Phoenix Briar [Briar - A Heart of Ice

A HEART OF ICE

Printed by Createspace

Charleston , SC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Copyright 2014 by Phoenix Briar

Cover art 2014 Phoenix

Inked God font Segments Designs

ISBN 978-0-9905631-0-5

Acknowledgments

In all things, first and foremost, to God be the glory. This may not be a Christian book, but the struggles within this story are many that I have seen and experienced, and the lessons learned through them are ones that God has brought me through. This is His grace to me.

This book would never have happened without my husband, TJ, to love and support me. All those times I said I cant and Im not good enough he told me Yes you can. Im right here with you. He is my champion, my hero, and my beloved.

I also couldnt have done this without my incredible friends, particularly Sara, Derian, Jim, and Lizzy. You guys have always loved me, supported me, and beat my head in when I needed it. You are my treasure in this world and the next. I love you all.

Lastly, thank you, momma, for always letting me be who I am and never being ashamed of me no matter how many houses I got kicked out of. You believed in me. Thats all I ever needed.

For my daughter, Rhea.

May you always chose love over hatred and forgiveness over revenge.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

S ome say in ice.

From what I ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

I s also great

A nd would suffice.

-Robert Frost

Prologue

War would end if the dead could return.

- Stanley Baldwin

Chapter One

Scarlet

I stand before the pyre.

Alone.

And surrounded by people.

The smoke gurgles from the top of the wooden alter like a fat, black snake slithering away from a fresh kill. It darkens my world with its decadence. The sky is a bleak soup of varying shades of gray, swirling around and collecting the ominous plume rising up. I have never seen anything in all these lands look so cold and unfeeling as that damn sky. It hovers there, soaking up what remains of the burning soldier, soaking up his soul, devouring it. Devouring me.

Everything is burning all around us. I live in a land of fire, a land of smoke and cinder and ash and burning. Nothing that cannot survive fire lives here; even the trees burn. We live in a sea of fire and molten air, and never, never have I hated the fire. But looking at the pyre, engulfed in heady flames, for the first time, my eyes affix with hatred and loathing, and my stomach turns in utter rejection of the sight.

We are behind the castle, behind that mighty and dark structure of hideous display. This is where the princes are burned. The kings and queens of old burned here in this place, in a pyre like the one that is now swallowing whole the last thing I had in this world.

People are everywhere; everyone has come to witness this. Seas of red and brown and gold and orange and black are all around me. There is supposed to be singingI cannot hear anything past the roaring hiss and growl of the fire, the creaking of the woodbut I know that at a burning, there should be soft, somber songs in the old language sung to Chelyahour goddess, our goddess who let my brother dieprayers of protection for the lost soul. What does it matter I think hes dead . What worse is there than death? I supposebeing the last one alive. I wonder if anyone will stop me if I jump into the fire with him?

My father and I are closest to the flames. Around us are friends and family. The king and queen have come too; they are standing with the dancers who have come to offer blessings and prayers. Normally, I am among them, the dancers, but today, I am the one needing them. Today, I cannot dance. I do not have it in me. I do not know if I ever will again.

I do not cry. I have forgotten how. My eyes are dry and my heart is sealed away in some vault to safeguard it from the nightmare before me. I stand stiff and still and watch, without moving my eyes, the way the dead smoke-snake swirls up from the wrapped body and into the sky, and I wonder if it carries my brothers soul with it.

Chelyah keep him.

How long have I been here? How long have I not? Has there ever been anything before this moment?

I blink, and my eyes burnash and embers speckle my eyes, and they fill with tears that sting and ache. I breathe, and it is the first breath I feel in my lungs for what seems as though a very long time. With painful, agonizing clarity, I realize with the full embrace of my heart: I am still alive. My body reminds me that I am still alive. How cruel. The pain stirs me from my daze, and I blink and feel the dirty tears roll down my cheeks, traitorous. For the first time since they lit the fire, I turn my head, feeling as stiff and unyielding as an ancient, rusted crank being asked once more to move. I take inventory of my surroundings, look out with golden eyes at the clearing behind the palace.

When did the sky turn black? There are no stars, no moon to be seen. Only a dark night remains, a rich shade of indigo. In this space, the roaring, flaming trees light up my world, each ember flickering up to the sky, reaching for something unseen before dimming out and falling to the hard ground, and I, standing here, had not noticed the bleak sky give way to an expanse of an abyssal hell. A shuddering breath slides down my upturned face, and my gaze falls from the black night to the ground where we Nephilim dwell.

Almost no one is left. My father stands to my left, and he looks just as he had when they lit the fire. His hard, leather face is dark and gives away nothing. His lips are set in a scowl, deformed from the long scar running from the side of his nose to his chin, splitting his lip. His eyes are squinting dots, black like coal. I cannot even see them, so sunken into his face and shielded by his narrowed lids. His throat contracts, but it is the only motion to even indicate that he is still a moving, breathing thing. I cannot even see his chest fill and release with air. It is as though he is not even alive.

Night has settled in. Jacobs voice is painful to my ears.

They grew up side by side, he and my brother. They played together. I overheard them many nights whispering, plotting some new venture sure to stir my father s ire, bragging to each other of their recent conquests in pursuit of their betrothed Dailyn . And when they married, each took turns helping the other out of the many ditches they had dug for themselves. My niece was first to be born, and Jacob had been there to clap my brothers back and make light of the tears that flowed freely that day.

They arewereforever inseparable. I will never forget the way Jacob held my brother when plague took his Dailyn and daughters. My brother screamed and raged and cursed the goddess. And Jacob, the only soul who could even reach my brothers drowned ears, clutched him until it stopped, and then dragged him up and handed him a sword and shoved him out into the practice yard to fight until Sage couldnt move and collapsed there in the dust.

Lacenta ? I blink. Jacobs face comes into focus again. Brown eyes, brown hair, brown skin. He could not be more plain. My red-headed brother used to tease him for having such a beautiful Dailyn . Cesera has yellow and red hair and dark, dark eyes and golden skin; Jacob with his stale colors could not be more plain beside her. What are you thinking? he asks slowly, since I do not seem willing to answer him otherwise, I suppose.