Chains

The chains burn.

Not from heat, from cold. Iron so frozen it sears my wrists like a brand.

I've been burning for three days. Small flames. Uncontrollable. Licking up my arms, dancing across my shoulders. The guards won't come within ten feet of me.

Smart.

The wagon jolts over ice. Everything is ice here. The road, the air, the sky. White and blue and nothing else.

My fire doesn't belong.

Neither do I.

"Almost there," one of the guards calls. He's wrapped in so many furs he looks like a walking bear. Still shivering. My fault. Every time I flare, I melt the cold around me, and it comes back worse.

The wagon crests a ridge, and I see it.

The fortress.

It rises from the glacier like something grown, not built. Spires of solid ice, walls that catch the light and fracture it into rainbows. Beautiful. Terrifying.

My prison.

I've heard the stories. The ice lord's domain. Where the kingdom sends its problems. Its monsters.

Its weapons that won't behave.

The fire surges in my chest. I clench my fists and count. Three. Two. One.

It doesn't help. It never helps.

Flames burst from my palms, melting through the wagon floor. The guards scramble. One falls off. The horses scream.

"Control it!" someone shouts.

If I could control it, I wouldn't be here.

The wagon lurches to a stop. I'm hauled out, chains clanking, feet hitting ice that immediately starts to hiss and steam beneath me. The guards keep their distance. Crossbows aimed.

Like those would help.

I stand in the snow, fire crawling up my arms despite the frozen air, and wait.

The fortress gates open.

He walks out alone.

The ice lord.

I expected old. Cruel. Monstrous.

He's none of those things.

Tall. Dark hair cut short, a few strands falling across his forehead. Pale skin, not sickly, just untouched by sun. And his gaze.

Gray. Like winter storms. Like the moment before lightning strikes.

He looks at me like I'm a problem to solve. Not a person. Not even a threat.

Just a puzzle.

The fire flares brighter. I hate being dismissed.

"Phoenix of the Southern Vale," he says. His voice is cold too. Everything about him is cold. "Welcome to the Reach."

"Welcome?" I spit smoke with the word. "I'm a prisoner."

"You're a guest."

"Guests can leave."

His expression doesn't change. "Can they?"

The fire surges again. I feel it building, the pressure in my chest, the heat in my blood. In a moment I'm going to explode, and I can't stop it, and everyone is going to,

He raises his hand.

Frost spreads.

Not slowly. Not gradually. It races across the ground, up the chains, over my wrists, my arms, my shoulders. Cold like I've never felt. Cold that doesn't burn, it soothes.

The fire goes out.

Just... out.

I stare at my hands. Bare skin. No flames. No heat. Nothing.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't burning.

The silence hits me like a physical blow. No crackling. No hissing. No roar of flames barely contained.

Just quiet.

My knees buckle. The ice lord is there, suddenly close, catching my arm before I fall. His touch is cold, but not painful. Like standing in shade on a hot day.

"Easy," he says.

I look up at him. Gray gaze. Storm and ice and something I can't name.

"What did you do to me?"

"Balanced you."

"How?"

He doesn't answer. Just helps me stand, then steps back. Professional distance.

"You'll be shown to your quarters. Rest tonight. Tomorrow we begin."

"Begin what?"

That almost-smile again. Not warm. But not nothing either.

"Finding out what you are."

He turns and walks back toward the fortress. The guards move to follow him, but he waves them off.

"Leave her unchained. She won't burn anything."

"My lord..."

"She won't." He says it with absolute certainty. "Not while I'm near."

I watch him go. Tall silhouette against all that ice.

The fire still sleeps inside me. I can feel it there, banked, waiting. But for the first time in years, it's not fighting to get out.

It's... calm.

A servant approaches, an older woman with a kind face and thick gloves. "This way, my lady."

"I'm not a lady."

"This way, Phoenix."

I follow her through the gates. Through corridors of ice that should chill me to the bone but somehow don't. Past windows that look out on endless white.

My room is small but comfortable. A bed with thick furs. A fire in the hearth, which seems ironic. A window overlooking the glacier.

"Lord Calder will send for you in the morning," the servant says.

"Calder." I roll the name around. Cold name for a cold man. "Is he always like that?"

"Like what?"

"Frozen."

She hesitates. Something flickers in her expression. Fear? No. Sadness.

"He wasn't always," she says softly. "But that was a long time ago."

She leaves before I can ask more.

I sit on the bed. Press my palms together. No heat. No flame.

I should feel relief. I do feel relief, mostly.

But there's something else.

He touched me.

His hand on my arm. Cold against my heat. And nothing exploded. Nothing burned.

When was the last time someone touched me without getting hurt?

I can't remember.

I lie back on the furs and stare at the ice ceiling. It catches the fading light, throwing prismatic shadows across the walls.

The fire inside me stirs. Not to escape, just to remind me it's there.

Still here. Still dangerous.

But for the first time, maybe not uncontrollable.

The thought should comfort me.

Instead, it terrifies me.

Because if I can be controlled, if he can control me, then what does that make me?

A tool. A weapon. Something to be used.

I've been used before.

I close my eyes. Try to sleep.

In my dreams, I burn. But this time, someone walks through the flames without flinching.

Cold hands reaching through the fire.

He reaches for me.

I reach back.

And when we touch, the whole world catches fire.

I wake gasping, the sheets singed beneath my fingers.

So much for control.

I look at the door. Beyond it, somewhere in this frozen fortress, he's sleeping. Or maybe not. Maybe ice lords don't sleep.

Maybe they just wait.

I should be scared of him. I should want to run. To burn my way out and never look back.

Instead, I want to know what else he can make me feel.

And that want, that dangerous, stupid want, burns hotter than any fire.