Heart of Snow by Katherine Buel

Author:Katherine Buel [Buel, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-07-07T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

I woke shivering on my pallet to the sound of dripping. Sunlight speared in through the tent’s slightly open flap, sparkling over the melting ice, glittering within the droplets of water that wept from the icicles, lighting up clouds of fog that moved lazily through the tent.

I was soaked and cold.

I was alive.

My fingers explored my tender throat and found a crust of dried blood—and the chain, of course. My fingers curled around it as cold anger seized my heart. If I pulled hard enough—

“I wouldn’t do that.”

The unfamiliar voice creaked from outside the tent flap. I scrambled up.

“Unless you want to die?” A hooked nose speared through the gap and a gnarled hand curled around the cloth. The crone in the brownish red cloak hobbled into the tent, fog swirling around her.

“Who are you, witch?” I tried to ready myself to fight or flee, but I was shaking with cold, my teeth clacking with it.

She cackled like I’d made a delightful joke then sobered to say, “There’s not much time.”

“Time for what?”

The crone hobbled around the tent, flipping open boxes and dumping out jewels and trinkets, ignoring them all. She went to Lyric’s trunk and flung it open with surprising strength for such a shriveled old woman. “Escape,” she said, pawing through the trunk with gnarled hands that thrummed with magic.

“Escape?”

Shouts outside made my head whip around. I hurried to the tent flap and peered out to see fog as thick as cream seeping through the camp. Dark, obscured shapes skittered through it, hissing and chittering. Of Lyric I could see nothing.

The crone appeared at my elbow, startling me. A gnarled hand reached out, bony fingers beckoning, whispers slipping from beneath her shadowed hood. I shuddered as something slid around my neck—no, slid free of it.

My hand jumped to my throat as the silver chain slithered through the air like a thin snake and coiled within the old witch’s hand. She poured the chain into a small leather pouch and whispered it shut before tucking it inside her cloak.

“What do you want with that thing?” I demanded.

“You would waste it?”

“I would destroy it if I could.”

“Then you’re a fool.” She leaned past me to look out at the war camp, croaked, “Follow me,” then slipped outside.

I hesitated only a moment. Even if she meant me harm, it could not be worse than Lyric. Besides, she had freed me from the chain. I hurried after her.

A demon hissed and snatched at me through the fog. With a yelp, I sent a spear of ice through its eye.

“Hurry!” the crone screeched over her shoulder.

From somewhere in the miasma came the eerie bellow of a stag.

“Wait!” I called to the crone. “Bregas! I must—”

The old witch’s gnarled hand seized on mine like a talon and she yanked me along. “Leave him!”

The bellow sounded again, closer, and Lyric’s voice shouted from somewhere. “Hunter! Do not let them escape!”

I stumbled as the crone hauled me along. There was no hope of escaping the camp.

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