Ice Burns Read Online Free PDF Page B

musings. She called entry and was surprised to hear the soft click of the door as it was unlocked from the outside. She hadn't realized she had been locked in. The thought crossed her mind that it was accidental. She was disabused of the notion when Chandra saw Andre and one of Master's guards stationed outside the door as a kitchen girl came in.
    Andre caught her eye for a moment, and Chandra fought the urge to shudder. The man's blue eyes were as cold as the winds that came from the north after harvest season. His bald head and the sharp ends of his white mustache and beard made her feel like he was the basis of all of the scary stories ever written about mages. The only difference was that Andre had no magic.
    The manservant had been with Master Dreys for most of his life, from what Chandra understood. Andre was one of the few people that Master ever listened to when he spoke which only happened on rare occasions. Chandra could only remember hearing Andre's voice twice in her life and both times it had been a shock to her ears. The pitch of the man's voice was more like that of a young boy instead of a man easily twice the age of Master Dreys and three times that of Chandra. When the door closed again, Chandra did shudder. It was as though his blue eyes were still on her despite the closed door between them.
    Chandra didn't know what to make of the locked door and guards. Master had always been strict, but this was new. She wondered if it was due to a loss of faith in her. The fleeting thought of running entered her mind again. An odd urge to laugh almost overwhelmed her.
    Running away had been a ridiculous thought before, but now it seemed impossible at best. How would Chandra ever get past the locked door, or the guard and Andre? Where would she even go if that was possible? Chandra couldn't even look at the kitchen girl after she set the meal tray on the table. The girl bobbed a curtsy and left the room. Chandra had no desire to eat. She pushed herself away from the table and circled it a few time as she and fought equal urges to scream, run, or throw things. She felt like the girl in the tale she had heard a servant telling her child one evening when she was raiding the kitchen after being denied dinner as punishment for her most recent failed spell.

3
    Chandra had been ten years old when Master had sent her away without dinner. When the painful growling got to be too much, she snuck down the night-cloaked hallways to the kitchen.
    The child had been crying from a nightmare, and the young woman put the child on one of the big tables in the kitchen while she heated milk to give to the child. Chandra had only heard them coming because of the child's hiccuping cries as they came down the hall and had ducked behind the larder and settled into the shadows to wait for them to leave.
    "Shall I tell you a story?" the young woman asked, and the child sucked on two fingers and nodded. The little one couldn't have been more than four; half Chandra's age at the time. Her curly blonde hair stuck up at odd angles, and her soft face was red from tears around dark brown eyes.
    "Alright, I'll tell you the story of the Weaver," the woman said and stirred the pot.
    "Once, a young lass a bit older than you was in the forest and lost her way. It got dark, and she was scared, but she kept moving because she hoped that she would be able to find a hunter or farmer to help her find her way home.
    "Eventually, she found this beat-up cottage with a massive, overgrown garden behind it and a stream nearby. The lass decided that she would use it as a shelter until morning when she would better be able to find her way home.
    "The cottage had everything she needed, despite how it looked. It had fruit trees to feed her, clear, clean water to drink, and a fireplace where she could build a fire to stay warm. The lass made herself right at home. Once she had supped and quenched her thirst, she curled up at the fireplace to sleep.
    "It seemed to her that