Ch. 34
“Cold Flames”
I check every dagger a second, and a third time, to make sure they are all secure. I catch a red flash of movement — Gaelira bows, again. Nyx, I will never get used to that. The beautiful fae woman walks to a nearby wagon and begins packing up bottles and paper with efficient grace, practiced movements, but my attention barely holds there.
My eyes shift quickly, searching for Iamys, who is already looking at me with those brown eyes, catching on the slight tremor of my hands as they fall to my sides.
“I’m fine,” I say, shaking my head. Calm, Right now, I need calm.
“Are you sure?” His voice is gentle, but seeing. I can feel his eyes drifting down, noting the extra dagger strapped to my thing, the one I also checked three times.
The feeling of being exposed crawls up my spine. I turn, scanning the camp around us, and my eyes land on their target. Zanir, seating just beyond the trees now. He is lounging on a tree stump, one leg propped up and an arm draped lazily over his knee, as if he is wholly unaffected by anything, as if he has all the time in the world to do nothing but watch, to observe. A smirk tugs at his mouth, infuriatingly calm, as if he is waiting for something. As if he knows something.
My eyes narrow, a spark of heat curling against my cold. How can he act like that? There is something about him, something so close yet maddeningly out of reach, like a half-remembered dream.
I turn back to Iamys, casting a quick glance around first. Most of the scouts and guards are busy packing up camp, their attention elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t listening, or even watching, waiting for me to slip.
I lean a little close, my voice barely a whisper. The cold creeps up my arms in a slow crawl, and I have to swallow against the panic rising with it. “Iamys…” The word, his name, lingers as I search for a way to say what is racing through my brain. Finally, I find out how to shape it. “Devlyn said my powers are… confused right now,” I say. “She wants me to take a break.”
Iamys raises a brow, his breath puffing a small cloud in the chill between us. It only makes the cold dig deeper into me. I glance down at my hands. Still pale, still normal. I press my fingers into fists, breathing slowly, willing the chill to recede. My control falters, but I hold on to it.
“That seems to be going well,” he sighs, a hint of wry humor softening his words.
Iamys studies me for a moment, his brown eyes steady and unwavering, like a great oak tree. It is as if he can see everything beneath my surface — the conflict, the memories, the fear, clawing their way back the longer I am away from that confining castle, the fog that is starting to clear, piece by piece. Every time I see Zanir, or even around him, it is like something sparks in the shadows of my mind, something he knows but won’t say.
“I don’t know why he… why Zanir…” I struggle, glancing back toward the treeline where he sits, so at ease in the shadows. “Being around him makes me remember things, pieces of something I can’t quite hold on to. It’s like he knows — like he knows what it is I can’t see. And I need to know why. Why I am drawn to him at all.”
I clench my hands, the cold now seeping and pulling at my bones. “But with you…” My voice softens as I look at Iamys, taking in the calm, casual way he stands, as if he can absorb the worst of my storm. “With you, I don’t feel that weight, to hide, to conceal. When I am with you, I don’t have to worry about who I am supposed to be, or what pieces I am missing. I can just… be.”
Iamys smiles, a warmth and acceptance, in his gaze that soothes something deep within me, even as the frost edges my fingertips. But then something shifts — Zanir’s eyes are on me, picking me out across the camp, piercing and sharp.
The calm, his calm, snaps against the coldness that swirls up within me like ice spreading through my veins. My beast claws against my mental door, his rage rising, his frigid power surging, stoked, provoked by that intense, knowing look Zanir holds.
For a split second, I feel the beast pressing at the edges, threatening to bust free, a blizzard of fury and frost. I close my eyes, not daring to look at the door, breathing in, struggling to tame him, to pull the cold back under my skin.
“I’m fine.” I mumble, mostly to myself. But I know I won’t be if I can’t keep my distance from him, if I can’t find the answers in these half-remembered memories, and this dangerous, unyielding pull between us.
The camp around us is a flurry of activity — scouts and guard still packing up the remnants of their night, the sound of clattering metal and whispers of conversations moving on the breeze. The noise, a rush of life and mundane tasks, begins to pull me back into the moment, away from the dragging of the storm battling in my mind. My skull is still clouded with the confusion of the cold and the beast, moving toward the sounds of camp life. The crackling dying fires, the jostling of wagon, the scent of damp rain soaked earth. And then, my eyes drift back to Iamys.
His expression is still that same constant, but there is something softer there now, a hint of worry in the way his brow furrow, just a trace of concern he doesn’t try to hide. He watches me with an understanding that I don’t always know how to process.
I take a slow breath, the weight of his sun-kissed brown eyes helping to anchor me in the present. But the knot of unease is still there, just under the surface.
“It is not on purpose,” I say again, the word spilling out before I can stop them, almost as if I am trying to convince myself.
Iamys doesn’t respond right away. Instead, his hand brushes against mine in that quiet, grounding way that says everything without a single word. He doesn’t need to understand everything to know what I am going through. He doesn’t need to fix me, either. I don’t need to be fixed. Not by him. Not by anyone.
But the weight of the questions I haven’t answered yet press in on me, heavier than the frost crawling inside and… out.
I look past Iamys then, my attention straying, as something — someone — catches my eye.
Zanir, still on that tree stump, watching us. His gaze is like a thread pulling at me, taut and ruthless, beckoning me closer with its silent command. There is a shadow… at his feet that moves, a slow meandering movement. The dark tendrils pulse and writhe in the flickering light from the trees’ canopy, twisting around his boots, watching, waiting.
There is no fucking way…
But there is something in the way Zanir watches me, a perceiving look in his blue eyes that I can’t shake. I feel in deep in my bones that fill with a chill — a recognition, an awareness that haunts me. The pull to him grows stronger with every second I stand here, like an invisible string that tightens the longer I resist. And I realize, with sudden clarity, that I am drawn to him not just because of the questions I can’t answer, but because he has the answers I crave.
He knows something, and whatever it is, I am going to find out.
A new determination builds in my chest, pushing aside the uncertainty, the fear. I am not done searching. Not yet, Zanir’s presence calls to me, his shadow dancing at his feet like some sort of twisted invitation. And I know, with a certainty, that is almost frightening, that I will find the answers I need.
It is time to stop running from it all. From the past, from the beast inside me, and from the connection that binds me to Zanir.
I’m going to face whatever it is that is drawing me to him.
I will get my answers.
“And the locks?” Iamys’ voice is gentle but insistent, his eyes searching my face pulls at me to focus. “The door?”
The feeling of being exposed flares up, sharp and overwhelming, and my instinct is to push it away. To move. Without even a second though, I break Iamys touch, turning from him and heading quickly in the opposite direction… to my true goal.
“Double locked and closed.” I throw over my shoulder, my voice tense.
I take a few fast steps, feeling the frost in my veins grabbing, but there is another tug that makes me hesitate. I stop.
“Mihaela.”
I can’t even remember that last time he said my actual name. His voice is calm, pulling me back without any demand, no expectation that I have to be anything other than me. No uncertainties, no barely holding my powers in check, no barely holding myself together. I close my eyes, breathing in deeply.
I glance back, and Iamys hasn’t moved, his eyes calm, the worry in them clear yet quiet. It is not the kind of worry that sees a threat, the way Mother or even Devlyn might see when I struggle to keep control. It is concern, yes, but without fear — no judgment, no demand for answers. Only his understanding.
A chill runs through my fingers, a weave of cold I can’t seem to stop. It spreads through my hands, creeping up my arms, settling deep into my chest, a reminder of the beast inside me — the part I can never escape. The frost the fury are always there, simmering beneath the surface, threatening to break free at any moment. I have fought against it, trying to hold it back, to maintain some semblance of control. But the cold, biting and forever, has always been a part of me.
Iamys has always seen me as more than the beast I carry, more than the dangers that pulse beneath my skin. He looks pact the cold and the rage, past the walls I have built to keep everything else at bay. When I am around him, this close, the beast settles, just a fraction, as it recognizes that Iamys doesn’t fear it. Doesn’t fear me.
His presence has always been a quiet anchor, even if I am more protective of him than he is of me. But now having him here fells like a first breath of air after being submerged too long. Something about him, the peace in his voice and the reassurance in his gaze, loosens the icy grips on my chest.
“You don’t have to keep running, you know,” he says, his voice gentle, but it carries the weight of truth. “Even from me.”
The words land on me, so simple yet solid, like a stone sinking deep in water. They settle the jagged edges of my thoughts, breaking the frenzy in my mind just enough to let clarity in. For a moment, him, just him, quiets the raging storm inside me. The turmoil in my chest, the frigid anger I can never quite tame, begins to recede.
I take a breath, deep and slow, feeling the weight of the air fill my lungs, grounding me. My shoulders drop in relief, and for the briefest of moments, the cold that always gnaws at my veins retreats, leaving me with only the steady rhythm of my heartbeat.
I let the silence hang before glancing at him, meeting his understanding gaze, feeling the comfort in the way he stands — unflinching, as if whatever version of me I show him, he will accept without hesitation.
“I know,” I whisper, the words barely leaving my lips, but they’re enough.
Enough to admit that I have been running, physically and mentally, not just from the castle, but from the truth of who I am. From the piece of myself I have lost and buried too deep to find. From the part of me that have always felt too dangerous, too broken, to be accepted.
My feet move again, the sense of purpose returning to my steps, but this time, it is different. I am not running anymore.
Iamys shifts, his voice light with a hint of humor, “Release the storm, Mi. But please — let me shoot him first if you decide to kill him.”
His laugh breaks the tension in the air, and I can’t help but smile. The sound of it, warm and unburdened, drowns out the pounding that still echoes in my mind, the never-ending reminders of my powers, my fears, my need to control it all.
Scouts around me as I move through the camp begin to hurry out of my way, sensing the shift in the air as the temperature drops a few degrees, but it doesn’t matter. Not now.
With Iamys, I don’t have to hide, hide the chaos inside. He accepts it — me, as I am — and for the first time in what feels like an eternity, I realize I don’t have to run from it all.
I don’t have to run from myself… just need to fast walk to mortal vampire.
