Page 6 of Midwinter Wiles & Valerian Dreams
Hurrying onward as well as I can, I call softly again. “Lumi.”
She’ll catch up. She will.
She has to.
Finally, the darkness shifts by degrees, heralding Lumi’s approach. It’s enough to let me see the log in my path that I scramble over, only to stumble to the forest floor on the other side. The woods are so thick here that there’s no snow to cushion my fall on the frozen ground.
“Ow.”
My hands are pale ghosts before me as I right myself. Soft moonlight bleaches the blue of my trousers and fades the darktone of my skin until, slowly, the glow grows bright enough that I can see clearly.
“Lumi, thank theDeep.”
The small moon glides down to meet me.
“Sorry, Valkie.” She whispers the familiar endearment. My true name, Talvie, means winter, but Lumi has always called me the word for white instead, referring to my hair. Lumi is the only one who calls me that. It’s how I know she sees the real me, so the sound of that name immediately calms me.
“Lumi heard, but didn’t want to follow too closely or risk drawing attention to you when you were fleeing. You were fleeing, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, good.”
“No, not good. Very,verynot good.”
“Right, yes, but at least Lumi didn’t make it worse.”
I soften. “You’re right. You did well, Lumi. I need to wrap my feet.” Digging in my cloak pocket, my hand closes around a cool shape. The oyster handle pocket knife is smooth in my hand as I draw it out, giving me another wave of relief. The small knife would be useless in a fight, but I’m glad I haven’t lost this too. I can still remember the day my father bought it for me.
“Look,Isä,” I’d said, picking up the knife from a merchant stall. “Look at the colors in the white. It’s like my hair.” I’d held it up like a precious treasure, even though it was a fairly cheap trinket and the palace had superior blades.
“Will you look at that,” Isä had said with over-the-top wonder, “so it does. It's meant for you, Talvie.”
I don’t have time for sentimentality right now, so I set to cutting strips off the hem of my cloak to wrap my feet. “Lumi, can you show me?”
She knows what I’m asking. As a moon, she has reflection magic, so she can reflect images of what she observes. Scenes from the carriage ride play across her smooth surface.
Her reflections show the view from far above, so it’s a little tricky to make out exactly what I saw, but a large figure jumps in front of our procession. The huntsmen react with force, as though an entire battalion faced them. They draw weapons and drop into a protective formation before any more bandits have even appeared. When another figure does emerge, I can tell it’s around where the druid stood, except he doesn’t look nearly as tall from this vantage point.
There’s the first fireball, though. It spooks the reindeer, and the carriage lurches like I remember. A third figure, small and quick, darts across the scene. Fresh anger swells as I see myself fall from the carriage door. “Wait, I missed the huge bandit who opened the door.”
“Huge bandit?” Lumi questions.
“Yeah, he was right…” There’s no one beside me in Lumi’s reflection. All I see is Beron descending, sending a stab of betrayal through me all over again. And there, what was that shadow that slipped under the carriage? “Hold on.”
Lumi pauses her reflection, but no matter how hard I stare, I can’t make it out. When it starts up again, the two huntsmen flail about, and I see myself scramble up and run. Beron swings his axe through the air, but I can’t see his opponent.
I forget all efforts to wrap my feet, engrossed and completely confused. “Where’s the explosion?”
“The small fireballs?” Lumi asks.
“No. No, that’s not right. There were huge fireballs, and one hit the carriage and exploded.”
“Lumi saw no explosion.”
“But…huh? And the bandits, they were huge.”
“Bandits? You mean that man?”
