《The Frostburn Chronicles: Firebrand (Book One)》 Snowdrifter

??{ 01 }?? An everlasting sun sets the skyline ablaze, sifting ribbons of dim amber light through the last layers of smog. The city and its coal-burning machines are hours behind us, and for the first time in months, we witness the dawn bleed its colors with the birth of day. The tundra is scattered with few trees to shelter us from the blinding wall of flakes, and somewhere long behind us, the streetlamps of artificial Lighttime flicker on to set civilians'' daily routine. The ash-crusted generator workers cough as another day shoveling coal awaits. Turbines screech to life as the pressure excites them to thirty-six-hundred rotations every minute, churning electricity into the veins of the last city, pumping life and heat into a dying, frostbitten husk. But we don''t have that solace of electric warmth this far beyond the walls. We unwrap the scarves from our faces when the smoke ceases saturating our lungs with ashen tar, trading the warmth of our breath behind fabric for the freshness of the biting cold. Furs cover every surface of our flesh with at least an inch of insulation, trapping snowflakes between strands like flies to honeyed paper. Romin takes swigs from the bottle to warm his insides, casting me in the shadow of his stature, his dark skin sweating from internal heat as he carries the weight of all his corded muscle. The warmth of liquor gives us enough breath to speak, despite how the frigid air burns our lungs. And he does enough speaking for the two of us, passing time in chaff by listing as many as he can remember. " . . . And then the one girl I snuck off with after the end of Seminary. Then that one broad from down the hall when we moved into the Lofts that said she worked with livestock: not sure what she did with pigs or how she handled them, but she changed my whole understanding of what a woman can do. You know, bud, I''m lucky if I can get Valentina to do half of what she did to me. I think that woman ruined my sense of taste," he says, using the liquor bottle as punctuation. "And then there was Valentina, of course. Then we split up for a while and I sampled the buffet, around the time we moved to the lofts after making it in the top five percent of the Academy. I thought higher combat scores meant those girls spent more time with their fathers, making them less ditzy, less soft and more solid, you know?" "No," I tell him. We share a laugh. Half the time I think he''s just off on a bit, but there''s just a little too much truth mixed in. My plan is to let him ramble for the whole trip, and after an hour of recounting the names of all his sexual partners, he uses the rest of it to batter me again with the same question. "I invited myself to come because I was afraid you weren''t planning on coming back. Gods above, the years you spent getting to this point - and when they want to throw a lavish party in your honor, you turn them down for this?" He coughs as he gestures at the barren landscape. Trapped in a room of white flakes, there''s nothing to see except the silhouettes of trees, maybe animals, maybe rogue bands of Chymaerans concealing their sickly, slender limbs in the branches - but his blindness comes from elsewhere. I say, "What happened in the past is complete. I''ve washed my hands of it. And that story ended two days ago, with graduation." "Graduation was yesterday, Titus," he says. "Oh yeah. You''re right." "Gods above! You''re the Valedictorian. You should be using it to get everything you can. You could convince anyone: it''s the anxiety of what comes next that makes all the sex so much better." "I didn''t do it for recognition," I tell him. "Well, you don''t seem weak enough to kill yourself before the bill comes due. Eight percent of graduates this year iced themselves, can you believe that? Wouldn''t it be better to die beyond the walls fighting the Chymaera than falling on your own blade?" "Some families send their sons and daughters to the Academy with apathy for what comes after. They crank out kids like rabbits for the welfare - train them high enough to get into an upper class, and you''re relieved of poverty for as long as they can study." "Well, you were adopted," Romin says. "And your father wastes his own money, not yours. You don''t have the ties of blood like us, so what got you here? What made you fight?" "A feeling I''ve had since as long as I can remember." "That''s it? A feeling?" Somewhere between desperate longing and crippling anxiety. It''s been so long that I''ve lost the words to describe it, and I can only remember the experiences that shaped it. So many years ago in that orphanage with Sylvia, it was a dream I had - when watching all the other kids get adopted, when I had a bedroom window facing the impassable gates. Maybe it''s an echo of that existential fear of being good enough for a mom and dad - knowing if I turned eighteen, they''d pitch me on the side of the road and I''d end up like the homeless Outwallers, either frozen solid or muttering some insanity about how they''re cadets that died years ago. Maybe it''s been raising my sister after my father gave up. Or maybe it was just a spark based off some childish thought - like revenge against fate or some innocent dream of grandeur. "I guess. All I''ve ever thought of in this life is what I still have to do, and the people I have to do it for." "Sure. Because winning just happens - not from all those nights you turned down our adventures for studying. I know they blend together, but . . . can''t you remember any of it?" "Of course. The time we explored the pitch-dark drainage tunnels in first year? When you led us from the front, screaming that you saw something? And we ran? How Valentina tore and dirtied up her dress so bad we had to cover her with your coat, or else she''d be parading the halls in her underwear?" I expose the flesh on my left arm. A small staccato of scars spans the space above the birthmark on my wrist. "I sure remember how infected this got." He laughs. "Oh, and the . . . and the time after that when Sylvia drank for the first time?" This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I remember how close she got to me when we were in the hallway alone, telling me she wanted to talk to me. She hunched over so far we were at eye level. But before that. "Yeah. I still have that picture she drew - I framed it on the wall because she hides it every time I leave it out. You think I could sell it to some rich Merlotan family twenty years from now?" The thought makes him laugh. The cold makes him cough and stumble. "Gods above. The darling artist whose Academy posters are all over Blackwater. How would those filthy-rich Merlotan pigs try to brag about it on the wall over cheese and crackers?" "I imagine Valentina''s family. Probably pointing at the marble plaque below the napkin on the wall. Oh, I can see it . . . that pretentious cursive serif they use, etched black. With two words." I let the image stew for a while. Romin takes a swig of the moonshine his Carmine brotherhood makes, and I only speak when the bottle''s at it''s peak. Romin spits. It almost shoots out his nose before he can regain himself. He drops the lead of his sled and almost disappears into the virgin snow before he finds his breath again, laughing hysterically. "That''s not what I saw at all. But you''re right! Gods above - I must have had it upside-down." "Isn''t that how all art works?" "I guess. Unless it has letters on it?" He chuckles a couple times before finding his composure. And I catch myself wishing I could laugh like that again. I ruffle my jet-black beard. "See, I didn''t forget the stuff that matters. I just remember . . . how you guys made me feel, you know, despite how distant I was. Like I was always welcome to return when I was ready." "Well, it''s over now. You never ''got'' ready. And now we''re out past the walls telling jokes on the edge of death. You gave up a fully-funded Academy celebration to trudge around outside the walls and act poor. We''ve made it, Titus! Maybe we''ll never be as rich as Valentina, but you don''t need to do this anymore. To trudge through snow for several days? Dragging back ancient knick-knacks and forbidden books as a Snowdrifter, so that rich Merlotans can buy them from your father''s eternal rummage sale and plant them on their mantle as a talking piece?" "It''s not about that this time," I tell him. "I''m not going to be down in the lower city anymore. Ellie and Clint will have to manage on their own. It''s about something else. This map-" but he ignores me, with that lofty look that sticks in his eyes. "I thought I had power this close to the top, but you''re on a whole other level. You could have done anything! Hold a party on the Academy''s money, plaster your name and face on everything, and you could take any broad home you want. And if you played it right, maybe two or three, if they were some of those cadets below Rank Two looking to pop their cherry before they''re sent off to get iced by the Chymaerans. " "I''d take adventure like this over all that social posturing any day. You think it would ever end up about me? I''m not about that. And talking to leadership is like watching old people eat. No - it is watching old people eat. That''s the only reason any instructors or cadets would show up: to load their plates first, and act like they''re there for me second." "No, I get it," Romin says. "If you want someone to blow your horn all night, you''d rather have your lady do it in private." "Oh, screw off," I tell him. "We''re nothing. We''ve never been."Usually he cracks a smile trying to get a rise out of me, but is as if there''s some truth he found snared in it. "All that time you spend in the Academy lofts, doing whatever it is you do, we hardly see you. Gods above, you should''ve heard what Sylvia said the other night when me and Val coaxed her out and bought some drinks." "What did she say?" I ask. "Why should I tell you? You weren''t there to hear it." My eyes return to the ground. I built walls around that tightness in my chest. And for a second, I catch myself thinking he understands. Romin says, "I get why you''re upset. We''re all going through change. All those cadets and their foursome Fireteams might never talk again. It''s so hard to believe that after every group has been together for this long." "You''re right. It''s just been hard," I say. Lying is easy. I''ve practiced so many times on my younger sister Ellie that it''s second nature. "It''s just the guilt of all those cadets that aren''t going to make it," I come up with. "It''s not your fault," he says, placing his hand on my shoulder. "If working as the top Brother in the Carmine has taught me anything, it''s that people are addicted to a free ride, and none want to pay the ticket when it''s due." "You must have missed the view from the stage when I gave the speech," I said. "You know graduation is a mandatory event. We sat front row. But as soon as you get back past sixty percent of those seats, all those vacancies . . ." "They thought dry probation would fix it. I mean, Gods above, they buy the poor bastards a headstone once they''re locked in Rank Three so their family can have something to look at. Because their bodies won''t. Not even a toe, the way the Chymaerans supposedly dissolve you to nothing. Maybe they just wanted to actually leave something six feet under..." The civvies call us suicide scholars for a reason. The money is tempting. And yet, regardless of all that empty, frostbitten land near the outer walls, they never seem to run out of space. Romin fills the silence. "But it''s not your fault. We earned this. We signed up for this just like they did. You can''t achieve anything without stepping on someone else, so you might as well do it with force." "But some of them were born just for the stipend. And others are adopted, like me, for that same reason." "Oh, come on. Your mother and father loved you!" "Moira loved me," I say. "And since that night -I''ve done all of it alone." "We''ve all been alone. Wading through so much shit we lost all sense of smell. But there''s something more, waiting after all of that. Can''t you feel it?" "Yeah." That bottomless pit in my stomach. The guilt of inaction. The fear of every possibility forking everywhere at the same time, and always wondering if I lost the true path sometime long ago. "Maybe I''ve always felt it." "This is a new beginning, Titus. Leaders do nothing compared to the weaker ones below them. We''ll be serving the acolytes of the Gods whose prayer feeds our entire city. Above the clouds where Essence will keep us warm. And we''ll be doing nothing - who fights the chosen ones in the central peaks of the Afterlife? Who bites the hand that feeds them? And after service, we''ll settle down. You and Sylvia, and me and Valentina - unless I hit it off with some divine broad up there." "You''d do that?" I ask. "You''d betray us so easily?" "Never. You''re my best friend. I''d never leave you behind." "That''s what I thought." "...Unless you got in my way," he says.
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