FIRE AND ICE

The ice cube on my wrist was melting. Not the kind of melting that happens when you leave a real ice cube on a table in summer. This was worse. This was magic failing. I stood in the second-floor bathroom of North Carolina High School, the one no one ever uses because the faucet squeaks, and stared at my inner forearm. My mark — a tiny, perfect, pale blue ice cube, about the size of a thumbnail, with one single drop of water suspended at its bottom corner — was dripping. It should have been solid. For seventeen years, it had been solid. Ice Tribe marks don't melt. They are born with us. They are frozen into our skin the day we turn five, a promise of what we will become. My mother's is a snowstorm. My grandmother's was a glacier. Mine was supposed to be the purest of all — the First Ice, the cube that never melts. It was melting. On Initiation Day. "P! Girl, where are you? The principal is doing the tribe roll call and the Fire boys just walked in! They literally set off the fire alarm!" Maya's voice screeched through the door, followed by banging. Maya is my only friend. She's also Water Tribe, which means she's basically neutral and terrible at keeping secrets when she's excited. "Coming! One sec!" I yanked my white shirt sleeve down hard, over the mark, over the drip. My grey vest felt too tight. My black pleated skirt felt too short today. Everything felt wrong. Initiation Day is the day both tribes officially enter North Carolina High for their senior year. It's not a normal high school. Half the building is chartered for humans, the other half — the old east wing — is ours. Fire Tribe on the top floor, where it's always hot. Ice Tribe on the bottom floor, where the AC is always broken on purpose because we like it cold. And for one year, we have to coexist before the Tribal Council decides if we go to war or make peace. My mother, heir to the Ice Tribe throne, had given me one instruction this morning: "Do not interact with the fire scum. Do not look at them. Do not let them see weakness. You are ice, P. Ice does not feel." Great advice, Mom. Really helpful when my ice is literally turning into water. I pushed the bathroom door open. Maya grabbed my arm — right over my hidden mark. I flinched. "You okay? You're pale. Even for you," she said. "Fine. Just cold." "Liar. You're Ice. You're always cold." We walked down the marble hallway. North Carolina High is old, expensive, gothic. The lockers are dark wood. The crest everywhere says 'North Carolina High School — Veritas et Virtus' with a weird little emblem that is half snowflake, half flame. Even the human founders knew this place was cursed. Then I smelled it. Smoke. Not cigarette smoke. Real, woodsy, campfire smoke, mixed with something like burnt sugar and testosterone. The Fire Tribe had arrived. They stood in the main atrium, maybe twenty boys, all in the same uniform as us — white shirt, grey vest, black pants, gold buttons — but on them it looked different. Their vests were unbuttoned. Their shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows. Steam was literally coming off some of them. And they were all loud, laughing, pushing each other. And in the middle, not laughing, was him. I knew who J was before today. Every Ice girl knows who J is. Son of the Fire Tribe Chief. The boy who burned down half of the training forest when he was twelve because he got angry. The boy who supposedly kissed three human girls at once and left frostbite — no, burn marks — on their lips. He was taller than I expected. Black hair, messy like he'd just run through wind, with little red embers glowing at the tips when the light hit it. Jaw sharp. And his eyes — amber, like actual fire caught in glass, flickering. He had his sleeves rolled up too, and on his left forearm, bright and angry, was his mark. A campfire. Tiny logs, tiny flames dancing, glowing orange-red. It was moving. Real flames, licking his skin but not burning it. The eternal flame. The strongest fire mark in a generation. My wrist throbbed under my sleeve. My little ice cube pulsed — a weak, blue pulse — in response to his fire, like it was calling to it. No. No no no. I tried to look away. That's when he looked up. His amber eyes locked straight onto mine across the atrium. Fifty people between us. Noise everywhere. But it felt silent. He tilted his head. Smirked. Then his eyes dropped to my arm — to where I was clutching my sleeve. He knew. Before I could move, both our marks flared. Not a little glow. A violent, loud, tearing flare. Blue light exploded from my sleeve — so bright the white shirt turned translucent — and red light exploded from his forearm at the exact same second. The two beams shot across the atrium, twenty feet, and smashed into each other in mid-air, right above the principal's podium. The entire school gasped. Where the lights collided, they didn't cancel. They merged. They swirled, ice crystals and fire sparks fusing, spinning faster and faster, until they formed a perfect sphere — half raging blizzard, half roaring wildfire, about the size of a basketball, floating, crackling, dripping and burning at the same time. A power ball. But not one I've ever seen in any tribe textbook. This was both. The ball pulsed once. The hallway windows frosted over and then instantly melted. Half the Fire boys shivered. Half the Ice girls sweated. Then — BOOM — it burst. Not dangerously. It burst into a shower of harmless snowflakes that turned into embers halfway down and vanished before hitting the floor. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. And in that burst, for one heartbeat, I felt something that wasn't mine. A fast, furious, pounding heart. Anger. Heat. Confusion. His. I gasped and clutched my chest. My knees almost gave out. Across the atrium, J stumbled back a step, his hand flying to his chest too, his smirk completely gone. His eyes were wide. He felt it too. My heartbeat. Cold. Fast. Panicked. The principal, a nervous human man who has no idea he works at a supernatural school, cleared his throat loudly. "Ahem! Welcome! A little... science project! Very creative! Freshmen — er, seniors — please take your seats for orientation!" Everyone started moving, whispering. But J and I didn't. He pushed through the crowd toward me. Each step he took, the floor where he stepped steamed. Each step I took back, the floor where I stepped frosted. We met by the lockers, away from teachers. "What did you do, Ice Princess?" he growled. His voice was low, rough, like smoke. Up close he was even more infuriatingly handsome, and he smelled exactly like that campfire on his wrist. "What did _I_ do? You set off my mark, you walking bonfire!" I snapped back, trying to sound icy and failing because my voice shook. He grabbed my wrist — the one with my hidden mark — before I could stop him. His hand was so hot it burned. I gasped. But instead of burning me, where his fingers touched my sleeve, my melting ice cube stopped melting. The drip froze mid-air. The blue glow got stronger. His eyes widened. He yanked his hand back like he'd been shocked. "What is that?" he whispered, staring at my sleeve where a faint blue glow still leaked through. "Nothing. It's nothing." "It's melting," he said, and his voice had changed. Not mocking anymore. Curious. "Ice Tribe marks don't melt." "And Fire Tribe marks aren't supposed to feel cold, but you just felt my heart beating, didn't you?" I shot back. His jaw clenched. He leaned in, so close I could see the little flame freckles on his nose. "This stays between us. No one finds out about that... thing. That ball. Or I'll burn that pretty little skirt right off you." "Try it, Fire Boy, and I'll freeze your precious campfire so hard you'll never be able to light a match again." We were nose to nose, fire and ice, hating each other, breathing hard. The air between us was literally fogging and smoking at the same time. Behind us, the power ball — which I thought had disappeared — re-formed. Smaller now, like a marble, floating between our chests. Half blue, half red. Pulsing in time with both our heartbeats, now beating as one. We both stared at it. It was bonded to us. J reached out slowly, as if to touch it. I reached out too, without thinking. Our fingertips brushed over the little sphere. Zap. Ice and fire shot up both our arms, meeting at our wrists where our marks glowed brighter than ever. My ice cube completely re-froze, perfect and solid. His campfire burned brighter, but steady, not wild. For a second, it felt... right. Then the school bell screamed, the little marble vanished, and we jumped apart. "Orientation. Now. Don't sit near me," he muttered, storming away, but his ears were red. "Wasn't planning on it!" I yelled after him, but my wrist — for the first time all morning — didn't feel like it was melting. It felt warm. And that terrified me more than anything. ---