A Breath of Frost

by Alyxandra Harvey

  The Keepers rode in, Theodora’s father leading the charge. Theodora struggled to pull the arrow out but Ewan grunted in pain, his hand closing over hers. “Leave it.”

  “It’s been spelled,” she said frantically.

  “I know,” he said through gritted teeth, eyes rolling back in his head. Ghostly antlers rose from his head like smoke as his magic reacted to the danger.

  “Get away from my daughter,” her father roared, flinging an iron-spoke pendant. It hung from a long, thin rope like a lasso and it looped around Ewan’s neck. The smell of burning hair and flesh was acrid. The spectral antlers sizzled, laced with raw burns.

  “Papa, no!” she yelled, leaping to stand over Ewan when he collapsed, struggling to fight the binding.

  “He’s one of them,” her father barked. “We followed the magical traces here.”

  “He saved my life,” she argued. “I love him.”

  “Stand down, Lady Theodora,” one of the Keepers ordered as her father gaped at her, turning gray.

  “Go to hell,” she shot back.

  “Theo, you don’t know what you’re saying,” her father shouted. Spittle gathered at the corner of his lips. “He’s one of them. He has you bewitched.”

  They flung salt and iron nails at her feet. She spat curses at them. Ewan moaned, sweat dampening his hair. He pushed into a crouch though it clearly cost him to do it. “Stand back,” he said softly. There was blood smeared all over his arm.

  Theodora glanced at him incredulously. “They’ll hunt you.”

  “Trust me.”

  Muttering, she moved aside slightly. The horses circled them, carrying Keepers swinging iron-spoke pendants in their hands. Her familiar was locked inside her chest, prickling with fear. Her father threw an iron-binding chain. It struck Ewan across the face and would have flattened him if he hadn’t already begun to shape-shift.

  He lumbered to his feet, a giant white stag with shining antlers and blood dripping from an arrow embedded in his flesh above his right leg.

  His fur was streaked red and his clothes lay in tatters around his hooves. He tossed his head, bellowing. The horses reared around them. One of the Keepers was thrown from his saddle. The grass caught fire, burning lavender and blue, and smelling like burned apples and fennel seeds.

  Theodora didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a handful of fur and flung herself onto the white stag’s back. She held on tight, her teeth clattering together as he bounded over mounds of iron and salt. Her father was yelling behind her but she couldn’t make out his words. The forest swallowed them. She knew the others would follow but they’d never find them, not if they beat the woods with a hundred hunting dogs and a hundred huntsmen. No one knew the forest like Ewan.

  He crashed between the trees and Theodora shielded her eyes from the slap of branches and leaves. Her heels clamped around his sides, which pulsed like bellows. He pushed through pines growing so close together she had to slide to the ground, bruised and terrified, and walk behind him. He led them to a small clearing deep in the heart of the forest, that even the sunlight had a hard time finding.

  The stag shimmered and shrank down, legs pulling in, hooves turning to fingers. Ewan fell and by the time he landed, he was himself again. Theodora dropped to her knees, gathering him close, heedless of the fact that he wore only his own blood. He was pale, his green eyes burning too bright. “Ewan,” she said, frantically pulling the last of the iron-wheel pendants from around his neck. The others had snapped under the force of his shape-shifting. “I need to pull the arrow out.”

  He nodded, grinding his back teeth. “Don’t pull it, push it all the way through or the arrowhead will hook into me.”

  “Are you sure?” When he nodded, she reached for the arrow with trembling fingers. She took a deep breath and pushed as hard as she could. The arrowhead slid through flesh and muscle, scraped bone, and popped out the other side. He screamed hoarsely. Blood pooled under him. Shaking, Theodora sat back on her heels.

  He tried to smile. “Now all you have to do is snap the ends off and pull the wooden shaft clean out.”

  She wiped her eyes impatiently when her tears blurred her vision so that there were two arrows, each floating in a different direction. The snap of the arrowhead had Ewan jerking so violently she screamed for him. He fell back into the grass, panting heavily. She flung the pieces of broken arrow away, stifling a sob.

  “You’re going to be just fine,” she said.

  “I’m being banished,” he said raspily.

  “No,” she snapped. “I’ll have my father remove it.”

  “It’s too late for that.”

  “Don’t you give up, Ewan Greenwood. Do you hear me?” She clutched his good shoulder. “You’re stronger than they are. And I won’t have you wandering the Underworld unable to reach the Blessed Isles!”

  “I need to tell you something,” he said, wincing as the pain lanced down his shoulder and across his chest. The magic was draining him of his power, of his connection to the forest. It was stronger than any wheel-pendant. Before Theodora, he would have wanted to shift one last time, to die as a white stag. Now he dug into the last reserve of energy in his body to stay as he was.

  “Another secret?” she whispered with a smile.

  “I’m not who you think I am.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “More than anything,” he said fiercely.

  “Then I don’t care about the rest.”

  He grabbed her arm, holding her still. “You have to listen.” She nodded, waiting for him to continue. The magic in the arrow spread through his veins, crawling under his skin like blue fire. He shivered even though he felt as though his blood was burning. “My mother never knew I survived. She was told I died and then she perished of the childbirth fever not long after. My father lied, to protect me.”

  “From your own mother?”

  “Aye.” He shuddered through another breath. “She was a Greymalkin, you see. My father only knew her as a pretty blacksmith’s daughter. When he found out the truth, he took me and hid me in this forest, far from the mountains where I was born. I meant it when I said I wasn’t good enough for you, Theodora.”

  She sat back on her heels, dumbfounded.

  Her father had hunted Greymalkin all his life. She’d been raised on stories of their evil, of their blood taint.

  But clearly Ewan wasn’t tainted, whoever his mother had been.

  He was beautiful and strong and kind. The Greymalkin name meant nothing to her now, not held up against the truth of Ewan Greenwood.

  “Did you hear me?” Ewan asked.

  “Yes, and I don’t care.” She smiled a little at his shock. “Because I need to tell you something too.” She smoothed the tangled hair off his face. “You’re not the only Greymalkin.”

  He didn’t understand. She reached for his hand and pressed it to her belly. “Now I know why the wards broke that night,” she explained. “They knew I was pregnant before I did.” She shook her head. “It all makes a strange sort of sense.”

  “You’re … with child?” He stroked her belly wonderingly. “Are you sure?”

  “I am now. So you have to get better, Ewan.” Her mouth quirked. “Think of the scandal otherwise.”

  He smiled back, lines of pain etched around his lips. “I have something for you.” He shifted, pulling the leather thong from around his neck. “I’ve been wearing it for days, waiting for you to come to me.” He slid the silver ring free. It was simple and etched with oak leaves. “Will you marry me, Princess?”

  “Only if you promise to survive this,” she said, her cheeks wet but her smile wide. “I don’t think I can get a priest to come this far into the forest.”

  “In the old days, they handfasted with a ribbon and a promise.”

  She pulled the ribbon from the collar of her dress. It was apple green and stained with his blood. They entwined fingers and she wound it around their wrists.

  “With my body, I thee worship,” he said husk
ily, slipping the ring onto her finger.

  “With my body, I thee worship,” she whispered back, kissing his cheeks, his forehead, his mouth. He kissed her back and she tasted the salt of his sweat and her tears.

  “Protect our wee one,” he said, green eyes glistening. “They’ll come for the child.”

  “We’ll protect the baby together.” She kissed him again, hard. “You’re not allowed to die.”

  “I wish I could stay, Princess.”

  The ground trembled beneath them. Violet light shot out of the grass. Theodora blinked, momentarily blinded. The light grew brighter, outlining Ewan’s body. He pushed her away. She held onto the end of the ribbon, refusing to let go.

  “No,” she shouted at the portal, now causing the ground to heave so that the trees creaked ominously around them. Ewan half sank into the pool of burning light. She grabbed his fingers but her own were slippery with his blood. Ewan smiled gently.

  “Let me go, Princess,” he said softly, before releasing her hand.

  “No!” She lunged for him but he was already being sucked back into the portal, his face bathed in that eerie purple light of poisonous monkshood flowers.

  And then he was gone, without even leaving a body to mourn. The portal flashed like heat lightning before snuffing out. She smelled fire and blood. She stayed in the grass and wept until the sun sank behind the trees and her lips cracked.

  She emerged from the forest later that night, her hair loose and tangled with leaves and blood. She cradled her belly protectively, and vowed that no child of hers would ever be at the mercy of the Order.

  Part 4

  Unbroken

  Chapter 47

  Emma woke up flying.

  No, not flying. Falling.

  She clutched reflexively at the oak tree, disoriented and dizzy. Now she knew exactly why her blood was the key to her mother’s spells. She wasn’t just the daughter of a Lovegrove witch and an antlered man.

  She was also a Greymalkin.

  What did that even mean? Were warlocks born? Or made? Was evil a choice? Ewan, her father, hadn’t seemed evil. He’d been kind and quiet. And he’d already saved her life twice.

  Thoughts whirling, Emma wriggled out of the tree. She was unsteady on her feet when she landed, still covered in blood, dirt, and the detritus of her mother’s witch bottle.

  Her mother had willingly driven herself insane to protect her family, to make certain no one would ever know the secret behind Emma’s birth and use it against her. She’d married the next-door neighbor’s eldest son to protect Emma.

  And in return Emma could count on one hand the number of times she had visited her mother.

  Clouds raced across the sky as she stumbled through the forest. She’d thought that once she knew the secrets behind her mother’s spell, she’d understand what was happening. Instead, she was more confused than ever. And poor Strawberry wasn’t any less dead.

  Emma was in the field, on the exact spot where Ewan was shot down with a cursed arrow, when her mother came racing out of the walled garden.

  She was still wearing her white nightdress, her long black hair a tangle down her back. Her red bird flew happy circles over her, swooping down and around. Theodora paused in front of Emma, her feet bare and caked with mud. “How did you do it?” she asked, reaching for both her hands. Her smile was bright.

  Emma smiled back through her tears. Her mother knew her. “I study the stars.”

  Theodora hugged her tightly. She touched the tip of one of Emma’s tines. “You got these from your father.”

  “Apparently so.”

  “You must have found my spells.” Theodora blinked, then shook her head sharply. “I haven’t much time.”

  “What do you mean?” Rain swept over the field of wild columbines.

  “I can feel the illness coming back.”

  “But I freed your familiar!”

  “Some spells never fade completely.” She rubbed her arms, chilled. “No more doctors,” she said petulantly.

  “Maman?” Emma murmured cautiously.

  Theodora made a sound of frustration and the red spirit-bird lowered, disappearing into her chest. Her eyes cleared but Emma had no idea how long the lucidity would last.

  “It’s not fair,” Emma said.

  “More than fair,” Theodora said easily. “My magic amplifies other magic and unfortunately it does the same to the repercussions. That’s partly why my spell augmented your father’s magic inside you.” She nodded to the antlers.

  “But why can’t you be cured?”

  “I’d do it again,” she said fiercely. “As many times as it took to keep you safe. Gold is good but silver’s better.” She looked around, confused. “Why am I outside?”

  Emma bit back tears, putting her arm around her mother’s shoulders. She couldn’t seem to make the rain stop. It was cold and constant, slapping at them. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

  Theodora dug her heels in. “No.”

  “But you’re getting wet.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going back to that house. It’s been too long since I’ve been in the forest.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. The Sisters are at large,” Emma explained. “When I broke your spell, gates opened and they came through. And they keep finding me.” She looked at her witch knot. “Now, I guess I know why. They must know I’m one of them.”

  “You are not one of them.” Theodora fisted her hands. “You’re a Greenwood. It’s what your father called himself. Don’t let the Keepers find you.”

  “Too late for that,” Emma replied. “But my father … Ewan … he found me too.”

  “You’ve seen him?” Theodora sounded like the seventeen-year-old version of herself she’d trapped in the bottle. “Where? How? Tell me!”

  “He saved me from hellhounds and the Greymalkin.”

  “He’d be able to, being one of their bloodline.”

  “Does that mean I’ll be able to stop them as well?”

  “My white stag,” Theodora murmured. “My beloved.”

  “How do I stop them?” Emma asked sharply. Lightning tangled over the trees, flashing so bright there was a loud crash, followed by the smell of smoke.

  Theodora twirled once, dancing with an invisible partner.

  “Maman.”

  “I’m Mrs. Greenwood,” Theodora hissed angrily. Then she smiled again, all innocence. Emma ground her back teeth in frustrated worry. “And we’re going to be together forever now.”

  “Please,” Emma begged. “You have to concentrate.” The rain froze in midair, turning to snow. The wind rolled the grass like white caps on a stormy sea. “Please.”

  Theodora opened her hand slowly. Sitting on her scarred and scratched witch knot was the antler from the spellbox. It was just a small piece, like the inside of a cracked hazelnut. “I need to be where he was. Where he can find me. I won’t go to the Blessed Isles without him, and I can’t go back to not being able to remember him.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I need this, Emma. I need to be close to him. And this is the only way I know how.”

  Before Emma could stop her, she popped the antler in her mouth and swallowed it.

  “A magic cloud I put on thee; From dog, from cat, from cow, from horse; From man, from woman, from young man, from maiden; And from little child. Till I again return.”

  It was the Fith-Fath spell.

  Used for its original purpose.

  “Tell him I’m waiting for him,” she said fiercely. “When he comes looking for me. Tell him I’ll always wait for him.”

  “Wait! You can’t—”

  But it was too late.

  Theodora was already falling to her knees, her hands turning into hooves, delicate and strong. Her skin thickened to russet fur. Her hair lifted, re-formed into wide ears. Her eyes were huge and black. She rose on four slender legs, a graceful and elegant doe, a red bird perched on the ridge of her spine.

/>   She’d used the Fith-Fath spell to turn herself into a deer. She was beautiful, a palpable kind of joy shining in her dark eyes. Emma didn’t know if her mother could remember who she really was now that she was in the deer body, or it she was only able to think deer thoughts. It didn’t seem to matter. Because she’d never known her mother to be more present in herself than she was in that moment, as a deer full of wildness and beauty and love.

  The doe bounded away, leaping high over the grass, her white tail flashing. Emma ran after her into the complicated shadows of Windsor Forest. She followed her through the bluebell wood, racing until her legs ached. She might have the antlers of a deer, but she was still just a girl running in the woods. Branches slapped at her and the ground was uneven and unforgiving.

  She finally found the deer, nibbling the leaves growing through the remains of a wooden hut built between two trees. A faded, crumbling gargoyle watched from a branch above her head.

  Her mother was well and truly gone now.

  But she was happy in the woods where she’d met her true love.

  Chapter 48

  When Cormac found the whirlwind of snow and rain in the middle of an otherwise fine spring morning, he knew he’d found Emma.

  He bent his head down, his black hat torn away by the force of the wind, and tried to plow through the unnatural storm. It pelted him with hail and the wild foxgloves under his boots crackled with a thin coating of ice. Emma stumbled out of the woods, the weather raging around her.

  Whatever invisible machinery had kept it going fell apart when Emma turned to look at him. The air was so still he could hear the crackling of the ice as it melted. Her reddish-brown hair gleamed like copper and snowflakes rested on her delicate antlers. He almost couldn’t imagine her without them now. They were a part of her, made the world see her for how unique she truly was.

  He crossed the field, closing the distance between them. There was blood on her dress and an acorn tangled in a knotted lock of hair. “Are you hurt?”

  Emma shook her head mutely. He gathered her in his arms because she looked ready to shatter. Water dripped from the trees and glistened in the tall grass. She finally shifted slightly.