A Soul as Cold as Frost by Jennifer Kropf

Author:Jennifer Kropf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Winter Publishing House

Chapter, The Twenty First

Panic was a disease. It could start as something small like a simple fear—something that might not have been enough to stir logic from a mind and spread sickness into the rest of a body. But my panic now bled into a monster of tunnel vision, erasing my memories and all thoughts of the future.

The Patrol jacket had acted like a seal skin. There was no way I would have lasted through the escape if the dense fabric hadn’t contained my body heat. But still, nothing in me was functioning as it should and the shallow bead of warmth I had left was sizzling away.

My muddied brain couldn’t guess how long I’d walked, breathing out smoky puffs as the temperature dropped. All I knew was I’d become a lump of ice in the snow if I stopped.

When the view up ahead rippled with movement, I pulled the frozen pillars my legs had become to the brim of the quiet setting where dusk was kissing the mostly empty streets of a town with a shaded orange hue.

We hadn’t come to this town on our journey, which meant I was somewhere way off course. Not that it mattered anymore. Zane was taken.

Zane. My guard, my ticket home. My map, my friend.

My only friend.

The one who’d held me up for over half our journey when I couldn’t walk and had carried me to bed when I fell asleep in the dwarves’ living room each night. Who had read to me to pass the time at the inn because I said I liked books. Who had followed me through Hollytown even after I’d snapped at him, and who had dared to go into the steam shop to bring me out after I’d drank poison. Who had lashed out at the gnomes to give me a chance to run even though they might break his legs for it.

My thigh was too cold to feel the spot where Zane’s needle had gone in, but I knew the sore spot was there. It was a reminder that I’d run away, fallen into the witch’s hands, and drank her venom—all because I was too proud to go back and apologize to the one person who would fight for me. And now Zane was paying the price.

Pale light spilled onto the darkening street from a set of windows. I hustled my rigid limbs up the front stairs and winced at how it felt to pull them in a direction other than a repetitive walking motion.

The rusty hinges of the door squawked when I went in. I pushed the thin door shut behind me to be rid of the cold, shaking as I stood there, adjusting myself to the sting of warmth that crawled over my outer layers.

The sight of a stone fireplace in the far corner nearly made me lunge, but after coming to a stop in the entrance, I wasn’t certain I could bring my muscles to move again.

The lounge area hosted notched tables of pale wood, and an uncomfortable looking blue couch rested close to the blazing fire in the corner.

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