Winterskin: A Dark Fantasy (Kindred Souls Book 1)

by C. M. Estopare

  Do something, she thought at them. Brow knotted. Do something.

  “She can help. She can help us.” one murmured, its voice a miasma of whispers. Thousands of voices merging into one.

  “You can help. You can help us.” the other replied, moving forward. Stretching out its hand as it reached to touch her.

  “Our homes burn. Our kin. Our brothers.”

  “Bright lights lurk in darkness. Where they ought not.”

  “You can help. You can help us.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  It faded to a sea of flickering auburn overnight. The forest, the leaves, everything.

  Baate Noir was sparkling—brilliantly so.

  The black forest was bright—brighter than Montbereau had ever seen.

  And Maddy was the first to step towards the forest as a silent crowd beckoned her forward with wide wavering gazes. Her grandmother had disappeared, her twin sister had given up her mortal coil and both of her older cousins were presumed dead—what did she have to lose? Stepping into this forest—into this glittering sea of red washed gold—what more did she have to lose?

  Maddy was alone in this world now. Stuck within a dilapidated cabin on the edge of Montbereau for months ever since the disappearance of her last tie to this realm. Her Gran—oh, their Gran—had simply disappeared upon hearing the retched news about Horace and Katell. Maddy remembered how hungrily she awaited news upon the Chaperon after the death of Eva. The safe passage of Katell and Horace past the Poudurac was all she lived for after the ordeal with Jocelyn and Eva. And Gran—Gran had quickly become a lifeless shell constantly cursing herself for not coming out to see Katell off. She could have stopped Eva—she could have stopped the girl from throwing herself to the flame.

  Could have.

  Maddy shook the thoughts away for happier memories. She always reminded the older woman that Katell and Horace would be back with food and furs. They'd be back and their home wouldn't feel so empty anymore.

  But Maddy was wrong. Katell was the first to be reported missing, presumed dead. Horace had been the second.

  And the old woman wept quiet tears of silver. The next day, her pallet would be empty and the cabin would be cold.

  Maddy had nothing to lose. The world had taken everything—and given her this. Hope.

  Watching Baate Noir change, watching the black forest blanch gold overnight had filled her with hope. Had filled the waning hole within her chest that her absent family of patchwork cousins and single sibling had left upon their deaths and disappearances.

  Though the Southern Reaches were moored within the doldrums of winter, a nightingale had chirped to life by the dusty wooden lip of her shaded window. Though snow had fallen the night before and froze the dirt beneath it, a blazing sun tore through the wreathing curtains of midnight and washed everything in a golden warmth that forced her to shrug off her deceased sibling's capote and venture out of her lonely cabin on Montbereau's woody fringe.

  A miracle had happened. A hiccup of nature. This was not right—the sun pouring through the night, the black forest fading gold—this was not right. And even though her gut told her to stay inside and cower, even though her head told her she was a lean-witted numskull for venturing out into this strange occurrence—she had to follow her heart. She had to hope.

  Maddy had to smile again.

  And beneath the warmth of the midnight sun, she had. Finally, she had.

  Her curse is broken. The Night Lady stalks no more, something told her.

  Could it be true? Were the Southern Reaches finally free from that creature's curse of eternal winter? Would the black forest's horde of monsters finally die off? Would the Poudurac finally be safe?

  Could Katell be out there? Horace?

  And Gran—what of her? Maddy refused—refused—to believe that the old woman was dead.

  Could she be the cause of this?

  The denizens of Montbereau followed Maddy's lead slowly, the people tiptoeing from their sunlit homes in nothing but night-tails and chemises. It was warm enough, the air welcoming enough for the people to finally shed their winter wear and dress as the northerners do. Winter was over, and the dark frock that the Night Lady had cast over the whole of their forest had finally been lifted.

  But by whom?

  It frightened Maddy to find out, to venture into this unknown territory of gold and auburn in search of whatever presence had finally freed them. But she had to look—she had to leave—to go elsewhere. As what was left of her family wasted away, her ties to Montbereau outright ceasing—corroding as if years of wear had eaten at them—Maddy had to leave. To save her own life, she had to go elsewhere and start anew.

  Perhaps the presence that cleansed the forest of its curse could help her. Could strengthen her and cure her of her sadness.

  Perhaps it could help her forget.

  Maddy stepped forward as wayward eyes prodded at her back. With her gaze to the gold washed leaves above, auburn foliage crunched beneath her tentative steps. Moth eaten slippers provided no protection against the prickling of fallen leaves and stygian branches that littered the ground, black foliage peppering the fallen leaves as if the forest had simply shrugged off its cloak of cursed blackness for a new coat. One of gold washed auburn laced with a bold blaze of flame.

  Where the stunted branches of dead stygian trees once arched, their crooked branches reaching towards the pine trees of Montbereau like the sharp talons of a wicked hetaera, stood impressive oak trunks as brown as well watered earth. Amidst a shower of auburn tinted leaves, popped the green heads of new foliage. Of new life.

  Green.

  Maddy stopped. Frozen. Mouth agape.

  Green.

  As a child she had seen it—green grass poking up through the snow. Green petals upon one of Jocelyn's red painted roses. Gowns drowned in vats of dye, only to resurface from the murky waters with threads dyed light green.

  Green.

  Maddy turned her head, moving her body a quarter of the way towards the gathering crowd standing silent at her back. Her mouth was a sliver as it hung slightly open, her palms raising as her shoulders rose in a half-hearted shrug. Hundreds of faces mirrored her own, their eyes locked with the sprouting heads of green hanging from this branch, or another. A child whooped a shout. A babe cried.

  Had their eternal winter truly ended?

  What defeated her? What defeated the Night Lady?

  Maddy's jaw tensed as she turned her gaze back towards the forest. Steeling herself, Maddy began to creep farther. Determination knotted her brow as she willed herself to be like her cousin, to be strong and fearless like Katell.

  What defeated the Night Lady?

  A presence infinitely more powerful—more deadly.

  Maddy would have to see it for herself—she'd be the first to beseech it. To fall to her knees and beg for its mercy. Beg that it wouldn't become like Her—the Night Lady.

  She'd beg that the forest's power wouldn't consume and corrupt it as her Gran had done before her, to the Night Lady when the presence was in its infancy. But, Baate Noir's power was absolute and intoxicating—deafeningly so. And absolute power corrupts absolutely, this the entire village of Montbereau knew.

  But, nonetheless, Maddy plunged into the newly minted sea of auburn. She plunged, pushing back branches that smacked her face and scratched at her skin beneath the thin fabric of her white chemise. She plunged, hoping to beseech this new presence.

  And Baate Noir came to life around her. The lingering presence of heavy fog that once littered the forest had dissipated, the blood thirsty monsters which thrived beneath that white mist gone. Hope willed Maddy to press on, her wide eyes flicking towards the gentlest twitches of movement in the newly greened brush.

  She saw fluffy gray tails instead of the stark tails of direwolves. She saw birds—blue and yellow, hopping. Perching upon one branch only to flit to another as squirrels danced through the brush below, scampering over her feet as Maddy crept on towards Baate Noir's heart. It f
elt as if the forest had suddenly shrunk in its newfound splendor. As if the absence of black eyed wolves and leather skinned night-stalkers had suddenly caused the forest to roll itself up into a ball of trees and wildlife.

  The farther she went, the hotter Baate Noir became. From the heat alone, Maddy began to sweat. Began to wonder about stripping off her chemise because of the sweltering heat.

  Casting a glance around the auburn wood once again as she stalked towards its center, she began to wonder if this was all a dream. What if this was all just a night terror waiting to happen? What if the presence was simply something darker—something more evil than the accursed Night Lady? What if it was lying in wait—or pressuring her, and her alone, to come towards its center so it could take her life?

  With a frown, Maddy felt her heart ache. For some reason, she welcomed death. Or life. Or anything, really. Without her family—without Eva and Gran...Horace and Katell—she had nothing to live for, nothing to tie her to this realm. Maddy was ready for a change, however painful it might be, she was ready.

  Before her, a tendril of light grew from the center of the forest. The bright arm acting as a shadow as it stretched upon the auburn washed foliage beneath her slippers. The wood brightened. Everything seemed to be glowing as if it were planted beneath a flickering torchlight.

  And in the brightness of the wood, amidst the crystalline notes of chirping nightingales and the rustling of green brush as strange animals scuttled to and fro, something alarmed her greatly. Caused her heart to slam into the cage of her ribs and her body to shrink as she tried to hide herself. Tried to make herself small.

  An orb sat within Baate Noir's heart, bright and burning. Lit like the sun itself.

  An orb fostering a blackened silhouette, a single body.

  Maddy thought to turn around—to do as the tiny animals were doing and run. But before she could blink—could wheeze out a shattered gasp at the presence as it stood, blackened arms rising towards the crowded sky above, a hand slithered over her mouth. Another over her eyes, blinding her with its leathery skin before forcing her to the ground with all of its might.

  When her back hit the foliage peppered ground, a feminine voice told her to shush. Told her to be calm.

  Before she felt her blood boil, felt her energy leaving her as a hand pressed firmly upon her abdomen.

  And all at once, life left Maddy with a flutter of twitching eyelids and a gasp.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The sun rose quicker than it ought, shoving away the bloody amalgam of first light to set the sky ablaze.

  Katell froze as the wraiths cowered, palms smacked together above their shadowy heads as the sudden sunlight bore at them, burning them away like shadows lacking a solid, human, form.

  They hissed at her, their gangly arms flattened against the crowns of their heads as the sun's sudden rays continued to bore, continued to rip the creatures to shreds with its golden gaze.

  Smacking her hands to her eyes, Katell dropped to her knees as the wraiths screeched in unison. Their voices like tiny silver needles assaulting the outermost skin of her ears. Sunlight raked at her skin as well, burning away the chill of the slush bloated river while creating a dull ache in her head that grew intermittently; the aching feeling booming like carefully slammed drums in her head. It followed the piercing pulse of her heart as the wraiths before her began to sizzle and spit, the sun cooking them—burning their shadowy forms out of existence as she forced the heels of her palms into her eye sockets.

  Kat no longer shivered, her body convulsing out of fear instead of the cold. Heat pervaded her, making her sweat as she clenched her jaw and felt her tongue connect with the cottony roof of her mouth.

  And within minutes, they were gone. The wraiths, their shadowy presences—gone. As easily as a breath of passing wind.

  Kat felt her heart hammer. Felt her pulse slow as the sun continued to hover overhead.

  Hadn't it been night? She wondered to herself as she brought her hands away from her eyes and placed one above her forehead. Using her fingers and palm as a visor, she pressed her opposite hand to the dirt. It crunched beneath her, the once frozen land now felt dry and papery. As if the earth beneath her had been zapped of its water, the dirt slowly becoming a sea of sand as the sun continued to bore over it.

  This isn't right.

  The sudden sunlight—the wraiths dissipating...they wouldn't have risked their lives to approach me...they would have carefully calculated when the sun would rise so they could avoid it...

  None of this—none of this makes sense.

  Blackened bursts of dark earth lay where the wraiths once hovered, their bodies gone. Their miasmic voices derelict. Kat stood, eyeing the white stretch of trees on the river's edge.

  What had they wanted?

  “Bright lights lurk in darkness. Where they ought not.”

  Is this what the wraiths meant? The sudden coming of the sun during daybreak? Where had they meant to take me?

  How could I have helped?

  Turning her gaze from the blackened spots, she brought her eyes over her shoulder. Past the raging river behind her, stood the faraway figure of Labassette etched against a bleeding sky upon a yellowed field of dead grass. The crate Anais had boxed her in hours before was long gone now, the box anxiously splintered by Katell's bloodwork.

  I can touch the Power's crux. Kat reminded herself, turning her gaze away to bring her free hand to her face. Opening her hand, she crooked her fingers inwards. Moving them as if seeing and feeling them for the first time. I can touch the Power's crux!

  Witch.

  I am a—

  Dropping her hand, she spat upon the burnt dirt and forced herself to begin walking the length of the river.

  They'll burn you—you can't go back. Your only hope is the—

  Kat shook her head, willing her mind to heart throbbing silence. She knew what she was—magebane—since being forced to work her own blood with Vidonia. Kat knew what she was—but hadn't come to terms with it. Not yet. Had her mother truly been one and the same? The archmage as well? Now that the archmage had disappeared and her mother was more monster than human—was she the last of those who could pull Power from blood? Was she the last of the magebanes?

  What had Vidonia planned to do to her?

  Anais had mentioned that Vidonia planned to replace her with Kat—had mentioned that Vidonia could...drink people.

  And all Kat could think of were hetaera—but could Vidonia be something else? Something that could not only siphon the Power from others, but siphon their life-force as well?

  Anais had blood trailing down her neck...

  Kat had to go back—had to get to Labassette before the Chaperon did. Anais had had news on the Chaperon and its emissary—could they finally be close? Could she save Alan's life and Horace's reputation?

  But that woman had sent you barreling down the river in a box. She shook the thought away.

  What if it was already too late?

  That thought stopped her cold. Made her heart lodge itself within her rapidly drying throat.

  What if it was already too late?

  Kat felt the sun bore on her, felt heated rays burn her skin.

  She could have demanded the true whereabouts of her mother—she could have avoided all of this if she simply hadn't followed Elisedd's last request. If she had gotten up and walked away—she could have gotten to the Capital of the White Rose by herself. She could have hailed a Champion and tracked the woman—she would have found a way. As a shieldmaiden—as a woman of the Montbereau Guard—she could have found a way, but she allowed people to pull her this way and that because she didn't know the terrain. Because she'd never been this far north and she felt unsure of herself. Unsure and uncertain. She felt fearful. More fearful than she had ever been.

  Politicking—using her head instead of her shield and ax—made her tongue turn to cotton in her mouth. Learning she possessed magical abilities—that she could not only work the Power, but could work
blood as well—made her veins turn to ice.

  I have been afraid of myself. Kat realized, her eyes glassy and wide as she hung her head.

  And I am a coward—the worst kind of coward.

  And so she followed Vidonia and Anais. She allowed them to take charge of her and decide where her life would lead in the hopes that she could control this curse—this magic.

  But no longer.

  The Montbereau Chaperon was somewhere out here—close to the Poudurac. Close to the crumbling chateau beyond the river at her side. Clenching her jaw, she ignored the beating rays of the daybreak sun overhead and forced herself to continue along the treeline.

  She'd rejoin her brothers, and warn them of Vidonia and her powers. She'd warn them of dragons and elves and strange occurrences in the sky. She'd give herself up as a witch—cursed with the talent of bloodwork, magebane.

  Perhaps they'd give her to the wood when this was all over. Perhaps they'd allow her to prowl Baate Noir for the rest of her days.

  Perhaps.

  Or, as punishment, they'd burn her and no one would speak up in her aid because she had abandoned her brothers on a whim. In the hopes of saving another only to watch all of her brothers die.

  In the distance, upon the dry dirt of the riverbank, she saw a feminine silhouette accompanied by a glimmer of silver.

  A sword.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “I saved you from the presence in the orb, and this is what you do?!” snapped Ledora as she swatted at a leathery hand pressed against the abdomen of a heart-faced young woman. “Why her? Why this one? Why siphon the force of a child?!”

  Ledora crouched in the brush gone green overnight as she patronized the papery white cadaver laying prostrate before her. With her head of platinum hair cocked, she slid her gaze sideways as she felt her bad eye droop. It was a feeling she hadn't felt for almost ten years now—her bad eye moving. Looking this way and that as tiny animals flew overhead or scuttled beneath the brush of the newly autumnal forest.