I lost him. I couldn’t believe that a trained sorceress like myself lost Kash so easily. I followed the dark shape of his cloak against the white and green backdrop of the woods. But Kash was running, and I couldn’t keep up with his longer gait. When he went over a hill and out of sight, I focused on following his footsteps in the deep snow, leading up a narrow path on the side of a mountain . . . until I came to a downed tree.
I studied the green boughs and made a note of depth of the snow covering the tree, or the lack thereof. To the right, the top of the tree hung off a long cliff, and on the left was the mountain. The tree grew sideways out of the dirt wall. Moving toward the roots, I found the spot where the tree was broken and studied the break. The sharp fresh angles in the wood, obvious signs of an axe striking the trunk. Heat broke out along my neck as fear raced up my spine. This wasn’t an accident.
Someone brought the tree down on purpose. Did Kash know I was following him?
As quick as my short legs allowed, I crawled over the downed tree that was a mess of broken branches. The wet snow made the climb difficult, and my leg slipped downward across a broken branch. A sting of pain told me I hadn’t escaped unscathed. I hissed, pulling my leg up. I could feel the warm trickle of blood flow down my calf to my stocking.
“Don’t look,” I told myself as I meandered along my backside until I was safely across. Once there, I hobbled and pulled up my skirt to look at the deep gash in my thigh. I took my scarf and wrapped it around the wound, pulling tight and knotting it. I needed to move quick, get out of the storm, for now I was injured and cold.
I followed the path around the mountain. Until the road widened and flattened out. The path diverged and headed into the woods. The longer I traveled, the harder it became to find the road. Every step I took sunk deep into the snow, my leg trickling blood. Two miles seemed like two hundred. I knew I had to be getting close to the guard tower until I spotted a red spot against the white ground.
“Oh, that’s not good.” It was blood. Next to a small footprint. I stepped backward, scanned the trees, and followed the prints. They were mine. I was walking in circles.
I was lost.
It was too late. Snow had covered the path. I could try a finding spell or a tracking spell, but I needed an object of the person or item I was tracking. Why didn’t I have anything of Kash’s to track?
It’s because he took all his belongings with him every time he left.
The wind picked up to a loud whistle that blasted my ears. One foot in front of the other, I carried on. Searching the skies for a pillar of smoke, a sign, anything that said I was heading toward civilization. Snow stuck to my lashes, and the wind made my eyes tear up, the wetness freezing to my cheeks. My toes were so numb the charms did little to warm them up. I could no longer feel the throbbing of my leg wound. With each breath I took, my lungs rebelled as the frozen air burned in my chest. Worse was the extreme exhaustion that was overtaking me.
I only wanted to sleep, but I knew sleep meant welcoming death.
Must keep going. I needed to find shelter, or the guard tower.
A shadowy figure stepped out of the tree line ahead of me, and my knees trembled as the dreaded bladesman appeared. His breath billowing out in puffs of white clouds. I stilled, hoping that the bladesman didn’t see me.
A rumble deep in the ground made me freeze. I kneeled and pressed my hand to the earth, sending my magic into the mountain, searching for the cause.
What I found terrified me. So much hate. I’d heard tales of the mountain’s anger, but never had I seen it in person. I trembled as I looked up the mountainside, knowing what I would see: the white wall of snow rushing at a frightening speed. Striking down trees and boulders like they were twigs. The avalanche swarmed the mountain, and I turned to run.
The blade saw the same thing I did. He started barreling toward me, and I knew I was doomed. I spun, slipping in the snow, running blindly as fast as my frozen feet could carry me down the mountain.
I screamed as the blade grabbed me by my cloak and tried to lift me into the air. I could hear the rumble as the avalanche roared toward us, and I couldn’t decide which was the lesser of the two evils—being captured by the king’s bladesman or overtaken by an avalanche.
Making my choice, I swung my arm up into the helm. I kicked and used my arms to push myself away from his body. The cloak ripped in his hands, and I slipped down a steep embankment, slowing myself when I grabbed the root of a tree. The blade stood under a rocky outcropping right above me where he was protected and safe from the oncoming avalanche. I glanced over his shoulder and saw the rush of white. The bladesman kneeled, reaching for my hand. All I had to do was grasp it and he would pull me under the outcropping.
But I stared up at the dark mask and shivered. I gritted my teeth and prepared myself. Within seconds, the avalanche hit me in the side like a hammer, knocking me over, head over heels. I tumbled in a frozen blanket of snow further down the mountain. The weight slowly crushed me, my breaths becoming shallow, and I let out a last burst of magic and prayed I was strong enough for this one last spell.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Darkness surrounded me. Sweat trickled down my back from the intense heat that enveloped me. In the bleakness, my ears picked up a faint echo. Scratching followed by the deep sound of heavy breathing. Something very large. The seconds between each breath became shorter. The earth rumbled and shook as a blast of fire came rushing out of the darkness toward me. I held up my arms and screamed as the fire consumed me.
Fire burned my skin, blistering where it licked across my body. Then the fire’s wrath turned bitter, the burn biting. I was no longer sweating but shivering.
I blinked as I tried to make sense of the very real hallucination I had caused by my current predicament.
A scratching sounded from above again. I barely registered the noise inside my coffin of ice, the last magical barrier I threw around myself to protect me from being crushed to death by the avalanche.
The noise continued to follow a pattern of scraping, shoveling, and then a clink as the shovel hit the ice enclosure.
“What the . . .?” the voice mumbled. “Never saw this before.”
Through narrowed eyes, I saw a blur of gold and red through the wall of ice. A lantern drew close, and the light refracted around me, bathing me in a warm glow. I was too cold to move, too cold to even react beyond closing my eyes against the brightness.
A knocking hit the ice. “Hello in there. Are you dead?”
I shivered, my lips struggling to form a word. Any word. “N-no,” I stammered.
“I’ll get you out.”
My rescuer was nothing more than blobs of color that moved through the ice wall. My eyes struggled to focus as I heard a clink followed by a loud crack as the ice broke around me. A cold breeze rushed in, sending goosebumps along my skin, but it was the sweet air that rushed into my lungs that had me almost crying with relief. My spell was not that well thought out. I had created a coffin of ice to protect me, but it had very little in the way of air. I would have suffocated if he hadn’t found me. I couldn’t break out or use a heat charm, or I would have still been crushed under the snow.
Hands reached in, grasping my arms, pulling me out of the ground. A warm fur was draped across my shoulders, and I tried to stand, but immediately my knees gave way and I stumbled.