Free Fire and Shadows (Ashes and Ice #2) by Rochelle Maya Callen

satisfied that I did in fact know where the path was. The energy was an icy touch to my skin, a tickle, a kiss. Then, I was wrapped up in it; the energy swelled around my ankles and raced up my body to the top of my head. I could feel the cold like a jolt to my body, like a crack in my bones.
    It wanted me back.
    But my tattoo and I didn’t want to go back.
    The tattoo blazed ever brighter so that the red glow flared up around me, protectively. I could feel it. Gasping for breath, shaking with agony, I could feel the war rage inside me... the frost licks of the path and a fire that tore back at it. It was as if I was being fractured and splintered from the inside out. I didn ’t remember falling, but I did. Moments later, I no longer could see the trees or the underbrush, or the tinge of green on the ground. I saw branches and wide-open sky so blue that I was angry it didn’t reflect the storm raging inside me. That was when the world started shaking... or was it just me? Maybe it was just me convulsing on the ground. The red glow started to splutter. Giovanni was saying something, but the pain was too much and he was too quiet. He tried to jump on the path and reach for me, but he was immediately flung away. The path didn’t want him. It wanted me.
    Black invaded my vision. I couldn ’t take the pain any more... and my tattoo was losing its power. What did that mean? What did... My woozy thoughts were too soft and light to hold. They flitted away. Giovanni, a shower of sparks and blue, smashed through the path and I could see the pain on his face. He yanked me up and held me in his arms as he fought to pull us out. The path clung to me. It pulled and yanked, and Giovanni had to fight that much harder to pull me free.
    But he did.
    The painlessness of falling on soft earth beside him... the total absence of the agony I felt just a second before, surprisingly was what allowed the tears to flood my eyes. I couldn’t sit upright. Giovanni was beside me on his hands and knees, also shaking. I could see a lick of frost against his throat. The path had fought him. Hard. His breath was ragged. “Are you okay?” I asked.
    He blinked at me, surprised. “No, no, I am...” His eyes traveled from my head to my toes tracing me. To see if I was intact and alright right? “Fine.”
    I slowly sat up. Frost was all over Giovanni ’s clothes. He closed his eyes and a flare of warmth surrounded him. I could feel it against my skin. It warmed me too. The frost dripped off him as it melted away. His sword at his side though was still white. He pulled it free to defrost it and closed his eyes...
    Just before the heat flared up again, I saw the blade specked with ice , and then I saw the reflection of my mother’s eyes in the blade’s surface. I gasped in a breath. “Hello, my darling, I am waiting for you.”
    I screamed and stumbled back. Giovanni ’s brief heat sputtered out and he leaned forward to take my shoulders. I raised a shaky finger to his blade. “She—she—she was there!” But as we both looked at it, she was already gone.

     
     
     
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    GIOVANNI
     
     
     
     
     
    J ade trembled beneath me. I nearly jabbed the breath out of me. Already breathless, my breath hitched impossibly. I looked at where Jade had been pointing, but and I couldn’t see anything. “Who? Who did you see?”
    She brought her hands to cover her face as if she didn ’t want to look at me. “My mother.”
    I tensed. Lilith. I knew she would have sent scouts to find Jade , but wouldn’t it use too much energy to project herself? My shoulders fell as I looked toward the innocent-looking brush just a few feet away. The path. She had connected to Jade through the path. She would have had all the strength she needed to contact one of her own. Even the thought felt wrong in my head. I looked at her—she was such a quivering, fearful thing—and I couldn’t imagine any bit of her as demonic. But then again, there was the tattoo. It had