Chapter 104: THE WOLF THAT DRINKS FIRE
Without Nyx going rigid on his shoulder, Aiden would have woken frozen in the ditch.
Instead, Nyx gave him minutes.
Enough to get Cinder up and moving. Away from the Frost Wolf before it caught up.
Minutes. Against something that doesn’t tire or lose a trail.
I’m running anyway.
Cinder ran beside him, slow for her, matching a man’s pace because he could not match hers. Then she dropped her shoulder beside him without breaking stride.
What?
Aiden got a fistful of the fur at her shoulder and swung up onto her back.
He had never tried to mount her. She had never offered either. Neither of them had time to question it.
"South," he said, low, against her neck. "The river bends west of the clay-belt. Running water should throw it off our scent."
She sped up.
Faster than a horse. Of course you are.
"It’s an old trick that works on dogs. I’m praying to nothing in particular that it works on this."
They reached the ridge above the river in a blink and ran over the top.
Aiden looked back.
It came over the ridge behind them without breaking stride.
He had seen it once, at a distance, in the basin. A white shape walking through fire-lines.
Up close, running, it was worse.
It was massive, taller at the shoulder than Cinder and broader through the chest. White-grey fur covered its body, thick around the neck and darker along the spine, with frost clinging to the ends.
Its eyes were pale blue, almost colorless. There was no glow in them. No visible heat anywhere on its body. Just the cold.
The grass silvered to frost under each foot. The spring night went cold around it as it came.
The Frost Wolf.
Far behind it, a string of lights. Handlers on horses, in no hurry at all.
A House following something it’s sure of.
Cinder stopped on the ridge and turned to face it.
Aiden felt the turn happen and did not try to stop it.
She’s been facing that direction since we left the city.
I already told her no once. She’s not listening a second time.
Maybe I shouldn’t stop you. You know what you’re doing.
Wolf or Solarflare Hound, I trusted you in the den. I trust you now.
Get it.
Aiden jumped down from Cinder’s back, Nyx, Miasma, and the cat in his hands.
The Frost Wolf reached the top of the ridge and stopped. So did Cinder.
They stood twenty paces apart.
Cinder’s body brightened until the frost beneath her paws melted away. Heat rolled across the ridge. Her fur lifted in the rising warmth.
The Frost Wolf did not move.
Cinder pushed harder.
The heat spread between them and struck the Frost Wolf’s body.
Its fur barely moved. Its breath still clouded. Frost still spread beneath its paws. Its pale eyes stayed fixed on Cinder.
It isn’t enduring it.
It can’t even feel it.
Cinder lunged forward and unleashed a torrent of fire.
The blast struck the Frost Wolf’s flank at close range, filling the ridge with white-orange light.
For a moment, Aiden could not see it.
Then the flames thinned.
The Frost Wolf was still standing.
The cold pulled the heat out of the fire until nothing remained but a blackened patch of grass beneath its feet.
Aiden stared.
Counter-trained doesn’t mean it resists her fire.
It drinks it.
The frost around the Frost Wolf’s paws spread farther.
Its breath thickened.
The cold around its body deepened.
It’s like the Ice Heart. No, the Ice Heart is a fragment of that beast. Of course they both feed on fire.
"Cinder—"
Another blast slammed into the Frost Wolf, swallowing his voice.
Aiden stopped himself.
Fire wasn’t working, so he reached for the other abilities he’d been saving.
Miasma came off his shoulder to his forearm and put her nose against the back of his hand.
Yes. I know. First time.
Acid Weave crawled across his palm in thin green threads, smoking and hissing against the air. The strands twisted around each other like living wire. Aiden flicked his wrist, sending them snapping toward the Frost Wolf’s foreleg.
Miasma hurled her own volley of acid weave from her spines.
They hit the cold and froze.
The strands that ate iron in four seconds instantly froze to brittle green icicles, snapped off, and fell in the grass.
Miasma went flat against his arm.
Aiden reached for the shadow beneath his feet and tried to step through it.
The darkness barely moved. It clung to the ground instead of opening for him. He forced himself through. The world lurched, and he stumbled out three feet to the side.
Cold slammed into his lungs. He doubled over, choking.
Even Nyx can’t move properly through this cold.
Fire. Acid. The dark.
It can shut down everything I have.
"Stop!" He tried to call Cinder again.
Then louder, the word torn out of him.
"Stop. Cinder, you’re feeding it. Stop burning—"
She did not hear him.
Cinder’s fire poured down the ridge. Cold rolled up to meet it.
They collided between the two beasts. Steam exploded upward. The grass froze black beneath it.
The cold blasted toward Aiden.
He triggered Solar Plexus and pressed his back against the blast, shielding Miasma and the cat.
His core climbed. The cold hit his skin and found nothing to take. His breath stopped clouding.
For five seconds he was the one body on that ridge the cold could not touch.
Cinder will burn herself empty, and the Frost Wolf will still be standing, stronger from every breath of heat she gives it.
Nyx slipped from Aiden’s shoulder. It dropped into the darkness and ran downhill.
Not toward the Frost Wolf. Away from it.
Aiden followed her movement and saw the line of handlers below.
Down the hill, the handlers’ lamps went out one by one, in a spreading dark.
The handlers tried to keep moving, but their horses panicked in the darkness. Some reared. Others spun in place, leaving the riders fighting to keep control.
Nyx bought nothing against the wolf. It bought time against the men.
It’s the only thing on this ridge that worked, and it found that on its own.
"Bank it," Aiden said. The five seconds were almost gone. The cold returned to his fingers. "All of it. Now."
Cinder did not move.
"We can’t beat it yet. It follows your fire. Bank it and get to the river."
Cinder stood facing the Frost Wolf, her fire pouring into the beast that had once made her fear the cold. It still towered, unmoving, unburned. Her fire was not enough.
Then the cat moved.
It rushed under Cinder and pressed against her neck. The press it had done at the den and at the line in the Sink.
Cinder blinked, pulled back from the fire, and heard him.
Her flames shrank in an instant, sinking back into her body.
The Frost Wolf slowed. Its head lifted, searching for Cinder’s heat. For half a second, it had nothing to follow.
Half a second was all they needed.
Cinder rushed to Aiden, bit his collar, and threw him onto her back. She ran off the ridge into the dark Nyx had made, down toward the river-bend.
Behind them, in the frozen and burned grass, the Frost Wolf lifted its head and found the trail again.
The trail was still warm.
You can bank a furnace. You can’t turn one off.
It came down off the ridge after them. Slow. Certain. Fed.