Page 8 of Fate Unchained

When she left her father’s house, the snow drifted down like light fluff from the sky. Now, twenty minutes later, the snow pelted sideways on a wicked wind, trickling into every crack in her clothing.

She edged forward. In her right hand, she held a lantern, and the other was planted over the pocket containing her instructions and the small sack Boris had given her with the fine, black powder. Boris hadn’t given her much guidance on what to do with the powder beyond tossing it, but hopefully, it would make the vulk freeze. Or at least keep it from killing her while she got the rune to do its work.

The wind tossed more icy snow across her face.

Maybe the vulk would be sleeping, waiting for the storm to end, and she could sprinkle the powder on it. Here Mr. Wolfie, let me cast this rune on you so I can trap you. Sure, that would work.

She blinked, trying to clear away the flakes coating her lashes. The lantern blazed but only revealed swirling, raging snow. So much snow. In theory, she knew snowstorms like this happened but the most they ever got in Coromesto was a dusting because they were farther south and near the ocean. Even a dusting was rare, their winter more rain than anything else.

She shivered. This wasn’t snow. This was … a fury. Like the air itself was wreaking vengeance, ready to kill anyone stupid enough to be outside.

Lilah scanned to the left. Where was the river? Her heart raced. Had she lost the trail? It wasn’t much of a trail, only secret notches in tree trunks her father used to mark where the deer walked or his favorite fishing haunts. The trail also passed right by the cave. She’d walked this path with him many times, even poked her head in the cave once, but that was always in the summer.

The wind gusted, pushing her a step sideways and making her lantern swing. Another wild gust, and she staggered. Her pants, a size or two too large, snagged on a root, and she flew forward, landing on her hands and knees. The lantern cracked on the ground, and went out.

“No!” The darkness was absolute. The snow hissed and skittered across her coat, filling her ears. Why hadn’t she brought any flint? Or the matches her father used to light his pipe? Shivering violently, she dusted herself off and spun around.

She let out another cry. It was too dark to see her footprints in the snow, and those marks were the only way to find her trail back to the village.

The wind whipped, and she pressed the hood more firmly over her ears against the biting cold. They’d gone so numb she could barely feel them. Her stomach clenched. This was bad. Really bad. Forget the damn vulk, she might freeze to death out here.

She left the lantern and trudged forward, putting the wind at her back. This had to be the right way home. The snow was already several inches thick, and she couldn’t make out the path. She shuffled along. If she tripped again, she might not get back up.

The snow came thicker, the flakes fast and furious. She put an arm in front of her and squinted, hoping to see any kind of light showing the village was close.

Step after step, she plodded, her feet feeling heavier and heavier. “Keep going. Keep going,” she repeated over and over. Her palm hit something rougher than a tree trunk, and she halted. Rock. Wet, slippery rock. She peered upward. It was heavily wooded near town, and while the earth rose a bit before it sloped down to the river, it was relatively flat. There were no mountains except for the hummock where the cave was. Which was a half-hour walk away from town. She hadn’t been going back toward home at all.

But she had found the cave. A cave which might have a vulk in it.

Wiping her eyes, she patted the rock, edging sideways. “Now I really hope the vulk isn’t inside.” Not if she needed to wait out a storm somewhere safe.

It felt like hours as she stumbled along, scared if she took her hand from the rock for a moment, she’d become lost in the forest and never find the cave entrance. The wind pummeled her back so hard it pushed her off balance. Finally, finally, the rock sloped inward. A dark, yawning black maw revealed itself, darker than the night around her.

Real inviting.

She stepped in anyway. The wind died away to a dull howl as it skipped across the rock outside. She pushed her hood back and drew in a big breath. The first real breath she’d taken in the past hour. She was out of the storm, but now she had to enter the bowels of the cave. A vulk, the fiercest creature in all of Ulterra, might be in there.

A chill skittered across her skin, and it had nothing to do with the weather.

She clutched at her pockets. It had to still be here. Or had she lost the only bit of defense she had when she’d fallen? She dug her hand into her left pocket and slumped against the rock. Yes—she still had the sack of vulk powder.

She squinted. Light flickered ahead. Tiptoeing forward, she kept one hand on the wall, and sure enough, it was getting lighter. The tunnel curved, and as she rounded the bend, a glow bit through the dark, as if someone had lit a fire inside.

Beasts didn’t light fires. Maybe there was someone else in here, hiding out from the storm. Was that better than a vulk? Or worse?

Swallowing hard, she fumbled until she drew out the small pouch with the black powder that would supposedly disable the beast. It seemed preposterous this would work. Absolutely barmy.

And it was her only protection.

She wiped a trembling hand dry along the rock, then shook out a generous pile into the other. Would this actually work? She wasn’t too concerned with trapping a vulk for Boris any longer. Right now, she was more concerned with stealing the vulk’s cave to ride out the storm, and keeping him from eating her.

She eased another step forward.

Filled with warm light from the crackling fire underneath a small hole in the ceiling, the cave stretched before her. It was a round room of ragged, dark rock, maybe one hundred feet across, and it seemed a lot smaller when someone sitting on a pile of blankets stood up.

Not someone … something.

A vulk. He was at least two feet taller than her, with fur as dark as the slate of the rock walls. A cross between a man and a wolf with wolfish features like a muzzle, and fur across his body, but his limbs were more like a man’s, with broad shoulders and taut muscles. And he wore trousers, slung quite low on his hips.

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