Before Beasts, There Was Ice--Book 8

Flight Ice

Perhaps eating the meat beforehand had been a bad idea.

Not only did he end up cramping and nauseous as his system tried to digest and keep him warm and airborne at the same time, but his possible future brother-in-law ended up throwing it all up, which was to be expected, Kai figured. With a figure that emaciated, meat was always a bad idea.

It just made him hate himself all the more. He had filled up on his allowable mistakes five years earlier.

Thus, his brain was too full of panic and frost to notice right away when whatever his name fell out of the sky (he was sure Ayah told him his name before, but he never thought he'd actually have to remember). Swearing up and down the scale of the three languages he knew, Kai double backed, found the passed out, mostly dead guy two feet in the snow, clamped his arms about his chest, wings and all, and kicked back into the air. Full night had fallen long before, but he could see the lights of the small village, Teller, through the crisp night air.

Thank god it wasn't snowing.

He did take the time to be amazed at how quickly a day and a half worth of walking went by flying. Even so, by the time he touched down in the darkness between the port and teller, he was chilled to the bone, aching, and his unwilling passenger was starting to squirm weakly.

"Ayah," he wheezed, having given up on whatever language he spoke in turn for her name.

"Yeah yeah, shut up and move. We're almost there." He was too busy looking out for lights or signs of other ships on the water to feel too bad for the guy. There had to have been some choice on his part to come to a god forsaken frozen tundra. Idiot could fly, couldn't he?

The scrawny light denizen wavered as Kai put him on his feet, then fell to one knee. With a closed mouth scream of frustration, Kai took off a glove and felt for whatever bit of the guy he could reach.

Frozen. Even as he tried to feel out some kind of heat, the guy's legs gave out and he toppled.

Kai wanted to hurt himself. Light. There wasn't as much light anymore. The guy was probably using the light to stay warm, and hearing about his sister being alive—as he looked too young to be anything else—had made him do the stupid and fly after dark.

Jee, and he thought being fire man was inconvenient.

Despite his own chill, Kai took off his coat and stuffed the limp rag doll of a man in it, wings and all. Where it had been snug on Kai, it all but swallowed the other man. It made Kai's throat hurt.

"Come on. You haven't died yet, against all odds." He grabbed his arms and slung him over his back. As he had been in his arms, the other man weighed nothing.

With cold burning through the long sleeved t-shirt and searing his skin, Kai gritted his teeth and continued on, forcing his weakening fire to keep trying to spread heat to his numb limbs.

He hadn't gotten very far when the sound of footsteps drifted through the darkness. He froze, knowing he should get off the road and hide, but unwilling to toss himself into the snow. Just as he made the first few stumbling steps towards the first snowdrift, he heard a familiar shout, even if it was still too hard to hear the words.

Stupid Tyson always talked too loud.

Trembling, hoping, so cold...so cold...he pushed on.

In what felt like days, the darkness lifted enough to reveal, not just Tyson, but Max and Ayah as well, dressed like the awkward freaks they were in all their snow gear, faces flushed from cold, and figures outlined by clear starlight. On seeing him, they all cried out and ran to him, arms outstretched.