The Blizzard's Secrets by DJanée

Author:DJanée [DJanée]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DJanée
Published: 2023-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The storm may be calmer, but it’s still brutal. It’s not the kind of storm that caresses your cheek with light snowflakes or nudges you with gentle winds. These storms are fierce. They’re the brutal storms that our tribal ancestors endured.

Every flake is heavy, and it pummels my skin with an intense, icy burn. The wind is worse, shoving into me like a brick wall over and over again until it pauses. Then it picks back up again with a vengeance—several times from a different direction. I lean my weight hard against the wind, trying to plant each step so that I don’t get carried away into another dangerous lake—all the while trying not to stumble in the inconsistent gusts.

I hold the thick blankets from the cave as my shield in the storm. I make sure to include my nose and mouth under their covering, thinking the colder the air that I breathe, the worse off I’ll be. About halfway to the mountain, though, a sudden gust of wind catches me off guard, and I don’t compensate with my grip on the blankets in time. They’re suddenly ripped from my hands and carried away in the wind, leaving me exposed to the cold again.

I can’t go back to the cave for another one and risk Petrus being awake and the Ruler forcing me back into pretending to be a rebellious citizen. They’ll take me back to Taliver to face whatever consequences await me, and I may never get another chance to sneak away to find out the truth. No. I’m too close to the answers I need. I’ve got to press on. I use my arms to guard my face against the battering flakes. The cold ... I try with all my might to ignore it creeping back into my bones.

Natives of Taliver could never withstand such frigid turmoil, but descendants of our tribal ancestors ... well, we’ve endured our share and developed hereditary adaptations to this. Otherwise, there would be no way I could survive this.

Already I’m just as bad as—if not worse than—I was when the Ruler and Petrus found me. My body shivers so violently that my breaths are unsteady, and I can’t hold my arms still over my face. The warmth I absorbed from that cave fire could only last so long in this wretched climate. I feel my body wearing out with exhaustion, and I can only hope that I’ll reach this person’s residence soon.

Eventually, a little log cabin near the mountain comes into view through the fierce storm. I’m relieved at the sight of a golden glow that illuminates a little window on the side as smoke puffs out of the chimney poking from the slanted roof. Warmth! I try to pick up the pace, fighting the forceful wind with every step.

After finally reaching the cabin, I glance through the small, abnormally thick window and am reminded of what the Seer described when he peeked in through a window like this one all those years ago.

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