struggling to talk now.

“Get it out!” I demanded of him, “Get it out now!”

“I need your help.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no.” I said panicked, my eyes beginning to brim with tears of panic.

“Avalon you have to help me!” Jack’s voice was panicked now also. His face was covered in sweat and I could hear Elvira Frost laughing in the distance as she enjoyed the show.

My heart pounded wildly as I wrapped my hands around the circumference of the ice. The cold stung my hands and made it hard to hold onto but I persevered for Jack’s sake. His face screwed up in pain and tears streamed down his face as he prepared for the weapon to be wrenched from his body.

“One … two,” I began counting for my own comfort, “Three!” I gave a great tug upon the ice yet to no avail. My hands slipped upon its surface and I fell backwards.

Swearing I got back up and hurried to Jack’s side, “Oh, no, hang on Jack!” I begged, tears streaming down my face now. Jack’s eyes were wandering and his breathing was becoming erratic. He would surely die if we could not remove the spear. Meanwhile Hawthorne’s tremendous growls made the room vibrate.

“Fire.” Jack managed to breathe, his face becoming ghostly pale. The floor around us was covered in shining blood.

“I haven’t got any matches!” I was sobbing hysterically now.

“You are a Mage!” Jack said grabbing my wrist quite tightly for someone who was bleeding to death, “You are a Fire Mage!”

“I can’t!” My voice was becoming shriller every second. Elvira let out a shriek of laughter.

“Ava.” Jack’s voice was barely a whisper.

Positively hyperventilating I clapped my hands together, rubbed them to cause friction, clicked, stomped, even punched myself several times.

Jack began sliding down the wall even further.

“No!” I cried, still trying with all my might to produce some kind of fire, “I can do this! I’m a Fire Mage! I’m a Fire Mage!” I screamed at myself.

Elvira Frost cackled, utterly enjoying herself. I turned to her angrily.

“There’s no point in trying to help him.” She threw her head back and laughed, “My ice never melts. Ever. Even if you did manage to regain your powers there is no way a Mage as weak as your could ever melt my ice. It’s unthinkable. You would have to be of a greater Power level than myself, and such Power does not exist.”

I wanted to rip, tear, punch, kick bite at every part of this wretched woman I could reach. I had never been so angry and full of hate in my entire life. Jack was going to die because I could not help him, and this was all my fault. I had dragged him into this mess. Part of me wished that I had never befriended Jack Greenwood so that he could carry on living, never knowing of the other life he could have had. It was true, destruction really did follow me around. All my life, nothing but destruction. Perhaps I really should be locked away so harm could not befall good, kind people like Jack and Ræven. Turning back to Jack I found that he was now lying sprawled in a pool of his own blood. His eyes were closed and his skin was as white as snow. His breathing was getting slower each second. Great rattling breaths escaped his mouth. He would be gone any second and there was nothing I could do about it. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

“It was supposed to be me.” I whispered.

“What?” Frost said lazily.

“It was supposed to be me.” I repeated louder this time.

“What are you going on about you stupid girl?”

I stood now, my legs somehow supporting my weight.

“It was supposed to be me! IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME! ME!”

Elvira Frost recoiled slightly and I thought it very odd. She was staring at me in a strange way. With a start I realized that my hands were glowing. Looking down I studied myself and found that I was no longer shivering, in fact I felt quite warm. As I grew angrier and angrier each second I came to realize that it was not only my hands that were glowing bright orange. My arms were so hot that the clothes upon them were beginning to smoke. I touched my face and when I looked at my hand I saw steaming lava which had been oozing from my tear ducts.

Looking up at Elvira Frost I noticed that she looked quite concerned.

“Irrelevant. You are nowhere near powerful enough.”

“I feel powerful.” I said in an undertone, too quiet for anyone to hear, “More powerful than any other time before now.”

All over my body my clothes began to smoke and catch alight. This had never happened before now. I had never emitted such heat from every part of my body.

“This is new.” I whispered.

“He is dead! Your friend is dead!” Elvira screeched at me, “You were too late!”

I looked at Jack and saw that he was quite still.

The Creeley twins cackled in unison.

That was all I needed to be pushed over the edge. I was filled with such boiling rage that before I knew it I was screaming at the top of my lungs and I was nothing more than an enormous ball of fire. The flames consumed me and I felt a control over them that I had never experienced before. They were my flames, my pets, my minions which would do my bidding and follow my every command. The clothes upon me were incinerated within a matter of seconds and I was naked apart from the flames which covered my entire being. My very flesh became lava and I felt as though I might just be able to rocket into the sky with the Power which consumed me. For the first time in my life I understood the fire. I understood how it interacted with me, and was part of me, something I had never thought of before.

I turned to the Creeley brothers, whose mouths were hanging open as though they had recently been clobbered over the head with a bat. They stared at me in awe, as though it were truly a sight to behold. As they realized that I was glaring right at them, the two men made a scramble for the door. I sent a fireball in their direction, but I was too late. They had already teleported to safety.

I turned to Jack who lay motionless upon the floor. Uncertainly I reached towards the ice spear. I felt no cold against my hand. For the first few moments nothing happened yet after a while I felt it begin to evaporate. Withdrawing I saw that all that remained was a gaping hole in Jack’s chest. But his chest was no longer rising and falling with each breath. He didn’t move at all. Even the blood which had been pumping from his chest so furiously had slowed down.