Fireblood (Frostblood Saga #2)(8)
As I neared the table, Brother Thistle lifted a hand in a distracted greeting, not bothering to raise his head. He was a scholar, historian, and expert in ancient languages, but he was also a powerful Frostblood. Normally, a coating of frost covered everything he touched, but somehow he restrained his gift around his beloved books. It still amazed me, his level of control.
“How do you do it?” I found myself asking.
“Do what?” he muttered, not looking up.
“Repress your frost.” I had learned to control my gift to some degree, but nothing like the iron-willed dominance the Frostblood master exerted over his own power. Can you repress your ability, girl? That had been one of the first things he’d asked before rescuing me from Blackcreek Prison, where I’d been held for months after the Frost King’s soldiers raided my village. I’d answered no then. My answer would be the same now.
He finally looked up. “As I have told you many times, Miss Otrera, if you wish to fit in here, you will have to learn how to dampen your heat. Have you been keeping up your mental practice?” He meant the meditation he’d taught me at Forwind Abbey, the mountain monastery where I’d lived for months while learning how to master my fire so I could destroy the throne.
“Sometimes.” In truth, it made me uncomfortable to repress my heat, and it was tiresome to continually fail. “But it hardly matters now. With Arcus on the throne, Firebloods are no longer forced to hide their heritage.”
Not that any Firebloods were left in Tempesia, aside from me. I’d hoped some had survived Rasmus’s raids, but despite Arcus’s efforts to coax them out of hiding, none had been found yet.
“You will have to be more diligent than that,” Brother Thistle admonished.
His censure always put me on the defensive. “I’ll never be a Frostblood, icily perfect with my emotions buried under mountains of restraint. Sorry to disappoint.”
“You don’t need to deny your gift. But neither do you have to remind the court of your opposing nature at every opportunity.”
The comment stung. Brother Thistle had been one of the very few people who had always accepted me. “No matter what I do, they’ll never forget what I am.”
Idly, I made twin flames sprout like wings from my open palms, then pushed my hands together, extinguishing them.
Returning his attention to his book, he asked, “What has upset you?”
Perversely, the fact that he read me so easily made me reluctant to admit to it. “Besides living in an ice castle that’s warmer than its inhabitants? Besides my very presence making it difficult for Arcus to keep his court loyal?”
He gave me a swift glance. “You are pale. Have you had another vision?”
He was too observant. “This one was… disturbing.”
I related the details and watched his brows rise in surprise as I told him that I’d recognized myself as the queen on the throne.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked with forced lightness. “Prophecy or madness?”
His fingers drummed the table. “I considered the possibility that Sage is sending you visions to warn or guide you, as we now believe she did before—when you were lost in the blizzard near Forwind Abbey, and when you needed help to fight off possession by the curse.”
“Warn me?” My voice was a little higher than I’d intended. “But I thought Sage was prevented by the gods from sharing her prophecies.”
The woman known as Sage was a healer who had nursed the goddess Cirrus back to health after she exhausted herself creating the Gate of Light and two sentinels to guard it. In thanks, Cirrus had given Sage the sun-drenched crystal used to create the Gate. The light from the crystal flowed into Sage’s veins, gifting her with a long life and the ability to see the future—knowledge she’d been forbidden by Cirrus from sharing.
Brother Thistle patted my hand, a reassuring gesture that nevertheless made me jump at the shock of his cold skin. “And that is why I dismissed the idea. I now believe your visions relate to the fact that you are the only person to throw off possession by the Minax.”
I grimaced. He made it sound like I’d been fortunate. It didn’t feel like something to celebrate, especially with the Minax still out there somewhere.
“Perhaps you are open to a connection with it,” he continued, “and it can send you these images at will. Or perhaps you are seeing things it does not wish you to see: memories or dreams.”
“You think a Minax dreams?”
He opened his palms. “It is possible.”
I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t like the idea that the Minax shared human traits. “Have you found anything about how to stop the visions?”
He cleared his throat, his demeanor clouding over with the intense look he always wore when immersed in research. “Well, Vesperillius, a scholar from the Northern Pike Mountains, claimed to be tortured by visions of the Minax after touching the frost throne. After searching for years for a cure, he went on a trip to Safra and, on the advice of a local shaman, drank the venom of a tree snake. The visions stopped immediately.”
“Lovely. I’m sure I could choke down some venom.”
“Vesperillius died three days later.”
I grimaced. “Maybe not tree snake venom, then.” I finally voiced the question I’d asked myself so many times over the past weeks. “What if I’m possessed and we don’t know it?”