by H. L. Burke
“What?” He tilted his head at her.
She stared at the spot where the shadow had passed. Nothing. Only clear, dark skies and twinkling stars.
“I ... I thought I saw something.” She tried to tell herself it was her imagination, but dread chewed at her heart. There was something wrong. Something off.
“The dark and quiet can play tricks on you.” He brushed his hand across her shoulder. “Stay near the light. It will calm your fears.”
“No!” her voice came out a squeak, and she dropped her gaze in embarrassment.
He paused and considered her. “What did you see?”
“A shadow but ... it’s not the first time. I swear I saw something—someone—watching us by the Skymere, and again after we left the pass, right before the—the avalanche.” Her throat tightened. What if someone had caused the avalanche? Someone she’d seen and could’ve warned against?
Kay’s jaw clenched, his mouth forming a firm line. “I remember you saying you thought you saw someone after the pass.” He let out a long breath then said in a lower voice. “Let’s move faster. Stay close to me in case I need to travel.”
She dropped her tone to match his as they started to walk again. “But you said it was impossible for someone to be out here.”
“Normally, that’s true.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t want to frighten you.”
“As I said before, I’d rather know the truth of what I’m facing than be comforted by ignorance.”
“Yeah, you did say that.” He reached over his shoulder and claimed a short handled axe that was strapped to the side of his pack. “No one can survive out in the wilds of Frorheim for long, but there are stories of dark magic users who can bolster their power, and therefore their strength, by drawing off the spirits from the Lingering Dark, the same spirits that create the grimwolves and the like. That’s why, while normally the wastes between the pass and Starspire are empty of life, it is never safe to assume. I just hope you’re wrong, and it was only a trick of the light.”
With one hand gripping the handle of his axe and the other clenched upon her shoulder, he urged her forward.
A wind sprang up, stirring the snow about them. Along with it came a whisper of movement in the near distance—just outside the circle of light cast by the starshard. Arynne’s heart quickened. Kay’s fingers tightened into her.
Then, like a knife piercing the silence, a howl rose from the darkness. Arynne had heard hounds baying, for Vanya kept hunting dogs to raise for sport. This sound had the same basic composition, but the tone was hollow. Gutted of all life and echoing of emptiness. It sent ice through her.
“Hold on!” Kay snapped. He pulled her closer and in a blink they were on the far rim of the valley, the darkness behind them and the moonlit road stretching towards a point of brightness, like a lantern on the horizon.
Arynne pointed. “Is that...?”
“The starshard.” Kay gasped then fell to his knees, gulping air. Panic struck Arynne. That was by far the furthest Kay had traveled in their time together, and he’d dragged her and both of their heavy packs along.
She knelt beside him. “Are you all right?”
“I just need a breather.” He closed his eyes, face pale. His body shook, and she wondered if he were cold. She wrapped herself around him and stared into the dreadful valley they’d just left.
Something seethed in the darkness. She couldn’t make out shapes let alone numbers, but a mass of pitch black moved in the distance, quicker than a galloping horse. Her hold on Kay tightened.
“What?” He glanced in the direction she was staring, and his muscles gave out beneath her. “Oh ... this isn’t good.” He staggered to his feet. “We need to make the light. The starshards are protected by magic. If we can get into the circle of the light, they won’t be able to pursue us.”
Another howl echoed from the valley, fainter than the one that had spurred Kay’s traveling but just as chilling.
Kay grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet in spite of the awkwardness of her snowshoes. His face was still pale, and sweat glistened on his brow in spite of the chill air. “We need to get moving. Let me catch my breath, and I’ll try and travel us again.”
“No!” she snapped. “Look at you. You’re about to fall down.”
“But we have to make the starshard.” He swayed slightly on his feet.
“So let’s move.” She took a hold of his sleeve and yanked him forward. She would not lose Kay. Not after everything else that had happened.
Arynne managed to get them both moving, though Kay’s steps were unsteady. As the wind kicked up around them, his teeth chattered, and she remembered his warning against sweating. He’d exerted himself so much to get them away from the grimwolves. What if he ... no, she couldn’t let herself think about that.
The light grew on the horizon, but even as they did the sound of pursuit likewise grew, louder and closer. Howls chased them across the snowy plain. Glancing back, her heart dropped to her stomach.
An indistinct blur of black, low to the ground and racing towards her, churned like smoke in a whirlwind. There were no individual members in the pack, only a tangle of snouts and teeth, tails and claws, interconnected by undulating tendrils of smoke and shadow, in a shade of black deeper than the Frorian sky or shadow, as if they were beings of the void itself.
Even with the space Kajik had put between them with his traveling, the wolves were gaining—fast.
Kay turned, and his jaw dropped. He froze. “I ... I c ... c... can travel again. Hold ... on.” His hand clutching her arm trembled, but she could feel his magic sparking at his fingertips.
“No!” She yanked away from him, easily breaking his weakened hold. “You’ll kill yourself!”
“I need to get you to the starshard! If I ... I can just get you there, you can wait until help finds you.” He reached for her, but she dodged. Her pulse thrummed in her ears. “Please, Arynne, I swore to keep you safe. You have to let me ... save you.” Even as he spoke, his knees gave out, and he collapsed into the snow.
“No! I will not let you kill yourself for me.” She shot an anxious glance in the direction of the oncoming grimwolves. Their howls grew in volume and intensity as if they’d seen their prey and were anticipating a kill. They’d be on them in minutes.
Arynne shuddered. She could grab Kay, pull him towards the safety of the distant starshard, but even if he didn’t attempt to travel them the moment they made contact, they’d never make it before the monsters were upon them.
What were they going to do?
“Arynne,” Kay whimpered, his blue eyes wide, his lower lip shaking. “Please. I can’t fail you.”
“You can’t travel like this!” she snarled.
“It ... it’s not my only magic.” He tried to rise only to fall to his knees. “I c ... can ... I just need a moment to gather my strength.”
The grimwolves let forth a chorus of howls, loud and close.
“We don’t have a moment!” She faced the wolves. She could see their glinting eyes, dark and lifeless.
“Get behind me!” he ordered.
Her stomach twisted. She’d left her home behind. She’d lost Elfrida. She was not going to lose Kay. It wasn’t an option. Her fingers tightened around the starshard still gripped in her hand. She drew from it, sparking its magic to fuel her own.
“It’s my turn to save you!” She strode towards the grimwolves, threw her hands out before her, and screamed. The fire rushed through her veins, from her heart, down her arms, and into her hands. Spurning control and restraint, she threw all her power, all her heart, into pure, uncurbed, unfettered fire. It simmered at her fingertips, raw, angry, ready.
The grimwolves lunged over the gap between them, eyes glinting, teeth bared, ready to tear her to pieces.
Her fire escaped.
It collided into the line of grimwolves like a blast of wind scattering sand. They yelped in pain and broke into a thousand pieces of swir
ling darkness only to coalesce a moment later, snarling.
Arynne snarled back and let forth another blast of heat and flame. The snow and ice of the hillside melted at the onslaught, crinkling and creaking. The slope beneath the struggling grimwolves rippled. They lunged, but the ground betrayed them. With a low rumble the entire slope slid backwards into the dark valley, tumbling the yelping, snarling, snapping pack of grimwolves along with it.
Arynne crowed in delight. She’d done it!
An ominous snarl sent a chill through her. Her head snapped to her left, at the edge of the slide. A single grimwolf crouched in the snow, open mawed. She’d missed one! She tried to bring forth her fire again, but it sparked and died in her hands. She’d given all. She had nothing left. The grimwolf sprang.
“Look out!” Kay lunged forward, throwing his arms towards the wolf. A blinding white light exploded before her, colliding against the wolf which shattered into fragments, like smoke dispersed by the wind. Arynne’s breath left her. What was that? What had Kay done?
She opened her mouth to ask, but the ground rushed towards her face. She hit the snow, hard.
The fight over, her inner fire blinked out like a snuffed candle. All her heat abandoned her. The cold rushed in to take its place. Her arms and legs went numb, and she cowered in the snow, shivering madly. Her teeth chatter until she feared they’d fall from her mouth. She clenched her jaw with all her might, trying to stop the noise.
She’d given too much. She’d pushed herself too far. Oh, why had she thought she was ready for that? Now she’d freeze, her inner heat spent to fight a battle she couldn’t win.
As darkness swirled about her, arms surrounded her. She felt herself lifted up. A strong, comforting voice whispered in her ear, “Hold on, Arynne. Hold on for me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Light and warmth surrounded Arynne as well as an embrace. She could hear a heart other than her own beating in her ears and feel the crackle of magic tickling her skin. Still, it couldn’t reach the chill that had built up in her bones, that held her heart in its frigid grasp. She shivered, her entire being a shard of ice in spite of the heat around her.
“Arynne, please, hang on,” a voice reached her, entreating, soothing, entrancing.
“I ... I’m so ... cold,” she whispered through chattering teeth.
“Hold on, Arynne. Hold on just a little longer, and I promise you, you’ll never be cold again. I’ll give you all my warmth, every drop of my blood, just live. Don’t give up, please, Arynne, my brave princess.” His hold on her tightened, and she nestled into him. Magic hummed beneath the surface of his embrace, the same starlit magic of her earlier dreams, sparkling and effervescent, bursting on her skin and sinking into her, like light to her heart.
The starry magic completed her. It filled an emptiness within her she hadn’t even known existed, flowing into her, warming her. Her heart fluttered, and for the first time in her life, all was right.
An unknown length of time later, the smell of wood smoke and rehydrated dry soup wafted around her, and she opened her eyes. She lay wrapped in their bedroll next to a roaring campfire. Soft green grass covered the ground, and arching pine trees shadowed her. A gentle ambient light surrounded the camp. Kay sat a little ways away, stirring their tiny caldron at the fireside.
She sat up and blinked at him.
“Hey!” A grin spread across his face. “You’re finally up and thawed out.”
She swallowed and nodded, trying to put together the pieces of how she’d got there and where she was. Though the area around her was light and warm, she could still see dark skies and stars above the trees. How could that be? She pushed her way out of the bed roll and stood on shaky legs.
“Easy!” Kay reached towards her, but she clenched her jaw and managed to stand unaided.
“What happened?”
“Well, you faced an entire pack of grimwolves, destroyed them with your magic, and then passed out because you’d used all your inner heat to combat them.” He stood and offered her a dipper-full of soup. Her stomach growled at the scent. “Eat up. You need to regain your strength, Lady Wolfkiller.”
Sitting back down, she accepted the dipper and drained it in several great gulps. Kay chuckled and refilled it for her.
Was that really what had happened? Something nagged at her that it wasn’t all that had occurred. Something else had. Something important that she’d forgotten. After downing another dipper, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and examined her surroundings.
They were in a grove of fir trees, tall and fragrant. There was light and warmth, but unlike the Solean sun which radiated from a single, fixed point in the sky, it came from all directions, diffused about her. If they were in a place of shelter in Frorheim, that could only mean one thing.
“Are we at a starshard?”
His smile broadened, and he nodded. “Want to see?”
“Yes, please.”
He offered her his arm then pushed aside the branches of a fir tree. Her breath left her.
They stood within a rounded valley, with bowl-like sides dotted in trees and covered in green grass. A herd of moss-elk grazed in the distance along with other, smaller animals who she could see moving about but couldn’t discern in detail due to distance. The valley itself was perhaps a mile across, and at the center of it was a large, crystalline structure that pulsed with light.
When Arynne had first heard of the starshards, she had anticipated an irregular, jagged spire, like a great rock jutting from the earth. Instead, this was series of intersecting geometric arches, one on top of the other, like strands of hair plaited in a braid. They reached towards the sky like great towers or daggers of ice.
“This is one of the largest outside of the Starspire itself,” Kay explained. “Large enough to heat the area you see before you.”
She squinted at a cluster of square objects on the far side of the valley. “Are those houses?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “There’s a small village of herdsmen and farmers who live here, as it is one of the few places outside of the Starspire where you can grow crops.”
She glanced from him to the distant homes. “Shouldn’t we be over there, then?”
He cleared his throat. “I thought about it, but after what happened in the dark—” He let out a long breath and motioned for her to follow him back into the shelter of the trees. Once they were hidden by the fir branches again, he sat by the fire and scratched at his beard. “I was thinking about what you told me, about the shadowy figure you said you thought you’d seen, but also about the grimwolves who attacked us... that’s not normal.”
She stiffened. “It isn’t?”
“No. Grimwolves are rare. The wardens’ main duty is hunting them, keeping them away from the major starshards. The chances of a pack being in this area right when we passed and catching onto our scent—let’s just say, it’s unlikely. I think someone might’ve set them upon us.”
A chill settled in her breast. “But why?”
“Because you’re the prophesied princess who is supposed to somehow prevent the return of the sorcerer Athan and his followers—who would be the allies of the grimwolves as well as the only mortals with the ability to control them.”
Arynne swallowed. “And you think they are trying to ... to kill me?”
“I don’t want to scare you, but the king was very clear that he wanted the mission to claim a Solean bride for his son shrouded in secrecy. Very few folk knew. He and Prince Olyn handpicked the men, all people he trusted, and we were supposed to tell no one about the prophecy, attest that this was simply an arranged marriage for the sake of political alliance. The fewer people who knew the true reason for our quest, the better.”
Her throat tightened. “But you told me.”
“I wasn’t supposed to, but it didn’t sit right with me to allow you to agree to the marriage without understanding the full reason behind it.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “The thing is ... if a sorcerer was behind
the grimwolves—and maybe the avalanche—Arynne, we’re in a lot more danger than I thought we were.”
“And you think that the sorcerer might be in that little village?”
“I can’t rule it out. Even a sorcerer wouldn’t be able to last in the cold wastes for long without seeking shelter, especially if it is a single man—or woman, I guess. Not knowing the people of the village well, I wouldn’t know if any were new faces or who is to be trusted. We’re better served with stealth and secrecy until we’re safe at the Starspire. The prince and the king, with their starcaster magic, they’ll be able to protect you. Once we’re there, you’ll be out of the reach of any who would harm you.”
Starcaster.
The word jogged Arynne’s memory of the attack. She remembered the wolf she’d missed, the way Kay had leaped to her defense and ... the light.
“Kay, what did you do to kill that last wolf?”
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t play coy with me.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “After I attacked the grimwolves, there was one left over, one I’d missed. It charged me, and you did ... something.”
He shook his head. “Arynne, after you attacked the wolves, you immediately blacked out. I don’t know what you thought you saw, but it was probably a hallucination. You got them all. You didn’t miss one.”
“Yes, I did!” she protested. “I remember. You did something with magic to stop it.”
“Oh, you mean traveling.” He poked aimlessly at the fire. “Yeah, I didn’t realize you were awake for that, but I did travel us to safety shortly after that, when I’d regained some strength—”
“No, not traveling. A bright light ....” She trailed off.
He gazed at her, his face blank. Irritation prickled within her. Let him play his games. She knew what she’d seen. Kay had used a second sort of magic, one with light, and the only magic with light he’d told her about was starcasting.
But ... only the royal family could starcast, specifically the royal line. Kay wasn’t of the royal line ... was he?