Foxfire in the Snow by J.S. Fields

Author:J.S. Fields [Fields, J.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LGBTQIA+, fantasy/dark fantasy, nonbinary, lesfic, science magic/magic users, witches, sword and sorcery, long-time friendship, family drama
Publisher: NineStar Press
Published: 2021-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeen: Silver

It was evening before my temper cooled enough to speak. Sameer and Magda hadn’t had much to say, either, as our movement onto the glacier brought us closer to the towering seracs and the ground under our feet turned from pebbles to ice.

Our destination—the wave cave—was a short ice outcropping, maybe only a handspan taller than Sameer, that arched partially over the ground. It did indeed look like a frozen wave, although how anything that size could have come from the tiny little lake it butted up against, I didn’t know.

“We’ll stay there tonight. This is a common waypoint stop. The cave is stable.”

I eyed the ice critically. If it wasn’t stable, it’d kill us all when it caved in, since it was deep enough that even our toes wouldn’t poke from the entry.

When neither Magda nor I moved any closer, Sameer tossed his pack forward. It slid the remaining distance to the cave, ending in a rattling sound.

“I’ll just relieve myself then,” he muttered and disappeared behind the cave.

Magda’s hand ran across my back, not slow enough to tease but lingering enough to tell me she was still thinking about the last lake as well. I looked out along the never-ending sheet of ice to a looming serac around fifteen meters away. Were the crackling sounds I heard coming from the glacier itself, or the serac? I couldn’t be sure, not with the wind pushing kernels of words at my ears I was determined, this time, to ignore. I told myself there was no sound in the wind. The dotting greens and blues I saw in the distance were lights reflecting off the ice, not enchanted foxfire. I told my mind to shut up and forced myself to stare at the endless expanse of white, and at sheets of ice so blue they looked like the ocean. Nothing to see. Nothing to think. I just needed to go to sleep.

“How long will the talks take?” I asked Magda as she put down her pack and removed her sleeping mat.

“A few days at most. I don’t have much to negotiate with anyway. The census already came around. None of the rulers—not the triarchy from Puget, nor Eastgate’s king, nor I—get to see them before the talks, but I know what ours will look like. We’re going to lose land.”

I laid my pack next to hers, then sat down to fuss with the lacings on my boots. I didn’t look at her; she didn’t need to see the concern on my face that “a few days” could be long enough for Master Rahad to forget. To find another apprentice. That a few days was already too late for that body in the lake and, maybe, too, for the other missing masters.

Magda misunderstood my frown. “We’ll find them, Sorin; I promise. Your mother wasn’t at Miantri. We know that now. Do you have any thoughts where she might be in Celtis? Does she have any contacts there? Former clients?” Her hand covered my own, and she scooted up behind me.

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