Page 8 of Winter's Fate

She went back inside, ignoring Brin’s squeak of dismay, and retrieved a handkerchief from her kitchen drawer, which she tied around her nose and mouth to protect against the smell. She grabbed her gloves from her bucket, trying to calm the shaking of her hand, and stepped back out into the barren wasteland that, only yesterday, had been her beautiful garden and the source of all her sustenance.

Though the summer sun was already warming the skin on her neck, the chill of winter was all too alive in Laena’s memory. She would never forget the persistent pain of hunger in her belly, or the way her clothing had hung off her body, her ribs protruding alarmingly. She would never forget how heavy Ben’s boots had become as her muscles wasted away.

She’d put them on anyway. She’d taught herself to survive. That had been her second winter here, and the first without Ben; the next had had a full larder and pantries stuffed with provisions she’d provided for herself, as had the following two. All but the flour, which she’d traveled to another village to have ground.

She could not endure another winter like that first one without Ben. Shewouldnot.

Laena pulled on her gloves and stepped down into thegarden, pausing when Brin once again nipped her on the ear. “I have to investigate. You know I do.”

Brin nipped her again, drawing blood, then scurried up to hide in Laena’s hair.

Taking care to stay on the path, Laena knelt beside her ruined garden, poking a tentative finger into the soil. She half expected the soup-like soil to dissolve her glove and burn her hand. When the fabric held, she pushed farther, until her whole fist was buried in the stinking pit of earth.

She was wrist-deep in the soil when her fingers closed around a thick root, reminiscent of the icicle-like growth she’d unearthed yesterday. She felt her way along it, noting the ridges and the crystalline material. Its heat radiated through the thickness of her gloves.

Brin ventured back down to her shoulder, peering at the soil before quirking her head back toward Laena, looking at her with those sharp, bead-black eyes. And though Laena could not have saidhow, she understood that Brin wanted her to use her magic.

“I know,” Laena said. “I’m just being careful.”

Brin lay her head on her shoulder as she, very slowly, called for her power.

The power answered. It tingled through her fingertips, like stretching muscles released after long-held tension. It delved into the soil like an extension of her own body, joyful and curious despite the oily stink of the earth around it.

This was not the bloody sacrifice of a heart-tithe but the unbridled joy of a power that belonged to the Vales, wholly and truly. Laena didn’t know how that could be true; in all her studies, she’d never heard so much as a whisper of such a thing. She only knew that it was. That it connected her to this land more fully than any tithe magic could.

Despite what the rest of the Vales might think of magic, it was not fully evil. Not at all. In the years following Ben’sabandonment, she’d no longer feared she might hurt someone with her powers. And she’d come to know how gentle her gift could be.

Her hand delved into the earth, and the crystal shuddered in response. Encouraged, Laena pushed deeper, until the crystalline root changed beneath her touch. It loosened, and she found her finger pushing into it rather than against it.

Perhaps this was the key to destroying the blight; perhaps the power would allow her to tear it apart from the inside.

The crystal tore apart beneath her touch, and the next instant she was airborne, flying back as if something had blasted her off the ground. She hit the path hard, catching her head just before it slammed into the brick steps behind her.

Heat seared her cheeks, but unlike natural heat from the sun or a flame, this warmth felt wrong. It penetrated flesh and blood, seeping inward like poison, and made her feel hollow and sick from within. She stumbled to her feet as thethingthat had blasted her out of the garden rose out of the garden, a blighted shadow made real. A phantom. A wraith.

Brin hissed in her ear, and Laena threw up her hands, calling the power more by instinct than intention. Since the incident that had convinced her of her need to flee palace life, Laena had used her gift with care, to preserve food, cool overly hot tea, and, once or twice, to create intricate frost patterns on a window. Small matters, for a small life. Nothing that would hurt anyone. Nothing that would call attention.

And yet, she knew. She always knew there was more waiting for her, an untapped river that was ready and willing to do more.

Now, icy power pulsed out of her hands, dragging her forward a step as though it was physically wrenching itself out of her body. The wraith gave an unearthly howl, collapsing in on itself, the shadows folding into layers upon layers of infinite darkness. She was hurting it—or at least she thought she was—yet still it did not disappear. The monster lunged for her, whipping bands of shadows at her legs as if to drag her into the pit of the garden.

Not today, it wouldn’t. Laena threw up her hands, and again, the power answered, pushing the monster back, shaving her another inch of margin. She’d fought so hard to use the power for gentle work; and despite the damage she’d seen it do, she’d never imagined a battle.

But the power responded anyway. Though unsteady, it stuttered out around her like a protective wall, batting away the poisonous tentacles of shadow. One of the shadow’s whips snaked around her stuttering magic and struck her cheek, but she barely felt it as the power thrummed through her, a cold wash of energy standing against the greedy heat of the shadow creature. If it wasn’t quite made of flame, then she wasn’t quite made of ice, but the disparate powers clashed nonetheless.

Like a well close to emptying, Laena could feel the power in her core melting away, draining like snowmelt down the mountain in spring.

But if there was one thing she knew about snowmelt, it caused the greatest floods.

Once upon a time, her power had blasted through a palace ceiling, nearly wounding a member of her council as shards of ice came raining into the room. Only the fact that it was winter—and that Riles’s position on the coast made the city prone to sudden storms—allowed her to keep her secret.

She’d shattered that room by accident. Surely she could shatter this wraith on purpose.

Throwing her hands up for the third and final time, Laena called the magic. “Don’t defend.” Her teeth were locked together, the words little more than a breath. She could taste the copper tang of blood as it ran down her cheek, touching her lips. “Attack.”

It would be her last chance.

The power responded, raising goosebumps on her arms as it thrummed out of her, pushing one last wall of cold at the monster. Shards of magic coiled from her hands, and the recoil threw her to the ground.

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