Soul of Ice

Chapter Twenty

Astra woke up screaming. Heat taunted her from all sides, and she kept blasting ice shards in all directions until she realized that there was no fire. The heat was from her. Inside her. From her magic. From whatever abomination the physician had shoved in her and forced her to bear.

The sheets and the blanket were tangled together with her inside. Her bed was a mess, soaking wet with both her sweat and melting bits of ice. Astra tore the material away in disgust, nearly tumbling out of her bed before the entire room came into view.

She was back in the barracks. It should've been the first thing she'd noticed when she woke up, and it wasn't, and that... that worried her.

The room was quiet, silent, no snores at all, which meant it must be morning, or maybe even later than that, and everyone was already gone. And if that was the case...

Astra struggled with the math in her head for a moment, still disoriented from waking up, and juggled the numbers and estimates in her head. It couldn't be the same day because the clothes on the ground were in a different mess than what she remembered from the day before.

At least ten hours. It must've been at least ten hours since she'd last been awake, and that made her anxiety worse. What had happened while she was out? Who had brought her back? Pascal? She recoiled before recovering, glad that she was alone in the room. She had half a mind to rush to the showers, right there and then, to check if he, or anyone else for that matter, had done anything while she'd been out.

Astra gripped the sides of the metal bar rails, preparing to climb down to the floor, when her peripheral vision caught sight of something vaguely blue, almost black. Was that a bruise?

She leaned back against a pillow and rotated her arm. Thin, faint lines, almost like veins, stretched down her arm, black in some areas and lighter—almost blue—in other parts. She ran a hand up the arm, jolting in surprise when she realized halfway through that the same lines were also on her left arm. Yet... her arms didn't feel any different. Whatever the color was, it was coming from inside.

Astra ran a hand through her hair, breathing unevenly. She remembered the darkness—interrupted only by the mysterious, golden warrior and Helleva. She shut out that memory fast. That could be pondered upon later. But before that had happened...

A murky memory floated up from the depths.

They had given her zynthe. A diluted version, sure. If it had been a pure version, she'd be in Helleva's domain already, and the goddess wouldn't have given her a choice to live or die.

Regardless, it explained the headache that pounded through her, the unnatural heat within her that was combating against the cold at the same time, even the marks on her arms. There was a reason why zynthe was also known as the gods' blood. It was unnatural and much too potent for mortals to handle, and she was suffering the side effects of having it in her blood.

She traced the lines on her arms. They looked like dark, ugly scars, discoloring her arms. She touched her cheek; were they on her face, too? She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Astra forced herself out of bed, jumping down to the ground agilely and silently before stumbling a step forward, her foot tangling in what looked like someone's pants. Dizziness and—the headache remained, pulsing in time with her heart, like a drumbeat that sent cold tidal waves rushing through her, unbalancing her, unsettling her concentration. She grabbed a bed's ledge for support. Everything felt pressurized.

She put on a long sleeve shirt despite the heat and the uncomfortable friction. The marks on her skin, though they were likely temporary—at least, she hoped they were temporary—bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Maybe it was a weakness to pretend they had never happened, but she needed this time to settle down, fall back, and try to figure out her next steps without having to worry about new stares and whispers that would come her way about something other than her kill streak.