Page 37 of Winter's Fate

But she couldn’t risk him hearing her again. After a moment, she rose from her seat on the ground, legs stiff and protesting, and retreated further into the woods. If her magic was going tomake strange noises, best to put some distance between her and the captain.

She wanted to do more than coat the ground with ice.

When the fire was no more than a flicker between the branches, Laena drew deeper into her power, exhaling a breath of steam as the air cooled around her. She shaped the cold with her mind until it was sharp, then released it.

Shards of ice flew from her hands, thumping into the trees like oversized darts.

The wraith hadn’t been a fluke. She could do this. Laena grinned in spite of herself, reveling in the chill of the power. She didn’t tremble with the cold. Shewasthe cold.

As she raised her hand to send another volley, a hand clapped over her mouth from behind. She stumbled back with a cry, but her scream was muffled. Strong arms dragged her backward, and she kicked, reaching for her power, for the sharp blast that would bring this person to their knees.

Laena’s eyes watered as a distinctive scorching smell filled the air, and her own magic fell away, slipping through her fingertips like melting ice.

And the world fell away.

CHAPTER 15

In his dreams, Callum was trapped in a prison cell with no windows and no doors, so tightly quartered that even his sleeping mind did not understand how he could have arrived here in the first place. Dropped through the ceiling perhaps, though that too was shut fast.

Dripping water. The tap of distant footsteps. And somehow, inexplicably, the crackle of ice on a winter pond. This was what he deserved, where he ought to be. He could not even fault Hawk for dumping him here. If anything, it was long overdue.

Something bit his ear, and he cursed the rats.How could they get in, he thought distantly,with no windows, no drains?

The bite came again, and Callum sat up, breathing hard.

He wasn’t in an Aglyean dungeon, as much as he might deserve that fate. He was in the forest, surrounded by the smell of pine.

Laena’s shimmerling companion was on his shoulder, scrambling in a frantic circle as Callum craned his neck to see what she was doing. The creature moved so fast that she was little more than a blur of light and color against the dark fabric of his jacket.

Apparently distressed by his lack of action, Brin scurried to his neck and leapt, clamping her jaws around his earlobe.

Callum cursed, tugging the creature gently into his hands. “What’s the matter, silly thing?”

The shimmerling might be worthy of admiration, but itwasstill a silly thing. Brin worked her jaws, straining for his ear like her greatest wish in the world was to bite him again.

Pinning her gently between two fingers, Callum looked around. It was dark, the fire burned to coals. Strange that Laena would not have added a log to it. Stranger still that she had not woken him for his watch. She’d said he looked exhausted, but she seemed too sensible to sacrifice her own sleep for his when she knew days of walking lay ahead of them.

But Laena wasn’t sitting by the fire, nor had she propped herself on a tree and drifted off. She was nowhere in sight.

Callum rose. Perhaps she’d gone to relieve herself in the woods. Surely she wouldn’t have wandered far.

He opened his mouth to call her name, and the sulfurous burning of a heart-tithe poured into his senses, thick and nausea-inducing. For a heartbeat, memories threatened to pull him under, determined to remind him what a heart-tithe had meant for Hawk’s father.

Panic clawed for his chest, like a feral thing locked away for far too long, but Callum pushed it down deep. Panic would save no one. Action might.

Cursing, he crossed the clearing in two strides. “Brin,” he said. “Can you light the way?”

He didn’t know if the shimmerling would understand, or whether it only responded to Laena’s requests. But the little creature scurried down to his elbow and began to glow, giving off a warm pinkish light that allowed him to follow the trail where Laena had left the campsite. He’d spent enough time in the wilderness to have developed a decent skill for tracking, thanks largely to Edmun’s training.

The thought of the old soldier squeezed his heart, but he pushed that down, too. There would be time to mourn him later. Edmun would want him to find Laena.

The thickness of the underbrush made it clear enough: broken twigs and crushed fern stems, and here and there a thread of brown cloth that matched her skirts. The scent of the heart-tithe thickened as he followed the trail, the ball of panic working itself into a frenzy as it tried to free itself from its prison.

He could not afford to let it free. He could not afford mistakes.

The trail ended beside a fallen log, and Callum stopped to stare.

The log was covered in a thick layer of frost. Fern fronds brushed up against it, green and hearty, and the branches above were thick with spring leaves. But there was no denying the presence of the frost, the ice that coated the bark.

---