Winter Spire: Tiny Temptation Read online

  He reached a solid ledge and took a rest, taking deep breaths of fresh, freezing air. Dani had been right, and he was starting to sweat. It was a liability in the cold, and he knew that if he didn’t slow down, he’d end up with a bad case of hypothermia.

  Felix sat down on the ledge and made the mistake of glancing down at the ground below him. Even with no trees or plants to use for size reference, the distance was dizzying. He suddenly realized that it might be too difficult for him to turn back at the point he was at even if he wanted to, leaving him with no option but to continue up, hoping that he’d be able to find a safer way down once he was there.

  “Felix,” whispered Dani. “Are you okay?”

  “Just peachy,” he replied. “No trouble here.”

  He took a few more breaths, forced himself to remember why he was doing what he was doing, and set back to the task of climbing the wall.

  The next section was lacking as many easily usable cracks, and the ones Felix did find, he had to enlarge with the ice axe. A section of the ice broke off after a particularly hard swing, almost taking him with it. Felix gritted his teeth and began humming a meandering, nonsensical tune, desperate for a distraction from his fear.

  He made it up another few dozen feet, high enough that he could almost see the top of the cliff above him. Unfortunately, he could also see that the next ten or so feet was devoid of anything for him to grab onto, and curved at an angle so steep as to essentially come back on itself. Felix grimaced and again, made the mistake of looking down.

  He could see the ledge and the ground further on down from it. If he fell, it was game over. If he tried to retrace his climb and get back down to safety, it was also probably the end.

  “Fuck,” whispered Felix. “Ah, fuck.”

  “What? What is it?” Dani poked her head out of his pocket and started moving up his shoulder. Felix flinched in surprise and the ice axe almost pulled loose. Half of his weight was currently supported by it, and it would mean certain death.

  Felix let out a grunt and tried to slide himself further up the wall. The ice around where the axe had struck into the cliff groaned, chips of it flaking away with an ominous crunch. Dani was against his neck, and before he could stop her, she gripped onto the ice and began climbing free of him.

  “Dani!” shouted Felix. The ice axe broke loose from the ice wall, and felt his fingers on his other hand slipping free of the finger hold he’d found.

  “Felix!” Dani was a few feet above him now, hanging from the ice wall with seemingly magical grace. Felix caught her eye for a second, and then his hold gave way. He felt his chest sliding along the ice cliff and flailed desperately with the ice axe as his heart pounded in terror.

  The axe caught in one of the cracks he’d passed by earlier, but the angle Felix had fallen at him kept him from being able to reach any other holds. He was out of luck, and could do little more than hang from the ice axe. The wind buffeted him from the back and side, threatening to knock him completely free from the cliff and drop him to certain death.

  “Don’t move, Felix!” shouted Dani, from wherever she was above him. “I have an idea!”

  Felix heard the sound of a faint incantation, and then saw a flash of bright light come from above him. The cracks in the ice wall shifted, frozen chips exploding from the sheer cliff in places as a blast of concentrated, magical heat surged into one of the cracks.

  The ice axe slipped as a chunk of ice came loose from the crack it had found. Felix immediately dug his hands and the axe back into the ice, finding another hold. Above him, he could see what Dani had done.

  She’d used her magic to create several dozen chinks in the ice, interlacing their way up the cliff. Felix laughed and reached for the one nearest above him. The ice was slick with newly thawed water, but the chill in the air, he knew, would refreeze it within seconds.

  “Why didn’t you do that in the first place?” he called up to her.

  “Because I wasn’t sure I’d have the energy for it,” replied Dani, her voice sounded weaker than Felix would have liked.

  He climbed the next fifty feet without having to use the ice axe, stopping to pick up Dani as he passed by the crack she’d pulled herself into. The last hundred or so feet proved to be more of a challenge, more due to Felix’s own nerves than the condition of the cliff.

  He felt nervous as he approached the top of the cliff, as though expecting the last few feet to present some kind of new, dangerous challenge. He took it slow, and things went fine. As soon as Felix had pulled himself up to the ice plateau at the top, he rolled onto his back and let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  “We’re not going back down that way,” he muttered. “No way in hell.”

  “We can find another way down,” said Dani. “It won’t be a problem. Hopefully.”

  She climbed out of his jacket and stood on his breastbone, leaning over so that she could see his face, and he could see hers. Felix found himself thinking about how tiny she was, and how dangerous what she’d just done had been. More than ever, he knew what he needed to do.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get moving.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The peak of Mt. Kratos jutted up above the ice plateau, looming hundreds of feet further above them. Luckily, it was far from sheer and relatively easy going. Felix wound around the mountain on a spiraling path, climbing over rocks and ice and exerting half the energy he’d spend during the beginning of the climb.

  Oddly enough, the air began to get warmer as they progressed. There were patches of melted snow and even grass in places. Felix frowned at that. Even after having been told about the volcanic nature of the mountain, it still seemed terribly out of place for Alaska. By the time he’d risen five hundred feet above the ice cliff, the only snow on the ground was composed of freshly fallen flakes.

  “Be on guard,” whispered Dani. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Felix.

  “There’s magic at work, here,” she said. “More magic than I think my mother even knew about. This could get really dangerous, really fast.”

  Felix was reminded of some of the mountains he’d taken photos on when he was younger, ski resorts where snow machines and trail grooming kept unnatural amounts of snow on the ground into the spring. He frowned as he scrambled up a rock face, feeling warmth emanating off the rocks. The inside of his jacket was beginning to get uncomfortably warm, and he felt a little bad on behalf of Dani.

  The air smelled of smoke and singed rock, similar to a charcoal grill at the beach. Felix ended up unzipping his jacket to prevent himself from sweating any more than he already had. Dani swung loosely in his inside pocket, watching the path ahead of them with concerned eyes.

  The patches of grass were joined by small, young trees, and a variety of flowers and plant life, green sprouting from the dirt on any ledge that would have it. Felix came to final stretch and realized that he would need to climb again. The peak was a broad volcanic caldera, and from its center, he assumed, came the heat and plume of smoke.

  “Dani,” he whispered. “Are you ready?”

  She’d moved back up to be on his shoulder, and looked just as taken aback by their surroundings as Felix felt. She gave him a quick no, and Felix started forward. The last section of climbing was all jagged rock and boulders, and he set his muscles to work with each step.

  When he stepped up to the mountain’s brim, he found that there was something on the other side. The volcanic caldera was like a massive bowl molded into the top of the mountain, full of heat, tendrils of smoke, and most prominently, a small forest of dense trees and foliage.

  Felix stared blankly at the sight in front of him. It was as though someone had cast a spell and transported a small jungle forest from near the equator onto the mountain top. There were small pockets of water, too, some of them the right size for bathing or at least lounging, filled with warm water from melted snow.

  “This
is wild,” said Felix. “My god. Maybe we should hang out here for a while, do some swimming?”

  “Yeah, because it isn’t like there is an active volcano underneath us, or anything,” said Dani. “Hurry up. The stone should be near the very center.”

  Felix nodded and started off. He took off his winter outer gear and slipped it to hang from the arm straps of his backpack, unable to endure the heat any longer. There were a few animals, mostly mice and birds, lounging about, unconcerned by his appearance.

  The caldera, for its wonderment, was not that large, only a couple hundred feet or so across at its widest point. Felix found the center of it in a couple of minutes, and came to a screeching halt as he approached it.

  The ground dipped downward, almost like the very center of a funnel. Except, twenty or so feet down, at the bottom of this one, Felix could see molten magma, hot enough to give off orange light. He paused to gape at the sight for a moment, and then slowly shook his head.

  “Dani,” he said. “Where are the stones? What am I supposed to grab?”

  Dani frowned and looked at the ground underneath them. She turned in a full circle on top of Felix’s shoulder, causing him to worry for a moment that she’d slip free and fall into the firey abyss below.

  “I… I don’t know,” she whispered. “This doesn’t make any sense. If there was anything with powerful magic in it here, I should be able to feel it.”

  Felix frowned back at her and took a few steps away from the caldera’s center, easing his nerves. He’d started to circle around to the other side when he heard something behind them, loud enough to make his entire body tense up.

  Felix turned around to find Stella, clad in one of her robes and snow clothes underneath, smiling at him and making her way over. She looked unconcerned by the heat, and focused as much on what lay behind Felix as she did on him and Dani.

  “Stella,” called Felix. “What are you doing here? I thought you said-“

  “I figured the two of you could use some backup,” she said. “The tower is safe for the moment.”

  Felix nodded and started to approach her. From his shoulder, he felt Dani’s tiny hands clench down on the skin of his neck.

  “That’s not my mom!” she hissed. Felix blinked, his entire body tense up in an instant.

  “Are you feeling better?” asked Felix. “You had a bad case of food poisoning when we left.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Stella. “I took some medicine. I’m better now.”

  Felix smiled as he carefully unshouldered the backpack, Dani along with it, and lowered it to the ground. Then, he took a couple of calm steps forward, as many as he could get without giving himself away, and then charged.

  “Stella” met him with a sweeping kick, letting out a cruel laugh as her leg blurred into motion. Felix ducked underneath it, drawing upon his wolfbound abilities to enhance his reflexes, and pushed forward, trying to bury his balled up hand into her stomach.

  She shifted, taking on the form of the ogre that Felix had fought against before, and let out a roar that vibrated through the air.

  “You fool!” screamed Jesamar. “You will give me what you came here to get!”

  She swung a fist down and Felix didn’t manage to slide away in time. The blow glanced off his shoulder, but Jesamar’s strength was enough to make it feel like a glancing blow from a sledge hammer, or concrete block. He gritted his teeth and rolled across the painful rock ground, testing his arm as he stood up.

  “There isn’t anything here,” said Felix. “You made a mistake, Jesamar. Or possibly, you were tricked.”

  The ogre stomped a foot down against the rock hard enough to send up a cloud of dust and stone chips. Then, she grabbed one of the trees near to her and twisted, breaking it off at the base of the trunk and wielding it as though it were a sword.

  “Felix!” Dani cried. “Run, Felix!”

  “Liar!” screamed Jesamar. She slammed the tree trunk down in the spot Felix was standing in. He rolled, noting that it was becoming a new habit, at this point. One of the branches scratched his arm, but the pain wasn’t enough to stop him from counter attacking.

  Felix jumped into his next attack, getting enough height to put his foot level with the ogre’s leg as it moved through the air. He hit Jesamar square in the jaw with a kick that would have taken a normal person’s teeth out. Her head swung to the side as though she’d been gently slapped, and she seized Felix by the lower leg and threw him like a rag doll.

  Felix hung in the air for long enough to have a moment to brace for the impact. He tucked his head, covering it with his arms. He landed hard on his shoulders, losing all of the wind from his lungs and doing something painful to his ribs. His ankle quivered as he pulled himself to his feet, another bad twist on a bad situation.

  “You will tell me where to find the magic of this place!” screamed Jesamar. “Or… I will kill you in the most painful way I can think of.”

  “That’s… kind of unfair,” said Felix. “Especially since I literally don’t know what to tell you. There isn’t-“

  “Silence!” yelled the ogre. “The truth will come out, one way, or-“

  Felix moved. He knew that he only had a few strikes left in his body, in its current state, and needed to make the best of them before resorting to desperate measures. He charged forward, palming the rock that he’d picked up after his last painful sprawl.

  Jesamar seized him by the cuff of his shirt and lifted him into the air, just as he’d been hoping she would. Felix flashed a smile at her and swung the rock at her head with every ounce of strength in his body.

  It hit her squarely in the temple, and crumbled in his hand. Jesamar blinked, more out of surprise than pain. Then, she twisted, slamming Felix headfirst into the hard ground and instantly knocking him unconscious.

  CHAPTER 18

  Felix was in pain when he woke up, and oddly enough, standing upright. He looked to his left and his right, noticing that he’d been lashed by rope to a thick tree on either side, and hung loosely in the center as though strapped into a torture rack.

  Jesamar stood a few feet away from him. She was back into what Felix considered to be her regular form, purple hair, lips and eyes, buxom curves, and a general sense of coldness about her. She wore Stella’s robe, and seeing it on her made Felix worry for the sorceress back at the tower.

  Felix frowned and looked around some more, spotting Dani’s tiny form hanging from her hands on a branch near him. She caught his eye, her face an expression of hot anger a little unsuited for their circumstances. She was furious, not scared or anxious, but full of passionate fury. Felix looked back toward Jesamar and saw that she was watching him, aware that he’d come to.

  “You’re awake,” she said. “Excellent.”

  “You can torture me all you want,” said Felix, through gritted teeth. “I won’t tell you anything.”

  Because there isn’t anything to tell, he reminded himself. Still, he figured that if Jesamar truly thought that there was a secret to Mt. Kratos that they knew and she didn’t, they might be able to use it to their advantage.

  “Torture.” Jesamar smiled at Felix and folded her arms. “You must think me a monster.”

  She took several slow steps in his direction. The central hole of the caldera was to her back, making it seem as though the area’s heat was emanating from directly behind her, toward Felix.

  “It’s a little hard not to, after seeing you smash and flail about as an ogre,” said Felix.

  “I want to get what I came here for,” said Jesamar. “That doesn’t make me a monster. Just… a motivated woman.”

  She winked at him and then held her hand over her mouth for a moment. When she pulled it away, a puff of glowing pink smoke escaped her lips, hanging heavy on the air and crackling with energy.

  “Don’t look into her eyes, Felix!” shouted Dani. “Look away!”

  Felix tried to, but something about Jesamar’s expression pulled him back. Her face suddenly had a sexual qualit
y to it, as though it was a part of her body too tantalizing to go uncovered. She pulled at the hem of the robe, Stella’s robe, revealing a hint of her breasts underneath. Felix felt himself go hard for her, even as he gritted his teeth and tried to think safe thoughts.

  “There we are,” purred Jesamar. “Now… why don’t we have a nice, long, discussion?”

  She moved in closer to Felix, reaching out a hand and running it across his cheek. Her touch sent a jolt of erotic pleasure coursing through him and he hated her for it. She licked her lips and then, with carefully, seductive movements, unzipped his jeans and pulled them down to his ankles.

  “No…” Felix whispered. “Don’t… Stop this.”

  “You want me to stop?” Jesamar kneeled before him, pulling the robe open and flashing one of her breasts at him. “Of course. No means no.”

  She grinned, and he hated even more. His cock was hard in front of her face, betraying Felix to the enemy. She leaned in toward it, pursing her lips as though to whistle, and instead blowing her breath out to tickle the sensitive head of his member.

  Felix shivered with pleasure. He felt his hands tightening into fists, and had to fight the urge to buck his hips forward and press his cock against her mouth. Jesamar let out a laugh and looked up at him, feigning naïve innocence with her expression.

  “Oh? What’s this?” She shook her head slowly and let the robe fall further open. “Is there… something I can do for you, Felix?”

  “Don’t listen to her!” shouted Dani. “Felix, shut your eyes! You have to resist!”

  Felix couldn’t make himself look away from Jesamar, not with any amount of willpower. She slowly rose to her feet, the entire front of the robe hanging open now and exposing her borderline voluptuous curves.

  He felt weak, as though his stupid, animal impulses had taken over and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. It made him furious to see Jesamar all but celebrating her victory before it had even happened, and yet he wanted nothing more than to break free of his bonds and spear her through with his cock.