Edge of Fire

Chapter One

Ira stared into the flames. The embers sputtered and splintered, sending sparks flying all around him, and the blackened ashes went golden orange and red with each crack of the smoldering wood. But in spite of the fire’s hot glow, his breath still came in small clouds of vapor.

There was never warmth to be found in Ar Rywn.

The shadows of midnight scaled the ceilings of the abandoned hall around him, like overgrown vines, encapsulating the room in hanging sheets of darkness and ice. Frost lined the walls and corners, while mounds of snow piled up near the doorways and below the windows, but underneath the cold there still remained vestiges of what had once been a distinguished castle.

Somewhere in the halls, a barn owl cried and the wail sent a chill down his spine.

He breathed deeply and drew his coat closer around his shoulders, staving off the cold and alarm. On nights like these, when the owls wailed, when the wind howled down the gaps in the cobblestone and froze him to the bone, he wondered why he shouldn’t just die.

Any hope of returning to a life he should have lived before the Great Loss had been buried beneath layers and layers of white, and there was no promise of a trade in fate—ten long years of bondage had taught him this.

Nothing would ever change.

He rubbed his hands together over the flames in an attempt to thaw his fingers. Had it really been ten years now? His vision blurred as he lost focus of the fire, his mind wandering to the clouded places he used to know and the formless faces he used to love.

Even though he’d been six when he’d been brought here, he could remember some of his past. Things like sunshine and the spring season came to him at times he least expected, summoning painful, nostalgic longings inside of him. He could imagine happier moments in his dreams, hazy but strangely clear to him. Green, green fields and forests, rivers overflowing in the rainy season, and farmers tending to sheep in their pastures.

He blinked back to reality with a pang of homesickness.

What he wouldn’t do to see the snow melt one last time.

His throat constricted as he became aware of the emptiness around him, no other soul but his own permitted to take refuge in Ar Rywn’s walls. Where his earlier memories were filled with happiness and camaraderie, the present was shadowy and desolate for him. Unwelcome feelings of powerlessness and misery emerged in his chest, making it difficult to move or think or even breathe, and he was left wishing he could run away from it all and not look back.

But nothing could alter this destiny of his.

Even death wouldn’t release him.

These days, the only thing that brought him joy was Noble—but the creature had left over a week ago and had yet to come home. If he was going to come home at all….

An intense gale beat against the northeastern side of the hall, causing Ira to frown at the rapid strength in it. He watched while small sheets of ice loosened from the ceiling and began to swiftly plummet, most of which landed a few feet from his fire. Alarmed, he jolted as a set of icicles dropped into the flames with a hiss.

His hand flew to the hilt of his sword.

Warily, he stepped back, turning his attention upwards. Only a few of the frozen shards endured, and certainly not enough to harm him in any way; the ones that hadn’t collapsed hung a safe distance from him.

And still, his pulse raced.

He released his blade cautiously, combing his fingers through his dark, ravenous hair. There was no danger here, and nevertheless, his guard was always up, always prepared for an assault or ambush—and he hated it. If he had been given the choice, he would’ve walked a path of peace, like the shepherds in his memories.

Yet, his best skills lay within the realms of a fighter.

Swallowing, he sank to the ground again. Fighting brought destruction and calamity. Warfare summoned death and ire. It was a domain where all that was lost could never be recovered.

And he knew firsthand the price of battle.

He was a victim of the Great Loss, after all.

The sword at his side felt unusually heavy, and he ached just to throw it away with the wish that all of his troubles would dissolve. But to do so would be foolish, given the circumstances….

He raked his blue eyes over the room, trembling. Drifts of snow hid the hall’s red carpets until they were barely visible anymore. A huge table was overturned by the door, while the chairs, some broken and some intact, were scattered around it. In the wall, the fireplace rested in ruin, the mantlepiece caved in before the hearth.

Everything was in the same disarray as before.

Or was it? He watched for a shift in his surroundings, an adjustment to the landscape. And not a thing moved. Not a thing stirred. He was alone.

But he was ever alert.

Hours and hours of drills with Hywel had groomed his reaction time, and hours more had instilled in him a strong sense of vigilance, perpetually engrained in his mind. Although someone else might’ve trained for years in order to match Ira, he couldn’t be thankful for his acquired abilities; they were merely an added sorrow to remind him of the things that had been snatched from his grip.

If he could turn back the days, he would’ve killed himself long ago—when that was possible.

But there was no escaping now.

Not since Hywel knew his every move.

Hywel, Ira thought bitterly. He hated him with the very fibers of his being, scorning him from inside of his heart each time that he envisioned the man’s pale, merciless eyes.

Another tremor tumbled across Ira’s skin. For as much as he despised Hywel, Ira feared him more. The power in his possession was unlike any in all of Heirdyn, a strength that—according to legend—had been passed down from generation to generation, symbolizing his authority over the provinces of Angwyn and Illtyd.

Hywel referred to it as his gift, but Ira could never come to accept it as that.

From somewhere within the castle, a door slammed shut and the faint patter of footsteps echoed in the corridors. Ira rose to his feet in an instant, ignoring the way the cold stung his throat around every lungful of air as his fight or flight instincts kicked in. He faced the doors, one on either side of the room, eyeing them carefully.

Someone was here.

However, it wasn’t an intruder. Ira knew who it was from the change in the atmosphere and the snap of winter—and the foreboding that followed.

His fingers located the pommel of his blade, but he didn’t arm himself…yet. No—until he could decipher his master’s intentions, Ira would wait in dormancy and meet him upon his arrival. But nevertheless, his muscles went tense and his heartbeat hastened, uneasiness filtering through his bloodstream.

Hywel had returned.

And there was no telling what he might do after he reached the hall.

Without warning, a harsh draft gusted into the room and the fire behind him went dead, and the room—which had been ill-lit even before—became eerily dark now, illuminated by small rays of moonlight alone. Any warmth evaporated at once and Ira strained to keep from quivering against the temperatures, gripping the sword with shaking fingers.

Laughter rang out from the galleries. The voice was raspy and airlike, but far too callous to be normal. Something like anger—maybe malice—tainted how he spoke, as if someone had done him some terrible wrong and he had never gotten his vengeance, but it was only a lack of sanity that curdled his words.

Ira braced himself as the footfalls came closer.

But when they found the door, they ceased, as if somebody had stopped them from approaching any further. Ira waited for them to resume, stiffening in doubt, but they never did and his disquiet grew.

His stomach knotted.

All was still.

Far too still to mean anything good.

Just as he was about to step forward, a whisper like ice itself spoke in his ear, sending rows of shivers down his spine.

“Did you think I would simply walk in and give you the advantage?”

Before Ira could make a sound, Hywel knocked Ira’s legs from under him with his staff and sent him plunging to the floor, but as he hit the ground, Ira used the momentum to regain his stance. Unsheathing his sword, he leapt to his feet and rushed Hywel with a torrent of blows.

Hywel deflected them effortlessly.

The clang of metal against metal bounced off of the walls of the room for a long time, their feet kicking up the snow in the conflict until at length, Hywel withdrew, his chest quaking with each curt inhale. Small beads of perspiration settled on his forehead, but he showed no signs of surrendering. On the contrary, he was purely taking a moment to catch his breath.

And Ira—his throat burning, his face moistened by sweat—regarded his opponent with a glare.

In the moon’s glow, Hywel’s thick, woollike braid shone in shades of rime and frost, the loose strands glimmering like threads of fine silver. His blood red lips twisted and face—drawn-out and thin—contorted in a smirk, and his gaunt fingers loosened around the length of the rod. Although Ira was tall, Hywel still towered over him, and while his form was like a skeleton, the man was far more agile and adept in combat than any warrior in Heirdyn.

And with his powers….

He was unconquered.

Like a vicious north wind, he stormed into action fearlessly, his staff whistling as he waved it against Ira. Grinding his teeth together, Ira lifted his blade to repel the blows, but the strength of Hywel’s attacks were beginning to exhaust him—and if he wasn’t careful, they would bring him to his knees.

He strove to find a means of victory, some way out of the situation, but no matter what he did, there was nothing that would give him the upper hand. Hywel could read his movements like the pages of a book.

It was only by the grace of his own swiftness and brute strength that Ira could make it this far.

He leapt back just before Hywel could strike him, and when the end of the staff hit the ground, a stretch of frost suddenly spread across the floor in its wake, freezing everything in a three-foot radius. Cautioning himself to be more alert, Ira stared at the ice in shock, but he didn’t linger for more than a second. Determined not to show his weakness, he reentered the battle, launching his own volley of swipes and jabs.

It’s what he had to do if he wanted to succeed.

In the midst of the clash, Hywel grazed the side of Ira’s face and sent him reeling. The distraction was enough for Hywel to release Ira’s sword from his grip, landing a sharp swing of his staff against his fingers. Breath hitching, Ira watched helplessly as his weapon landed in a snowbank nearly fifteen feet away.

His throat went dry.

Grinning, Hywel stepped between Ira and his sword. That insane look in his eye resurfaced and his brows furrowed in mirth, a row of perfectly straight teeth visible from under his lip. As he proceeded in Ira’s direction, he planted his staff on the ground and a column of snow materialized around its tip, holding it firmly in place.

“You lack audacity,” said Hywel, coming closer. Flurries glittered on his fingers in the moonlight, his complexion so ghostly pale. “I thought I told you to train in my absence.”

“I was not idle,” Ira answered flatly. Despite his defeat, he squared his shoulders and lifted his chin, unwilling to show his dismay, even as a rivulet of blood started to flow from the cut on his face. “I did as you asked, and I trained.”

“You were doing nothing when I arrived.”

“I would have frozen to death.”

And for the first time since he had come back, Hywel lost his smile. That manic edge in his voice manifested itself in the hardness of his gaze, his eyes widening ever so slightly. His brow raised, and his pupils fixed on Ira, he titled his head.

“Care to repeat yourself?” he hissed.

Ira faltered. He immediately regretted his words, but there was no turning back now. Struggling to maintain his calm, he said, “I cannot last in these elements.”

Hywel continued to stare at him. Ira wanted to flee from Hywel’s presence and wait out his master’s rage, but he didn’t move for fear of further punishment. No, it was better to face Hywel straight on, when his rage hadn’t climbed to its peak.

There was no hiding from Hywel in Ar Rywn.

Without a word, Hywel marched towards him unwaveringly, compelling Ira to retreat until the wall was behind him. And once there was nowhere else for Ira to go, Hywel snatched him by the neck.

Ira gasped for breath as Hywel’s fingers pressed against his skin. Like the ice that covered the floor and the snow that upheld the staff, frost seeped from his master’s grip and into Ira’s flesh, sinking deep within his veins.

An unequalled chill ran through his bones.

It was all he could do not to cry out in agony while he fought, writhing, clawing at the hand that held him fast to the wall, arrested by an overriding sense of frailty. He did everything in his power to come free of Hywel’s clutch, but the more Ira resisted, the tighter his grasp became.

Hywel’s mouth curved at the corners.

“You only suffer when I allow you to suffer,” he finally uttered. “The world you live in belongs to me—and it is I who decide when you get to die.”

Just as black spotted Ira’s vision, Hywel let him go and he tumbled to the ground, choking and coughing like a sick person. His body freezing from the inside out, his arms shaking and his eyes watering, Ira no longer bothered to fight.

He hated this.

All of this.

As he pushed himself onto his elbows, he could hear the snap of breaking ice as Hywel retrieved his staff.

“Were you alone?” he questioned. His tone was indifferent…impassive, almost. Frowning, he glanced at Ira. “No one came past the gates?”

On his knees now, Ira touched the sides of his neck where Hywel had strangled him and, panting for air, he shook his head unsteadily. “No,” he rasped.

“And you speak the truth, do you?”

“I wouldn’t—” Struggling to speak, Ira fell into a coughing fit. When he could talk again, he said, “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Silently, Hywel stared at him, like he was trying to decide if he should trust him or not. He narrowed his eyes until they were only thin slits in his face, his lips pinched. Eventually, he blinked and passed his attention to his staff, adjusting his hold on it.

“You do understand what I will do if I discover you’re lying…do you?”

Wincing, Ira gave a nod.

“Good.” Stepping across the room towards the door, Hywel yawned. “I will leave at dawn. And if I find out you’ve defied my orders when I return, well….” He looked back at Ira with a bitter smile. “You’ll wish you were more dead than you already are.”

At Ira’s grimace, Hywel laughed. He opened the door quietly and, before he left, said, “You know, I hope you do disappoint me. Perhaps it will open your eyes a little.”

And saying no word more, he disappeared from sight and sound, and the grim aura that had afflicted the room began to lift in slow sequences, like the passing of the season. But even though Hywel was no longer nearby, the snow remained forever present, and there was no implication that winter would end.

Motionless, Ira traced his face where Hywel had slashed him. The barn owl screeched once more, but this time there was no edge to its haunting sound. He almost didn’t notice it; he didn’t care.

His head was spiraling wildly with dread and despair over the future.

Because no matter how wounded he was after a fight, or how injured and bruised he could be, his mortality was a joke to his master. There would be no dying for him, whether he suffered or not.